Free Republic

Known by the scientific name Vanilla tahitensis, Tahitian vanilla is found to exist only in cultivation; natural, wild populations of the orchid have never been encountered... "All the evidence points in the same direction," Lubinsky said. "Our DNA analysis corroborates what the historical sources say, namely, that vanilla was a trade item brought to Tahiti by French sailors in the mid-19th century. The French Admiral responsible for introducing vanilla to Tahiti, Alphonse Hamelin, used vanilla cuttings from the Philippines. The historical record tells us that vanilla – which isn't native to the Philippines – was previously introduced to the region...

NEW YORK, June 20 (C-Fam) A UN committee of human rights experts told the Government of Guatemala that its restrictive abortion laws must change. Unlike many non-binding recommendations of UN rights bodies, the opinion in this case is binding to a limited degree. The Human Rights Committee, charged with monitoring the implementation of the UN civil rights treaty, told the small Central American nation that its abortion laws violate its human rights obligations. The opinion of the UN treaty body is doubly controversial. Not only does the opinion call for legal abortion. It attempts to redefine the technical legal term...

Archaeologists unearthed a nearly 3,000-year-old Mayan city in Guatemala — complete with pyramids and mysterious monuments — that reveals new traces of the ancient civilization. The ancient metropolis known as Los Abuelos — Spanish for “The Grandparents” — dates back to about 800 to 500 BC and is believed to be one of the earliest and most significant ceremonial centers of the Maya civilization in Guatemala’s dense Petén region ... Officials said the roughly six-square-mile historic area — named after two human-like rock figures believed to represent an ancestral couple — features “remarkable architectural planning,” including pyramids, sacred sanctuaries and...

The director of the Guatemalan Astronomy Association (AGA), Edgar Castro Bathen, explained that the phenomenon observed on the night of Wednesday, May 28 over the south of the Guatemala City Valley, between Villa Nueva and Milpas Altas, can be classified as a UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon). ... The term UAP is used by entities such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Department of Defense (USA) to refer to observable phenomena in the sky, space or sea that cannot be explained with current technology or knowledge, and replaces the traditional concept of "UFO". The object...

Communism is not dead in Latin America. In fact, the dominoes are falling south of the border, but no one seems to be noticing. “It’s a new day. Communism is dead. It’s even dead in Cuba.” So declared Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in May 2002. “I hate to say it,” she continued, “it’s dead.” The senator’s proclamation was a surprise, no doubt, to Fidel Castro, whose regime was (and is) alive and as Red as ever. It also must have come as welcome news to the people of Cuba, still suffering, after nearly half...

What can hidden "Resistance" leader, former President Barack Obama and his handpicked protege for the 2016 presidential election possibly do to the USA from their D.C. underground activism network? Send a 2,000-and-still-growing march of Hondurans on the U.S.—with a Nov. 6 Midterm Election Day arrival just for sport! The marching Hondurans are marching on America now, because Obama and Clinton planned it that way since as far back as 2009. In trying to take down President Donald Trump, any port will do for activism-crazed Barack Obama and hopelessly embittered- in-defeat Hillary Clinton. "Obama and his then Secretary of State Hillary...

OMG Our taxpayer dollars went to alpaca farming in Peru and improving the marketability of peas in Guatemala. But it gets worse… Most of the money marked for those grants NEVER even made it out of DC. ... It’s all a money laundering scheme and unless arrests are made this is all pointless ... Democrats giving Democrats taxpayer money so they then kickback some in the form of campaign contributions.

An endangered Great White Heron has fully recovered from an emergency surgery after a fisherman pelted it with a rock at Bill Baggs State Park in Key Biscayne, Florida, in January. The rock broke the bird’s wing and reportedly caused the bird to bleed heavily. The man who threw the rock, Edgar Estuardo Valenzuela, was arrested after he admitted to the act of animal cruelty, which under Florida law typically carries a punishment of prison time or a hefty fine. However, when he was discovered to be an illegal alien from Guatemala, police were able to kill two birds with...

According to a statement released by Brown University, an international team of archaeologists discovered an altar in the Maya city of Tikal that is characteristic of the Mesoamerican culture centered at Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan, located outside of present-day Mexico City, thrived between the first and eighth centuries a.d., when it had a population of as many as 100,000. The new discovery is some of the strongest evidence to date that they had cultural interactions with Maya cities more than 600 miles to their southeast. The four painted panels of the late fourth-century altar, which was found in an elite residential complex,...

Major federal law enforcement raids in Kentucky have taken down dozens of dangerous illegal aliens and executed a large-scale deportation operation. 81 illegal aliens were arrested in a four-day sweep as part of “Operation Take Back America.” ... United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Kentucky confirmed that 25 of those arrested are now facing serious federal criminal charges. The crackdown, based out of Louisville, saw immigration enforcement officers detaining individuals from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba, India, and Palau. Among them, 25 are now charged with crimes such as unlawful reentry, illegal firearm possession, and drug-related...

