Free Republic

The leader of South Africa's opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has launched his party's campaign for the upcoming local elections, promising to rescue citizens from poverty, unemployment and corrupt government. Around 40,000 people turned up at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Saturday displaying massive support for fiery EFF leader Julius Malema's promises to seize white-owned land without compensation and nationalise the banks. The huge turnout was a shot across the bows of the ANC, which failed to fill a similar stadium during the launch of its own manifesto in the coastal city of East London two weeks ago. "We...

NORTH BEND — For one North Bend High School student, the “American Dream” is over. At least, that's the fear Schalk Badenhorst has for his grandson, who is being deported back to South Africa in July. But 18-year-old Jaun Erasmus seems to have accepted his fate, even though he'll be leaving so much behind.

Mafia bosses have 'declared war' against migrants on the holiday paradise of Sicily as one thousand new arrivals pour on to the island every week. The feared Cosa Nostra are desperate to maintain supremacy after African crime gangs arrived with the migrants - and they are engaged in a deadly turf war. An innocent Gambian man was shot through the head by an assassin in broad daylight sparking fears of a wider bloodbath. Mayor Leoluca Orlando told MailOnline: 'Palermo is no longer an Italian town. It is no longer European. You can walk in the city and feel like you’re...

The rapid deterioration of Libya’s oil-dependent economy is threatening the objectives of the country’s new Western-backed government and budding efforts to confront the Islamic State in North Africa, political and security analysts say. Within hours of arriving in Tripoli two weeks ago, the government made controlling the nation’s oil a priority. It persuaded a powerful militia to hand over three oil terminals, and the national oil company gave its support. But the road to securing Africa’s largest reserves is riddled with even greater obstacles, and bringing the battered industry back to its full potential promises to be a colossal mission....

Everyone wants a piece of Djibouti. It’s all about the bases. ... the New Jersey-sized nation. Yet its quiet stability within the volatile Horn of Africa has made the country of just 875,000 people a hub for the world’s superpowers. ... The stars and stripes flutters alongside the runway where military and passenger planes touch down: Camp Lemmonier, America’s only permanent military base in Africa, hosts 4,500 troops and contractors who conduct missions against al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Shabab in Somalia. The outpost, leased for $60m a year, shares an airstrip with the international airport, ... Djibouti also hosts France’s...

New data from New World Wealth, in association with MasterCard, shows that the number of black millionaires in South Africa has almost tripled in the last 8 years- while white millionaires have dropped significantly. NWW’s data shows that at the end of 2015, there were 38,500 millionaires in South Africa – down 18% from 46,800 recorded at the end of 2014. There was a net-gain in millionaires from previously disadvantaged backgrounds of 2,600 HWNIs, while there was a net decrease in white millionaires of 10,900 individuals. About 45% of all high net worth individuals (HWNIs) in the country are from...

The White race has over many centuries unleashed untold mayhem on black people; but these crimes against humanity are glossed over while the world champions the causes of myriad peoples from the Jews to the Armenians. What reason could be advanced for such gross injustice other than the very racism that led to the perpetration of these crimes in the first place. The world and her jaundiced multilateral organisations can try as they might to divert the world’s attention from these ugly historical facts; but like a cork being pushed deep into the water, these truths will continue to float...

Uruguay's former president says the conduct of six former Guantanamo Bay detainees resettled in the South American nation has been "abysmal" and has hurt efforts to resettle others. Former President Jose Mujica, who oversaw the resettlement in late 2014, made the comments Tuesday to La Republica newspaper. Mujica, now a senator, says the men's behavior discouraged other Latin American countries that were considering taking in former detainees. He didn't provide details. "Who did the men hurt? Other Guantanamo prisoners."

Former President Bill Clinton’s doubled-down in his tense interaction with Black Lives Matter protesters today by praising his wife’s work to save lives in Africa, adding that it is “a place where Black Lives Matter.” The jibe came in Philadelphia, where he’s stumping for his wife’s struggling 2016 campaign. “I’ll tell you another story about a place where Black Lives Matter: Africa,” Clinton said. “The other day, I started my day with a picture that was sent to me on my iPad of a little guy running a store—he wasn’t very tall—in Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. You know what...

Erdogan has boasted that he is proud of boldly blackmailing EU leaders into paying him protection money. Erdogan's threats were almost criminally sinister: "... the EU will be confronted with more than a dead boy on the shores of Turkey. There will be 10,000 or 15,000. How will you deal with that?" According to the agreement, 80 million Turkish citizens will have visa-free access to the European Union. The nightmare scenario for a desperate EU is that no matter how much it bows to extortionist demands from Turkey, the migrant crisis will continue to grow. Even if Turkey closes down...

