Free Republic

President Trump announced Wednesday that US negotiators have reached a tentative trade deal with Vietnam – America’s seventh-largest trade partner and a major manufacturing hub. “It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam after speaking with To Lam, the Highly Respected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It will be a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries. The Terms are that Vietnam will pay the United States a 20% Tariff on any and all goods sent into our...

Kyrgyzstan has taken down a huge statue of the revolutionary Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, which was thought to be the tallest in Central Asia. First erected when Kyrgyzstan was part of the Soviet Union, the 23m-tall monument towered over the city of Osh for 50 years before it was quietly removed this week. Photos emerged on Saturday showing the communist revolutionary - who features prominently in Soviet iconography - lying on his back on the ground, having been lowered by crane. A statement from City Hall in Osh - the landlocked nation's second-largest city after the capital, Bishkek - said...

A centuries-old tomb uncovered in China reveals a stunning discovery that challenges everything we know about the Tang dynasty. Among the vibrant murals, a mysterious foreign figure stands out. A Panoramic View Of The Tomb. Photo courtesy of Jinyang Ancient City Research Institute | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel ========================================================================= In 2018, construction work on a road in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in northern China, led to an unexpected archaeological discovery. Researchers uncovered a tomb from the Tang dynasty, dated to the year 736 AD, that contained detailed murals illustrating everyday life during that period. The tomb...

A monitor lizard was seen feeding on the remains of a newborn baby in Thailand, alarming villagers in the Bang Phli district on Tuesday (May 13), according to Thai media. Bangkaew Police Station officers received a report from residents at around 12.30pm that day and discovered the monitor lizard with the human remains in its mouth near a body of water along Soi King Kaew 28, Samut Prakan Province, located in the outskirts of Bangkok. According to witnesses who spoke with PPTV36, residents were resting in their homes when they heard movement outside. Upon leaving their homes to take a...

Harvard rules left Blackwill with little option S Rajagopalan Washington, April 22 US Ambassador Robert Blackwill would have had to be back at Harvard by August if he did not wish to say good-bye to his teaching job at the institution. Under Harvard's rigid rules, a faculty member can't be away for more than two years. Blackwill's leave of absence expires in July. The Ambassador knew well that he had to make a choice soon enough between his high-profile but challenging New Delhi posting and the relatively laidback yet prestigious teaching assignment. The fact that he was not on...

New Delhi: A genetic study has found that Indians are the ancestors of the Chinese and other East Asian populations. The study, a joint project of 10 Asian countries, found that India received a wave of migration from Africa 60,000-70,000 years ago and these early humans subsequently moved to East and Southeast Asia. The earlier belief was that humans from Africa reached India and East and Southeast Asia separately. The study has important implications, especially in the understanding of human migratory patterns and in the investigation of genetics and disease. The findings of the five-year study -- conducted by a...

Three men have been arrested in Japan for attempting to smuggle hermit crabs out of the country. The suspects, aged 24, 26 and 27, and widely identified in Japanese media as being Chinese nationals, were detained on Amami, a southerly island where the spiral-shelled crustaceans are a protected species. Authorities were alerted to the men's live cargo when hotel staff, who had been asked to look after their luggage, noticed the suitcases making a "rustling noise", police told local media. Officers subsequently discovered "thousands" of hermit crabs, weighing around 95kg. The third man was found to have a further 65kg...

Workers throughout China are flooding the streets in revolt as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs slam the fragile Chinese export economy. From the cramped streets of Sichuan in the southwest to the cold outskirts of Inner Mongolia in the northeast, furious workers are demanding back pay and protesting mass layoffs as factories shutter under pressure from Trump’s tariffs. Outside a LED light manufacturing plant near Shanghai, thousands of unpaid workers shouted furiously at company managers over wages that haven’t been paid since January. In central China’s Dao County, a similar scene unfolded outside a sporting goods store after the company...

... They're masking IPs, exporting laptop farms to America so they can connect into those machines and appear to be working from the USA, and they are using AI – but there's a question during job interviews that never fails to catch them out and forces them to drop out of the recruitment process. "My favorite interview question, because we've interviewed quite a few of these folks, is something to the effect of 'How fat is Kim Jong Un?' They terminate the call instantly, because it's not worth it to say something negative about that," he told a panel session...

China has created a list of US-made products that would be exempted from its 125 per cent tariffs and is quietly notifying companies about the policy, two people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to ease the impact of its trade war with Washington. China has already granted tariff exemptions on select products, including select pharmaceuticals, microchips and aircraft engines and was asking firms to identify critical goods they need levy-free, Reuters reported on Friday (Apr 25). However, the existence of a so-called 'whitelist' had not been previously reported. The quiet approach allows Beijing, which has repeatedly said...

