Free Republic

You are my children of light , you are my children of light , you are my children of light , and in this season of lights , let MY Light shine through you , for MY SEASON NEVER ENDS ! Truly this is a season of lights , but we are to be lights for Christ Jesus in an open season and heaven for him ! Isaiah 60 The Gentiles Bless Zion 1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,...

LISTEN TO "MY" SPIRIT ROAR FOR YOU \o/\o/\o/ ! ! ! Listen to "MY" spirit roar for you my children to do and to walk in MY fullness and not your own for it is in MY righteousness you are saved and walk even now . So go in MY all for you and Listen to the whisper of "MY" spirit for soon it shall become a roar as it did for Daniel in the lions den and I shall quench all the firery darts of the enemy for you as well , for you are MY CHOSEN called and...

I Am going to move My sphere of authority into place now upon My Foundation and "TRUTH" shall be its Robe ! Zechariah 4:9 9The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundations of this house; his hands shall also finish it. Then you shall know (recognize and understand) that the Lord of hosts has sent me [His messenger] to you. The unction of My Spirit is something to be followed not ignored ! My blessings flow through My Spirit and Guiding counselor of My very Heart ! So understand this ; To reject My Spirit is to deny Me ,...

Does being on the left mean never having to say that you are sorry?—If you are talking about the Vietnam War and who won it 35 years later, that very well may be the case. Regarding the real truth of the Vietnam War after the fall of Saigon, Laos and Cambodia, Senator Fulbright, D-AK, who was also the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee summed up the sentiment of the 94th Congress, “I am no more distressed than if Arkansas had lost the football game to Texas.” “That started the Southeast Asian genocide. You’re talking about one quarter of the...

VIENTIANE - The Chinese People's Liberation Army is willing to strengthen cooperation with the Lao People's Army (LPA) in the fields of national defense and military construction, military attache of the Chinese Embassy to Laos Tan Zhaosheng said here on Monday. Tan Zhaosheng made the remark at a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Laos' capital of Vientiane to celebrate the 84th founding anniversary of the Chinese People's Liberation Army."As Laos and China are friendly neighbors and close partners, the Chinese People's Liberation Army is willing to deepen friendly exchanges and pragmatic cooperation with the LPA in the fields...

China’s omnivorous energy requirements have been attracting increasing attention as of late, as Beijing attempts to secure any and all sources of power for its growing industrial base. Nowhere is this more noticeable than Beijing’s policies in the South China Sea, where Chinese assertions of sovereignty are unsettling the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, all of whom have counter claims on the various shoals and islets. China’s landward neighbors are also feeling the hot breath of Beijing’s mandarins, however, most notably its economic rival India, with whom China fought a brief war in 1962 in the Himalayas over...

The US Army has rejected a request for ethnic Hmong leader Vang Pao to be buried with full military honours in Arlington National Cemetery. Gen Pao led a 15-year CIA-sponsored secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War and, when it was lost, led tens of thousands of his people into exile. He died last month. The army's decision came as mourners attended the first day of a six-day funeral in California. Gen Pao's friends said they would appeal to the White House. "Obviously to everyone who is here today to honour Gen Vang Pao, this is very disappointing," said...

Some U.S. lawmakers want an Arlington National Cemetery burial for the controversial Laotian Hmong ex-general of a secret CIA-backed army that fought communism during the Vietnam War. Vang Pao, who died in California last week at age 81, commanded thousands of Hmong fighters in a covert U.S.-backed war against North Vietnamese and Laotian communists during the 1960s and '70s. His legendary skills at guerrilla warfare led some followers to see him as a minor deity.

HANOI (AFP) – One of the world's rarest animals, the secretive and mysterious twin-horned saola, has been seen for the first time in a decade, conservationists say. Villagers in Laos captured a saola in August and took it to their remote community, but it died after a few days in captivity, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in a statement. The animal was photographed before its death, the first confirmed record since 1999 when pictures of wild saola were taken by automatic cameras in Laos, said IUCN, a Swiss-based network of scientists and environmental organisations. No biologist...

