Free Republic

Detroit’s 60-year deterioration has taken a toll not just on business owners, investors and taxpayers. It’s meant misery for its most vulnerable: children and the women who bear them. While infant mortality fell for decades across the U.S., progress bypassed Detroit, which in 2012 saw a greater proportion of babies die before their first birthdays than any American city, a rate higher than in China, Mexico and Thailand. Pregnancy-related deaths helped put Michigan’s maternal mortality rate in the bottom fifth among states. One in three pregnancies in the city is terminated. Women are integral to the city’s recovery. While officials...

Development programs run by the World Bank and other multilateral agencies regularly fail because they rely on government aid rather than the free market, New York University economist William Easterly said recently at the Cato Institute. william easterly For example, Easterly recounted, in a World Bank-backed forestry program in Uganda, farmers were forcibly removed from their farms and relocated to cities. He said, “The result of this, this is the tyranny of experts at its most extreme.” Similarly, experts cannot shake their belief that somewhere there is a “benevolent autocrat” they can assist. Easterly noted that in Ethiopia under former...

People are taking photos and videos of themselves kissing camels in defiance of a warning from Saudi health authorities not to go near the animals, which have been linked to the deadly Mers virus. In recent days, Saudi Arabia has urged people to wear masks and gloves when dealing with camels, to stay away from raw camel meat and camel milk, and not to go near sick animals, the newspaper Gulf News reports. But some people have refused to listen to the government's advice, posting videos and sending messages in support of camels. In one video, a man stands between...

But where will this Soldier of Allah go? Denmark has a population of less than 6 million. Imagine how much the United States could save if it stopped importing welfare cases. (via Religion of Peace) Denmark’s strict immigration laws have saved the country billions in benefits, a government report has claimed. The Integration Ministry report has now led to calls among right-wing populists to clamp down further on immigrants to increase the savings.The extremely strict laws have dramatically reduced the flow of people into Denmark in recent years, and many government figures are delighted with the outcome. “Now that...

Just a few weeks ago, 11-month-old Shaista was pulling herself up, giggling as she took her first wobbly steps with the helping hand of her teenage mother. Then the polio virus struck and Shaista was no longer able to stand, her legs buckling beneath her weight. Today, her mother cries a lot and wonders what will become of her daughter in Pakistan’s male-dominated society, where a woman’s value is often measured by the quality of her husband. […] Fresh cases of polio—traced through genetic sequencing to the Pakistani strain of the disease—are showing up in countries that were previously polio-free,...

One of the favorite pastimes of liberalism is to try to inflict guilt on people of European descent for being part of a lineage that they believe, in the words of Bill Ayers at the Dartmouth Debate with Dinesh D'Souza, "murdered" the American Indians by way of contagious disease. Calling it the "European Invasion," liberals believe that prior to Christopher Columbus' arrival American Indians were virtually disease-free.  Never mind that syphilis, which originated in the New World, was brought back to Europe, where spirochete bacterium was not present until after Columbus and his fellow discoverers returned in 1493. The...

<p>Police in the Philippines abused suspected criminals with a 'wheel of torture' game, according to human rights groups.</p>

The combined wealth of the world’s richest 85 people is now equivalent to that owned by half of the world’s population—or 3.5 billion of the poorest people—according to a new report from Oxfam. In a report titled “Working for the Few” released Monday, the global aid and development organization detailed the extent of global economic inequality created by the rapidly increasing wealth of the richest, warning of the major risks it poses to “human progress.” […] Oxfam said that based on its polls conducted across the world, it is believed that there are many laws and regulations designed to benefit...

No word on how much money was spent helping the Third World fight ghosts, a problem that like Global Warming doesn’t exist, but is much more entertaining. Just compare The Day After Tomorrow to Paranormal Activity. American taxpayers spent $7.45 billion to help developing countries cope with climate change in fiscal years 2010 through 2012, according to a federal government report submitted to the United Nations on a subject that Secretary of State John Kerry described as “a truly life-and-death challenge.”That sum of $7.45 billion, which reached more than 120 countries through bilateral and multilateral channels, met President Obama’s...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Under a reforming president, the Philippines emerged as a rising economic star in Asia but the trail of death and destruction left by Typhoon Haiyan has highlighted a key weakness: fragile and patchy infrastructure after decades of neglect and corruption. Authorities fear that the storm that tore through Leyte province in the country's east has killed thousands. More than 600,000 people have been displaced. Low rates of insurance in the Philippines mean the disaster is likely to sap government finances but analysts say it might not slow growth significantly because of the small role the affected region plays in the...

