Free Republic

As I've noted before, implicit in what we're seeing take place in California from the violent woketivists and their Democrat/media accomplices is that if they keep at it long enough, President Trump is going to get ICE to back down from the immigration sweeps that Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass have blamed for the start of the riots.Now, obviously, that's not going to happen, considering the National Guard is already on the ground in Los Angeles at his order, and the Marines are reportedly on their way as well.Nevertheless, the rioters kept proceeding with the...

Forfeiture Action is the Latest Disruption of an Indicted North Korean Official’s Efforts to Generate Revenue for North Korea and its Weapons Program Through Illegal IT Worker Schemes and Cryptocurrency Theft The Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that North Korean information technology (IT) workers obtained illegal employment and amassed millions in cryptocurrency for the benefit of the North Korean government, all as a means of evading U.S. sanctions placed on North Korea. The funds were initially restrained in connection with an April 2023 indictment against...

Afghanistan Myanmar (Burma) Chad Republic of the Congo Equatorial Guinea Eritrea; Haiti Iran Libya Somalia Sudan Yemen

WASHINGTON—President Trump has signed a sweeping travel ban on 12 countries and introduced more-limited travel restrictions on seven others, the White House announced, reintroducing a controversial immigration policy that came to define the early days of his first term.

Migrants deported to South Sudan by Donald Trump include murderers and sexual abusers, the Daily Mail can reveal. The latest deportations come as a federal judge ruled U.S. officials must retain custody and control of the migrants in case he orders in the future that their removals were unlawful. U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts issued the ruling late Tuesday after an emergency hearing. Attorneys for the immigrants said the Trump administration appeared to start deporting people from Burma and Vietnam to South Sudan despite a court order restricting removals to third-party countries. The Daily Mail can now...

BISHKEK—A Chinese company has pulled out of a $280 million project to build a logistics center in Kyrgyzstan after protests by hundreds of locals in a fresh display of anti-Beijing sentiment in Central Asia. The deal signed during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to the former Soviet republic last year envisaged construction of warehouses, transport terminals, hotels and other facilities in a free-trade zone near Kyrgyzstan’s border with China. However, hundreds of locals saw it as a land grab by Kyrgyzstan’s giant neighbor and held a series of protests demanding that the project be canceled. The joint venture set up...

A second Australian teenager who fell critically ill after drinking tainted alcohol in Laos has died in a hospital in Bangkok, her family said Friday, bringing the death toll in the mass poisoning of foreign tourists to six. Holly Bowles, 19, had been in critical condition on life support following the poisoning in Laos more than a week ago. "We are so sad to say that our beautiful girl Holly is now at peace," her family said in a statement sent to Australian Network 10 and other Australian media. "We find comfort and solace in knowing that Holly brought so...

The Population Council, the eugenics organization credited with bringing the abortion pill (RU-486) to the United States, turns 65 this month — but it is nothing to celebrate. In 1952, John D. Rockefeller III founded the Population Council and served as the organization’s first president. According to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Population Council, Inc., was incorporated following Rockefeller’s Conference on Population Problems, “…to stimulate, encourage, promote, conduct and support significant activities in the broad field of population.” Like its founder, the Population Council’s other members were concerned about population issues — and, like other population organizations such as Planned Parenthood,...

Authorities in Vietnam said Friday they will prosecute 84 people accused of being involved in deadly attacks on two commune offices in central Dak Lak province and ordered them held in pre-trial detention. It isn’t clear who was behind the June 11 attacks, which left nine people dead, or what motivated them. On Friday, the Ministry of Public Security said it had confirmed that “organizations and individuals from overseas” had been involved, without getting more specific. “Materials and evidence collected by security forces show that the incident took place with the support and guidance of several organizations and individuals from...

SE Asian nation on edge of default after building a China-financed high-speed train, giving new momentum to ‘debt trap’ diplomacy criticismLaos faces intensifying economic and financial crises and there is likely no way out without some form of a Chinese bailout or debt forgiveness. Various warning signs are blinking red in the small Southeast Asian country. The national currency, the kip, has lost around a third of its value against the US dollar compared to this time last year. Inflation hit 23% in June, its highest level in decades. Meanwhile, much of the landlocked country faces fuel shortages. The communist-run...

Deep in the forests of Laos, in a cave in the Annamite Mountains, lay a single child's tooth. That tooth – an unassuming molar - could be from a mysterious species of human we know little about, and of which few remains are known to exist. "Analyses of the internal structure of the molar in tandem with palaeoproteomic analyses of the enamel indicate that the tooth derives from a young, likely female, Homo individual," researchers write in a new study. The tooth, from the Tam Ngu Hao 2 cave, "most likely represents a Denisovan", the researchers say. Denisovans are an...

