Free Republic

China: Two Incidents Open Pandora’s Box – Analysis May 22, 2012 By Bhaskar Roy Two incidents, one regarding Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and the other involving a blind human rights activist and self-taught lawyer Chen Guangchen, destroyed the myth that the Chinese system is a well oiled machine. Policy, individual, and bitter factional rivalries are kept sealed from the public to ensure the Party’s inviolability. This is the biggest political quake the country has experienced since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. The new age of social communication, the internet, has also damaged the Party’s secrecy. Even people inside the...

Yesterday ahead of President Trump's meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, NBC News reported the issue of human rights would not be discussed at the summit as an issue. U.S. won't bring up human rights at North Korea summit, two administration officials say. https://t.co/01Rkpik6Nb— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 11, 2018 But it turns out, the issue was discussed and will be again in the future."It was discussed.  It will be discussed more in the future -- human rights," Trump said. "It was discussed. It was discussed relatively briefly compared to denuclearization. Well, obviously, that’s where we started and...

North Korea has released three US detainees in the country, according to media reports, and it meets some of President Donald Trump demands for Pyongyang to demonstrate sincerity before its upcoming US summit. Kim Dong-cheol, Kim Sang-deok, and Kim Hak-seong — three US citizens detained in North Korea for years — have been released from a suspected labor camp and given health treatment and ideological education in Pyongyang. The news follows Trump's hawkish National Security Adviser, John Bolton, calling for the release of the detainees as a way for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity in talks. North Korea has...

Ironically I was having a discussion this morning about Franco, Pinochet and Diem with two of my employees as to whether or not it was right to support them and other dictators simply for being anti-communist. After watching this movie, we all agreed it was for the best.

China: Pastor Sent to Labor Camp On June 29, Pastor Dou Shaowen who is currently serving a one-year sentence for “engaging in illegal activities” was secretly transferred to Shifo Re-education Through Labor Center in Zhengzhou city, Henan province, according to China Aid Association. His family was not informed of his transfer. Pastor Dou, his wife Feng Lu and five other believers were arrested on June 14 when government officials raided and closed the Rock Church. The police confiscated computers and other church property from the church. Pastor Dou and his wife were sentenced to a year in prison and the...

What Could Trigger China’s Economic Internal Shock? By Heide B. Malhotra The Epoch Times Sep 05, 2004 A man sits with his bicycle in front of a wall of a new development under construction in Beijing, 05 September 2004. China's economy is on unstable ground, and there are many factors that could trigger shock in its system. (PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images) The Taipei Times suggested that China’s economic crisis might be triggered by internal rather than external shocks. The Times left it up to the reader to come to a conclusion as to what could cause such internal shocks. Given the...

Caption: Making them state-funded may curb graft and improve inmates' labour conditions The mainland is experimenting with reform of its controversial penal system by severing prisons from their business arms. The aim is to curb corruption and improve prisoners' living conditions. Prisons chosen for the experiment, which starts next month, will be state-funded, freeing them of the need to run profit-driven businesses in which inmates often work long hours in dangerous conditions - frequently without pay. Prisons in Heilongjiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Shaanxi provinces and the Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities will begin the experiment on September 1. They will no...

Paticipants of the 'Miss Captivity' beauty contest compete in the Panevezys Penal Labor Colony, some 90 miles north of the Lithuanain capitol of Vilnus, Thursday November 14, 2002.Organizers of the event claim the contest was the first of it's kind in the world.(AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbas)