Free Republic

China likely to repeat Japan’s lost decades with debt, unbalanced economy, Senate hearing finds By Harvard Zhang Published: July 14, 2016 3:16 p.m. ET WASHINGTON ? China is likely to fall into the same economic trap as Japan did to muddle along with sluggish growth as it hesitates to deal with the overcapacity and excess debt issues, economists told a Senate hearing Thursday. A further slowdown in the Chinese economy would affect the U.S. by denting the exports of China’s Asian and European trading partners and encouraging a flurry of global currency depreciation, witnesses told the Senate Banking Committee. “China’s...

h small manufacturing plants in the Gaza Strip shutting down one after the other and the bigger ones barely holding on against impossible odds, agriculture there is next in line for a resounding crash. Unlike other manufacturing sectors, the farmers’ economic downfall will have immediate and dire consequences for residents of the Gaza Strip. Even now, the UN’s Relief and Works Agency regularly supplies more than half the residents with sacks of flour, rice, sugar and oil. Fruits and vegetables grown locally make up an important part of their meager diets. The slow ruin of Gaza’s agricultural sector began about...

Louisiana and Oklahoma have declined a Russian request to send its diplomats to monitor polling stations on Election Day, according to letters from state officials provided to CNN. In turning down the request from the Russian consulate in Houston, Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler wrote that recent flooding had left his office extremely short-staffed trying to deal with the damage and prepare adequately for the vote on November 8.

Iraq’s parliament on Saturday voted to ban the sale, import and production of alcohol, in a surprise move likely to anger some minorities but also to please influential religious parties. Proponents of the ban argue that it is justified by the constitution, which prohibits any law contradicting Islam. But some opponents argue that it also violates the same constitution which guarantees the traditions of religious minorities.

Similar requests were denied by Oklahoma and LouisianaThe state of Texas has denied a request to have Russian officials be present at polling stations during the Nov. 8 general election, according to a letter obtained by NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. The Texas secretary of state's office said it received a letter from Russia's consulate general in Houston seeking to have one of its officers present at a voting precinct to study the "US experience in organization of voting process." Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos said no, adding that "only persons authorized by law may be inside of a polling location...

The New York Times on Thursday [April 2015] published an article about the Clinton Foundation, its receipt of millions of dollars from foreign governments and other interests, and the U.S. government's involvement in Russia's stated goal to expand its control of the world's uranium market. All while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. The NY Times didn't reach a conclusion, but one question looms very large: As Secretary of State, did Hillary influence an international deal giving a Russian company 20% ownership of America's uranium production, in return for millions of dollars of cash donations to the Clinton Foundation? Here...

The Middle East Forum has released its 2015-16 “Islamist Money In Politics” list, charting the top ten recipients of contributions from Islamic organizations — and Hillary Clinton is at the top of the list. According to the Middle East Forum, their list tracks political donations from “from individuals who subscribe to the same Islamic supremacism as Khomeini, Bin Laden, and ISIS.” Clinton has received a total of $41,165 from individuals that the Middle East Forum describes as “prominent Islamists,” including $19,249 from senior officials of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was declared a terrorist organization by the United...

The State Department’s second-ranking diplomat in Libya on the day that terrorists attacked the U.S. facilities in Benghazi and killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods says a key lesson Americans should take from that event is that officials in Washington, D.C. have a responsibility to make sure Americans serving their country abroad have the ability to protect themselves. “That did not happen in Benghazi,” says Gregory Hicks, who was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli on Sept. 11, 2012. […] Hicks told CNSNews.com that he and Stevens saw the move...

Drug smugglers and human traffickers “have a very effective intelligence gathering system” that is “much more effective than what we have in the U.S. government,” former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent A.J. Irwin said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington. The discussion highlighted recent statistics from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency showing a dramatic ten-fold increase in the number of illegal immigrants claiming asylum when they reach the U.S. border since 2009. Irwin said that smugglers quickly find out about changes in U.S. law or policy and then move...

The exhortation was made by Peoples’ Tribune, which is affiliated with party organ People’s Daily and came just ahead of a key meeting of top officials this week to lay the groundwork for the leadership reshuffle next year. The article, published on October 18, also echoed praise from senior politicians earlier this year, calling for Xi to be named “the core” of the party leadership – a term that carries strong political meaning. People’s Tribune said that modern China needed a strongman leader, and that President Xi Jinping had the qualities to make one. China needed a strongman politician so...

