Free Republic

SOMERSET, Pa. -- Police said a Somerset man draped a live snake around his 2-year-old son's neck, fed him hot sauce, and otherwise abused him for nearly a year. Jason Flick, 27, is charged with aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children and related charges. He was arrested Friday and taken to the Somerset County Jail on $25,000 bond.

Every child is a gift, as the saying goes. But in a case that has stoked outrage on two continents, a Dutch diplomat posted in Hong Kong has been accused of returning his eight-year-old adopted daughter like an unwanted Christmas necktie. The story, which first appeared in the South China Morning Post on Dec. 9, began seven years ago, when Dutch vice consul Raymond Poeteray and his wife, Meta, adopted then-four-months-old Jade in South Korea. The couple, who also have two biological children, brought Jade with them to Indonesia and then to Hong Kong in 2004, although Poeteray never applied...

China is investing in Africa on a vast scale that goes well beyond efforts to meet its growing need for oil. In Zambia, seven Chinese companies have invested $170 million in the mining sector. In Zimbabwe, exploration of the world's No. 2 platinum reserve is largely dominated by Chinese companies. China is even sending unemployed laborers to farm and set up small factories in parts of rural Africa. -snip- "To attract and retain us, they gave extremely good terms, such as charging a symbolic annual fee of $1 per acre for 99 years," said Mr. Liu, whose efforts have provided...

Harare - China has turned down an offer by President Robert Mugabe’s government to take over farms seized from whites apparently because Beijing feared there was no guarantee that such an investment would be secure in the long term, authoritative sources said. Zimbabwe has since last April attempted to hammer a joint-venture deal with China that would enable resource-rich farmers from the Asian giant to enter into partnerships with the Harare government to farm land seized from whites and help resuscitate the southern African country’s collapsed agricultural sector. But sources said China has developed cold feet on the planned deal...

HONG KONG -- A Hong Kong-based Briton survived the deadly tsunami that devastated Thailand's coastlines by abandoning a pregnant woman clinging to him and later smashing his knee cap when his leg was trapped underwater, a Hong Kong newspaper reported today. Scotsman Andrew Keith, 35, was swept away by waves that inundated the Thai resort island Phra Thong and found himself weighed down by a pregnant Swedish woman who wrapped her arms around him, the South China Morning Post reported. "It was like being in a washing machine. We were being tumbled over and over under the water." "As the...