A molar discovered in a cave in Laos shows where the enigmatic Denisovans could have interbred with the ancestors of modern humans. A tooth found inside of a mountain cave in Laos has solved one of the biggest scientific mysteries of the Denisovans, a branch of ancient humans that disappeared roughly 50,000 years ago. Since 2010, when Denisovan teeth and finger bones were first discovered, DNA testing has revealed that the enigmatic hominins were among the ancestors of people alive today in Australia and the Pacific. But scientists didn’t understand how the Denisovans, whose scant remains had been found only...

The poor performance of Russian equipment deployed in the Ukraine war is bound to be giving global buyers second thoughts.How can it be that a large Russian army attacking force, capable of causing untold destruction, is being checkmated and systematically devastated by Ukraine’s military, in particular its special forces?And what impact will this have on the Russian army and its industrial backbone, the Russian companies that build the tanks, armored personnel carriers, mobile air defenses and aircraft including fixed-wing and helicopters ­– all of which have suffered extreme losses in the conflict?Russia’s exports consist of various commodities, most prominently wheat,...

The 1,035-kilometer (642-mile) line opens this week to cargo but no regular passengers due to anti-pandemic travel curbs. Poor countries welcome China’s initiative. But the projects are financed by loans from Chinese state-owned banks that must be repaid. Some borrowers complain Chinese-built projects are too expensive and leave too much debt. Laotian leaders hope the railway will energize their isolated economy by linking it to China and markets as far away as Europe. But foreign experts say the potential benefits to Laos beyond serving as a channel for Chinese trade are unclear and the cost appears dangerously high.

According to their analysis – using a technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) to date the ancient stone – the jars were positioned potentially as early as the late second millennium BCE.Evidence discovered of varied mortuary practices at some of the sites – including primary burial of human skeletons, and also bundled or jarred collections of bones – was also dated by radiocarbon dating, suggesting activity between 9-13th century CE.On the face of the most recent evidence, this means the Plain of Jars pre-dates the most recent and confirmed discoveries of mortuary practices, by potentially thousands of years. As for...

On or about this date in 1974, a young American traveler — or perhaps intelligence agent — named Charles Dean and his Australian friend Neal Sharman are believed to have been executed in Laos by the Pathet Lao guerrillas. The 23-year-old Dean was in the midst of a protracted post-university globetrotting when he was apprehended with his friend traveling down the Mekong River in the war-torn country. They were held in captivity for three months — long enough for the family to learn they were detained, and Dean’s father to fly to Laos to negotiate in vain for his release....

An American citizen was arrested and charged yesterday in connection with exploiting teenage boys in Laos.Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling for the District of Massachusetts and Special Agent in Charge Joseph R. Bonavolonta of the FBI’s Boston Field Division made the announcement.Michael Sebastian, 52, was charged by criminal complaint with engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places and sex trafficking of children. Sebastian was arrested yesterday in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he has been living with his mother.  Following an initial appearance in federal court in...

VIENTIANE -- A team of Chinese medical experts, along with medical materials, arrived in Lao capital Vientiane by a chartered plane Sunday morning to assist Laos to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Somdy Douangdy, Lao deputy prime minister and chair of the Task Force Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, and Chinese Ambassador to Laos Jiang Zaidong received the Chinese medical experts at the Wattay International Airport in Vientiane. The Chinese medical team includes experts in various fields such as infection prevention and control, intensive care, epidemics, and laboratory testing. They also brought along with medical supplies. The team came to...

A team of researchers with members from Singapore, the U.S., Thailand and Laos has concluded that the impact point of a meteorite that struck the Earth approximately 790,000 years ago lies buried beneath a volcanic field in southern Laos. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group outlines four lines of evidence that point to the Bolaven volcanic field as the likely site of the meteorite strike. Prior research has shown that approximately 790,000 years ago, a large meteorite (the largest known young meteorite impact) struck Earth in the Eastern Hemisphere. So great was...

Welcome to Captive Nations Week. Never heard of it? You’re not alone. Yet this usually-forgotten, federally mandated occasion — now in its 60th year — is worth resurrecting in the 21st century. Congress created Captive Nations Week in 1959, making the third week in July a time to show Americans’ solidarity with the nations dominated by communism. The original law listed 22 captive nations, most of which had substantial communities of citizens in major American cities. After the law’s passage, these communities began to hold parades and rallies every year, from Miami to New York to Los Angeles to Chicago...