Free Republic

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has technically been banned from visiting China by its communist government, but he accompanied President Donald Trump on his trip to Beijing on Tuesday using a bureaucratic loophole created by the Chinese to let him in. Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles to Florida who was elected to the Senate in 2011, was one of several congressional representatives banned from traveling to China in July 2020 because they spoke out against China’s brutal oppression of the Uyghur Muslims of occupied East Turkistan. The U.S. had previously sanctioned four Chinese officials for herding the Uyghurs into...

Hong Kong police arrested 14 veteran activists Sunday — including two prominent politicians and a millionaire media mogul — in the biggest crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement since mass protests began last year. Among those detained were Martin Lee, 81, founder of the Democratic Party founder and a senior barrister; publishing tycoon Jimmy Lai, 71; and former legislator and barrister Margaret Ng, 72, the Associated Press reported.

Living for nearly half a century in the United States offers no guarantee that one can stay. That is the reality facing Cuban exile activist Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Democracy Movement, who received a letter Thursday from the federal government....

Forces loyal to Swaziland’s King Mswati III on Tuesday used water cannons and fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at pro-democracy demonstrators to break up a protest against sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.... Protesters have demanded the abdication of King Mswati lll, whose 14 wives and lavish lifestyle have drawn criticism in a country where an estimated 60 percent of its 1.2 million people live on less than $2 per day. The 43-year-old king has several palaces and a fleet of luxury cars, and his wives are accused of taking frequent shopping trips to Europe. Swaziland has the world’s...