Free Republic

The heartless crackdown – spearheaded by the paranoid Glorious Leader himself – is leading to imprisonment, torture and even execution by firing squad. The news comes as it’s revealed more and more people are now turning to traditional religions like Buddhism and Christianity – rather than follow the so-called Cult of the Kims. Among those are tens of thousands who have refused to sign up with the army. The report said: “The number of conscientious objectors refusing military service for non religious reasons is also on the rise, according to local NGOs, lawyers, and religious groups.”

China says its bullet train technology was stolen, days after US trade probe move Officials urged to do more to protect intellectual property in commentary published two days after US announcement PUBLISHED : Thursday, 17 August, 2017, 8:32am UPDATED : Thursday, 17 August, 2017, 8:32am Beijing has apparently hit back at US plans to investigate intellectual property violations by China, with officials urged to do more to protect bullet train technology from theft. The call came in a commentary published in the official Procuratorial Daily on Wednesday, two days after it was announced that US President Donald Trump would authorise...

ONE Nation leader Pauline Hanson has turned up to Parliament wearing a full burqa. Pictures from the Senate on Thursday afternoon show Ms Hanson calmly taking her place in the chamber wearing the full body covering. The noted critic of Islam reportedly identified herself to security before entering the chamber. Gasps of “what on earth?” could be heard from the Senate as she sat down. Attorney General George Brandis looked bemused by the spectacle. In a statement on her Facebook page the Senator she had attended Question Time “dressed modestly in a full burqa” and will later deliver a speech...

Former CIA director John Brennan blasted Donald Trump over statements the president made at Tuesday’s defiant, impromptu news conference in New York at which he spoke at length about the violence that followed a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Brennan wrote a letter to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer with his impressions of Trump’s performance, the network said, in which he took issue with the president’s “ugly” and “dangerous” rhetoric.... ... Brennan said he was especially troubled by the message Trump’s remarks had sent to the families of those who had suffered under Nazism, and called the president’s moral relativist version...

Early this month, the state government in Jharkhand, northern India, introduced a new Freedom of Religion Bill. At first glance, the name of this bill suggests an important step forward in human rights for India, but it’s actually the opposite. The bill is a cleverly disguised anti-conversion law, and it’s not the first to be introduced in the country. Despite the fact that the Indian constitution clearly defines and protects the freedom to practice and propagate religion, radical members of both national parties — Congress and the BJP — have already managed to pass anti-conversion laws in the states of...

Supermarket Coop makes leap after law change allows sale of grasshoppers, crickets and mealworms for human consumption Switzerland’s second-largest supermarket chain will begin selling insect burgers for human consumption after the country’s food safety laws were revised. Coop said insect-based produce such as the flour burgers and balls of protein-rich mealworm would go on sale next week. The products, made by a Swiss start-up called Essento, will be available in a handful of Coop branches, including in Geneva, Bern and Zurich, from 21 August, according to a statement. Switzerland is the first European country to authorise the sale of insect-based...

North Korea’s success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory with historical ties to Russia’s missile program, according to an expert analysis being published Monday and classified assessments by American intelligence agencies. The studies may solve the mystery of how North Korea began succeeding so suddenly after a string of fiery missile failures, some of which may have been caused by American sabotage of its supply chains and cyberattacks on its launches. After those failures, the North changed...

A Tomahawk cruise missile hits a moving maritime target Jan. 27, 2015 after being launched from the USS Kidd (DDG-100) near San Nicolas Island in California. US Navy Photo TUCSON, ARIZ. — The Navy and Raytheon are close to signing a deal to integrate a new sensor into the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile to allow the missile to attack moving targets at sea, the head of the Navy’s Tomahawk program told USNI News on Tuesday. Once the deal is complete, Raytheon will start work to craft and install a sensor to convert a yet-to-be-determined number of Block IV TLAMs into...

Project 677 Lada-class diesel-electric attack submarines will lack air-independent propulsion systems (AIP) for the foreseeable future, the head of Russian-state owned Admiralty Shipyards, Alexander Buzakov, revealed in a recent interview with Russian media this month. Buzakov confirmed that the third and fourth boat of the class will operate without AIP. AIP vastly improves the underwater endurance of a submarine by allowing it to operate its propulsion system without access to atmospheric oxygen. Given that there is less need for AIP subs to surface or use a snorkel to charge their batteries, the stealth capability of any boat fitted with this...

