Free Republic

More than even Italy or France, China guzzled almost 2 billion bottles of red wine last year. Red wine consumption has skyrocketed in the country since 2007, partially because the color red signals good fortune, experts say.China has surpassed France and Italy to become the biggest consumer of red wine in the world. According to a joint report out of Vinexpo and The International Wine and Spirits Research (IWSR), Chinese oenophiles tipped back the equivalent of 1.865 billion bottles last year (or 155 million 9-liter cases).

Apple is beginning to bring its semiconductor manufacturing supply chain back to the United States. Nearly all of the most advanced chips are made in Taiwan, which China has threatened to annex. Concentrating chip supplies on an island that could be invaded, or face steep U.S. tariffs from Trump, is a big risk to Apple's business. To find out how far the company still has to go, WSJ reporter Rolfe Winkler visited several of the company's suppliers including TSMC, ASML and Foxconn in the Southwest. Inside Apple's Multibillion-Dollar Push to Make Chips in the U.S. | WSJ | 10:37 The...

China has seeded the West with thousands of agents pushing propaganda, engaging in espionage, fomenting protests, and silencing domestic dissent. In 2023, the FBI arrested two Chinese-Americans, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, for operating a Chinese police station in Manhattan. Chen pleaded guilty and faces up to five years in prison for acting as a Chinese agent, while Lu, who has connections to Chinese authorities, pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He faces 20 years for obstruction of justice. According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), the police station was established to monitor and intimidate Chinese dissidents in the...

China’s humanoid robots were once a punchline. Now they are a warning shot. Just one year after drawing global skepticism for awkward stumbles and mechanical breakdowns, Chinese-made humanoid robots are performing backflips, executing kung fu routines and delivering synchronized gymnastics on the world’s biggest television stage. The dramatic turnaround has reignited debate about China’s manufacturing edge, the future of work and the accelerating U.S.–China technology race. Here is what investors need to know. A Public Debut That Turned Heads China’s annual Spring Festival Gala is widely regarded as the most-watched television program in the world. This year, humanoid robots from...

Tradition meets technology in a stunning showcase at the 2026 Spring Festival Gala by China Media Group. This year's gala features robots performing synchronized martial arts routines alongside children, highlighting a bold fusion of heritage and high-tech innovation.

Russian authorities say divers have recovered the bodies of seven Chinese tourists and a Russian driver who died after their mini-bus plunged under the ice to the bottom of Lake Baikal in Siberia. Irkutsk regional Governor Igor Kobzev offered his "deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims". He earlier said one Chinese tourist had managed to escape. The depth at the site of Friday's accident was 18m (59ft), and the divers had to use underwater cameras to search for the bodies. Baikal - the world's deepest lake with a maximum depth of 1,642m (5,387ft) - is a...

Harold Eberle: "Christianity Unshackled: Are You A Truth Seeker," Destiny Image Publishers, 2009 Stalin was responsible for about 20 million deaths and Mao Zedong's regime for approximately 70 million.  Pol Pot, who led the Communist Party faction known as the Khmer Rouge, killed over 1.5 million of his own Cambodian people.6 Add to these numbers the atrocities committed by Soviet dictators like Lenin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. Also add atheists like Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-il. All total, atheistic regimes have slaughtered more than 100 million people within the last 100 years. That averages to more than 1 million people per year....

Why is it that when people want to describe particularly evil individuals or regimes, they use the terms “Nazi” or “Fascist” but almost never “Communist?” Given the amount the human suffering Communists have caused — 70 million killed in China, 20 to 30 million in the former Soviet Union and almost one-third of all Cambodians; the decimation of Tibetan and Chinese culture; totalitarian enslavement of North Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese and Russians; a generation deprived of human rights in Cuba; and much more — why is “Communist” so much less a term of revulsion than “Nazi?” There are Mao Restaurants in...

America has one of the world’s largest prison populations, with an estimated 1.7 million people in confinement.Going further, America’s incarceration rate is the fourth-highest in the world. Despite being a developed economy, its prison population is more than double that of Russia, India, and Brazil combined.This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the countries with the most prisoners, based on data from the Prison Policy Initiative.Breaking Down Countries by Prison PopulationBelow, we show the countries with the highest estimated prison population, with figures extrapolated from their most recent incarceration rates.With nearly two million prisoners, China ranks first globally.In China,...

A video compilation of a man setting fire to a person on a public street using a flamethrower has sparked shock online. The incident occurred on Feb 2 in Yangzhou, China, reported Hong Kong news portal HK01. Footage posted on social media platform X shows the man continuously shooting a stream of fire with a makeshift flamethrower at what appears to be a person keeled over at a row of roadside shrubs. Another clip shows the person lying face down on the shrubs as small flames licked along their upper body. In a third video, a crowd of onlookers as...

