Free Republic

Billionaire Bill Gates is warning that America is heading for “civil war” and fears that “political polarization” could “bring it all to an end.” Gates made the prediction during a recent keynote conversation at this year’s Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy. The Microsoft co-founder revealed that he plans to end Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 25 years. “The goal for the foundation is to run for another 25 years,” Gates said in the keynote conversation with Forbes’ Chief Content Officer Randall Lane. He revealed that he plans to spend billions of dollars over the next few years on...

The editor of the Lancet medical journal has admitted that Peter Daszak – a leading signatory of a letter published by the journal discrediting man-made origins of COVID-19 – had “significant” conflict of interests and did not declare them at the beginning of the pandemic. The admission from Dr. Richard Horton came during a grilling from British Members of Parliament on the Science and Technology Select Committee. The stark revelation confirms a lot of early-National Pulse reportage on Daszak, the Wuhan lab, and the interconnected nature of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Horton’s public acknowledgment of Daszak’s conflicts of interest discredits...

North Korea's plot to kill Kim Jong Un's nephew foiled by Chinese officials, report says By Katherine Lam | Fox News Several North Korean agents were reportedly arrested after Chinese officials foiled an alleged plot to kill Kim Jong Un’s nephew— the son of the half-brother poisoned this year in a Malaysian airport. Two of the seven North Korean agents who were involved in the alleged plot were arrested in Beijing, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported Monday, citing North Korean sources. The plot was stopped because Chinese officials increased security during the country’s 19th National Congress of the Communist...

A former U.S. Marine accused of breaking into North Korea's embassy in Madrid and assaulting diplomatic personnel was freed on $1.3 million bond in Los Angeles on Tuesday. As a condition of his release, Christopher Ahn must confine himself to his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills ahead of his possible extradition to Spain and must wear an ankle monitor. “I spent a lot of time reading about you and I’m confident you’re going to do the right thing,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Jean Rosenbluth told Ahn, who had several family members in attendance at the hearing.

I was researching about making a trip to the Balkans, and came upon this snowflake gem, about the drama at a Mostar hostel. This guy is the father of all snowflakes and where is he from, Austin, TX.

N. Korean leader's grandson to study in Bosnia: Reports The Korea Herald/Asia News Network Thursday, Sep 29, 2011 A grandson of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has enrolled in an international college in Bosnia, local papers reported on Wednesday. The 16-year-old Kim Han-sol, son of the North Korean leader's oldest son Kim Jong-nam (right), is on a list of 72 sixth-year students of the United World Colleges' (UWC)'s local branch located in the southern town of Mostar, according to the Vecernji List. The UWC is a network of colleges throughout the world promoting international and intercultural understanding. It is attended...

Otto Warmbier’s mother pleads with the judge to stop the Biden-approved extradition. A former U.S. Marine faces extradition to Spain for breaking into the North Korean embassy in Madrid to help a diplomat defect. It appears Biden’s administration is aiding in this process, despite concerns that North Korea plans retribution for this move. Christopher Ahn, 40, faces his final extradition hearing in federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Two years ago, he was freed on $1.3million bail but was forced to serve home confinement ahead of his possible extradition to Spain. The US government is working to extradite Ahn...

From the first paragraph of this article: “This manuscript describes efforts to extend surveillance beyond sequence analysis, constructing chimeric and full-length zoonotic coronaviruses to evaluate emergence potential. Focusing on SARS-like virus sequences isolated from Chinese horseshoe bats, the results indicate a significant threat posed by WIV1-CoV. Both full-length and chimeric WIV1-CoV readily replicated efficiently in human airway cultures and in vivo, suggesting capability of direct transmission to humans.” And from the results summary in this article: Using the SARS-CoV infectious clone as a template (7), we designed and synthesized a full-length infectious clone of WIV1-CoV consisting of six plasmids that...

American authorities have arrested a former US Marine who is allegedly part of a group that raided North Korea's embassy in Madrid, reports say. Christopher Ahn will reportedly appear in a Los Angeles court. It would be the first arrest over the incident, which happened in February days before US President Donald Trump met North Korea's Kim Jong Un in Vietnam. Free Joseon, a self-styled human rights group, says it was involved. US federal agents have also raided the apartment of Adrian Hong, one of the group's leaders, says the Washington Post. ... On 22 February, a group of at...

In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea’s embassy in Madrid, tied up the staff, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled the scene in two luxury vehicles. The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense, a secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post. The group’s alleged role in the attack has not previously been reported, and officials from the governments of North Korea, the United States and Spain declined to comment on it. The identity of the assailants...

