Free Republic

TIRUPPUR, India — If the tag on your T-shirt says “Made in India,” there’s a good chance it came from this southern industrial hub — long known as “Dollar City” for its dominance in the U.S. market. Now, just seven weeks after the Trump administration imposed a 50 percent tariff on Indian exports, many of Tiruppur’s garment factories have ground to a halt. The slowdown has rippled through a vast network of hulking plants and small workshops, which employ more than 600,000 people. Thousands of fabric cutters, thread trimmers and sewing machine operators are suddenly out of work. “Production has...

Moscow has proposed a 70-mile Elon Musk-built 'Putin-Trump' rail tunnel which would link Russia and America. The tunnel, which would go under the Bering strait, would unlock joint exploration of natural resources and 'symbolise unity', a Kremlin envoy said. The proposal has suggested using The Boring Company, a US tunnel construction company owned by Elon Musk, to construct the $8billion bridge. It comes as the Kremlin desperately tries to stop Donald Trump from providing crucial Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. Kirill Dmitriev, President's Vladimir Putin's investment envoy and head of Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund, said Moscow and 'international partners', including...

The U.S. is awash with scam text messages. Officials say it has become a billion-dollar, highly sophisticated business benefiting criminals in China. Your highway toll payment is now past due, one text warns. You have U.S. Postal Service fees to pay, another threatens. You owe the New York City Department of Finance for unpaid traffic violations. The texts are ploys to get unsuspecting victims to fork over their credit-card details. The gangs behind the scams take advantage of this information to buy iPhones, gift cards, clothing and cosmetics. Criminal organizations operating out of China, which investigators blame for the toll...

An Australian woman has sparked a heated online debate after calling out members of the Indian community in Melbourne for allegedly dumping trash into a local water body following a festival. Her post, which quickly went viral on X, drew both outrage and reflection from users worldwide. The woman, who goes by @TruthFairy131, did not hold back in her criticism of residents in Mernda. Referring to them as “filthy pigs,” she wrote: “Shame on you for dumping all of your rubbish into our waterways after your Indian Festival last Saturday. You would want to get down there ASAP & collect...

YT: Victor Davis Hanson rips away the illusion. China claims ancient superiority, but its military is nothing more than a knockoff of the West — from tanks and planes to tactics and strategy. Worse, Beijing exports its authoritarian model into our universities, silencing pro-Taiwan or pro-Israel voices while radicalizing students against America itself.

Beaver Crrek, Colo. – Canadian dealmaker Frank Giustra says the age of paper gold is ending as BRICS nations stand up a parallel financial system that routes around the U.S. dollar and prizes deliverable metal. “We’re now, believe it or not, in the era of hard money,” Giustra said Tuesday in a conversation with Alex Deluce of the Ontario-based bulletin Gold Telegraph at the Precious Metals Summit. “If you own paper gold, you do not own gold. When the crunch comes, it will not be there.” China and partners among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations...

Money laundering isn’t new — and neither is China’s role in it. Millennia ago, Chinese merchants developed schemes to “clean” the profits of commercial trade and avoid taxation. Today, their successors are doing much the same. Only now, they’re laundering billions through the U.S. financial system and fueling one of the deadliest fentanyl-fueled drug crises in American history. In a step in the right direction, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (known as FinCEN) issued a sweeping advisory on Aug. 28 warning that Chinese money laundering networks now represent “one of the most significant money laundering threat actors facing...

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian has criticised the UN's nuclear agency and accused western powers of "double standards" as he joined the leaders of China, Russia and North Korea for a military parade in Beijing. The Iranian leader was one of 26 heads of state in the Chinese capital for a once-a-decade event showcasing China’s growing firepower and diplomatic clout alongside its closest international allies. Mr Pezeshkian told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV he backed Beijing's drive to reform systems of global governing, which he said should take a multilateral and "justice-oriented" approach.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin presented the West with a striking image: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping together, projecting a rare display of camaraderie among the three major world powers.“Always a delight to meet President Putin!” Modi wrote in a social media post.The move was welcomed by Russia and China, who are actively challenging the United States’ position atop the global order.Xi proposed “a multipolar world” with a new SCO development bank, parallel to Western global institutions. This threatens to hurt the influence of the international order based on...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised the strengthening cooperation between Russia and China within the BRICS group, stating that the two countries are actively working to enhance the bloc’s influence as a core mechanism of the international architecture. In an interview with China’s Xinhua News Agency, a partner of TV BRICS, Putin said the two nations are jointly promoting initiatives aimed at expanding the economic development opportunities of member states. “We are actively cooperating with China within BRICS to enhance its influence as one of the core mechanisms of the international architecture. Together, we are promoting initiatives aimed at expanding...

