Free Republic

China has leapfrogged the US to become the world’s biggest trading nation, bringing an end to the US’s post-war dominance of global commerce. The total value of US exports and imports in 2012 was $3.82 trillion (£2.4 trillion), the US Commerce Department has revealed. China’s customs administration has already announced that the country’s total trade last year was worth $3.87 trillion. “It is remarkable that an economy that is only a fraction of the size of the US economy has a larger trading volume,” Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, told Bloomberg....

Four ex-SMRT bus drivers have been jailed in Singapore for their part in last November’s strike. Wang Xianjie, Gao Yue Qiang and Liu Xiangying were sentenced to six weeks in prison, while He Junling was sentenced to seven weeks. On top of organising and participating in the strike, he had also posted on social media network Baidu encouraging others to join in. All four had pleaded guilty in court. Choo Zheng Xi, lawyer for He Junling, presented a mitigation plea, saying, “It was never Jun Ling’s intention to startle or alarm the public, nor was it a calculated plan of...

As China enters the "Year of the Snake," Singapore stands as a beacon of sound currency in a world gone mad. China's renminbi remains pegged to the US dollar, while even steadfast Switzerland has followed the US, UK, EU, and Japan into an impoverishing strategy of currency debasement. Singapore, alone, has been able to sustain genuine economic growth in the context of a strong national currency. The Currency Snakes In most major economies, a corrective recession has become politically unacceptable. In order to conceal negative real economic growth, politicians and their central bankers have resorted to the irresponsible policy of...

In the wake of increased tension with Japan over disputed islands, China’s soldiers have been directed to be ready for a war in 2013 and also win it. Government Chinese media disclosed this in a report. The report also said the soldiers are being prepared to the best possible level and that they are being trained for the purpose. According to reports, in 2012, no such directive- of getting ready for a war and winning it- was given. The Chinese army has also been told to improve its activities and enhance information and intelligence gathering techniques. In 20th century, Japan...

President Barack Obama offered on Saturday to provide any assistance the Algerian government needs after a deadly hostage siege at a desert gas plant and said the United States was seeking a "fuller understanding" from Algerian authorities of what took place there. "The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria," Obama said in his first comments on the hostage crisis. Obama's written statement was issued by the White House after the Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a...

SINGAPORE -- While the U.S. unemployment rate "dropped" to 7.7 percent last month -- a figure even the Washington Post acknowledged was due "in large part because the labor force fell by 350,000" -- here in this modern and prosperous city-state of slightly more than 5 million people, unemployment is practically nonexistent at 1.9 percent. In part, this is due to a work ethic that seems to be in the genes here. But there is something else at work that should astound Washington politicians struggling with expensive "entitlement" programs and with those who receive them. The Economist wrote about it...

The most emotionless society is Singapore's despite its reputation for being among the world's richest, a new survey has revealed. Gallup looked at 150 countries where about 1,000 residents were asked whether they experienced five positive and five negative emotions a lot during the course of a day. The results were based on interviews taken over a three-year period. Questions included whether people felt well-rested or enjoyment, smiled and laughed or felt worry, sadness, stress or anger. The 36% in Singapore who reported feeling anything is the lowest in the world, the Washington-based research and analytics organization found. This figure...

A random South-East Asian girl steps up to a karaoke machine in a store in front of a grocery shop and sings Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You. She absolutely floors everyone

Nigeria's navy says it has rescued a Singapore-owned oil tanker hijacked by pirates on Tuesday night with 23 Indian sailors on board. A navy spokesman told the BBC the crew was safe, the hijackers had fled and the vessel, the Abu Dhabi Star, was being escorted into the port of Lagos. Earlier, the navy denied reports that the tanker was seized in the port. There has been a significant increase in the number of pirate attacks in parts of West Africa. The BBC's Will Ross in Lagos says unlike the piracy off the coast of Somalia where hostages are held...

Louie Huang, a Porsche-driving, millionaire Shanghainese, has stumped up the sizeable investment needed to buy himself residency rights in Singapore.... Meanwhile, Chinese entrepreneurs with at least half a million dollars to spare are being encouraged to invest in the US economy at a seminar in a plush office suite with a spectacular view of Shanghai. Their reward is a green card under the EB-5 visa scheme, as long as the investment can be shown to have created at least 10 jobs. In 2006 Chinese nationals were granted just 63 visas under the scheme. [T]his year it is already above the...

