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As I read the reports of the killing of the famous Hwange National Park lion, Cecil, by an American client, hunting with a licensed professional hunter, I anticipated a rerun of the Musango Bull incident of a couple of years back. The bull elephant was another rock star of an attraction - in the Matusadona national park. He too was radio collared and he was shot by a sport hunter outside the park. There was within days the anticipated media frenzy over both the Bull and Cecil, but it turned out the two cases were markedly different. One element that...

As part of the celebrations for his 91st birthday next Saturday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will be served a feast featuring five impala, two buffalo, two elephants, two sables, and one lion. According to a report in Zimbabwe's The Chronicle, the menagerie was donated by Tendai Musasa, owner of the prominent Woodlands Farm near the Elephant Hills Resort at Victoria Falls, where the 20,000-person shindig will take place. While you'd think that eating elephants and lions, icons of wildlife conservation, would be illegal, it turns out it's not—neither under Zimbabwean nor international law. As of 1997, elephant populations in Botswana,...

President Obama has wrapped up his tour of Africa. It was notable, insofar as that word can be applied to the trip, for his somewhat condescending and neo-colonial lecture to his hosts on the need to ease up on the old homophobia. Certainly, Africa is not terribly gay-friendly. But nor are other parts of the planet. In his ardent wooing of Iran, for example, he doesn't seem to have been perturbed in the least by his new best friends' executions of homosexuals, anymore than he is by the brutalization of gays elsewhere in the Muslim world. You might deduce in...

Cecil the lion is dead, killed illegally in Zimbabwe, authorities allege, by a foreign hunter or hunters who paid about $55,000 for the privilege.

An American dentist has been accused of killing a well-known lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe earlier this month, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (WCTF) confirmed. The Zimbabwe tourism authority named the man accused of killing Cecil as Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist and avid big-game hunter. “#WalterJamesPalmer was the man who killed #CecilTheLion. This was an #illegalhunt,” the authority posted on Twitter. The Associated Press reported that Zimbabwean conservationists had accused an American of paying $50,000 to kill the lion. The American “shot the lion with a bow and arrow." ... Rodrigues told the Star that the...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — President Obama asserted on Tuesday that he could win a third term if allowed by the Constitution, but said he was looking forward to life after the presidency, when he will be able to take a walk and spend more time with his family. As he wrapped up what may be his final trip to Africa while in office, Mr. Obama took aim at some of the continent’s gerontocracy and called on long-entrenched leaders to step down, declaring that “nobody should be president for life.” But it led to an off-the-cuff riff about his own improved...

Under the title "Homecoming," it shows Obama in ostensibly "native"or tribal garb, clutching a spear as he surveys zebra in an open expanse. It ran in last Friday's English-language newspaper without any other textual explanation or accompanying article.

ADDIS ABABA, (CAJ News) – UNITED States President Barack Obama’s visit has been met with contempt by the majority in the continent owing to his country’s recent endorsement of same-sex marriages. The leader of the most powerful nation in the globe will only make a low-key appearance at the African Union (AU) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in a continent where such marriages are taboo. He will meet mostly Western diplomats and representatives. “How can we celebrate a man who advocates a man to marry another man? If it was the president of China, maybe, we would attend because they...

OBAMA COMPARES KENYA’S ANTI-GAY LAWS TO JIM CROW President Obama and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta clashed at a joint press conference in the African state during his official visit on Sunday: Obama harshly criticized Kenya’s record on issues related to homosexuality. “When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that’s the path whereby freedoms begin to erode,” he said. “Bad things start to happen.” The President also compared Kenya’s laws to Jim Crow-era segregationist policies.

Attendees of the Convening's opening ceremony raise their fists as a symbol of power during an organizer's speech.Activists from across the nation converged in Cleveland this weekend for a conference meant to draw national attention to police brutality and race relations in the wake of a number of incidents involving police and black Americans. The National Convening of the Movement for Black Lives began Friday at Cleveland State University where activists will attend sessions that range from viewing films to open discussions on topics that highlight issues that affect all aspects of black culture. The conference is happening amid an...