» 03/26/2010 16:49 LAOS - UNITED STATES Washington looks to Laos to contain China’s expansion The small Asian nation central to the interests of the two superpowers. The United States intends to strengthen development programs in environmental, humanitarian, commercial and military sectors. Chinese dams on the Mekong threaten the ecosystem of the entire South-East Asia. Vientiane (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The United States intends to strengthen cooperation with Laos to balance the expansion of China in South-East Asia. After decades of suspicions and misunderstandings a hangover from the war in Vietnam, Washington has started a bilateral program of economic development...

In a nod to the growing Hmong populations in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the states’ four U.S. senators teamed up in a joint statement Tuesday opposing the Thai government’s plans to forcibly repatriate more than 4,000 Hmong refugees back to Laos. The four Democrats, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota and Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, say they “strongly condemn” the Thais’ decision, which they say ignores the objections of the United Nations, the U.S. Government, and international human rights groups. The statement reads in part: “We share the concern of many of our Hmong-American constituents whose loved...

The Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) yesterday announced its withdrawal from the Hmong camp in Huay Nam Khao, Phetchabun province, after operating there for nearly four years. The reason, they say, is the Thai military's restrictions and coercive tactics. The withdrawal is a further embarrassment for the Abhisit adminstration, which recently suffered a bruised image due to the Navy's inhumane push-back of the Rohingya boat people. Gilles Isard, MSF's head of mission in Thailand, said the Thai military's scare tactics to pressure ethnic Lao Hmong to accept a forced return to Laos and its intensifying restrictions on MSF's activities, such as...

PHETCHABUN, Thailand – Thailand sent army troops with shields and batons to evict some 4,000 ethnic Hmong asylum seekers Monday and send them back to Laos despite strong objections from the U.S. and rights groups who fear they will face persecution. Under tight security, more than 1,000 of the Hmong were loaded onto covered military trucks and driven out of the camp toward buses waiting near the Lao border, Thai authorities said. Journalists kept at a distance from the camp could see many children inside the trucks. With the eviction under way, the United States called for it to stop....

Thailand has begun deporting a group of about 4,000 ethnic Hmong back to communist Laos, despite international concerns for their safety. Thai officials said unarmed soldiers began closing a camp for Hmong refugees in northern Phetchabun province. Thailand describes them as economic migrants. The Hmong say they face persecution in Laos because they sided with US forces during the Vietnam war. The UN had urged the Thais to call off plans to deport them.

History haunts the Plain of Jars By Sebastien Berger in Laos (Filed: 09/12/2004) Deep in the mountains of northern Laos is one of the most dangerous archaeological sites ever. The last remnants of an ancient civilisation are next to 30-year-old craters and unexploded US ordnance left by the greatest aerial bombardment of all time. Little is known of the people who carved the huge sandstone containers that give the Plain of Jars its name. The purpose of the artefacts is not known though they are believed to be connected to burial rituals. Archaeologists are mystified by the ancient stoneware containers...

Forest of Broken Urns Volume 60 Number 2, March/April 2007 by Karen J. Coates Borneo's unexplored past is dying by the chainsaw. Tony Paran sits near a jar that held the remains of one of his ancestors. Soon, the forests that shelter these jars will be logged. (Jerry Redfern) Walter Paran was a lucky boy. Three minutes out his front door lay an old grave in the forest marked by big stone slabs, a broken jar, and human bones. A few minutes another way was a pit where the riches of the dead were purportedly buried. What more could an...

Built by mysterious ancient people for mysterious purposes (image credit: Chris Mitchell) Ancient Laos legends tell of the giants who drank water from these enormous mysterious "cups". Similar sites were also found in Thailand and in North India. Their locations are strung along a straight line, which suggests that they were built on some kind of a trade route. Chris Mitchell from Travel Happy sent us his travelogue about this ancient site: The Plain Of Jars is probably South East Asia’s most enigmatic tourist attraction. Situated in the remote north east of Laos, the mountainous communist country which has only...