Federal authorities have charged four defendants with operating one of the largest human smuggling rings in the United States. The indictment alleges that the transnational criminal organization smuggled around 20,000 undocumented immigrants from Guatemala to the U.S. via Mexico. The group is accused of holding individuals hostage, threatening violence, and being responsible for a fatal car crash in Oklahoma in 2023, which resulted in seven deaths, including three minors. The ringleader, Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, and his associate, Marsha Char, have been arrested and pleaded not guilty. A trial date is being set. Another defendant, Helmer Obispo-Hernandez, remains a fugitive and...

One state has been a repeat offender in releasing some of the vilest illegal aliens despite detainers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The scum involved have been charged with aggravated child rape. Federal immigration officers detain them and are then released by local police the same day. Fox News’ Bill Melugin wondered why this is the case. The state that keeps doing this is Massachusetts. Melugin was embedded with an ICE unit where they picked up four illegal aliens accused of raping children. They got released later that day. In one case, an illegal from Guatemala was charged with multiple...

The Chinese Foreign Ministry berated the administration of President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in particular, on Friday for addressing the threat of Chinese regime influence during a tour to Central America and the Caribbean this week. Rubio made his first international travel after being sworn into the top diplomat position a visit to Panama, followed by stops in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. The growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party in these countries was a prominent topic of discussion, particularly in Panama, where Chinese influence over the Panama Canal has become...

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said Wednesday his country will accept migrants from other countries who are being deported from the United States, the second deportation deal that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reached during a Central America trip that has been focused mainly on immigration. Under the agreement announced by Arévalo, the deportees would be returned to their home countries at U.S. expense. “We have agreed to increase by 40% the number of flights of deportees both of our nationality as well as deportees from other nationalities,” Arévalo said at a news conference with Rubio. Previously, including under the...

President Donald Trump’s deputies are shutting down a semi-secret federal program that moves wage-cutting labor from Central and South America into American and European workplaces.The Safe Mobility Initiative sought to create many Safe Mobility Offices in foreign countries where low-wage foreigners could apply for visas to live and work in the United States and Europe.CBS News reported on January 23:The Trump administration is shutting down processing offices in Latin America that the Biden administration set up to give migrants legal immigration options and dissuade them from crossing the southern border illegally, according to internal government documents obtained by CBS News.The...

Horrific video has emerged showing the moment a Las Vegas showgirl was knifed to death in the street in her red feather outfit during a mass stabbing. Maris Mareen DiGiovanni, 30, was killed in the October 2022 rampage along with Brent Hallett, 47. Prosecutors say Yoni Barrios, 34, is responsible for their murder as well as injuring six others, many of them showgirls.

A contingent of 150 Guatemalan soldiers has arrived in Haiti, tasked with helping to restore order amid the chaos wrought by armed gangs. A first group of 75 soldiers arrived on Friday and another 75 on Saturday, all drafted from the military police, according to Guatemala's government. A state of emergency has been in place across the Caribbean nation for months as the government battles violent gangs that have taken control of much of the capital Port-au-Prince. The forces are in Haiti to boost a United Nations-backed security mission led by Kenya that has so far failed to prevent violence...

The woman killed after being set ablaze by an illegal alien on a New York City subway has finally been identified. The burn victim was identified as 61-year-old Debrina Kawam. Kawam was linked to an address in Toms River, New Jersey, but she was described as homeless. It took investigators more than a week to identify the victim using fingerprints because her burns were so severe. The New York Post reported: Cops have identified the woman who was lit on fire as she slept and then burned to death on a Brooklyn subway train while terrified straphangers watched in horror,...

NEW YORK CITY — Debrina Kawam, a 61-year-old resident of Toms River, New Jersey, was identified this week as the victim of a gruesome attack in which she was burned to death aboard an F train in Brooklyn on Dec. 22, police said. [cut] Toms River Mayor Dan Rodrick expressed outrage over the crime, calling for a reinstatement of the death penalty in New York and New Jersey. “The states of New York and New Jersey need to bring back the death penalty,” Rodrick said. “We should at least be able to have the death penalty for those who are...

A migrant from Guatemala has been arrested on allegations he lit a sleeping woman on fire inside a Coney Island F train on Sunday morning. Police sources say a civilian identified the suspected killer as he rode on a train at 34th Street in Manhattan. The witness waved down the cops, who later picked the suspect up and detained him. He has not been charged with a crime yet, sources added. The suspect entered the country and was detained by border patrol agents in Arizona in June 2018 Authorities were still working to confirm whether he is in the country...