The two men had entered Kenya on a tourist visa and were staying in a guest house in the western town of Naivasha. Their lawyer said that her clients did not know what they were doing was illegal. Two Belgian teenagers who were found with thousands of ants valued at more than €8,000 and allegedly destined for European and Asian markets will be sentenced in two weeks, a Kenyan magistrate has said. Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court in Kenya's main airport, said she would not rush the case but would take time to review environmental impact and psychological reports...

As China’s Belt and Road initiative tightens worldwide, the U.S. has a rare opportunity to stymie its inroads into Latin America. “We often say that to get rich, we must first build roads; but in coastal areas, to get rich, we must also first build ports.” – Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the China Central Committee The Chinese Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop CopiaPort-E, Chile’s deep-water port on the Pacific, raises national security questions given that Todd Callender, Esq., the CEO of the insurance conglomerate Cotswold Group in Barbados, would prefer to sell to the...

April 18, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of Ernie Pyle’s death on the battlefield Eighty years ago, Ernie Pyle, one of America's most recognized war correspondents, was killed while covering the Battle of Okinawa during World War II. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- Eighty years ago, one of America’s most recognized war correspondents was killed while covering the Battle of Okinawa during World War II. When it came to telling the story of the American soldier fighting the good fight overseas, no one compared to Ernie Pyle. “He exemplified the courage and the willingness to hear the story of the common soldier,...

• makes it clear the US cannot tolerate Hong Kong's prosperity and stability

Pongsri Woranuch, a trailblazer in Thai country music (also known as Luk Tang), has passed away following a battle with a lung-related illness at 85. Woranuch died early on Sunday morning at her home, as confirmed by her son. The famed singer and Thai music icon had been struggling with either lung disease or cancer, according to varying reports. She was allegedly in and out of hospitals leading up to her death. Videos by American Songwriter “And then Mom got on the last express train and left us,” Woranuch’s son, Jujuk Boonnachoti, wrote on Facebook. “No need to hug a...

Is this the real-life Atlantis. A 90-foot “pyramid” submerged just off the coast of Japan is turning heads — and could shake up everything we thought we knew about ancient civilizations. Sitting 82 feet below sea level near the Ryukyu Islands, the Yonaguni Monument has baffled scientists and divers since it was first discovered in 1986. The enormous stone structure, complete with angular steps and flat terraces, looks uncannily like the ruins of a man-made temple — despite being over 10,000 years old. That timeline, if proven accurate, would date it thousands of years earlier than Egypt’s pyramids or England’s...

Singapore expresses disappointment over U.S. tariffs on its exports despite a free-trade agreement and trade deficit with the U.S. Trade Minister Gan Kim Yong emphasizes diplomacy over retaliation and highlights talks with the U.S. to resolve concerns. Singapore will review economic forecasts due to the escalating issue. In a move that has sparked international economic tension, Singapore's trade minister expressed disappointment over the U.S. imposition of a 10% tariff on its exports, despite a free-trade agreement and trade deficit with the United States Trade Minister Gan Kim Yong, speaking at a press conference, assured that Singapore would not pursue retaliatory...

Asia-Pacific markets rose Tuesday, rebounding from previous session's losses over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policy and threats of even higher levies against China. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 added 1.92%. Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 5.31% while the Topix gained 5.65%. South Korea's Kospi rose 0.34% and the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.96%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index climbed 1.58%, while the Hang Seng Tech Index jumped 3.57%. Hong Kong's stock market led losses in the region on Monday, with the Hang Seng Index plummeting over 13% to log its steepest one-day decline since 1997, data from FactSet showed. Mainland China's CSI inched...

Bangkok -- Search teams in Myanmar recovered more bodies from the ruins of buildings on Friday, a week after a massive earthquake killed more than 3,100 people, as the focus turns toward the urgent humanitarian needs in a country already devastated by a continuing civil war. United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who is also the emergency relief coordinator, will visit the area on Friday in an effort to spur action following the March 28 quake. Ahead of the visit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the international community to immediately step up funding for quake victims “to match the...

Shares sagged Thursday in Asia, apart from China, after President Donald Trump announced he will slap 25per cent tariffs on imported cars. Trump said he was raising duties on auto imports to encourage more manufacturing in the US, but the impact will be complicated since US automakers and even foreign manufacturers with factories in the U.S. Source many of their components from around the world. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 1per cent to 37,662.36. Toyota Motor Corp stock dove 3.2per cent, while Honda Motor Co stock dipped 2.8per cent. Nissan was down 2.6per cent. Mazda Motor Corp shares dropped 6.5per...