Free Republic

President Barack Obama is expected to disclose as early as Friday the number of civilians killed in U.S. military and CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa since he took office and will issue an executive order that makes protecting civilians a more integral part of planning U.S. military operations, according to activists and other individuals familiar with the report. The White House is to disclose the casualties with a range of numbers indicating that an estimated 100 civilians have been inadvertently killed by 500 drone strikes since 2009. The estimate is said to cover drone strikes in Pakistan,...

First lady Michelle Obama is relying heavily on social media to tout an overseas trip tied to the Let Girls Learn campaign, which is aiming to get an estimated 62 million uneducated girls into school. Obama started a Snapchat account with help from celebrities including James Corden of "The Late Late Show," with whom she recently taped a "Carpool Karaoke" that will run at a future date. She's posting reports on her stops in Liberia, Morocco and Spain on hellogiggles.com, an online community for women. She referred in one report to the heartbreak of an 11- or 12-year-old girl told...

What scientists are calling a "game changer" for society has been discovered deep in Tanzania's Rift Valley: a massive helium gas field with enough of the precious commodity to fill more than 1.2 million MRI scanners, Phys.org reports. Besides the sheer amount of gas, the discovery is notable because it appears to be the first time that stores of helium have been purposely found (they're usually stumbled upon during oil and gas drilling). And the find, which will be presented Tuesday by Durham University PhD student Diveena Danabalan at a Japanese geochemistry conference, could help restock nearly depleted stockpiles. Researchers...

After a year in India, Zaharaddeen Muhammed, 27, knows enough Hindi to understand what bander means. Monkey. But it isn't even the daily derogatory comments that make him doubt his decision to swap his university in Nigeria for a two-year master's degree programme in chemistry at Noida International University. Nor is it the questions about personal hygiene, the unsolicited touching of his hair or the endless staring. It is his failure to interact with Indian people on a deeper level. "People often look at me as if I am different, and hard to be trusted," the tall, softly spoken student...

KAKATA, Liberia (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama landed in Africa on Monday with her daughters and her mother for an overseas trip promoting education for girls, starting with a country still recovering from the recent Ebola epidemic that left thousands dead. The Obamas were welcomed in Liberia's capital with a red carpet and traditional dancers wearing the red, white and blue colors of both the American and Liberian flags. After meeting Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Obamas traveled a heavily potholed road to the town of Kakata, where they visited a Peace Corps-sponsored leadership camp for girls. "I...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Even though the explosive spread of the Zika virus has been met with a new level of international response, thanks to lessons learned from the Ebola crisis, experts warn they are only beginning to grasp the damage the mosquito-borne virus can do. Doctors speaking at a U.N. meeting on Global Health Crises said Monday that the Zika virus has already affected 60 countries on four continents, and a major outbreak on the Atlantic Ocean island nation of Cape Verde suggests the disease is now poised to enter continental Africa. Zika has already become epidemic in Latin...

In 2005 then-Governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano famously said that building a wall on the southern border of the United States to stem the flow of illegal immigration would be ineffective. “You show me a 50-foot wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border. That’s the way the border works,” she argued. That deep seeded focus on domestic security was apparently enough for President Obama to eventually appoint her as head of the Department of Homeland Security, overseeing the safety of the American people. An actual wall designed to keep unknown individuals and potential terrorists out of...

Fearful of being overrun by Somali Muslim terrorists, Kenya has announced it will build a 435 mile wall on its northeastern border with Somalia. The Kenyan people are not concerned with political correctness or turning Somali savages into voting, contributing “Citizens;” they see their physical safety as more important than being well thought of by Barack Obama and America’s political class. Kenya’s desire to keep al-Shabaab animals away from them has made building a wall a practical and sensible solution for the African nation. Contrary to what American politicians like Ted Cruz’s Vice Presidential selection Carly Fiorina has to say...

The Fulbright scholarships are prestigious awards, funded by Congress, to hundreds of US academics and others to provide opportunities for study abroad. It is administered by the US State Department. A reader recently underwent a short course preparing incoming Fulbright scholars for their overseas deployment. He is going to study in a developing country. He tells me he was shocked by the instruction in gender ideology his group was put through as part of their briefing. They were instructed, he said to think about how they can be “an ally” to sexual minorities abroad. He reports that his group sat...

