Free Republic

“Trade Compliance” is a subset of regulatory compliance, focused primarily on export controls and the Customs rules concerning importing and duty assessment. Outside of the occasional discovery of illegal Chinese copies of branded gym shoes, or the even rarer news story about a company caught selling technology to the Iranians or North Koreans, this specialty rarely makes the mainstream news. An exception occurred as April, 2024 came to an end: the Federal Trade Commission announced a record fine against an American retail chain, Williams-Sonoma, and its subsidiaries (including Rejuvenation, Goldtouch, and the Pottery Barn family), for violations of the FTC’s...

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had his helmet shattered on a hit from Miami Dolphins safety DeShon Elliott during Saturday night's frigid AFC wild-card playoff game. The Chiefs still won 26-7. With a game-time temperature of minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit, the game was the fourth-coldest in NFL history, and it was unclear whether the temperature made the shell of Mahomes' helmet more brittle than usual. Regardless, the reigning league MVP was left with a fist-sized chunk of plastic missing from just above his left eye after the clash of helmets on a 13-yard scramble deep in Dolphins territory. Rarely do...

The latest offering from Buick is the 2024 Envista, a stylish and roomy alternative to traditional boxy SUVs that offers a swoopier roofline much like more expensive alternatives from upscale German brands. With its sleek profile, seating for five and the practicality of a hatchback design, the subcompact Envista also happens to be Buick’s cheapest model for the 2024 model year — even though it’s about a foot longer than Buick’s other subcompact SUV, the boxier Encore GX. What you don’t get, however, are the availability of all-wheel drive or any powertrain options other than the standard turbocharged 1.2-liter three-cylinder...

Pope Francis praised the International Catholic Media Consortium on COVID-19 Vaccines, funded by Google and linked to George Soros and Bill Gates, for its work fighting 'misleading' information on COVID jabs.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis on Friday met with the International Catholic fact-checking group catholic-factchecking.com, which promotes abortion-tainted injections and is linked to Bill Gates and George Soros, thanking them for combating “fake news and the manipulation of the consciences of the weakest.” The morning of January 28, Pope Francis met with members of the International Catholic Media Consortium on COVID-19 Vaccines, or “Catholic fact-checking,” in the Vatican’s Clementine...

Chinese electric vehicle brand Nio has debuted a new mid-size family sedan with a battery option for all-day driving. The ET5 can be specified with an "ultra long range" pack that delivers up to 1,000 km of driving – although all might not be as it seems. The ET5 will be a sprightly drive, with peaks of 360 kW (483 horsepower) and 700 Nm (516 lb-ft) through a two-motor AWD system. It'll hit 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.3 seconds from a standing start, which will handily see off most combustion cars at the lights. It's got a tidy cabin,...

The Chinese Communists had promised the world a safe, effective vaccine to combat the coronavirus pandemic. Before their vaccines had even hit the market, they were selling millions of doses to countries such as Mongolia, Bahrain, and Chile. They loaned a billion dollars to Latin America so countries there could afford the shots. They gave 100,000 doses to tiny, impoverished Bangladesh.All of this was to build goodwill and improve strained relations that China had damaged so much in recent years. Indonesia — which never counted itself a “friend” of China — was being given vaccine doses when most of the...

Evidence shows more than half of the 10 most severely affected countries by the CCP virus in the world have used Chinese vaccines.Our World in Data, an online database created by the UK’s Oxford University, provides data on the number of infections per day per 1 million people.As of June 16, the top 10 hard-hit countries and their relevant figures were: Seychelles (1,690), Uruguay (827), Mongolia (729), Colombia (551), Maldives (508), Bahrain (506), Argentina (506), Suriname (437), Kuwait (365), and Chile (342).In Seychelles, 57 percent of its vaccines are from China’s Sinopharm for the 18 to 60 age group, the...

Alluding to recent reports that more than 350 doctors and medical workers in Indonesia were infected with COVID-19 despite being vaccinated with CoronaVac, Associate Professor Mak noted, "It's not a problem associated with Pfizer. This is actually a problem associated with the Sinovac vaccine, and in other countries, they are now starting to think about booster vaccinations, even six months out from an original vaccination for some of these vaccines as well. "So it does give the impression that the efficacy of different vaccines will vary quite significantly," said Prof Mak, stressing that Singapore has "great confidence" in the Pfizer-BioNTech...

More than 350 Indonesian doctors and healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19 despite being vaccinated with Sinovac and dozens have been hospitalised, officials said, as concerns rise about the efficacy of some vaccines against more virulent virus variants. Most were asymptomatic and self-isolating at home, said Badai Ismoyo, head of the Kudus district health office in Central Java, but dozens were in hospital with high fevers and declining oxygen saturation levels. Kudus is battling an outbreak believed to be driven by the more transmissible Delta variant which has pushed bed occupancy rates above 90% in the district. Designated as a priority...

