Free Republic

Cuba has officially declared its intention to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the court announced on Monday. “Cuba, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” the court stated. With the move, Cuba joined Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Libya, Bolivia, Turkey, the Maldives, Chile, Spain, Ireland and the Palestinian Authority, all of which had previously joined the South African...

In 2018, a study of aerial photos of 700 Pacific Islands showed that 89% were the same size or growing. This rather destroyed the idea that sea levels were swallowing small nations. The New York Times said nothing. Indeed, the only Pacific things shrinking were deserted sand drifts. No islands bigger than 10 hectares were getting smaller. Measured in square kilometers that’s “0.1”. Despite the media headlines and delegations from Kiribati and Tuvulu begging for money to hold back the tide, no islands with people living on them were shrinking. None, not one island in the Pacific big enough to...

The state minister at the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy for the Maldives, Fathimath Shamnaz Ali Saleem, was detained and suspended from her position on accusations of committing acts of “sorcery” on President Mohamed Muizzu, Maldivian outlets reported on Thursday. The Maldivian newspaper the Edition reported on Friday that the national police service confirmed that Shamnaz and Minister at the President’s Office Adam Rameez had been suspended from those top government roles due to an ongoing investigation but did not clarify the nature of the probe. Accusations of “black magic” can result in serious legal consequences in the...

The Maldives government will ban Israelis from the Indian Ocean archipelago, known for luxury resorts, as public anger in the predominantly Muslim nation rises over the war in Gaza. The president’s office said Sunday that the Cabinet decided to change laws to prevent Israeli passport holders from entering the country and to establish a subcommittee to oversee the process. It said President Mohamed Muizzu will appoint a special envoy to assess the Palestinian needs and to launch a fundraising campaign.

MPs went after each other, throwing punches, pulling hair and blowing toy trumpets during a session of parliament in the Maldives. The fight came after the opposition party refused to approve 4 new cabinet ministers – who are members of the newly-elected president’s party.

Data from the Republic of Maldives provides yet more evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines are not only harmful but lethal, says a prominent vaccine watchdog and COVID establishment critic.On Monday, Vaccine Safety Research Foundation founder Steve Kirsch posted on X that an unidentified source had provided him with complete record-level vaccination and death data from the Maldives Health Ministry for 2021 and 2022, which the source said shows that “death rate increased by 50% within the first six months of vaccination. And then increased again in Oct. 2021 with the boosters.”“Can you guess why no country in the world is...

... Despite longstanding civilizational, political and economic ties -- and acts of goodwill, such as Indian aid for the Maldives during a 2014 water crisis and assistance after the deadly December 2004 tsunami -- India has struggled to sustainably counter China's growing presence in the region. Rather, outreach efforts and investments have given rise to perceptions that India is a pushy big neighbor only interested in securing its position against another giant. The national flag of the Maldives flies at half mast in Male in January 2005, after the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami. © Reuters At the root of this...

An active-duty missile corvette of the Indian Navy is on its way to Vietnam as a gift, the first warship given by India to any country. The domestically built corvette INS Kirpan left India's east coast on Wednesday (Jun 28), the navy said. India and Vietnam have strengthened their ties in recent years, with a special focus on defence, as both countries are concerned over an increasingly assertive China. India has given smaller boats and military equipment to countries like Maldives and Mauritius in the past and a submarine to Myanmar.

Could the U.S. rest easy if its only military base in the Indian Ocean were under the sovereign authority of an African government instead of the U.K.? At center stage is Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, a critical hub for U.S. forces. The base is the sole reason that the U.K. clings onto the 58 small Indian Ocean isles that make up the Chagos Archipelago, of which Diego Garcia is the largest. For decades, London has made Diego Garcia available to the Pentagon on the most favorable terms imaginable: no rent, few restrictions and little oversight. The island is an...

President Obama erred during a speech at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, when attempting to call the disputed archipelago by its Spanish name. Instead of saying Malvinas, however, Mr Obama referred to the islands as the Maldives, a group of 26 atolls off that lie off the South coast of India. Cristina Kirchner, the Argentine president, has renewed her country's sovereignty claim to the Falklands in the build-up to the 30th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the islands, which triggered the Falklands War, on April 2. She has accused David Cameron of maintaining a "colonial enclave"...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — A failure to limit global warming could mean a “death sentence” for small island nations like the Maldives, including the end of their livelihoods and cultures, the country’s environment minister said Wednesday. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said earlier this year that the world is likely to exceed the 1.5 C increase in the 2030s, earlier than expected. “The difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees, for us, really is a death sentence,” Aminath Shauna, the Maldives’ minister for environment, climate change and technology, said in an online interview. She said...

