Free Republic

MOSCOW — A nasty spate of anti-Americanism set off by Vladimir V. Putin has grown into waves of attacks aimed at the new American ambassador and Russian opposition leaders, raising questions about the future of U.S.-Russian relations. The attacks started just before the December parliamentary elections and have intensified as the March 4 presidential vote approaches. Although widely viewed as aimed primarily at a domestic audience, they have grown shriller and more aggressive, provoking debate about whether Russia is deliberately giving a cold shoulder to President Obama’s effort to promote more productive relations. A main target of the attacks is...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wants to create a lunar colony that he says could become a U.S. state. There's his grand research plan to figure out what makes the human brain tick. And he's warned about electromagnetic pulse attacks leaving America without electricity. To some people, these ideas sound like science fiction. But mostly they are not. Several science policy experts say the former House speaker's ideas are based in mainstream science. But somehow, Gingrich manages to make them sound way out there, taking them first a small step and then a giant leap further than...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to visit Venezuela and Cuba as part of a four-nation Latin America tour in the second week of January 2012, an official said Wednesday. Ahmadinejad will also visit Nicaragua and Ecuador on the trip, his international affairs director, Mohammad Reza Forghani, told the official news agency IRNA. All the countries are left-leaning and share an ideological antagonism towards Iran's arch-foe, the United States. "Mr Ahmadinejad will first go to Caracas to visit (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez," Forghani said, confirming an announcement made Tuesday by Chavez. "He will then go to the swearing-in ceremonies for Nicaraguan...

We Stand for Principle Over Politicsand the Establishment Can't Stand It December 21, 2011 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the mess. The House was set to hold a pro forma session, but two top Democrats, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, demanded to be recognized to try to force a vote on the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Folks, just like with the communists in the Soviet Union or the ChiComs, the ultimate goal of the Democrat Party is to discourage anyone from getting anything unless it comes from The Party -- The Party equaling the government. It is precisely why Barack Obama wants to eliminate all tax deductions for charitable donations. He wants the government to take that over or The Party -- and, lo and behold, just as if they knew what was going to be interesting to me today, there is a piece in the Wall Street Journal published by Andy Stern,...

OK we're not allowed to source to Bloomberg, but this one is worth alluding to, just with a few facts: America and the commie Chinese began "trade talks" today. That means, America once again gives crap away, with nothing in return. The "trade talks" (which mean America gives crap away, with nothing in return) are being held in the commie Chinese city of Chengdu; ironically in a hotel with a clothing store named "Amornini". Which features, according to the article summarized for this thread: "a bird logo that closely resembles that of the Milan-based Giorgio Armani SpA fashion house. "...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that the United States does not fear China, even as he announced a new security agreement with Australia that is widely viewed as a response to Beijing's growing aggressiveness. China responded swiftly, warning that an expanded U.S. military footprint in Australia may not be appropriate and deserved greater scrutiny. The agreement, announced during a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, will expand the U.S. military presence in Australia, positioning more U.S. personnel and equipment there, and increasing American access to bases. About 250 U.S. Marines will begin a...

Vast, unidentified, structures have been spotted by satellites in the barren Gobi desert, raising questions about what China might be building in a region it uses for its military, space and nuclear programmes. In two images, available on Google Earth, reflective rectangles up to a mile long can be seen, a tangle of bright white intersecting lines that are clearly visible from space. Other pictures show enormous concentric circles radiating on the ground, with three jets parked at their centre. In one picture from 2007, a mass of orange blocks have been carefully arranged in a circle. In a more...

> Source: VOA China (video stream HERE.Candidate Huntsman's (I would add, a bit easy on the eyes) daughter talking about her father's personality orientation (more Chinese than American), Huntsman droning on in Chinese bragging about his closeness to the Red Chinese, and other fun stuff, all in Chinese from VOA China (a personal profile on the guy).

Up to 40 million Chinese people still live in caves. That's more than the populations of Texas and Illinois, combined. In fairness, a fraction of these caves are apparently pretty nice, complete with electricity and well-compacted dirt floors. But that's grading on a curve because, well, they're still caves. Meanwhile, 21 million Chinese live below what the Communist Party calls the "absolute poverty" line. That sounds pretty good if you have in mind our poverty line, which is just under $11,000 per year for an individual and roughly $22,000 for a family of four. The absolute poverty rate in China...

