Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Foreign holdings of U.S. debt rose in March as China ramped up its purchases and displaced Japan as the leading owner of U.S. Treasury securities. The Treasury Department says overseas ownership of U.S. debt rose 2.1 percent in March to $6.18 trillion. That is below January's record of $6.22 trillion. China added $37.3 billion ... bringing its stockpile to $1.26 trillion... ahead of Japan, which added just $2.5 billion...to $1.23 trillion. ... The U.S. deficit topped $1 trillion from 2009 through 2012. Foreign governments...account for two-thirds of the foreign holdings...rose 1 percent from the previous month to...

Tucked away among the tilled plots and scrubby pastures of this rural town, the Seattle Mariners’ baseball academy is mostly abandoned. The weight room has been cleared of machines. The numbered locker-room stalls are bare. One afternoon last week, a grounds crew pulled out bases from the main field while workers packed away a few stray trophies, bats and uniforms. But the teenage prospects who shared bunks here just three weeks ago are gone, shipped off to a newer school in the Dominican Republic.

Venezuela's black market exchange rate weakened below a key level on Thursday, as the bolivar's decline steepened in the face of hyperinflation and a rapidly shrinking economy. Over the past couple of years the value of the currency has plummeted against the dollar to its present 300 bolivar level. In 2012, a dollar would get you 10 bolivars, according to unofficial exchange rates. By the time President Nicolas Maduro was inaugurated in April 2013, it was 24 bolivars to the dollar and by this January it was at 173. This black market rate of 300.72 on Thursday was almost 50...

Venezuelans are criticizing electricity rationing that government officials began carrying out this week after the country’s electrical system continued to overload because of an ongoing heat wave. Ministries and other public institutions will now work until 1:00 p.m., reducing their workday from 8 to 6 hours. Private companies have also been required to cut their electricity intake by 10 percent. The overall goal is to achieve a 20-percent reduction of country’s power consumption in order to prevent overloading the system. "We are in the presence of a significant increase in the temperature," said Jesse Chacón, the country's Energy Minister, according...

Laureano Márquez was performing a benefit at his old high school in the Venezuelan city of Maracay. The comedian dwelled on the absurdities of life in this oil-rich nation, where gas is cheaper than water but it's hard to find milk, toilet paper and many other everyday goods. In the supermarket, Màrquez said, desperate customers will steal scarce items right out of your shopping cart. "In Venezuela, you get robbed of stuff that isn't even yours yet," he said to a round of laughs. Turning serious, Marquez tells the crowd that the socialist revolution, launched 16 years ago by the...

Tucked away among the tilled plots and scrubby pastures of this rural town, the Seattle Mariners’ baseball academy is mostly abandoned. The weight room has been cleared of machines. The numbered locker-room stalls are bare. One afternoon last week, a grounds crew pulled out bases from the main field while workers packed away a few stray trophies, bats and uniforms. But the teenage prospects who shared bunks here just three weeks ago are gone, shipped off to a newer school in the Dominican Republic.

Already buffeted by widespread violence, crippling shortages, and skyrocketing inflation, Venezuelans will be confronted with a new burden in the coming weeks: nationwide electricity rationing. The government of President Nicolas Maduro said last week that a plan to ration and otherwise adjust energy usage would go into effect to address increasing demand, which has been spurred on in part by a recent rise in temperatures in the Caribbean country. The measures of the rationing plan include reducing workday length for some public officials to six hours, requesting that private firms increase their electrical efficiency, and the inspecting of factories and...

Political debates often pit fear against hope, and when it comes to international trade agreements, many Democrats prefer to scare. It's a durable strategy that they can't relinquish -- even though it usually fails. If you're going to make a horror movie, you need a villain who can make your blood run cold. Despite endless efforts to pump this one up, the audience mostly yawns. Americans have gotten too used to the obvious benefits of trade to be terrified by German cars, Canadian oil or Chinese toys. The Obama administration is currently negotiating with 11 other nations on a Trans-Pacific...