Authorities in Laos Jail, Threaten to Kill Christians Local official tells pastor to renounce faith; church member expelled, children denied schooling. LOS ANGELES, September 11 (CDN) — Authorities in Laos last week jailed a church leader in Savannakhet Province for embracing Christianity and threatened to expel him unless he renounces his faith – and kill him if his arrest is made public, according to a human rights organization. Officials from Liansai village, from Saybouthong sub-district and from Ad-Sapangthong district on Sept. 3 arrested Thao Oun, an elder at Boukham Church, at his home and forced him at gunpoint to the...

LAOS - "LAO SOLDIERS DECAPITATE TWO-MONTH-OLD GIRL AHEAD OF SENATOR WEBB'S VISIT Infant used as target practice during military attacks that leave 26 civilians dead." August 20, 2009

CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C., Aug. 21, 2009 – A senior noncommissioned officer assigned here recently returned from a recovery mission to find the remains of an American pilot in Laos. Air Force Master Sgt. Wesley Housel sifts through dirt while conducting a recovery mission in Houaphan province, Laos. Housel was part of a 10-member recovery team on a deployment to recover the remains of Americans lost during the Vietnam War. DoD photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Air Force Master Sgt. Wesley Housel of the 437th Operations Support Squadron spent a 36-day deployment as a digger assigned to...

US President Barack Obama removed Laos and Cambodia from a trade blacklist, opening the way for US loans to companies doing business in the former US adversaries. The United States has been boosting ties with both Southeast Asian nations. But the decision on Laos was sharply criticized by campaigners for the country's Hmong minority, which says it faces persecution. In brief declarations, Obama said Cambodia and Laos had each "ceased to be a Marxist-Leninist country," a designation that prevented financial support by the US Export-Import Bank for businesses operating in the two nations. The move, which still must go through...

Hello everyone, I'm working on a book about my passion (and, I think, yours): American exceptionalism through the eyes of immigrants who haven't always had the fortune of living in freedom. This book consists of first-person stories of Americans who lived under authoritarian regimes: Cuba, Eastern bloc countries (Poland, Russia/former USSR), Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Laos, and so on. Unfortunately, there are many, many such countries to choose from. The local talk station I listen to has broadcast calls from new Americans who came here for liberty, which they weren't accorded in their homeland. Every call I've ever heard from one of...

No wonder Hmong cookbooks are rare, considering the challenges Sheng Yang and Sami Scripter faced collecting recipes: • Written forms of the language were not used until the 1950s -- and even now, spelling varies. • Recipes have been passed down through generations without the use of measuring cups and spoons. • Cooks varied each dish according to what was in season or available when an animal was slaughtered. • A people without a country and a population forced to flee their lands, the Hmong incorporated methods and ingredients of other cultures, so what is considered Hmong food has evolved....

Korea Eyeing SE Asia for Energy Resources MAY 04, 2009 07:56 “Advance into CLV, an alternative to the post-China era!” Countries are increasingly setting their sights on Southeast Asian countries in preparation for the era in which China loses its attraction as a base for manufacturing and a consumer market. The Korean government and companies are paying close attention to “CLV,” namely Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The three countries offer more investment opportunities than Thailand and Singapore, where advanced economies have gained the upper hand. In addition, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have shown interest in learning from Korea’s experience of...

Fourteen Khmu Christian families in Laos are standing strong in their faith, despite the Communist government forcing them to relocate to another village and their homes and church building being destroyed, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts. In 2003, the families were evicted by the government and relocated to another village where they were moved again. "After these 14 families stayed at this village for a year, the Communist party members of the village found out that the head of the village loved them," VOM contacts said. "[The village leader] even allowed them to build a bamboo church...