War with China?Illusions about the pacifying effects of trade go back more than a century. ‘The two economies [the United States and China] are linked with each other and with the rest of the world in a manner unparalleled in history. This mutual dependence can be an immensely powerful deterrent, in effect a form of mutually assured economic destruction.� So concluded the RAND Corporation in a study released last week.A hundred years ago Norman Angell came to precisely the same conclusion. In his 1910 book The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to Their...

On the day we arrived in Washington, April 12, 1997, we tuned in to C-Span just in time to see the House of Representatives pass H.400 on a voice vote. Not one member of the House of Representatives demanded a roll call vote on a bill that would severely emasculate a core function of the federal government. When we were finally able to obtain a copy of S.507, we read it very carefully and we were horrified. Never in all of our years as lobbyists had we ever read a worse piece of legislation. If we had ever wondered what...

Post Columnist Says King Monument is Stalin-like A Washington Post columnist has criticized the new Martin Luther King, Jr. monument, while his paper is publishing a 24-page special supplement hailing the unveiling of the “Stone of Hope” in the memorial that includes the 30-foot tall statue of the civil rights leader. Black columnist Courtland Milloy writes, “Let’s face it: There really is something peculiar about having an artist from communist China sculpt the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial statue. And, yes, it would have been fantastic had an African American sculptor been chosen instead.” He adds, “The sculpture is based...

...Although the PLA is contending with a growing array of missions, Taiwan remains its main strategic direction.China continued modernizing its military in 2010, with a focus on Taiwan contingencies, even as cross-Strait relations improved. The PLA seeks the capability to deter Taiwan independence and influence Taiwan to settle the dispute on Beijing’s terms. In pursuit of this objective, Beijing is developing capabilities intended to deter, delay, or deny possible U.S. support for the island in the event of conflict. The balance of cross-Strait military forces and capabilities continues to shift in the mainland’s favor. Over the past decade, China’s military...

As a totalitarian society, PRC is a military camp, in which everyone is a soldier. It is easier in such a society to conceal the building of new weapons or pursuing a secret military agenda. The original Hong Kong news story of 2004, which said that China was reported to be building, with the assistance from Russia, 3 aircraft carriers (called Project 9935), floated around the Chinese forums. According to Key publishing LTD.Aviation Forums of 18th Feb. 2004, all 3 ships could be operational by 2008-2010. The Chinese article said that maintenance facilities had been built in Shanghai, Dailan, and...

China's first aircraft carrier on Wednesday left its shipyard in the country's northeast to start its first sea trial, the state news agency Xinhua said. The revamped old Soviet ship's sea trial was in line with the schedule of its refitting project and would not take long, the news agency said, quoting military sources. After returning from the trial, the carrier will continue its refit and test work, the report said, adding that the vessel had set sail from its shipyard in the city of Dalian. Beijing last month sought to downplay the capability of its first aircraft carrier, saying...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Does anybody now doubt that this is on purpose? I mean, after all, Barack Obama inherits a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush, and look what he does to it. Obama is always running around complaining and whining and moaning about all that he inherited from George W. Bush. Well, he inherited a AAA credit rating, an unemployment rate of 5.7%. Does anybody doubt that this is on purpose? Well, look, my credit rating doesn't suck. There are a lot of individual Americans whose credit ratings aren't in trouble. The United States has never been in...

And, by the way, a little history question. Do you know where this "gang of" stuff started, in our lifetimes at least? I'm sure that there have been gangs in the history of humanity, but in the political realm, the original gang was Gang of Four. Mao Tse-tung's wife, a ChiCom broad, led a Gang of Four in an anti- something or other movement. So a cultural revolution equaled murder. And Mao's wife, Mrs. Mao, led the Gang of Four against it. So this "gang of" crap can be traced back to the original brutal, murderous ChiComs.

This week deadly armed clashes near Burma’s border with China ended a nearly two-decade-old ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Burma’s government. About 10,000 people have fled to refugee camps along the Chinese border and 215 Chinese workers from the Datang United Hydropower Developing Co. returned home after the KIA captured a Chinese-built and operated hydropower plant last week. A KIA spokesperson told the Thailand-based Irrawaddy that the uprising began when the government reneged on an agreement to share electricity generated from the region’s Chinese-built hydropower plants with local people. “This electricity is now going to China, not...

