Free Republic

China has “enforced maritime management and exercised sovereign jurisdiction” over an uninhabited reef in the disputed South China Sea, planting the country’s flag on the tiny sand bank just kilometers from a key Philippine military outpost. Photographs released by Chinese state-run media on Saturday showed China Coast Guard officers unfurling the flag as part of an effort to effectively seize Sandy Cay reef, which Beijing calls Tiexian Jiao, earlier this month. The reef, located in the flash point Spratly Island chain, is also claimed by Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Sandy Cay also sits just over 3 kilometers from Thitu...

Out of the blue (seemingly), the Russians have approached Indonesia and asked for, of all things, basing rights for their strategic bombers. Jane’s, a respected source of strategic intelligence, said, “Jakarta has received an official request from Moscow, seeking permission for Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) aircraft to be based at a facility in Indonesia’s easternmost province… In the request, Russia seeks to base several long-range aircraft at the Manuhua Air Force Base, which shares a runway with the Frans Kaisiepo Airport, documents that have been presented to Jane’s reveal.” The article implied that in recent years, Russian TU-95 Bombers have...

The BRICS group of nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has long aimed to challenge Western-controlled financial systems and reduce the world’s reliance on the US dollar. Now, that mission is getting an unexpected push, thanks to new tariff policies introduced by US President Donald Trump. BRICS Bloc Gains Momentum Amid US Trade Setbacks Trump has declared what he calls “Liberation Day,” a move that marks one of the biggest protectionist trade shifts since the 1930s. These new tariffs target both enemies and allies, and are expected to slow trade, increase prices in the US, and put brakes on global...

Bangkok -- Search teams in Myanmar recovered more bodies from the ruins of buildings on Friday, a week after a massive earthquake killed more than 3,100 people, as the focus turns toward the urgent humanitarian needs in a country already devastated by a continuing civil war. United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who is also the emergency relief coordinator, will visit the area on Friday in an effort to spur action following the March 28 quake. Ahead of the visit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the international community to immediately step up funding for quake victims “to match the...

Nike stock is plunging on Thursday, the day after President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs that will end the nation’s decades-long free trade policy. “NKE was last seen 11.3% lower at $57.62, as investors digest the long-term impact of rising supply chain costs on the company’s margins,” Schaeffer’s Investment Research reports. “The stock is set to snap a three-day win streak, extending its late-March post-earnings bear gap and hitting its lowest level since November 2017. Nike stock now carries a 23.5% year-to-date deficit.” On Wednesday evening, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs — adding a 34 percent tariff on China, a 46...

This week, an unusually strong earthquake swarm occurred at an Azores volcano which last erupted a little over 300 years ago. Meanwhile, in Japan, the alert level was raised at the Kirishima volcano, suggesting an increased risk that it may soon erupt. And, in Indonesia, it appears that a new batch of magma has intruded underneath the highly potentially dangerous Mount Awu volcano. This video will discuss these stories and list the 47 actively erupting volcanoes around the planet via the analysis of a geologist. This video's thumbnail image displays the erupting Santiaguito lava dome (Santa Maria volcano) in Guatemala....

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. firms are buying cobalt metal produced in Indonesia by China's Lygend Resources that does not incur the tariffs placed by the Trump administration on imports direct from China, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed extra import tariffs on Chinese goods since taking office in January, as well as placing levies on key trading partner Canada, another key source of cobalt, used in aerospace, for the U.S. Lygend's cobalt metal production in Indonesia pre-dates the latest tariffs, industry sources say, with cobalt produced by the group in the...

Raden Ajeng Kartini was a first wave feminist and is a national hero in Indonesia. The pillars of her feminism were: A. Family. This included deep love and respect for her father and husband. B. What women are as mothers. C. Education where teachers strive to be like mothers to their students. D. Pride in her own people and culture. If only modern feminists could be more Kartiniist. I believe that is what a true fourth wave of feminism needs to aim for: nomore misandry and no more marginalisation of mums. Like Kartini when she wrote with pride of having...

Two men were publicly flogged in Indonesia after they were found guilty of sexual relations by a court operating under strict Islamic law. While gay sex is not illegal elsewhere in Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation -, it is outlawed in the conservative Aceh province, which imposes a version of sharia, the Islamic legal code. The flogging began before midday on Thursday at a park in provincial capital Banda Aceh, with one man accused of instigating the relationship lashed 82 times and the second man 77 times. Both were caned with a rattan stick as dozens watched...