A chef in the capital city of Laos, Vientiane got a surprise yesterday according to local media. He bought a well known local brand of vacuum sealed rice in a plastic bag and when he opened it

Belgian archeologist Julie Van Den Bergh... "The jars date back to the Early Iron Age (500BCE-200CE). But who made these jars? ..." The jars are in clusters, some with as many as 400 of the structures. Some are 3m tall and weigh 13 tons. Several come with angular or round disks that could have been lids, carved with images of humans, monkeys or tigers... French archeologist Madeleine Colani... in the 1930s... interpreted her findings on the sites as a prehistoric crematorium. At Site 1, she discovered a cave with handmade chimney openings. The cave floor showed the remains of burnt...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2008/s08110079.htm Monday, November 17, 2008 Lao Officials Release Christians from Stocks as Restrictions on Worship Still in Force in Village By Michael Ireland Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service LAOS (ANS) -- Lao officials have released three prisoners from Boukham village, Savannakhet province, after several weeks of detention, but restrictions on Christian worship in the village are still in force, says a news report from Compass News Direct. Pastor Sompong Supatto, 32, and two other believers, Boot Chanthaleuxay, 18, and Khamvan Chanthaleuxay, also 18, were released on Oct. 16 against the wishes of the...

DARRA ADAM KHEL, Pakistan — The Taliban fighters were sitting in the back of a pickup, parked right outside the army fort in Darra Adam Khel, a wild town in Pakistan's troubled northwest that's famous for its arms bazaar. The Islamic militia, linked with al Qaida, has controlled Darra for about six months. Wrapped in head scarves, with just their eyes showing, and bristling with weaponry, its members patrol the streets and impose their own austere rules. They've become such a routine sight in the town that no one pays them any attention. The security forces, when they emerge from...

(CHALEUNSOUK, Laos) -- The rice fields that blanketed this remote mountain village for generations are gone. In their place rise neat rows of young rubber trees — their sap destined for China. All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked village of gaunt men and hunched women are now growing rubber, like thousands of others across the rugged mountains of northern Laos. They hope in coming years to reap huge profits from the tremendous demand for rubber just across the frontier in China. As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping economy, it has already scoured the world for mining and logging...

VIENTIANE, Laos - A high-rise Chinatown that is to go up by Laos' laid-back capital has ignited fears that this nation's giant northern neighbor is moving to engulf this nation. So alarmed are Laotians that the communist government, which rarely explains its actions to the population, is being forced to do just that, with what passes for an unprecedented public relations campaign. The "Chinese City" is a hot topic of talk and wild rumor, much of it laced with anxiety as well as anger that the regime sealed such a momentous deal in virtual secrecy. The rumblings are being heard...

Four decades after the Central Intelligence Agency hired thousands of jungle warriors to fight Communists on the western fringes of the Vietnam War, men who say they are veterans of that covert operation are isolated, hungry and periodically hunted by a Laotian Communist government still mistrustful of the men who sided with America. “If I surrender, I will be punished,” said Xang Yang, a wiry 58-year-old still capable of crawling nimbly through thick bamboo underbrush. “They will never forgive me. I cannot live outside the jungle because I am a former American soldier.”

There are two faces of Laos. One is the eco-tourism guided tour for backpackers with cheap hostels and an abundance of ganja (marijuana), coupled with the more expensive, more modernized Vientiane intent on luring western investors. The second is the insular Laos, behind a bamboo curtain, where the xenophobic, Pathet Lao communists (Lao People's Revolutionary Party), with apparent aid from the Vietnamese communists, are intent on annihilating an ethnic group of people -- the Hmong. During the Vietnam War, the US conducted a “Secret War” in Laos arming the Hmong tribesmen and using them to interdict North Vietnamese soldiers and...

When he was 11, True Thao was running with the chickens and pigs in his village in Laos. He had never seen a telephone or a flush toilet. He didn't speak English. He had never heard of Minnesota. He certainly didn't know that Cedarhurst Mansion, a 26-room jewel of history, was quietly rotting half a world away in a place called Cottage Grove. But in a bizarre only-in-America story, True Thao and his family became the refugees that rescued the mansion.