ASTANA, Kazakhstan - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Wednesday for a security alliance of several former Soviet nations and China to form a united front against the West. Ahmadinejad's address to fellow heads of state at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kazakhstan will likely deepen suspicions that the bloc is intended as a counterweight to the United States across the region. In a summit declaration signed by all the member states, the organization also attacked missile defense programs in another apparent dig at the United States.

Computer hackers in China broke into the Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, Google Inc. said Wednesday. The attacks aren't believed to be tied to a more sophisticated assault originating from China in late 2009 and early last year. That intrusion targeted the Google's own security systems and triggered a high-profile battle with China's Communist government over online censorship, which has made it more difficult for the company to do business in the world's most populous country. The latest duplicity appeared to rely on so-called "phishing" scams and other underhanded...

China has been cracking down on dissent of late, as the recent detainment of artist Ai Weiwei suggests. But the latest guidance on television programming from the State Administration of Radio Film and Television in China borders on the surreal – or, rather, an attack against the surreal. New guidelines issued on March 31 discourage plot lines that contain elements of "fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons, and a lack of positive thinking." “The government says … TV dramas shouldn’t have characters that travel back...

Geopolitics: America's string-along -and-dither policy on a free-trade pact with Colombia is not only costing U.S. firms; it's exacting a strategic price. China is now exploiting the void with a dry canal at a strategic choke point. A decade ago, military analysts worried about what the final handover of the Panama Canal in 2000 might mean if Chinese companies got a foothold there. Some did, setting up warehouses. Today, something much more dramatic is happening. China's Development Bank is prepared to splash out $7.6 billion to build a whole new railroad "dry canal" on the Colombian side of the isthmus...

Two Chinese real estate investors have agreed to buy the city-owned Docks restaurant and entertainment complex in East Toledo for $2.15 million, the mayor's office confirmed Monday night. Speculation has swirled for weeks regarding Mayor Mike Bell's plan to sign a land deal involving The Docks and the long-envisioned Marina District — two riverfront properties the city has marketed for years.

Russia has been conducting a race to build up its military, but no one seems to be noticing. While the economic recession is causing many European nations to slash and downsize their defensive capabilities, Russia has been extending its reach militarily. Did any of you catch the article about Russia purchasing not one but two helicopter carriers from France? The Mistral-class carrier also doubles as an amphibious assault craft, carrying ground forces and materiel. The Baltic states and Georgia are raising diplomatic hell over it but it appears that France is savoring the deal, worth over $1.5 billion. "The Baltic...

OSLO, Norway — China is not the first nation to be rankled by a Nobel Peace Prize. But its furious assault on the 2010 award to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo has reached proportions last seen during the Soviet and Nazi regimes. Even Cold War dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Lech Walesa were able to have their wives collect the prizes for them. Myanmar democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi's award was accepted by her 18-year-old son in 1991. But China's clampdown on Liu's relatives means the Nobel medal and diploma likely won't be handed out for the first time since 1936,...

TEHERAN, Iran -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart declared Wednesday they are united in efforts to establish a "new world order" and warned their enemies would be relegated to the "graveyard."

RUSH: On this foreign money business, ladies and gentlemen, this much we know for a fact: There is all kinds of foreign money propping up Obama's spending policies. All kinds of foreign money is propping up his spending policies. Obama is borrowing money from the ChiComs; he is using that money to pay off his union buddies. I mean, let's be straight here. The communist Chinese are funding Obama's political operation. The communist Chinese are funding his slush funds. Union buddies, community activist buddies, massively expand the federal bureaucracy. This is not an empty accusation. This is demonstrably true. We...

BEIJING – A group of eminent Chinese Communist Party elders has issued a bold call to end the country's wide-ranging restrictions on free speech, just days after the government reacted angrily to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo. In an open letter posted online, the retired officials state that although China's 1982 constitution guarantees freedom of speech, the right is constrained by a host of laws and regulations that should be scrapped. "This kind of false democracy of affirming in principle and denying in actuality is a scandal in the history of democracy," said...