The Border Guards of Makkah Region have foiled four attempts by groups of Africans trying to infiltrate across the kingdom's western sea border during the last two days. Commodore Saher bin Mohammed Al-Harbi, spokesman of the Directorate General of Border Guard, said a total of 122 foreigners have been arrested. He said the infiltrators were on board three wooden boats coming from Sudan's coasts. On board the smuggling boats were women and children of different nationalities, including 109 Sudanese, 11 Nigerians, one Ethiopian and one Chadian.

Hillary Clinton has claimed from the very beginning of the email scandal that nothing she sent or received was marked classified at the time. *snip* Unfortunately for Hillary, the State Department today released an email from 2012 that totally contradicts her "fact." According to Catherine Herridge at Fox News, the email carries "a classified code known as a 'portion marking' - and that marking was on the email when it was sent directly to Clinton’s account." (Not retroactively, as the Clinton camp likes to claim.)

Guess what Zimbabwe’s most important import is: Guns? Food? Medicines? Fuel? It’s US dollars. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s lists it as the country’s number one import priority. There are no details of how much, how it is brought into the country, or how much it costs (or what the sense would be in paying for them, presumably in US dollars which will have to be sent back to the source of the consignment of banknotes). Zimbabwe has experienced every manner of national crisis in the 36 years of its existence, all under President Robert Mugabe, but none as bizarre...

In 1972, SA blacks owned 360,000 vehicles. (More than all the black African states together) The monthly income of blacks per capita in 1988 was R352 per month in South Africa – Malawi and Mozambique less than R20 per month. Read more on South Africa Today

“African leaders oppress their people without anyone asking them a question”. Does this sound like South Africa? Trump’s criticism of African leaders was direct and truthful considering the state of many African countries.

At least 18 people with albinism have been killed for their body parts in the southern African country of Malawi since November 2014, Amnesty International said in a report released Tuesday. The body parts are sold for use in remedies by witch doctors, who say albino parts bring good luck or wealth, according to the report. It added that women and children are especially vulnerable to attack because of the myth that having sex with a person with albinism can cure HIV/AIDS.

Diamond miners recently discovered a ship that went down 500 years ago after draining a man-made lagoon on Namibia’s coast. While shipwrecks are often found along Africa’s Skeleton Coast, this one just so happened to be loaded with $13,000,000 worth of gold coins. It also answers a centuries–old mystery and is what some archaeologists are calling one of the most significant shipwrecks ever found. The wreck was first discovered along the coast near Oranjemund by geologists from the mining company De Beers in April 2008. One reason it took centuries to find is because it was underneath the ocean floor....

Parishioners visiting a church in Italy were told they must “pray in silence” so as not to disturb African migrants being housed there. Some of the faithful hoping to practice their Christianity at the church of St. Anthony in Ventimiglia were surprised when they were told by Caritas volunteers they couldn’t recite the rosary and would instead have to pray in silence out of respect to migrants who are living there. Caritas is ostensibly a Catholic charity, although much of its resources are spent on facilitating mass migration to Europe; the organisation even boasts that it contributes to and seeks...

The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Amendment Bill eliminates all white people including the disabled. “The definition of black people is now clear and aligned with the Constitution,” Tlhoaele said.... Read more on South Africa Today

"Oops! Bill Clinton Says He ACCIDENTALLY Took $500,000 From Algeria During Key Arms Negotiation With State Department" Oops! Bill Clinton is claiming his foundation “accidentally” accepted money from foreign governments who were negotiating with his wife while she was Secretary of State – a definite no-no. The Clinton Foundation received $500,000 from Algeria in 2010 while the country was lobbying the State Department for an increase in weapons export authorization. The International Business Times says that “some of those export authorizations were for weapons classified as “toxicological agents, including chemical agents [and] biological agents.”  “[Critics] said, ‘Oh you got...

A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a ($100 million pledge) in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.“Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords. When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the...