She is the £3billion behemoth charged with leading the Royal Navy into the future - and she dwarfs all those who have done the job before her. Much is expected of the 65,000 tonne, 920ft-long HMS Queen Elizabeth when she eventually enters service as Britain's flagship aircraft carrier in 2020. And she arrived at her new home of Portsmouth today to much fanfare as thousands came out to give her a proper British welcome. Known as 'Big Lizzie', she is the biggest and most powerful ship ever built by Britain and is far superior to previous leading naval vessels. The...

Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, served a federal search warrant related to sex trafficking of minors in West Oakland Wednesday morning, according to police. The operation began around 6:30 a.m. in the 700 block of 27th Street near West Street. Law enforcement officers were at the scene for hours. "HSI is conducting a criminal investigation, not a civil immigration or deportation action," Oakland police spokeswoman Officer Johnna Watson said in a statement. (Snip) The activist organization By Any Means Necessary is calling for an emergency protest this evening near the scene of the...

The Islamist Felicity Party (Turkish: Saadet Partisi) organized the “Great Jerusalem demonstration” on July 30 in Istanbul. This event attended by thousands of people who condemned Israel following the recent incidents on the Temple Mount.The demo quickly turned into an anti-Israel and anti-Jew hate fest in which several Islamic activists delivered harsh speeches against the Jewish State. Mustafa Koylu, the head of the Cansuyu Association, said, “You have to do one thing so that those who do not see Turkey as a man and as a state will think once again. Open Hagia Sophia to [Muslim] worship! Open it! If...

The first round of negotiations on a new North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) kicked off Wednesday in Washington.

“The Rotherham MP wrote in the Sun on Friday that ‘Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.’ She has now apologised for her ‘extremely poor choice of words’ and quit as shadow equalities minister.” Why? What was false about what she said? She would come closer to the truth if she had said that “Britain has a problem with Muslim men raping and exploiting non-Muslim girls,” as this is not a racial issue at its core, but the treatment of it as a racial issue is near-universal in Britain. The Labour Party, like all...

HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. Coast Guard and military crews are searching the ocean off Hawaii for five people aboard an Army helicopter that went down during a training exercise, authorities said Wednesday. Officials at Wheeler Army Airfield near Honolulu reported losing communications around 10 p.m. Tuesday with the crew of a UH-60 Black Hawk, the Coast Guard said in a news release. Responding teams spotted a debris field about 2 miles (3 kilometers) west of Kaena Point, Oahu.

Venezuelans who express "hate or intolerance" will be jailed for up to 25 years under a bill pending in the country's newly-formed constituent assembly, a measure the opposition fears will be used by the government to further crack down on dissent. President Nicolas Maduro has faced a cacophony of international criticism - from the United Nations to Pope Francis - since he installed the 545-member assembly stacked with Socialist Party allies earlier this month. The president defends the new legislative superbody as Venezuela's only hope for peace and prosperity. Local rights group Penal Forum estimated that Maduro's government was holding...

WILLMAR, Minn. — The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations wants a Willmar man charged with a hate crime after an incident at a farmer's market last weekend. Willmar police were called to the farmer's market about 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 12, on a report that an individual had allegedly been cursing at a young adult male Somali-American selling vegetables at a stand. According to law enforcement reports, he then threw a pig's foot at the Somali. The Willmar Police Department identified the man as Joseph Fernkes, 61, of Willmar. CAIR-MN now wants Fernkes charged with a hate...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley is demanding plaintiffs of three separate lawsuits filed against President Trump, who claim the president violated an obscure Constitutional provision known as the Emoluments Clause, should also consider investigating violations allegedly committed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, since the basis of their lawsuits also implicate the former presidential candidate. The clause prohibits any person holding office from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments without the consent of Congress and the chairman says the overwhelming evidence against Clinton should be made part of the ongoing lawsuits, which he says are both "partisan...

Nine Central American immigrants sat at a table in their dormitory at the troubled Adelanto Detention Facility and asked an officer to deliver a list of their demands to higher-ups. The officer at the for-profit facility in Adelanto, California, in the high desert, north of San Bernardino, refused and ordered them to return to their bunks for an inmate count. Instead, the men linked arms and refused to budge. “We wanted to be heard,” said Josue Lemus Campos, 24, from El Salvador. He said he and his fellow protesters had been quiet and peaceful during their June protest. But when...

China has got to fix its debt problem, the IMF says The IMF issued its annual review of China, revising its growth forecast to 6.7 percent for 2017, from 6.2 percent But Beijing, the IMF said, needs to address its growing debt problem Sophia Yan Published 10 Hours Ago | Updated 2 Hours Ago China's economy is looking good enough that the International Monetary Fund is raising its outlook, but the organization is doing so with a strong warning over growing debt in the world's second-largest economy. The IMF issued its annual review of China on Tuesday, and has revised...