Confirmed: Demoralized Cops Equal Higher Crime Jack Dunphy Gentle readers, fasten your seatbelts. We are about to embark on a virtual tour on which you will join me in a Los Angeles Police Department patrol car cruising some of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. We will be patrolling the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, which year after year ranks at or near the top in violent crime among the city’s 21 patrol divisions. The Los Angeles Times tracks crime in more than 200 communities across L.A. County, and five of the top ten on the list are in 77th Street Division....

<p>China is set to install "a few thousand" troops and staff at its first ever overseas military base, the first permanent overseas deployment by Chinese armed forces.</p> <p>The new naval facility will sit in the same city as America's own sprawling African military headquarters in Djibouti, the Horn of Africa country where the US has a 4,500-strong base running counter-terrorism operations across the region. Japan, which also has its only overseas military base in Djibouti, already faces a tense stand-off with China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.</p>

The "safe space" created by political corruption is one reason terrorist organizations can infiltrate, collect intelligence, launch attacks and frankly, continue to exist. This is a global phenomenon, and it isn't new. In the mid-1990s and after 9/11, western intelligence services found evidence that Balkan criminal gangs had assisted Islamist terrorist networks. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, European criminal gangs assisted anarchist terrorists. The new fear was that Balkan smugglers assist Islamists -- for money. Some Balkan gangs run human trafficking operations. That produced a hypothetical thought: crime gangs could help al-Qaida move terrorists into Western Europe....

In March of 2012, two 24-year-old white males were abducted by a group of South Sudanese Africans in Antioch, TN. It was early in the morning and the victims were getting ready to do a paper route. The victims were subjected to 45 minutes of humiliating torture. They were forced to perform sexual acts on each other, sexually tortured, beaten, and stabbed. The perpetrators taunted them the entire time. After the torture, the men were left to die. They were dumped on the side of the road naked and covered in blood. Each had ten stab wounds. One of the...

February 25, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan's Justice Minister, on Thursday, formed a fact-finding committee on the alleged burial of radioactive waste in northern Sudan desert during the construction of Merowe Dam. The decision comes after claims by the former director of the Sudan Atomic Energy Commission (SAEC), Mohamed Sidig, who said that 60 containers with toxic waste were brought from China with construction materials and machinery for the building of the Merowe dam. Sidiq claimed that 40 containers were buried in the desert near the dam construction site while another 20 containers have been left out in the open. The...

Researchers have presented one of the first computerised tomography (CT) scans of a mummified individual from southern Africa, and also completed the first successful aDNA (ancient DNA) extraction from such remains. The mummy is estimated to have been about 300 years old. Professor Maryna Steyn, Head of the School of Anatomical Sciences, together with researchers from the University of Zurich (Switzerland), University of Pretoria and University of Botswana have published these findings in a paper, Radiological and genetic analysis of a Late Iron Age mummy from the Tuli Block, Botswana, in the South African Journal of Science. Mummified human remains...

The four Mexicans apparently wanted to be pioneers of sorts. But they were breaking the law in a big way, Nigerian officials say, to achieve that distinction. Nigerian drug agents say they have arrested four Mexicans who were helping to build a methamphetamine "super lab." It is believed to have had the potential to rake in billions of dollars, the nation's National Drug Law Enforcement Agency said Monday. Spokesman Mitchell Ofoyeju said it was the first industrial-scale production of crystal meth found in West Africa, and possibly on the continent. "The Nigerians invited the Mexicans in to leverage their expertise...

You read the headline correctly: Namibia took a giant step forward for hunters yesterday when the country’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism said it will officially oppose any calls to restrict hunting and export wildlife products. Chalk one up for common sense as the Namibian government got around worldwide anti-hunting extremists seeking to stop hunters’ critical conservation efforts—and, in turn, destroy the economic benefits hunters provide... the cabinet voted to go on the record as a pro-hunting nation, opposing any and all hunting bans-and to campaign against any bans proposed in the future. ... You may recall that the rhino...

Beset by scandals on both the national and statewide level, Democrats find themselves in danger of historic losses in the 2014 midterms, as in addition to the "angry white males" they find themselves facing a new threat, that of the "angry young black male." A growing trend of young black makes defecting to the GOP has caused fears among Democratic Party officials who have largely ignored the concerns of a constituency that has been loyal for decades. It is ironic that with the election of the first African-American President, the party that garners roughly 90% of the black vote finds...

The next Einstein will come from Africa. At least that is the premise of a global gathering of scientists, government representatives and innovators in Senegal this week. The organizers of the Next Einstein Forum say sub-Saharan Africa currently contributes just one percent of the world's scientific research output. But that, they say, is not for lack of ingenuity, but rather lack of opportunity on the continent.