Flying low over the dangerous and impenetrable Laotian jungle on a bombing mission against the Viet Cong, U.S. Air Force Colonel Eugene Deatrick saw a lone figure waving to him from a clearing below. He continued on his flight path, but ten minutes later - puzzled that a native in this hostile terrain would try to attract his attention - he decided to turn back for another recce. This time, he saw the letters SOS spelt out on a rock. Beside them stood an emaciated man dressed in rags, waving the remains of a parachute over his head and signalling...

China's own regional jet may have first foreign order www.chinaview.cn 2007-09-21 00:12:45 SHANGHAI, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- China's first independently developed commercial regional jet, the ARJ-21, may be ordered for the first time by a foreign company in the near future, an official with AVIC I Commercial Aircraft company said on Thursday. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with Lao Airlines on July 2 in which Lao Airlines agreed to buy two jets, the official said. Both parties are working on details of the deal. Seventy-one jets have been ordered by domestic companies so far this year and another...

LITCHFIELD — A Laos national who is accused of breaking another man's face in a bar fight can't be departed because there's no process to send him home. A frustrated Superior Court judge tried but failed to initiate deportation hearings against a Torrington man accused of punching his former supervisor Aug. 9. Beun Xayachack, 27, of 49 Canterbury Court, has questionable U.S. citizenship status. Judge Charles Gill couldn't refer him to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, during an arraignment hearing in Litchfield's Bantam Court on Tuesday. Court officials told Gill...

If AlGore had invented the Internet prior to 1971 I think my Mother would have been an active bloger. She might have been a Freeper. The following are a couple of excerpts from an agenda type of calendar my Mother kept for the year 1971. First, I must set up the situation in which she was chronicling her daily activities and thoughts. I will try my best to keep this short, but to understand her comments you have to have know the background. My father was a career Marine, Master Gunnery Sgt. (E-9), 25 years. He retired in 1963 because...

Asean members hope to adopt the charter formally later this year Ministers from South-East Asian countries have reached agreement on a landmark draft charter. The document gives the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) a set of binding rules for the first time in the bloc's 40-year existence. The agreement comes after nearly two years of deliberations among members. It includes a contentious provision to set up a commission monitoring human rights in the region - despite strong misgivings from some Asean countries. Credibility boost With governments in the region running the gamut from fully-fledged democracies to a military...

The ex-general's arrest inspires hundreds to rally in St. Paul. For the old, the concern is for a revered leader. For the young, it's for a distant homeland, too. Tou Meng, 12, of St. Paul, joins a rally Tuesday at the Minnesota state Capitol in support of former Gen. Vang Pao, who is charged along with 10 others with plotting to overthrow the Lao government. Vang Pao, a war hero to many, is drawing support from different factions of the Hmong community. (RICHARD MARSHALL, Pioneer Press) View an audio slideshow from the rally Many young Hmong-Americans view Vang Pao as...

Revered Hmong leader charged in Laos plot Gen. Vang Pao, a legendary figure to many Hmong Minnesotans, and 8 others are accused of planning to overthrow the communist government of Laos. The general, who has strong Minnesota ties, battled for control of Laos for most of his life. BY TIM NELSON, LAURA YUEN, JOHN BREWER and TAD VEZNER Pioneer Press Article Last Updated: 06/05/2007 06:33:15 AM CDT Former military leader Gen. Vang Pao meets with the Twin Cities Hmong community in St. Paul in this May 21, 2004 photo. (AP file photo) Related content PDF: Read the complaint The patriarch of...