... The 17-day drills, which began on September 9, are aimed at testing the interoperability of the SCO armed forces in rendering assistance to a member state involved in an internal armed conflict or subjected to a terrorist attack. The exercises involve some 5,000 servicemen from five of the six SCO member states - Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan has chosen not to take part. ...

China's leading Internet regulator called for rules requiring people to use their real names online...

Chinese micro-blogging sites have become the latest target of Beijing’s internet police, which have ordered companies providing Twitter-like services to step up monitoring and purge sites of politically “sensitive” words and expressions. In the last week, most of the largest and most popular micro-blogging websites in China have been shut down for “maintenance” or have switched to “beta” or “testing” versions. These backup websites are being used while the companies “strengthen their self-censorship systems” and remove all politically sensitive content under orders from Chinese internet authorities, according to employees at some of those companies. The micro-blogging site run by the...

Now on Drudge: "BEIJING – The government calls it "sealed management." China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control."

An American geologist held and tortured by China's state security agents was sentenced to eight years in prison Monday for gathering data on the Chinese oil industry in a case that highlights the government's use of vague secrets laws to restrict business information. (snip) Its verdict said Xue received documents on geological conditions of onshore oil wells and a data base that gave the coordinates of more than 30,000 oil and gas wells belonging to China National Petroleum Corporation...

LOS ANGELES — Three executives at a stuffed toy manufacturer were arrested Friday on suspicion of laundering millions of dollars for Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers, authorities said. The arrests followed a two-year, multi-agency probe into the Angel Toy Corp., located in a downtown warehouse. "It's no small irony that a multimillion-dollar company which promoted itself as retailer of cuddly stuffed animals was allegedly acting as a financial linchpin for drug trafficking operatives," said John Morton, director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Two co-owners of the business, Meichun Cheng Huang, 57, and Ling Yu, 52, were arrested, along with...

BEIJING — Upcoming joint U.S.-South Korean naval drills have sparked an unexpected outcry from Chinese nationalists, whose fiery rhetoric has been stoked by their country's rising economic strength and global clout. While North Korea often issues diatribes condemning the routine war games off South Korea, this time, it was Chinese blogs and websites that exploded in anger at word that an American aircraft carrier might join the drills, bringing it close to Chinese waters. Some hawks even urged their country's military to make its own show of force. "China should cover the Yellow Sea with ships and missiles and open...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Wednesday he is disappointed by the international community's "tepid" response to North Korea's attack on a South Korean warship and called on China to step up and do more.

Keep U.S. Aircraft Carrier Out of Our Backyard, China Warns A state-run Chinese newspaper on Tuesday criticized the South Korean government for allowing the 97,000-ton aircraft carrier George Washington of the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet to join South Korea-U.S. military training scheduled late this month. In an editorial, Global News wrote the West Sea "is in proximity to China's political hub of Beijing and Tianjin. If a U.S. aircraft carrier comes into the West Sea, mainland China falls under the military strategic influence of U.S. military forces. The people of China will not accept South Korea having military demonstration involving...

Hillary Clinton has travelled to Shanghai to see for herself the results of her efforts to build up the American pavilion at the World Expo 2010. The US secretary of state personally helped raise money for the pavilion last year, pleading with US companies to donate the $61m (£42m) needed to build the structure and the exhibit. The construction of the pavilion was near death when the Obama administration came in, but Mrs Clinton came to the rescue. She said at the time it would send the wrong message to China if the US was not at the World Expo....

Yang Liwei, the 44-year-old military pilot who commanded the Shenzhou Five mission in 2003, revealed the menu on-board the spacecraft in his autobiography, The Nine Levels between Heaven and Earth. "Many of my friends are curious about what we eat [in space] and think that the astronauts must have some expensive delicacies, like shark's fin or abalone," he wrote. "Actually we ate quite normal food, there is no need to keep it a secret," he added.

/begin my excerpts "Successor Kim Jong-un among China Trip Entourage" ... Reflect Anxiety over Regime "Kim Jong-un avoids exposure while moving together" < anchor > N. Korean leader Kim Jong-il has reportedly brought along his third son, the designated successor, for his trip to China. It is believed that Kim Jong-il thought that his son needs China's approval to make his succession official. Pyo Un-gu reporting from Beijing < reporter > According to a high level source at Liaoning Provincial Government, Kim Jong-il's third son Kim Jong-un accompanied his father in the special train for China trip. The source, who...