Back in March, at an insurance industry conference in Washington, the problems were apparent. Henry Chao, chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, openly fretted that the exchanges wouldn’t be ready by October. “I’m pretty nervous—I don’t know about you,” he told the crowd. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.” At the time, Chao’s comment seemed like an attempt at dark humor. One week into the launch of Obamacare, however, it’s not a joke: It’s literally easier to blog from the Kenyan border than to sign up for insurance on Obamacare’s federal exchange....

Mexico City And Washington, D.C., Are About Equally Safe Mexico’s travel industry has been hurting, as crime waves have swept the country and scared tourists away. But is traveling in Mexico any less safe than traveling in the United States? It depends on where you go and what you do, of course. But if you compare tourist destinations in both places, you might conclude you’re better off heading to Mexico. Take Orlando, Florida, home of Disney World. There were 7.5 murders per 100,000 residents there in 2010. Cancun, on the other hand, saw 1.83 murders per 100,000 residents, and...

There's little good news in a report on American life expectancy from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. We'll begin with the silver lining: Between 1985 and 2010, life expectancy in the U.S. climbed from 78 to 80.9 years for females and from 71 to 76.3 for men.But this is no cause for celebration.Dig into the numbers of the report and two troubling trends become apparent. One: Compared with the rest of the industrialized world (OECD countries), America is falling behind. "These improvements are much less than what countries of similar income per capita...

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): "So in the span of four days, [there were] three major revelations about the use of government power to intimidate those who are doing things that the government doesn’t like. These are the tactics of the third world.

Chinese businessman sells canned air to smog-choked citizens Recently, we told you about the horrendous air pollution problems in Beijing that have forced the Chinese government to advise citizens to stay indoors and has residents wearing facemasks in an attempt to protect their lungs from the smog. In the true spirit of Chinese entrepreneurialism, a Chinese businessman has decided to cash in on the "airpocalypse" by selling his own brand of canned air. Chen Guangbiao, a local entrepreneur known for his publicity stunts, claims he's selling the cans of air in part as a way to bring attention to the...

Unemployment is rampant, and that’s just for starters in a country wracked by domestic violence, immigrant abuse, and a sorry standard of living. taly may be rich in cultural heritage and boast the seventh largest economy in the world, but the country’s social statistics are more in line with those of a developing third-world nation. By almost every standard of measure in sectors from women’s rights and youth employment, Italy scores far below the mark. The country has been weighted down by recession, but money is not entirely to blame. In fact, Italy’s economic situation has steadily improved under the...

Africa boasts more cellphone users than all of North America The silver lining of being a developing continent is that you can skip entire stages of technological progress, like going directly from no phones to cellphones without suffering through land lines in between. Africa, for example, now has more mobile subscribers than the United States or Europe, and that means big things for African economies. Like we've mentioned before, beyond its wild growth, the African cellular telecommunications market is a hotbed of innovation. Areas like telemedicine and cellphone-based money-transfer schemes don't just make life easier, they help people live healthier...

A majority of Puerto Ricans voted to change their ties with the United States and become the 51st U.S. state yesterday in a non-binding referendum that would require final approval from Congress. The two-part referendum asked whether the island wanted to change its 114-year relationship with the United States and nearly 54 percent sought to change it, while 46 percent favored the status quo with ninety-six percent of precincts reporting. The second question asked voters to choose from three options, with statehood by far the favorite, garnering 61 percent. Sovereign free association, which would have allowed for more autonomy, received...

Shouting matches and even physical fights break out each time a minibus pulls up to drop off passengers at a crowded bus stop in downtown Harare. It's all about not getting short-changed. Hyperinflation forced Zimbabwe to trash its worthless local currency three years ago in a move that brought much needed relief to the crippled economy but created a surprising new headache: a lack of coins. "Change is a big problem, and at the same time passengers are impatient with us. I have been slapped a few times for not having change for them," said a bus conductor Walter Chakawata....

By Mr. Curmudgeon:Remember President Lyndon B. Johnson's "war on poverty"? In a 1964 speech before a joint-session of Congress, Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America," urging "Congress and all Americans" to join him "in that effort."Johnson insisted his escalated war - on poverty, not in Vietnam - would turn "one thousand dollars invested in salvaging an unemployable youth" into "$40,000 or more in his lifetime." He further stated that for the program to work required massive social programs "organized at the State and the local level ... supported and directed by State and local efforts.""For my part," said...