Free Republic

NEW DELHI/HANOI (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden visits Vietnam's capital city Sunday, where the two countries are expected to declare themselves strategic partners, as the United States seeks to push supply chains from China and both countries to try to counter Beijing's military and diplomatic influence in Asia. Biden will arrive at the Presidential Palace Sunday afternoon for a formal welcome from Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam's most powerful leader, then journey to the Party headquarters where the two will meet and then give public remarks. The visit comes as trade and investment ties between the...

Raquel Welch helped Bob Hope entertain the boys fighting communism in Vietnam. Jo Raquel Teqada was born on September 5th 1940, in Chicago, Illinois and died in February this year in Los Angeles. She was both willing and reluctant to be an amazing sex symbol. I call that being human. Her own words distance her from her sex goddess status without totally rejecting it: “My family was very conservative, and I had a traditional upbringing. I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one...

On the morning of June 3, 1969, 74 American sailors died when the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans was cut in two by an Australian aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. By Phil Smith and Mal Lancaster Niobrara is a very small town in Nebraska--so small it doesn't have a cinema, and the locals could not have flocked to see Saving Private Ryan. But Niobrara has a memorial outside its library dedicated to the three Sage brothers, who were the first family group allowed to serve together on a U.S. warship after World War II. Radarman 3rd Class Gregory...

Pastor Y Hin Nie, 75, preaches the gospel from the comfort of his church in the US state of North Carolina. But as a young man he survived nearly two decades in the jungle, giving sermons to his comrades fighting Vietnamese troops long after the war had ended - his AK-47 never far from his side. On the run and cut off from the world, Hin Nie and his unit of insurgents foraged for food and hunted for tiger skins to pay the Khmer Rouge. His "forgotten army" did not give up arms until 1992, after Hin Nie negotiated their...

Mercedes-Benz Vietnam (MBV), a subsidiary of the Germany-based Mercedes-Benz Group AG, will introduce three all-electric car models in Vietnam in 2023, said MBV General Director Brad Kelly at a press conference in Ho Chi Minh City on May 9. — Along with the electric cars, MBV also plans to expand its product list in Vietnam in 2023 by adding new models including domestically-built Mercedes-AMG C 43 4MATIC, Mercedes-AMG C 63 S E PERFORMANCE, and Mercedes-AMG SL.

HCMC – Hyundai IONIQ 5 electric cars, assembled by Hyundai Thanh Cong Vietnam Auto Joint Venture JSC (HTV) in Ninh Binh Province, are now available at showrooms in Vietnam with a starting price of VND1.3 billion per unit. HTV announced yesterday, July 31, that the joint venture officially rolled out the first batch of Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles for distribution in Vietnam. This is the first time that a high-tech electric vehicle model from Hyundai Motor has been assembled in Vietnam. Hyundai IONIQ 5 vehicles are assembled at Hyundai Thanh Cong 2 plant (HTMV2) in the northern province of Ninh...

There’s no deadline to apply for PACT Act benefits. But if you file your PACT Act claim—or quickly submit your intent to file—by August 9, 2023, you may receive benefits backdated to August 10, 2022. So don’t wait, apply today. The PACT Act and your VA benefits The PACT Act is a new law that expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. The PACT Act adds to the list of health conditions that we assume (or “presume”) are caused by exposure to these substances. This law helps us provide...

Marine 1st Lt. Harvey “Barney” Barnum jumped to the ground when he came under fire during an ambush in Vietnam that killed his radio operator and commander. Collecting himself, Barnum realized he was now the highest-ranking officer of a rifle company he’d just joined. He called in artillery and, amid gunfire, dragged the commander to safety, where he died in Barnum’s arms. Then he proceeded to mount a counterattack, oversee evacuation of the wounded and lead the unit’s eventual break out to rejoin the battalion. To launch a counterattack, he brandished a .45-caliber handgun and told the others to follow...

Archaeologists have found remnants of eight spices on a sandstone slab from an archaeological site in Vietnam, showing the early adoption of ingredients and techniques from South Asia.Unearthed in an ancient village in southern Vietnam, the cookware—roughly the size and shape of an anvil—was likely used to grind the spice and other ingredients familiar in today’s curries...An analysis of 717 grains of starch recovered from the tools revealed the presence of eight different spices: turmeric, ginger, galangal, sand ginger, fingerroot, clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Many of the grains also showed signs of deformation, indicating that they had been damaged during...