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticized China for creating unnecessary risks as an uncontrolled core segment of its biggest rocket reentered Earth’s atmosphere and mostly burned up over the Maldives before landing in the Indian Ocean on May 9. “It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris,” the former senator said in a statement.

MALÉ — The roll-out of vaccinations to prevent COVID-19 infections rising in the Maldives is a good example of “vaccine equity in action” according to Catherine Haswell, the UN resident coordinator for the Indian Ocean island nation. The Maldives had reported some 29,000 cases of the virus with 72 deaths up until April 29. As World Immunization Week comes to an end, Haswell explains how the UN has supported the authorities in the fight against the pandemic. “The COVID-19 crisis has been difficult for Maldivians, resulting in widespread health and socioeconomic challenges. On April 15, 2020, just two months after...

The Maldives government is now alarmed at the amount of debt it owes to China. With the coronavirus pandemic, the tourism-dependent islands are now finding it difficult to repay the Chinese debt that the previous government took. India and China have been trying to gain clout in the region. Under Former President Abdullah Yameen’s government, China invested millions of dollars in infrastructure projects under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, in 2018 Yameen faced election defeat. In an interview with BBC, the current Speaker of Parliament Mohamed Nasheed said that the Chinese debt amounts to...

Tide and time wait for no man, or so they say. But that isn't really true if you are a rich progressive, or one of those who finagle a fine living off the stupidity of naive guilt-riddled Westerners. Take the rising tide. For years the climate alarmists have been claiming that low-lying atolls like those in the Maldives would disappear, swallowed by the sea in a manner reminiscent of Atlantis. Global warming is causing sea level rise, they claim, and places like the Seychelles or Kiribati or the Maldives were doomed, doomed, doomed! Reasonable people pointed out that the sea...

There are several dozen critical issues that stem from revelations about the DOJ and FBI conduct in/around the Carter Page FISA application (2017) and Steele Dossier writ large; but DOJ official Bruce Ohr still being employed isn’t one of them, and here’s why. (further down) -- Bruce Ohr wasn’t the only non FBI person back-channeling information from corrupt source Christopher Steele into the FBI and Mueller team in 2017. SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner was doing exactly the same thing. Senator Warner was having secret contacts, “would rather not have a paper trail”, with Steele through liaison Adam Waldman, and then...

Scientists have dramatically underestimated the impact rising seas will have on cities around the world, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications. One hundred and fifty million people are currently living in places that will be below the high-tide line in 30 years - three times as many people as the old projection methods estimated. Previous estimates relied on satellite data to forecast sea-level rise, but satellites can’t distinguish between ground level and taller elements integrated into the landscape, like trees and buildings. The paper, authored by Scott Kulp and Benjamin Strauss of the Princeton, used artificial intelligence...

On Wednesday, both NBC’s 3rd Hour Today show and CBS This Morning engaged in climate change hysteria as they touted dire predictions that huge portions of land around the world would be underwater by 2050 and displace hundreds of millions of people. The network hosts all blindly accepted the warnings as true without pointing out that such wild claims have been made for decades without coming to fruition. “And speaking of climate change, on the flip side of that, too much water actually becoming an issue....rising seas could affect way more people than they previously thought....this is an estimate for...

The researchers found their watery prize while drilling sediment core samples out of the underwater limestone deposits that make up the Maldives archipelago in South Asia. After hauling each core onto their research vessel, the team sliced up the rock like a tube of cookie dough and put the pieces into a hydraulic press that squeezed any remnant moisture out of the pores. When the researchers tested the composition of these fresh-pressed water samples aboard their ship, they were surprised to find that the water was extremely salty — far saltier than the Indian Ocean is today. They did more...

Data from Refinitiv shows the total value of projects in the scheme stands at $3.67 trillion, spanning countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and South America. Initiative to recreate the old Silk Road is to deliver green and high-quality development. BEIJING: President Xi Jinping on Saturday hailed deals worth more than $64 billion signed during China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) this week as he sought to reassure skeptics the project will deliver sustainable growth for all involved. Xi said market principles will apply in all Belt and Road cooperation projects and that his signature initiative to recreate the old Silk...