China Loses Gymnastics Bronze Medal 2000 Team Bronze Goes To USA STEPHEN WILSON, AP Sports Writer DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- China was stripped of a bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics on Wednesday for fielding an underage female gymnast, with the women's team medal now going to the United States. The International Olympic Committee acted after investigations by the sport's governing body determined that Dong Fangxiao was only 14 at the 2000 Games. Gymnasts must turn 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible. Dong's results from Sydney were nullified in February by the International Gymnastics Federation. Because...

Competitiveness: The president spent Tax Day reassuring Florida voters that money will keep flowing to NASA. But in space as well as on Earth, we'll be an unexceptional nation. In space, no one can hear you scheme. President Obama's speech at the Kennedy Space Center will never be confused with President Kennedy's clarion call in 1961 to send an American to the moon within a decade. Rather it was an admission that we will now boldly go where no one wants to go.

Chinese turbines powered by west Texas winds are sparking a debate over whether “Buy American” rules should be imposed on renewable-energy investments backed by the U.S. government. A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd., based in Shenyang, China, will supply turbines to a joint venture planning to build a $1.5 billion wind farm in Texas. The group, which includes two U.S. partners, says it may seek financial aid from the Obama administration because the project will create at least 1,000 American jobs. Lawmakers led by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, say such assistance amounts to subsidizing green jobs outside...

Communist China and Nepal have settled a 150-year-old dispute over the height of Mount Everest, agreeing that the "snow height" of the world's highest peak is 29,029 feet. The great mountain lies on the border between the two countries and they have disagreed for years over its exact height, which Nepal had put at 29,029 feet (8,848 metres) - nearly 13 feet more than the measurement used by China. However, officials revealed in talks in Kathmandu this week that the two measurements referred to different things - one to the height of Everest's rock and the other to the height...

New federal guidelines say thousands of U.S. homes tainted by Chinese drywall won't be safe unless they are completely gutted. The Consumer Product Safety Commission released the guidelines Friday. They say electrical wiring, outlets, circuit breakers, fire alarm systems, carbon monoxide alarms, fire sprinklers, gas pipes and drywall must be removed. About 3,000 homeowners, mostly in Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, have reported problems with the Chinese-made drywall. A large quantity of the drywall was imported during the housing boom and after a string of Gulf Coast hurricanes. It has been linked to corrosion of wiring, air conditioning units,...

March 11, 2010 Hundreds rounded up in Tibet crackdown Jane Macartney in Beijing Hundreds of Tibetans are being rounded up and detained in Lhasa and armed paramilitary groups are patrolling the streets in advance of the anniversary of fatal riots in 2008, The Times has learnt. Authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of the anti-Chinese attacks, in which about 20 people were killed when Tibetans rampaged through the city, setting fire to shops and offices. This month marks a particularly sensitive period in the region as March 10 is also regarded by Tibetans as the anniversary of the start...

The hackers behind the attacks on Google Inc and dozens of other companies operating in China stole valuable computer source code by breaking into the personal computers of employees with privileged access, a security firm said on Wednesday. The hackers targeted a small number of employees who controlled source code management systems, which handle the myriad changes that developers make as they write software, said George Kurtz, chief technology officer at anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc . The details from McAfee show how the breach of just a single PC at a large corporation can have widespread repercussions across the...

WASHINGTON, DC, February 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing yesterday on the fiscal year 2011 international affairs budget, Congressman Chris Smith confronted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a speech in which he blasted the administration's support for abortion around the world. Smith stated that this promotes violence against "the most persecuted and at risk minority in the world" - the unborn child.Smith, co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, expressed disappointment that "unplanned pregnancy" in the Global Health Initiative Consultation Document "seems to be relegated to the status of a disease — juxtaposed between HIV...

February 24, suddenly Chinese official media CCTV for the first time published shock screens of shooting down U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft in June 1958, to warn B-2 of the United Stites. In these short-range high-definition screens, the moment of Sam missile into the sky shot down U-2 high-definition instant pictures are very stunning