Anna R is a deeply patriotic citizen of the Republic Of Indonesia. Anna embraces the modern world and international friendship. As a student of tourism, her decade long commitment to international engagement has won deep respect from all who know her. This commitment from Anna reminds me of the words of the Javanese Princess, R A Kartini written on February 1, 1903, “I am also glad to do what I can for “East and West.” I feel that I am only doing myself a service, for it is for our people, and I and my people are one.” But, like...

Statements by Adm Paparo, head of the of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command - warns about Beijing’s plans. "Two months ago Beijing practiced sealing off the First Island Chain, which runs from Japan south to Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. The goal is to cut off Western support for Taiwan in a blockade or invasion. A military exercise in October 2024 was practice for a blockade. " "Adm. Paparo said this week that China’s “aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises, as they call them. They are rehearsals” for “the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland.” "Taiwan has to...

WASHINGTON, DC — Israel is considering a proposal to move some of the Palestinian population of Gaza to Indonesia as part of a broader normalization agreement, Breitbart News has learned. As Breitbart News reported last year, Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim nation by population — is eager to normalize relations with Israel as part of a process of joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which represents the world’s leading industrialized nations. President Donald Trump is likewise eager to accelerate normalization between Israel and Arab and Muslim states, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, as part of a...

My father served under Douglas MacArthur in Morotai Indonesia 1945. I refuse to call remembering this vanity. MacArthur was born at Little Rock on the 26th January 1880.

When food delivery “superapps” started operations in Indonesia, users started putting on weight – and that’s not an entirely bad thing. So argue the authors of a University of Bonn Center for Development Research paper [PDF] published this month. Titled “Impact of Super Apps on the Nutrition Transition in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Evidence from Indonesia”, the paper considers health data from Indonesia covering the years 2015 to 2018 – a time that coincides with widespread the widespread adoption of “superapps” Grab and Gojek. The authors found that the debut of food delivery apps saw an increase in body mass...

Conditions include providing proof of a childless marriage lasting over 10 years, and written permission from a civil servant’s first wife. Critics say it increases the vulnerability of married women.New rules on polygamy among male civil servants in Jakarta seek to “impose stricter conditions” on the practice, the capital’s acting governor said on Monday (Jan 20) amid criticism that they legitimise and promote such arrangements. Some of the new conditions, issued on Jan 6, include proof of a childless marriage lasting over 10 years, medical proof that the first wife has a physical disability or incurable disease, written permission from...

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, of Japan, pleaded guilty in Manhattan, New York, today to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma to other countries, as well as to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges.“Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who imperil our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security...

Jimmy Carter's No Real Humanitarian by Gordon Smith When former President Jimmy Carter speaks to the graduates of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on May 3, the listeners might bear in mind that Carter's reputation for principled concern for the downtrodden is open to question. Carter has done some benevolent things after 1981, as ex-President. He's built homes for the poor, spoken eloquently on behalf of human rights, helped the Haitian dictator Cedras resign, and presided over the negotiations ending the Yugoslav War. While all of this is good, Carter presided over some serious war crimes in the Third World....

There's a persistent truism out there that while Jimmy Carter was an execrable president, he was nevertheless a great ex-president. It's balderdash. He may have done some worthy deeds around the eradication of disease and the building of homes for the homeless. But he was every bit as bad an ex-president as he was a sitting president. It wasn't just his nasty, irritable personality, as described by newsman and AT contributor Peter Chowka here, and former U.S. diplomat Lewis Amselem from firsthand experience as bystanders in random events. It was in his meddling political involvement abroad. Amselem described in his...

Officials at 3 northern hospitals have so far refused orders by Israel to evacuate, abandon patientsA Palestinian woman is helped out of an ambulance after she was wounded on Tuesday, in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. (Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images)Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory's health ministry said on Tuesday. The Indonesian Hospital is one of the Gaza Strip's few still partially functioning hospitals, on its northern edge, an area that has been under...

Gabriel, B. (2008). They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. United States: St. Martin's Press, p.38By 1905 the West had liberated its territory previously conquered and savaged by Islam, and declared an economic and military victory, thus marking the end of 1400 years of Islamic rule and Jihad. During this period, Muslims had killed 270 million people across the globe: 120 million Africans, 60 million Christians, 80 million Hindus and 10 million Buddhists. * Arabia: (Some state:) 'It is estimated that as many as 400,000 people, including women and children, were...