Free Republic

China's economy in 2000 and early 2001 is performing moderately well. But it is still not performing well enough to provide the job growth needed to facilitate fast-paced market reforms. GDP growth is decidedly positive, even if the actual rate may be several percentage points lower than the officially reported figure. Price declines of recent years appear to be moderating. Budget deficits and national debt, however defined, remain manageable, and China's overall external position in foreign trade, foreign debt, foreign investment, and foreign reserves, is excellent. The economy's greatest asset is the government's determination to continue to promote GDP growth ...

This is from a Canadian Newspaper:America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator, What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record (circa 1973): "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possible the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in ...

Thomas Sowell    The magic word http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- PERHAPS Secretary of State Colin Powell's decision to pull the American delegation out of the so-called U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, will be just a footnote in history. But we can at least hope that it may be a turning point toward a future time when "racism" will no longer be a magic word used to gain money or political concessions. Within the United States, Jesse Jackson and others have repeatedly scared millions of dollars out of big corporations, just by threatening to use the magic word ...

This images was borrowed from www.fmsc.org, and I hope they don't mind us using it. We're not unsympathetic to thier needs. Here's the site It seems to me that we're not using the type of tactics they do... The left, the green groups, they all use "hardball" when they attack us. I think we should sling it right back. And this time, be truthful. Hope this fills the bill.

It will be very easy for you to say, "Well, I will do something, some day. When I can afford it, I am going to." But would you let an old "grad" tell you one thing now? Giving is a habit. Get into the habit now, because you will never be able to afford to give and contribute, thus to repay the obligation you owe to those people who made this college possible, if you wait until you think you can afford it. Start now regardless of how small, and in the days to come when you are confronted ...

OLUMBIA, S.C. — The parents, who are divorced, were cataloging their fears and frustrations over their 14-year-old son. He had a learning disability and a hyperactivity disorder. He was failing in school. He was depressed, given to fits of rage, and seemed to have no idea how to make friends. "His peer group doesn't want anything to do with him," said his father, a 53-year-old dentist. "His social skills are horrible. "He has no remorse," the father went on. "He stole $100 from me over Easter." The boy lives with his mother, who is 42 and has recently remarried. ...

Day of killings sparked by first Israeli Arab suicide bomber A middle-aged man from Galilee carried out the first suicide attack by an Arab citizen of the Jewish state yesterday, confronting Israel with the prospect of waging war against the enemy within on a day of bombings, drive-by shootings and helicopter gunship strikes. Seven people were killed in three separate attacks within the space of five hours, a rapid-fire sequence of events even by the standards of the year-old Palestinian uprising. In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up near the platform of an open- air railway station ...

BEIJING, Sept 10 (AFP) - China has asked Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) to set up an office on the mainland to assist business exchanges, in a further sign of warming between the communist authorities and their former civil war foes, a Chinese-based website reported Monday. Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen asked the Taiwanese party whether it wanted to open a "service centre" on Friday in talks with KMT legislator Chu Feng-chih, the Yangcheng Evening News said on its website. The move was aimed at providing business services for people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, said the paper, based in ...

<p>WASHINGTON — A Senate panel looking into health scams directed at senior citizens has subpoenaed an herbal-remedy executive pardoned by President Clinton to testify at a hearing today.</p> <p>Senate sources say the Senate Special Committee on Aging issued the subpoena to Almon Glenn Braswell, who operates a network of companies that investigators say make far-reaching health claims to push unproven and ineffective products by mail and Internet.</p>

<p>Four people were found dead of gunshot wounds in the Bernal Heights District of San Francisco.</p> <p>Police would only confirm they found a man, a woman and two girls dead, but would not confirm reports that the four found were a family, or their ages.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The advertisements addressed to gay men were provocative: Learn to write racy stories about your sexual encounters, choose toys "for solo and partner sex" or share tales of erotic experiences.</p> <p>All of it was done at government expense, in the name of preventing AIDS.</p>

Hutchison Whampoa is to finalise this week a US$1 billion container terminal investment in Xiamen in an effort to bolster its mainland portfolio. "Hutchison will sign the contract to build the No 1 berth in Haicang port anytime during the Fifth China International Fair for Investment and Trade," said Zhu Yayan, mayor of Xiamen and vice-governor of Fujian province. The fair is being held in Xiamen until Wednesday. Hutchison Ports Xiamen, 49 per cent-owned by Hutchison Whampoa, invested in two berths at Haicang, Xiamen's container port, in 1996. Despite a global and US economic downturn, Mr Zhu said Xiamen still ...

