Free Republic

Ask any metal fan in India for the one moment that changed the country’s music landscape and they will all point you to Iron Maiden’s first show in Bangalore, in 2007. The British heavy metal band played to an audience of 40,000 screaming, teary fans... ...In the early 90s, the first of India’s homegrown IT companies began setting up shop in Bangalore, drawing a huge influx of young IT professionals from across the country, often fresh from their college engineering degrees... The result was a multicultural, open-minded city where alcohol was cheap and the offbeat was not just accepted but...

Foreign Students Walk Off Hershey’s Factory Job In Protest By Liz GoodwinAugust 18, 2011 Hundreds of foreign students on a State Department cultural exchange visa program walked off their factory jobs in protest on Wednesday. The J-1 visa program brings foreign students to the country to work for two months and learn English, and was designed in part to fill seasonal tourism jobs at resorts and seaside towns. The 400 students employed at a Pennsylvania factory that makes Hershey's candies told The New York Times that even though they make $8.35 an hour, their rent and program fees are deducted...

The latest conflict simmering between Lebanon and Israel is all about food: Lebanese businessmen accusing Israel of stealing traditional Middle Eastern dishes like hummus. Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association, said Tuesday his group plans to sue Israel to stop it from marketing hummus and other regional dishes as Israeli. "It is not enough they (Israelis) are stealing our land. They are also stealing our civilization and our cuisine," said Abboud. He said his group also seeks to claim the eggplant spread baba ghannouj and tabbouleh, a salad made of chopped parsley and tomatoes, as Lebanon's own. Hummus...

N. Korean Cigarettes and Liquor Receive A Radical Facelift Inter-Korean Design Exchange Association (in S. Korea) suggested new designs for the a N. Korean cigarette package and a liquor bottle. The ones on the left are original N. Korean products, the Red Star Cigarettes and the Azalea Liquor, and the ones on the right are the newly designed package and bottle. They hope the new designs would help boost their sale abroad.