It’s been a busy week for Japanese eVTOL developer SkyDrive, who has announced its second pre-order agreement in two days, its latest coming from CT UAV in Vietnam. That puts pre-orders for the company’s new SKYDRIVE eVTOL up to 200 in Vietnam alone. We will spare you the brief history of SkyDrive Inc. as we just offered a recap yesterday when the company announced a pre-order for up to five of its newly designed SKYDRIVE eVTOLs (seen above) by Austin Aviation in South Carolina. That initial letter of intent kicks off SkyDrive’s journey toward setting up shop in The Palmetto...

Most members of the US women’s soccer team stayed silent during the national anthem before its World Cup opener Friday against newcomers Vietnam — who passionately belted their nation’s tune. The majority of the reigning women’s World Cup champion team stared stoically ahead as the “Star Spangled Banner” blasted across New Zealand’s Eden Park arena. Only five of the 11 players who stood on the field for the anthem — with young, aspiring players standing before them — placed their hands over their hearts, while their six teammates kept their digits clasped behind their backs ... Only three USWNT players...

Many find it shocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) could be capable of ginning up false allegations against a former president in a previous election and would again do the same prior to the 2024 election. This shock, however, is a mark of just how drastically conservatives have failed to recognize the long decline of the DOJ and its ultimate transformation into a political subsidiary of a radicalized Democratic Party. Conservatives would do well to observe seminal moments that have led the country’s top law enforcement entity to its present dire state. In that review, all roads ultimately lead back...

Vietnam has banned Warner Bros.’ highly anticipated film “Barbie” from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media reported on Monday. (Warner Bros’, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.) The U-shaped “nine-dash line” is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions. “Barbie” is the latest movie to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated...

An active-duty missile corvette of the Indian Navy is on its way to Vietnam as a gift, the first warship given by India to any country. The domestically built corvette INS Kirpan left India's east coast on Wednesday (Jun 28), the navy said. India and Vietnam have strengthened their ties in recent years, with a special focus on defence, as both countries are concerned over an increasingly assertive China. India has given smaller boats and military equipment to countries like Maldives and Mauritius in the past and a submarine to Myanmar.

For more than 54 years, a Bay Area woman has wondered what happened to her husband, a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot missing in action during the Vietnam War. Now at age 90, Joyce De Soto of Burlingame finally has answers. They were high school sweethearts at Balboa High School in San Francisco before tying the knot. "He had the most beautiful smile, and he was really sweet and really smart," De Soto said of her late husband Ernie De Soto. The De Sotos had three children and were married for 12 years before the family received devastating news: Ernie...

Authorities in Vietnam said Friday they will prosecute 84 people accused of being involved in deadly attacks on two commune offices in central Dak Lak province and ordered them held in pre-trial detention. It isn’t clear who was behind the June 11 attacks, which left nine people dead, or what motivated them. On Friday, the Ministry of Public Security said it had confirmed that “organizations and individuals from overseas” had been involved, without getting more specific. “Materials and evidence collected by security forces show that the incident took place with the support and guidance of several organizations and individuals from...

Deeply disturbed by the accounting of American deceit in Vietnam, he approached The New York Times. The disclosures that followed rocked the nation. Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who after experiencing a sobbing antiwar epiphany on a bathroom floor made the momentous decision in 1971 to disclose a secret history of American lies and deceit in Vietnam, what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at his home in Kensington, Calif. He was 92. The cause was pancreatic cancer, his wife and children said in a statement.

A farmer, 72, fell into a crocodile enclosure in the Cambodian city of Siem Reap Luan Nam was pulled in when one of the reptiles pulled on the stick he was using A 72-year-old farmer was killed by 'about 40 crocodiles' this morning after falling into their enclosure on the family's reptile farm. Luan Nam was trying to move a crocodile out of its cage in Cambodia where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in. A group of reptiles swarmed him, tearing his body to pieces and leaving...

Henry Kissinger turns 100 on May 27. How should he be remembered? For me, he is the American who, more than any other individual, lost the Vietnam War. But today Kissinger is a demigod among our foreign policy elite. National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger ranks in the top echelon of notable Americans. On issues like the war in Ukraine and even artificial intelligence, our elite wants to know: "What does Henry recommend?" Kissinger's rise to eminence began with his secret negotiation of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement ostensibly ending the...

ROCKVILLE, Md. — The passage of almost 60 years has done nothing to dim former Navy fighter pilot Everett Alvarez Jr.’s memories of the night that he was shot down in the South China Sea and began what would be the second-longest period of captivity for an American service member in the Vietnam War. At 85 years old, Alvarez still vividly remembers his Douglas A4 Skyhawk filling with smoke and coming apart as he had just a few seconds to make a series of life-or-death choices. “I was really low. I knew I had to get out right there,” he...