If you enjoy peering inside the minds of the world's super rich, take a spin through the 2012 "Wealth Report." Compiled by Citibank, and a property consultancy called Knight Frank, it's a lengthy analysis based partly on interviews with the super rich. (Definition: people with more than $25 million in investable assets.) Yes, the report contains musings on why yacht sales are down and the pros and cons of buying a sports franchise. But that's not the most interesting part. The study predicts that Singapore -- that little Southeast Asian city-state with loads of Type A zeal -- will be...

China recently declared that most of the 3.5 million square kilometers South China Sea had become Sansha, the latest Chinese city. The area China claims is within the city limits comprises over two million square kilometers of largely open ocean and a few hundred tiny islands and reefs, many of which are only above water during low tide. Sansha is administered from one of the Paracel islands (Woody Island). The U.S. government responded by asking that China obey international law. China currently claims South China Sea areas close to neighboring nations, except for areas about 22 kilometers from the coast....

Earlier this month, I decided to see how hard it would be to set up my own offshore bank account. I figured it would be pretty difficult, because I’m not rich and don’t have a team of tax lawyers to oversee my money and because the E.U. and U.S. governments have been cracking down on tax havens by imposing stricter tax-sharing requirements. So I proceeded with some caution. First, I Googled “company registration tax haven” and randomly picked three firms that set up accounts in offshore jurisdictions. Then I called each and explained that I was hoping to minimize my...

Rising debt and regulatory constraints continue to damage the reputations of the U.S. and Europe as business-friendly locales, but America's northern neighbor is doing the right things to encourage entrepreneurship with robust tax reform, strong investor protections and a lack of red tape. 1 Canada 3.1 39,400 -3.1 34.0 2 New Zealand 1.5 27,700 -2.3 4.3 3 Hong Kong 6.8 45,900 6.6 7.1 4 Ireland -1.0 37,300 -0.7 4.7 5 Denmark 2.1 36,600 5.5 5.5 6 Singapore 14.5 62,100 20.8 4.7 7 Sweden 5.5 39,100 6.3 9.1 8 Norway 0.4 54,600 12.9 4.7

The United States on Thursday exempted China and Singapore from sanctions over purchases of oil from Iran, hours before restrictions would have entered into force against their banks.

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – On the heels of the discovery of a 1991 publicity brochure stating Barack Obama was born in Kenya comes the unearthing of a 1990 Vanity Fair article stating Obama grew up in Singapore, not in Indonesia. In both instances, the question immediately arises: Who was the source of the information that contradicts Obama’s accepted narrative? In the case of the “born in Kenya” brochure, it’s almost certain that Obama was the source, -snip- Was Obama the source of the “raised in Singapore” statement in the Vanity Fair profile, or was it an error by the writer...

From a citizen: A relatively safe country as we have strict laws and practise a sensible approach to public liberty and freedom. One does not carry a knife with blade longer than 5cm or small arms in public. An assembly of more than five persons is also not legal. There has been no incidence of mass shootings, serial killing, etc. However do not take safety for granted ---it is better to go out at night with a partner and it is not recommended to go out drinking in sleazy spots after midnight.

Bankers have always been a worldly crew, and since Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship and moved to Singapore, we've thought that island deserved our attention. So we started digging and we found out that bankers are heading there in droves. In a recent Telegraph survey Singapore dominated a list of places that bankers said they wanted to work, with 27% of the vote it even beat out NYC. Boston Consulting Group recently named Singapore the country with the world's densest population of millionaires -- 17 percent of all households, to be exact. It's no surprise then that...

This horrifying footage serves as a reminder of the deadly potential of one of the world's fastest sports cars. Three people died when a Ferrari 599 GTO ploughed into the side of a taxi while speeding across a city centre junction in Singapore.

House Speaker John Boehner has become the latest politician to attack Facebook billionaire Eduardo Saverin for ditching his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying tax. Speaking on ABC's This Week, Mr Boehner labelled the move 'absolutely outrageous' and said he would support legislation to stop wealthy expats relocating to dodge tax. Mr Saverin, who pocketed more than $2billion when the social-networking site listed on the stock exchange on Friday, could avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxes after he relocated to Singapore.