Free Republic

If Maryland has its way, an invasive enemy could become a nontraditional entree. Ten years after the northern snakehead was first caught in a local pond, the animal once dubbed “Frankenfish” has established a habitat and lived up to its reputation as an adaptable, aggressive and all-consuming predator. But unlike the protections afforded to the other mascots of Maryland’s waterways, the sacred blue crab and the beloved rockfish, environmental officials are encouraging area anglers to kill and cook as many of the scaly monsters as possible — a prospect local chefs say is surprisingly palatable. “The big difference between snakehead...

THE DOG LEAPT FOR JOY, scratching the corrugated steel with his front paws, tail wagging wildly. Then, remembering the protocol, the dog--mostly German shepherd, but maybe some lab thrown in--dutifully lowered itself to its haunches and stared fixedly at the steel container's doors. Looming above was the black hull of the container ship Cape May, berthed at the Port of Seattle's Harbor Island Terminal 18. A 1,500-ton orange crane continued to lift containers from the Cape May's deck and lower them to the dock. A small rain had made the pier shiny. When the trainer led the reluctant dog away,...

NEW YORK -- A Chinatown businesswoman who prosecutors described as one of the biggest "snakeheads'' of all time was sentenced to 35 years in prison Thursday for her role in organizing human smuggling schemes, including the doomed Golden Venture voyage in 1993. Cheng Chui Ping, 57, pleaded for more than an hour for a lenient sentence, saying she was but a simple, hardworking immigrant who loved America and had been terrorized by Chinatown gangs. U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey listened patiently, then dismissed the speech as ``simply incredible'' and gave Cheng the maximum penalty allowed by law. Evidence at the...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Families of eight Chinese labourers being held hostage by militants in Iraq have pleaded for their safe return before a threatened deadline to execute the men, all driven abroad by poverty. Iraqi insurgents on Tuesday threatened to kill the hostages within 48 hours if China, a critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, failed to explain why the workers were apparently building facilities for the Americans. Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged officials in Iraq to spare no effort to free the eight and expressed deep concern over their fate. The saga has been splashed over newspaper...

Want to go to England to seek your fortune? No passport? No visa? No problem. For 60,000 yuan ($7,250), snakehead Ah Shu can help. Sitting in a dingy beauty salon that is the front for a cheap brothel, Ah Shu and his friends say they help arrange trips each year for "dozens" of Chinese desperate to leave grinding poverty for a better life abroad. "Half now, half when you get there. That's the deal," he said in thickly accented Mandarin, referring to payment. "60,000 yuan -- that's my best offer." People have been leaving the rugged eastern coastal province of...

Amnesty, Guest Worker Program, Illegal Immigration Strange Times on the Border By John W. Slagle Since January, the Borders of the United States has become a war zone. Border Patrol Agents have been shot at by automatic weapons fire from Mexico. Rural residents have been assaulted, carjacked, homes invaded and still there is a push for 12 million more Mexican guests. Last week a video photographer who was escorted to Fresnal Canyon near Sasabe taped over 120 illegal aliens heading north from the border. The amount of fresh trash and load-up areas increases each day. On the 11th of March,...

Five millionaire gangsters have been identified as key figures in the illegal cockling industry that led to the deaths last week of 19 migrant workers in the dangerous waters of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. The gangsters, all British and based on Merseyside, are said to make tens of thousands of pounds a week profit by hiring hundreds of illegal Chinese immigrants on slave wages and making them work in unsafe conditions. Local people say the tragedy last Thursday night was an accident waiting to happen, and claim the gangmasters who took the workers on to the sands in the dark...

After traveling across the ocean for three months, 22 Asian immigrants were detained Friday by local police shortly after coming ashore in Rincon. Aguadilla police spokesman Juan Bautista Ayala said the 17 men and five women were taken into custody around 2 a.m. Friday after agents Wilfredo Vega and Jose Ventura spotted them while patrolling the area. Bautista Ayala said the detainees had apparently set out aboard a vessel from the Dominican Republic. The immigrants remained together after coming ashore and did not resist arrest. A Chinese businessman from Rincon was asked to serve as interpreter, Ayala said, and although...