... bringing dignity to his high office by acting presidential ... again!

“Son of Kenya,” Barack Obama, proved once again that his patience with people, nations, and world leaders that disagree with his view of the world registers a big fat zero on the liberal Tolerance Meter.  When Obama finds out anyone (other than a Muslim) disagrees with his social policy focus, it becomes his personal mission to convince them otherwise. And if the mere awesomeness of his presence fails to change minds, Obama will attempt to humiliate his ideological adversaries into submission by getting in their face. For example, after Barack ‘LGBTQ’ Obama was specifically asked by the Evangelical Alliance...

Obama’s first trip to Kenya since becoming president has highlighted the disappointment that many Africans feel in his presidency. While President Bush earns high praise and achieved a great deal in Africa, particularly with regard to his efforts fighting AIDS, Obama . . . not so much.In his article entitled, “Africa’s Disappointment with Obama,” Edward-Isaac Dovere writes: Beneath the ecstatic welcome President Barack Obama will receive when he arrives in his father’s homeland of Kenya on Friday is a lingering sense of disappointment.More than the first black president, he’s the first African-American U.S. president, and that’s accentuated a frustration among...

President Barack Obama, wrapping up a landmark trip to Kenya, has told Kenyans that there is "no limit to what you can achieve" but said they had to deepen democracy, tackle corruption and end exclusion based on gender or ethnicity. Obama addressed an audience of several thousand packed into an indoor arena in Nairobi on Sunday, before heading to Ethiopia, the second stop on his East Africa tour. The US president, whose father was born and died in Kenya, talked of his own experience and Kenya's in the five decades since independence. "I'm here as president of a country that...

NAIROBI, Kenya — President Barack Obama spoke proudly of his Kenyan heritage before a raucous and affectionate crowd in Nairobi on Sunday. "I am proud to be the first American president to come to Kenya, and of course I'm the first Kenyan-American to be president of the United States," he told the packed sports hall in Nairobi, to the loud cheers of over 4,500 people in the audience. It was the (first) time he referred to himself as such.

Upon arrival in the land of the Dreams From His Father, Barry was greeted by his half-sister, Auma Obama.Man, Big Guy’s got more half-siblings than the Kardashians! And frankly, there’s a chance he may be related to them too. I mean, check out that butt on Auma; we are definitely looking at Kardashian sized upholstery.While being whined and dined in Kenya, Barry launched the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, telling the audience that Africa is on the move: He said young African entrepreneurs are the continent’s future, but cautioned that governments cannot allow small would-be businesspeople to be stymied by...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- President Barack Obama told Kenyans on Sunday that their country is at a crossroads and urged them to "choose the path to progress" by continuing to root out corruption, confront terrorism and be more inclusive of women and girls. Closing out a historic visit to the land of his father's birth, Obama said Kenya has come so far in just his lifetime, but can go even further. "You can choose the path to progress, but it requires making some important choices," he said in a speech to several thousand Kenyans packed into an indoor arena here in...

NAIROBI, Kenya – President Barack Obama and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta sparred over support for gay rights here Saturday, with Obama urging fast changes and Kenyatta saying it was not something Kenyan culture or society would “accept.” Linking LGBT discrimination in Africa to the history of Jim Crow laws in America, Obama said ensuring gay rights must be a priority on a continent — and in a country — where bias against gays is accepted, and violence against gays is common. Standing by Obama’s side at a joint press conference here in front of the Kenyan state house, Kenyatta repeated...

If you can't beat members of the "birther" movement, join 'em. That's the approach President Obama took on Saturday night in Kenya, his father's homeland, when he made a wisecrack about his birthplace — which suspicious critics have harped on for years. "Some of my critics back home might be suggesting I'm here to look for my birth certificate," Obama said while making a toast at a state dinner hosted by President Uhuru Kenyatta. "That's not the case." In 2011, Obama made his birth certificate public after so-called birthers questioned his eligibility to be president, claiming he was not a...

Obama on Kenya: There's a reason my name is Barack Hussein Obama"This is personal for me," Obama said. "There's a reason why my name is Barack Hussein Obama."