Free Republic

The drug trade is expanding throughout the world as reported by Holly Ellyatt for CNBC: "according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and European crime-fighting agency Europol, the annual global drugs trade is worth around $435 billion a year, with the annual cocaine trade worth $84 billion." The United States has the most junkies per capita but drug consumption in Brazil, Argentina and other emerging markets is approaching America's degenerate levels. Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder and his Justice Department have decided to release more drug dealers from U.S. prisons many of whom no...

The former head of the National Security Agency said Sunday that not only does ending the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs seems unlikely, but he images those endeavors could expand in scope during the coming years. Former NSA chief Michael Hayden told television host Bob Schieffer of CBS’ Face the Nation over the weekend that the current program that collects the metadata of millions of American phone customers on a regular basis for the United States government could in the future perhaps be used to soak up even more statistics about US citizens. In early June, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden...

The construction of an advanced early missile warning radar will begin on Tuesday in central Russia to enhance the capabilities of the country's missile defenses, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. The new Voronezh-class radar will be built near the town of Orsk in the Orenburg region as part of the comprehensive missile early warning network to be completed in Russia by 2020, Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin told reporters on Monday. "In addition to the Orenburg radar, the preparations for construction of new-generation radars are underway in the Krasnoyarsk and the Altai regions," Zolotukhin said. The new assembly technology allows the construction...

Neo Con Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are now in Egypt with the approval of the Obama White House. Pretty much the first thing they did after hosting meetings with top officials in Cairo was to personally urge the Egyptian government to release Muslim Brotherhood prisoners. This would be the same Muslim Brotherhood that Representatives Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia have alleged poses a serious security threat to the United States if it is able to infiltrate and influence key leaders and...

A big economic slump has started in China as predicted. The rest of the world has came to know about it through none other than Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang. They disclosed to the world a steep rise in short-term interest rates, falling exports and a slump in the nation’s economic growth — undesirable facts and figures that those in power in Beijing would have concealed in the past. This is because the Xi-Li leadership has realized that the Chinese economy is in such dire straits that any further deterioration would cause a serious global impact....

“I used to think wearing even just lip balm was too feminine,” said Choi Jung-hwan, 24, as he pulled a tube of gloss from his bag and smeared it across his lips. He replaced the cap, smacked his lips together and smiled. “Primping has become a necessity for men,” he continued. “It’s a testament to how much a man would do to win over a girl.” Grooming is no longer just for women. Members of K-pop boy bands Infinite and BEAST are rarely seen on stage without a little eye shadow and liner. In a survey of 2,880 Clio makeup...

Few words strike greater fear in the hearts of economists and politicians than “Japanization.” That specter of chronic malaise, deflation and bad debt has driven central bankers from Ben S. Bernanke in the United States to Mario Draghi in Europe to flood markets with liquidity in an effort to avert their own lost decades. It should worry China, then, that experts on this dreaded scenario are turning their attention to Beijing. Take Brian Reading, whose quest to understand what the world can learn from Tokyo’s mess dates back to his prescient 1992