We wrote recently about the ongoing effort by Marxists in the United States to raise money on behalf of the Communist government in Cuba. That effort continues. Meanwhile, the same folks, in league with a whole raft of other radical leftist groups, are also working on sending a “flotilla” to Havana’s aid. “A growing coalition of international organizations, including Progressive International, The People’s Forum, CODEPINK, and allied movements across the Americas and beyond is coming together to launch the Nuestra América Flotilla to Cuba in March, 2026, a humanitarian and solidarity mission to the island at a moment of deep...

A Lunar New Year celebration in Taiwan took a revolting turn when an elderly temple chief vomited over the country's president in full view of disgusted onlookers. Shocking footage captures the moment Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te is caught in the unfortunate blast as Lin Pei-huo, head of the Sacrificial Rites Martial Temple, falls visibly unwell during the public appearance. The pair had been standing side-by-side among local dignitaries when Lin began to show signs of distress. Wearing a red hoodie, President Lai appears oblivious at first as the temple chairman blinks repeatedly, clenches his fists and slowly turns his head,...

Canada's woke, female , DEI Minister of Defence announces the hiring of foreign nationals into the Canadian Military for the purpose of attacking and destroying provincial oil infrastructure , and the waging of war against its own citizens, especially in Alberta and Saskatchewan. This is a chilling move disguised from the public by military recruitment code numbers.Stirling Thomas does an incredibly accurate reveal as to where the tyrannical liberal elites are prepared to take Canada in order to preserve their protective tariff economy from being an open market, as well as preparations to have foreign military willing to wage war...

In yet another reckless move by the far-left Liberal government, Canada is now throwing open the doors of its military to foreign nationals, offering them a fast-track path to permanent residency.Under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s regime, skilled immigrants from around the world can now snag jobs in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as doctors, nurses, or even pilots, and get expedited immigration status in return.

Pratt & Whitney said Monday it is cooperating with authorities after federal agents arrested a former employee for trying to ship documents to Iran related to the U.S. military's Joint Strike Fighter aircraft. The East Hartford defense contractor, the sole manufacturer of the aircraft's engine, declined to comment on how Mozaffar Khazaee, 59, slipped thousands of pages of documents, diagrams, blueprints and technical manuals out the door before he was laid off in August along with hundreds of other employees. Federal authorities arrested Khazaee at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Thursday before he could board a plane...

WASHINGTON — Delivering a major blow to President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that he exceeded his authority when imposing sweeping tariffs using a law reserved for a national emergency.

Ten airlines continue to fly the Airbus A380 on a scheduled basis. As everyone knows, Emirates is overwhelmingly the largest user of the type. According to ch-aviation, it still has 116 frames. They include A6-EDF, which turned 20 this month; it is the world's oldest active superjumbo.Emirates was not the launch customer of the double-decker. Singapore Airlines was. Nonetheless, the Gulf giant's first passenger-carrying A380 took place in August 2008...If routes with fewer than five departures are excluded, only 11 destinations have ceased seeing the equipment. In comparison, Singapore Airlines has ended 12 A380 routes, while BA has ceased eight.The...

Speaking in New Delhi on Wednesday, France’s President Emmanuel Macron criticized social media companies over their pledged commitments to free speech and lack of algorithm transparency. “Some of them claim to be in favor of free speech. We are in favor of free algorithms, totally transparent,” Macron said. “Free speech is pure bulls**t if nobody knows how you are guided to this so-called free speech.” The remarks come as Macron and his government move to expand regulation of social media platforms in France. Paris is seeking to fast-track legislation that would ban social media access for children under 15 before...

A Southern California mayor refused to comment on her former fiancé and campaign staffer, who was sentenced to four years in federal prison for "acting as an illegal agent of the People's Republic of China." Last week, Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang's former fiancé, Yaoning "Mike" Sun, was sentenced to four years in federal prison for acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. Wang has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the case and refused to comment on it during Arcadia's first City Council meeting since the sentencing. Sun pleaded guilty in October 2025 to one...

This is a little different than your average South American change-of-command story, though. Usually, those spur-of-the-moment administration oustings are more in the form of uprisings or military takeovers, oftentimes with bullets, bloodshed, and the streets packed with pissed-off peasants registering either their contempt or their support for one side or the other. Not so in this instance, thankfully, although the president in office who was summarily removed probably didn't have enough time to become an emotional favorite of anyone. In Perú, three-quarters of the Congress just voted to REMOVE the president due to - get this - undeclared meetings with...