President Nicolás Maduro raised Venezuela's minimum wage Friday for the second time this year to help workers being battered by the world's highest inflation. Speaking at a May Day rally, the socialist leader said he is boosting the minimum wage and pensions for retirees by 30 percent, with two-thirds of the increase coming this month and the rest on July 1. He also said he would raise salaries for government employees and military personnel. The wage increase, while a welcome relief for many workers, fell short of expectations that the embattled Maduro might use Friday's celebrations to expand state control...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has promised to nationalize food distribution in the South American nation beset with record shortages of basic goods, runaway inflation and an escalating economic crisis. [Snip] Various estimates suggest the government already controls about half of the country's food distribution, but that hasn't stopped record shortages in shops and markets. Venezuela is struggling with a recession, 68.5-percent annual inflation and severe shortages of the basic goods that it relies on oil money to import. On any given day, people in Venezuela can wait hours to get some subsidized milk, cooking oil, milk or flour -- if...

Public employees will only have to work six hours a day until further notice, and police units will be sent to inspect private businesses to ensure they only use their allotted amounts. Venezuelan Vice President Jorge Arreaza blamed the measures on climate change. ... The Venezuelan government is responsible for providing electricity in the socialist nation, and concerns that power is running out in the OPEC nation have triggered alarm that power may be next on a list of basic scarcities in Venezuela that include milk, laundry detergent, and vegetable oil. ... Vice President Arreaza also made a bizarre call...

IT HAS BEEN the hallmark of socialism in Venezuela: free, high-quality medical care. Late President Hugo Chávez changed the constitution to guarantee such right to all Venezuelans. But that same health care system is now crumbling under the weight of an economic crisis, causing a severe shortage of normal medical care and many avoidable deaths. Venezuela has grown increasingly alienated from the United States and its Central American neighbors, but its political estrangement doesn’t justify the lack of urgency from the international community. Although many places call out for medical intervention, Venezuela’s growing medical collapse deserves a significant dose of...

Empty shelves in the supermarkets. Never-ending lines forming before dawn to buy whatever basics good from whatever brand arrives to the store. Hostile military officers threaten reprisal, ensuring that those lined up keep their grievances silent. This is how shopping for food or basic household goods looks like in Venezuela today. Rising shortages and inflation have submerged the country in a deep recession. This precarious reality is the result of actions carried out by the ‘revolutionary’ government in the past years: a model of poor economic management in a context of prevalent incompetence, corruption, and human rights violations. Did oil...

Cash-strapped Venezuela has received $5 billion in financing from China, President Nicolas Maduro announced Sunday as his country struggles with an economic crisis. "We just received $5 billion more in financing for development," Maduro said in a radio and television address.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrives in Cuba today (23 March) in a bid to spur sensitive talks aimed at normalizing ties with the Communist island state. The visit comes as previously icy relations between Cuba and the West are thawing, following the dramatic rapprochement between Havana and Washington over the last few months. […] In 2014, the EU launched its normalization process with the Americas’ only communist nation to encourage the country to pursue reforms allowing for private initiatives without having to change the one-party political system. The negotiating sessions earlier this month, initially scheduled for January, had...

NEW YORK – Two Islamist militants were found guilty on Monday by a federal jury of plotting to bomb New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Russell Defreitas, 67, a U.S. citizen born in Guyana, and Abdul Kadir, 58, of Guyana, conspired to blow up buildings, fuel tanks and pipelines at the airport in the New York City borough of Queens. The men, who were arrested in June 2007, face up to life in prison. They are due to be sentenced on December 15. Defreitas, who had worked at the airport, provided knowledge of its facilities and layout, U.S. prosecutors...

President Barack Obama says Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will visit Washington this summer, nearly two years after she canceled a similar trip to protest U.S. spy programs. Her visit is set for June 30. Rousseff canceled a state visit to the U.S. in the fall of 2013 to protest an American spy program that targeted Brazil's government and citizens.

Venezuela's product shortages have become so severe that some hotels in that country are asking guests to bring their own toilet paper and soap, a local tourism industry spokesman said on Wednesday…. "It's an extreme situation," says Xinia Camacho, owner of a 20-room boutique hotel in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada national park. "For over a year we haven't had toilet paper, soap, any kind of milk, coffee or sugar. So we have to tell our guests to come prepared."… Montilla says bigger hotels can circumvent product shortages by buying toilet paper and other basic supplies from black market...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.

Daniel Pardo of BBC Mundo went on a shopping spree to see how many household goods he could find while waiting on the notoriously long lines in Venezuela. On the first day he was able to obtain a grand total of only three items out of a shopping list of eight but promised he would return the next day to see if he could get any of the rest. Well, as far as the world knows tomorrow never came. In fact, following the  March 16 Spanish language broadcast of his first day shopping for the three items, it seems Daniel Pardo never returned....