Hillary Clinton's lawyer may have allowed hackers to obtain all of the former secretary of state's emails by reviewing the contents of her private server on a laptop tied to Chinese cyberspies, a House Republican charged on Friday. Heather Samuelson was one of the Clinton aides who sifted through the private email server used during Clinton's tenure at the State Department, and helped decide which would be designated as personal messages and which were work-related. That's when the potential Chinese hacks may have taken place, because she used two laptops made by Lenovo, a company with ties to the Chinese...

Seven hundred and seventy million dollars. That’s right, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton conspired together to send nearly $1 billion to the Middle East to renovate mosques. https://youtu.be/SSkfFDbwNxs

PM Binali Yildirim said it might be necessary to take action because Iraq and the US had not kept their promises. He said both countries had allowed Shia militias and Kurdish separatists to take part in the operation. Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi on Saturday told the US that there was no need for Turkish forces as yet. Fighting on the sixth day of the offensive on Saturday was reported to be intense, as the Iraqi military seized more ground. ... Correspondents say Mr Abadi's refusal to countenance the prospect of Turkish involvement in the Mosul offensive could upset Turkish President...

At least two organisations working for the rights of Muslims have alleged their women are being forced to sign a form supporting ‘triple talaq’, even as a signature war erupted in the community in support and against the Islamic way of divorce. While the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has launched a nationwide drive to collect signatures of people “to save and protect Shariat Laws” --- related to marriage, divorce and inheritance, women’s rights groups have come up with a counter-campaign. The signature war comes against the backdrop of the Law Commission’s move to get feedback on the contentious...

After more than two and a half years Russia continues its illegal occupation of Crimea and its war in eastern Ukraine. As part of its unconditional support for Syrian dictator Basher al-Assad, it is indiscriminately bombing civilians in Aleppo—an action described by some as war crimes. And yet, some European countries continue to provide Russia with military support. Most notable among these is Spain. This member of both NATO and the EU has opened its ports to the Russian Navy. At least 25 Russian Navy vessels have refueled and resupplied at Spanish ports since Moscow invaded and annexed Crimea in...

Colombia's flagship airline has grounded all flights to Caracas after a mid-air intercept of one of its planes by Venezuela's air force. Avianca said that it's also rerouting several flights to Europe to avoid Venezuelan air space until further notice. ``We're waiting for them to guarantee the security conditions required to operate,'' Avianca spokeswoman Gilma Usuga told The Associated Press. The incident took place on a Bogota-bound flight that departed from Madrid. The Boeing 787 was flying at a high altitude near Venezuela's western border with Colombia when at 7:10 p.m. local time (00:10 GMT) on Friday another aircraft was...

Who paid Bill Clinton's $2.5 million commission and $500k speaking fee for brokering the sale of 20% of America's uranium deposits to Russia? You are speaking about a really interesting deal that ended up giving Vladimir Putin and the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, headed by none other than...

Hillary Clinton made it abundantly clear Wednesday night that if she defeats Donald J. Trump next month she will enter the White House with the most contentious relationship with Russia of any president in more than three decades, and with a visceral, personal animus toward Vladimir V. Putin, its leader. “We haven’t seen a you-can’t-trust-these-guys tone like this since the days of Ronald Reagan,” said Stephen Sestanovich, who served in President Bill Clinton’s State Department and is the author of “Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama.” “But even that was more a systemic criticism of the Soviet...

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court confirmed a 20-year prison sentence against former president Mohamed Mursi on Saturday, judicial sources told Reuters. The sentence was for a conviction arising from the killings of protesters during demonstrations in 2012. It is the first of Mursi's four convictions to reach the end of the judicial process, and he cannot appeal further against it. Twenty-year jail sentences were also confirmed against other senior figures from the then-ruling Muslim Brotherhood, including Mohamed el-Beltagy and Essam el-Erian. The men were convicted in April 2015 on charges including kidnapping, torture and the killings of protesters during...

In August 2016, Politico reported top Democrats held a conference call discussing damage control surrounding future releases from WikiLeaks, apparently deciding to collectively allege the leaks will include fabricated content. In a desperate and sloppy attempt to create a link between Russia and Donald Trump, Newsweek writer Kurt Eichenwald wrote an article titled “Dear Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, I am not Sidney Blumenthal.” The article claimed the publication Sputnik and Trump coordinated an attack on Hillary Clinton. In reality, Sputnik news editor and Georgetown graduate Bill Moran rushed to publish a story about a WikiLeaks email in which Clinton...