Free Republic

China’s most famous defector to America warned US intelligence agencies a coronavirus was spreading in Wuhan in November 2019 – six weeks before China admitted there was an outbreak. Wei Jingsheng, the father of China’s democracy movement, reveals in a new book, “What Really Happened in Wuhan,” that he first heard of a mysterious new virus at the time of the World Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019. Highly alarmed, the former Chinese Communist Party insider, whose defection to the United States in 1997 made global news, alerted intelligence agencies, a US politician with links to the president and...

The celebrated deal that would have ensured that blind dissident Chen Guangcheng would stay in China began to dissolve publicly with a tweet: “GUANGCHENG TALKED TO ME. WHAT MEDIA REPORTED IS WRONG.” The unsettling Twitter message from Beijing activist Zeng Jinyan began a firestorm of debate over whether Chen had been coerced into the deal with threats to his family, an alarming idea that gutted the most important promise behind the agreement -- that Chen would be kept safe.

<p>OSLO, Norway (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has received 150 nominations for the 2003 award, with a majority of nominations coming from North America, committee secretary Geir Lundestad said Tuesday.</p> <p>Nominations, which had to be postmarked by Feb. 1, are made by past laureates, committee members, university professors and select organizations. They're kept secret for 50 years, although those making them often announce their choice.</p>