Shanghai Academy acts as a front for Chinese spy recruitment, according to FBI The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China’s intelligence and spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents. The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank’s hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the institution said. The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal government that has raised flags within the FBI. The partnership...

Chinese property giant Evergrande's shares were taken off the Hong Kong stock market on Monday after more than a decade and a half of trading. It marks a grim milestone for what was once China's biggest real estate firm, with a stock market valuation of more than $50bn (£37.1bn). That was before its spectacular collapse under the weight of the huge debts that had powered its meteoric rise. Experts say the delisting was both inevitable and final. "Once delisted, there is no coming back," says Dan Wang, China director at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. Evergrande is now best-known for...

The BRICS economic partnership was formed during the Obama administration. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) watched U.S. President Obama subcontract U.S. trade policy to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street.In the aftermath of the 2007 economic crisis, created by Congress and banking interests, the BRICS group identified two central points of ‘western’ financial influence that concerned them.Following the financial crisis, the relationships around the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), EU central banks and various multinational institutions and multinational corporations, merged even closer with the government.The priorities of the Davos and World Economic Forum...

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Saturday for about 40 minutes, the Brazilian presidential palace said, adding that Putin shared information about his discussions with the United States and "recent peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine." -snip- Lula has been in a public spat with Trump since the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff on the imports of Brazilian goods, which Trump linked to an alleged "witch hunt" against his ally and Brazil's former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. U.S. imports of some Brazilian products, such as orange juice and aircraft, received a lower...

Victor Davis Hanson breaks down what he calls the most sweeping political counter-revolution in modern American history—one that’s reshaping the military, the border, higher education, foreign policy, and the economy all at once. In this powerful analysis, Hanson paints a picture of a president who's not just reversing the progressive tide, but exposing it. Illegal immigration? Blocked. DEI and university corruption? Called out. Military recruitment? Rebuilt. Meanwhile, entrenched institutions are being forced to admit guilt—on antisemitism, on academic overreach, and on systemic rot. On the world stage, Trump is redefining diplomacy through strength—not surrender. Putin’s war machine and Hamas’ terror...

Had the American people not rallied around President Trump as odious phony prosecutions engulfed him during his presidential campaign, he may not have been re-elected president and instead endured a terrible fate. In South America this week, we are seeing how bad it could have been. Late yesterday, Brazil's manic, freakish, version of Judge James Boasberg, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, ordered Brazil's equivalent of President Trump, former President Jair Bolsonaro arrested for questioning the 2022 Brazilian presidential electoral result, that, as with President Trump, he was mysteriously defeated in by a narrow margin after showing significant strength on the campaign...

Donald Trump is hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington this week for a summit which could advance a much-anticipated peace agreement between the two. The meeting would send a strong signal to Moscow regarding the two countries' commitment to finding a solution without Russia. The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are set to meet US President Donald Trump for a peace summit in Washington on Thursday and Friday, which could advance a much-anticipated peace deal between the two countries. After almost four decades of bitter conflict, Baku and Yerevan might finally settle for peace in the region...

Summary Bolsonaro under house arrest for breaking restraining orders Trump called Bolsonaro's Supreme Court trial a "witch hunt" U.S. sanctioned Brazil Supreme Court judge issuing orders BRASILIA, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Brazil's Supreme Court put former President Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest on Monday ahead of his trial for an alleged coup plot, underscoring the court's resolve despite escalating tariffs and sanctions from U.S. President Donald Trump.Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the target of U.S. Treasury sanctions last week, issued the arrest order against Bolsonaro. His decision cited a failure to comply with restraining orders he had imposed on...

Over the past year, Hezbollah has faced a growing existential crisis, intensified by the targeted assassinations of senior figures including Fuad Shukr, Ibrahim Aqil, Jawad Tawil, and particularly Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, Hashem Safi al-Din. Once Iran’s most formidable proxy and a significant strategic actor in the Middle East, Hezbollah now contends with depleted leadership, military setbacks, and mounting international pressure. Does this signal genuine weakening within the Shiite terrorist organization? According to Lebanese sources, Hezbollah is undertaking drastic measures to ensure its survival, notably relocating the families of hundreds of senior commanders to Latin America. Lebanese journalist...

China’s leadership, including Xi Jinping, is now openly admitting to a crisis of industrial “overcapacity,” a problem they have termed “involution.” This counterproductive and “disorderly competition” is causing destructive price wars, particularly in the massive auto industry. While Beijing is attempting to use dictatorial measures, such as price controls, to address the issue, experts argue that this approach will fail.