Free Republic

The US will significantly increase its military deployments in Europe with additional troops and weaponry, as part of the largest scaling up of Nato defences since the cold war in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US will establish a permanent headquarters for its 5th Army Corps in Poland, send 5,000 additional troops to Romania and increase rotational deployments in the Baltic states, Biden said, as part of efforts to stiffen Nato’s first line of defences against possible attack. Two squadrons of US F-35 fighter aircraft will be sent to the UK, Biden added, in addition to stationing air...

Increasing food imports from China could pose a risk to public health in Sweden, according to the food products governing body. During the first five months of the year, Sweden's National Food Administration (Livsmedelsverket) was made aware of 138 cases within the EU of food imported from China that was not fit for consumption. By the same time last year the figure had reached 88. Examples included food containing banned colouring, antibiotics, preservatives or pesticides. There were also cases of illegally imported, unclean or foul-smelling food, as well as products with high levels of heavy metals, poisonous mould and dioxins,...

A Beijing court dismissed charges that a Chinese researcher for the New York Times had illegally leaked state secrets, but sentenced him to three years for fraud, capping weeks of confrontation over citizens' legal rights. Zhao Yan, 44, had been accused of telling the U.S. newspaper details of rivalry between Chinese President Hu Jintao and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, over military appointments in 2004. The paper reported in September that year that Jiang was likely to retire as China's military chief, handing over his sole remaining post to Hu -- a forecast that turned out to be true. But in...

Here’s a shocker. I love Wal-Mart. I know it’s almost always on the receiving end of bad press. It ruins neighborhoods. It puts small businesses out of business. It wrecks the balance of trade. It pays its workers poorly and treats them mean. It makes overseas workers into slaves. That's what the news says. The truth is that Wal-Mart is a major blessing for most Americans who live close enough to one to shop there and for the people who work at them. My smart friend C.L. Werner in Omaha made the point really clearly. When a Wal-Mart opens in...