SANTIAGO, June 10 (Reuters) - Chilean health authorities announced a blanket lockdown across the capital Santiago on Thursday following some of the worst COVID-19 case numbers since the pandemic began, despite having fully vaccinated more than half its population. The development, which will alarm authorities elsewhere who are debating how fast to reopen as vaccination campaigns gather steam, comes as Chile's confirmed daily caseload surged 17% in the past two weeks nationwide and 25% in the Metropolitan region that includes Santiago and is home to half the country's population. Intensive care beds in the capital region are now at 98%...

The sales volume of ‘Made in China’ BeiDou chips has exceeded 100 million and related products have been exported to more than 120 countries and regions, according to China’s official report, which also said BeiDou’s role in countering U.S. rival GPS, as well as its significance for China’s national defense strategy, is “beyond description.”

Outdoor clothing company Patagonia announced on Monday that it would donate $1 million to multiple voting rights groups in Georgia in direct response to the restrictive voting legislation that recently passed in the state. In a press release, Patagonia celebrated the record amount of voter turnout seen in the 2020 election, reiterating the assessment made by many voting officials that they were "safe, secure elections." "But instead of celebrating democracy in action, a group of lawmakers in Georgia and states across America are doing everything in their power to make it harder for their constituents to vote," Patagonia CEO Ryan...

Sunbeam Products is recalling almost a million crockpots sold by retailers including Amazon, Target and Walmart after roughly 100 consumers were burned — some seriously — when the lids blew off in use, spewing hot food and liquid. The recalled Crock-Pot multi-cooker can pressurize when the lid is not fully locked, causing the lid to suddenly come off in use, posing burn risks to consumers from spewing hot food and liquids, according to a notice posted by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. Sunbeam has received 119 reports of lids detaching, resulting in 99 injuries ranging in severity from first-degree...

Amazon India will reportedly abide by new government requirements that all its products indicate where they were manufactured, reports indicated on Wednesday, a policy implemented following the surge of a national movement to boycott Chinese products.Indian activists organized boycott campaigns, protests, and burnings of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in effigy after a clash last month in which Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers attacked Indian troops with rocks and sticks wrapped in barbed wire. The Indian soldiers had confronted the Chinese about their illegal presence in Chinese territory. Indian authorities confirmed the deaths of 20 soldiers, while the Chinese Communist...

Now that the number of new people infected with the coronavirus in China is slowing, the country's Communist Party is ratcheting up threats against the West, with a particularly nasty warning about access to life-saving drugs aimed at the United States. In an article in Xinhua, the state-run media agency that's largely considered the mouthpiece of the party, Beijing bragged about its handling of COVID-19, a virus that originated in Wuhan and has spread quickly around the world, killing nearly 5,000 people and infecting thousands more. The article also claimed that China could impose pharmaceutical export controls which would plunge...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) will start operations at its 737 completion plant in China next month and Air China (601111.SS) (0753.HK) will take delivery of the first plane produced there, the U.S. planemaker said on Friday. Boeing invested $33 million last year in a joint venture with the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) to oversee the plant, taking a majority stake. The plant, in the eastern city of Zhoushan, will install interiors and paint liveries. Boeing’s comments were first reported by Chinese media outlets on Friday after a media visit to the plant, and confirmed by a...

Thousands of people living near Sydney's Olympic Park are facing an uncertain Christmas Eve after residents of a newly opened apartment building reported unsettling noises, generating fears of a possible collapse and prompting evacuations Monday. Emergency responders were called to the Opal Tower on the city's west side across the street from the site of the 2000 Sydney Olympics after residents reported hearing "cracking noises" during the morning, New South Wales Police said in a statement.

Xi, believing in the primacy of the Party and the power of the state, has marched China back to something resembling the systems created and maintained by Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. Xi has, for instance, been busy recombining already large state enterprises back into dominant market players and, in a few cases, formal state monopolies. He has increased state subsidies to favored participants and has placed a new emphasis on industrial policy, like his notorious Made in China 2025 initiative that seeks self-sufficiency in crucial sectors. He has tightened already strict capital controls, often enforcing unannounced rules. Moreover, Xi...

Was the presidential portrait of Barack Obama made in China? Sources say artist Kehinde Wiley — who painted the former president before a background of greenery and flowers — has studios in China and produces most of his work there. “It’s his base of operation,” said art critic Charlie Finch, who has known Wiley and appreciated his talent since they were students at Yale. “He has dozens of assistants working for him.” While Obama sat for Wiley for several hours, the portrait may have been sent to China to be completed. “Normally, Wiley sketches out the important parts, and assistants...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the Port of San Francisco destroyed numerous illegal containers imported into the U.S from China. These containers contained rat meat! The strange thing about this is the plan this rat meat to be sold as chicken meat. The idea was the nasty meat to be shipped to different points in several states, and to be sold as chicken. The FDA states that there is a possibility of another 300,000 lbs. of this meat being offered in groceries and restaurants across the U.S. The FDA inspector, Ronal Jones, claims that if cooked completely, this...