Four found shot to death in San Francisco home By Colleen Valles ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISCO -- Four people were found shot to death in a home in a well-kept neighborhood Sunday, police said. Police found the bodies of two adults and two girls in the single-family Bernal Heights home at 9:45 a.m. All four had been shot, Inspector Philip Fee said. Neighbor Marlo Contreras said the victims were Anna and Anthony Shami and their daughters, ages 9 and 15. No further information about the four was immediately available. Contreras, who lives across the street from the family's red-tiled home ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House played down a report on Sunday that President Bush (news - web sites) is leaning toward a cut in the capital gains tax rate to revive the ailing U.S. economy but it left the door open a crack. The Washington Post reported on Sunday the administration was edging toward supporting a cut in the tax on gains from the sale of investments like stocks, bonds and real estate as a way to perk up an economy that barely grew in the spring. But Jennifer Millerwise, a White House spokeswoman, said Bush remained optimistic that ...

US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill plans to raise China's punitive action against investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) when he meets officials in Beijing this week. Beijing has barred CSFB from the underwriting group for China Unicom's new share offering because the investment bank helped arrange meetings between Taiwan's finance minister and fund managers. The sharp response to CSFB has raised concerns Beijing is using its growing economic clout to pressure firms hoping to do business in the mainland. Asked whether he would discuss China's treatment of CSFB, Mr O'Neill told reporters: "One of the kinds of things we'll ...

In the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse, everybody knows the score: 24-1. There are 24 teammates, and there's Barry Bonds. There are 24 teammates who show up to pose for the team picture, and there's Bonds, who has blown it off for the last two years. There are 24 teammates who go out on the field before the game to stretch together, and there's Bonds, who usually stretches indoors with his own flex guy. There are 24 teammates who get on the players' bus at the hotel to go to the park, and there's Bonds, who gets on the bus ...

(CNSNews.com) - According to a Washington-based polling firm, more Americans identify themselves as conservatives rather than liberals. Pollster Kellyanne Conway, president of the Polling Company, believes that conservatism is playing a big role in this year's Virginia gubernatorial election. "There are two very heartening things I see in the polls for conservatives," Conway said during a speech Wednesday in Washington. "We still, in the ideological self description, find that more people including women, lower income households, union households, people who find social issues more important than economic issues, are by convincing margins, way outside the margin of error margins, call ...

Leading firms in Japan, Europe and the United States are reportedly preparing to have their units in China go public, possibly as soon as early next year. Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever and French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel had incorporated their units in China as joint stock companies in a step to list them on mainland markets, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. China plans to allow foreign companies to list on its fast-growing stock markets as it pushes ahead with efforts to join the World Trade Organisation. Beijing, to announce guidelines on the plan shortly, would initially accommodate only the ...

In the rat race to make more money, the rich pulled further ahead of the poor and middle classes in the Bay State through the 1990s, a study of income inequality released yesterday shows. The income gap between rich and poor increased across the country even as the nation's economy blasted upward on the strength of technology and worker productivity, The Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth reported. The findings didn't surprise some workers interviewed yesterday on the streets of downtown. ``It's the way the hierarchy is built,'' said Boston resident Ross Michaels, a cook. ``The rich stay rich and ...

The usual pattern in mid-term elections is for the president's party to lose seats. In fact, 1998 was the first time since the Great Depression that the president's party gained seats (the Democrats gained five). In 2002 it could happen again. The Democrats have the same advantage the minority party always has in mid-term elections. If the electorate is in a bad mood, most of the carnage will fall on the Republican side of the aisle. But there are other reasons to believe that the GOP will at least hold its own. First, the Democrats picked up seats in 1996, ...