SACRAMENTO — A former Laotian military general and a former California National Guard officer were among nine people charged Monday with plotting a violent overthrow of Laos' communist government. The group was raising money to recruit a mercenary force and buy enough weapons to equip a small army, including anti-tank missiles and grenade launchers, prosecutors said. "We're looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Twiss said in federal court. He said thousands of co-conspirators remain at large. General Vang Pao, who immigrated to the U.S. in about 1975 and has...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Nine people were arrested in the United States and charged with plotting a coup in the southeast Asian nation of Laos, a public prosecutor in California said Monday. The suspects, mostly members of the Hmong ethnic group, were seized after US authorities "interrupted a plot to overthrow the government of Laos by force and violence," the prosecutor in the state capital Sacramento said in a statement. They include the Hmong former general Vang Pao and Harrison Jack, a retired officer of the US Army, it said. ~ snip ~

BANGKOK, Thailand — A lingering legacy of the Vietnam War emerged from the jungles of Laos on Wednesday, as hundreds of members of the Hmong hill tribe minority surrendered to the communist government after decades on the run. The group is the latest of several ragtag bands of surrendering Hmong — remnants of a guerrilla army that served a pro-American government before it fell to the communists in 1975. The surrendering group's chieftain, Moua Tua Ter, accompanied the 405 people — mostly children — to Ban Ha village in Phoukout district before returning to the jungle with a few of...

Soldiers fresh from duty in the Gulf are finding catharsis in searching for the bodies of 1,800 men lost in Vietnam 35 years ago. On a hillside in South-East Asia, where America fought a brutal, costly and traumatic war, the US military is back. Giant figures pouring with sweat are digging in a jungle clearing as pounding rap music echoes through the trees. They are watched with awed fascination by tiny Lao Tung women squatting in a row, waiting for the foreigners to fill their buckets with soil and hand them by human chain to a row of sieves. The...

SEATTLE - A woman who grew up in a Laotian orphanage in the turbulent 1960s and '70s says she plans to donate part of a $55 million lottery jackpot she and her husband won to the people who raised her. Xia Rattanakone said she also plans to return to Laos to search for her birth family. "I don't know my parents," she said after the couple claimed their winnings on Monday. "That is my wish, to find them." Rattanakone, 44, came to the United States in 1979 after being adopted by an American family. She and her husband, Sommay Rattanakone,...

WASHINGTON - The United States on Friday classified six Asian countries as religious freedom violators, aside from China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam already blacklisted as worst offenders in the region. Afghanistan, Brunei, India, Laos, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were included in a ‘significant’ list of violators of religious freedom in the US State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report 2006. John Hanford, US envoy for international religious freedom, said there was a possibility that one or more from the six nations could be added to a blacklist of ‘countries of particular concern’ that includes China, Myanmar, North Korea and...

Lost Over Laos Scientists and soldiers combine forensics and archaeology to search for pilot Bat Masterson, one of 88,000 Americans missing in action from recent wars. By Robert M. Poole Night closed over Laos, where clouds were piling up over the rugged mountain jungle. An American pilot, on a mission to disrupt enemy traffic bound for North Vietnam, was flying into trouble. The artificial horizon on his A-1 Skyraider, a single-prop workhorse of World War II vintage, had suddenly stopped functioning, making it impossible for him to gauge his position among the clouds. Dizzy and disoriented, Air Force Capt. Michael...

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has a record that is the envy of conservative leaders around the world. Recently elected to a fourth term (with an enhanced majority, to boot), he has charted a distinctive and largely successful course for Australia's international relations over the past decade. As the Harper government begins to formulate its own approach to foreign policy, Mr. Howard arrives in Ottawa at an opportune moment. Under Mr. Howard's leadership, Australia's ties with the United States have warmed considerably, stemming in large part from Canberra's staunch support for U.S.-led anti-terrorism initiatives and the invasion of Iraq. Mr....

The fall of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has thrown Thailand into uncertainty. Thaksin will remain at the head of his Thai Rak Thai party and has not ruled out a possible comeback, so the rough road has not yet reached its end. But if Thai politics are in for more political jockeying, what about the rest of Southeast Asia? What about the political fortunes of his fellow leaders in the region, some of whom emerged around the same time? Is Thailand alone? The uncertainty in Thailand is not likely to have any shattering effect on the region. But it is...