Video of man claiming to be Kim Jong Nam's son emerges Posted 08 Mar 2017 08:42 Updated 08 Mar 2017 09:11 KUALA LUMPUR: A YouTube video has emerged in which a man claims to be Kim Han Sol, son of the murdered North Korean believed to be Kim Jong Nam. The video titled KHS Video was uploaded on the YouTube page of a group called Cheollima Civil Defense on Tuesday (Mar 7) which contacted Channel NewsAsia after posting it. "My name is Kim Han Sol, from North Korea, part of the Kim family," the man says in the video. "My...

Pyongyang also targeted Jong-nam’s son, says WSJ Updated 12 hours ago · Published on 2 Oct 2017 SHORTLY after the murder of Kim Jong-nam on February 13 at klia2, the North Korean regime began targeting his son, Kim Han-sol, reports The Wall Street Journal, ahead of the father’s murder trial in Shah Alam today. However, North Korean dissidents belonging to a secretive group called Cheollima Civil Defence whisked Han-sol, 21, and his mother and sister to safety from their Macau base. The Kim family are now living in an unidentified country. Cheollima has agreed to speak to a media organisation...

Full Title: Shadowy group protecting the son of Kim Jong-un's assassinated brother vows to rid North Korea of the 'great evil' Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) declared itself the legitimate interim government In a statement on its website on Friday it vowed to fight Kim Jong Un's regime CCD say they are protecting Kim Han Sol, the son of murdered Kim Jong Nam A shadowy group believed to be protecting the son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's assassinated brother declared the formation of a 'legitimate interim government' on Friday. The Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) organisation, which offers to assist...

During these hectic weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, many of us think a lot not only about family, but about food. As we gather around tables to talk, so many of our holiday rituals centers around eating: cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, applesauce for Chanukah latkes, honey-glazed ham for Christmas and — especially in the South — black-eyed peas and greens for good luck on New Year’s Day. Kwanzaa literally translates to “first fruits.” Yet many of these holiday favorites are endangered, because the bees they depend upon are dying by the millions. You may have heard about this...

The White House finally appears ready to announce conclusions and policy recommendations from the Pollinator Task Force it appointed a year ago. Environmentalist groups eagerly await the decision. After clamoring and campaigning for years for government action, they hope to get tough restrictions on using innovative new insecticides called neonicotinoids.Agricultural interests await the decision with trepidation. A ban or broad restrictions would cost billions of dollars annually, force them to employ pesticides that are more difficult to use and more toxic for beneficial insects, and compel them to confront more secretive government “science” and faulty justifications for policies that are...

A parish priest on the troubling news he's learned from kids in the confessional The Need for Questions in Lent Lent is a penitential season, a time of purification and of clarification: of being purified of our sins and of clarifying the roots of what has been keeping us from God in the first place. Purification and clarification can come about through the typical Lenten observances: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Fasting, for example, not only acts as an immediate purification of something (ie, a thing is taken away), but it can also clarify in that, as we are feeling the...

Over 100 scientists worldwide, citing 800 studies, are demanding that the Obama administration follow Europe’s lead and put a moratorium on the use of a new-style pesticide blamed for the deaths of 30 percent of American honeybees every year. In a letter to the EPA and Agriculture Department, the scientists said there is overwhelming evidence from 800 studies that the pesticide family called neonicotinoids are to blame for the substantial declines in honeybees, bumblebees and butterflies, all pollinators needed to help farmers produce billions of dollars worth of food every year. “The 108 signers of this letter therefore urge you...

The mysterious vanishing of honeybees from hives can be directly linked to insectcide use, according to new research from Harvard University. The scientists showed that exposure to two neonicotinoids, the world's most widely used class of insecticide, lead to half the colonies studied dying, while none of the untreated colonies saw their bees disappear. "We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering 'colony collapse disorder' in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter," said Chensheng Lu, an expert on environmental exposure biology at Harvard School of Public Health and who led the...

If the Environmental Protection Agency moves to restrict neonicotinoid pesticides, often called neonics, because of fears that they are causing bee deaths, it will happen in spite of the mounting empirical evidence rather than because of it. Last December, in response to fevered political pressure, the European Commission banned the use of neonics for two years. The moratorium, guided by the precautionary politics that now dominate science-based regulation in Europe, took effect just as a number of new studies shed increasing doubt on the belief that neonics play a key role in bee health. (snip) The “crisis” prompting this handwringing...

The Summer of 2013 officially began only last Friday, but already it has a good shot at achieving a dubious distinction in the annals of parental indulgence. This could be the summer that ice cream trucks for dogs go mainstream. Ever since the K99 ice cream truck set up shop in the parks of London during the summer of 2010–to the tune of the Scooby Doo theme song, no less–the trend of cruising trucks full of specially-made canine ice cream treats and cookies has been spreading and appears to be hitting its jaunty stride. Last summer, they started dropping by...