Free Republic

Had Americans been able to stop obsessing over the color of Barack Obama's skin and instead paid more attention to his cultural identity, maybe he would not be in the White House today. The key to understanding him lies with his identification with his father, and his adoption of a cultural and political mindset rooted in postcolonial Africa. Like many educated intellectuals in postcolonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western...

"One of the most powerful figures in the Anglican Church believes that Africa is under attack from Islam and that Muslims are “mass-producing” children to take over communities on the continent. Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, 56, was elected Primate of Nigeria last week and his elevation could exacerbate tensions at a time when Anglicans are working to build bridges with Muslims. Dr Michael Nazir-Ali resigned as Bishop of Rochester earlier this year to work in countries where Islam is the majority religion. Nigeria is split almost half and half between Christianity and Islam. There are about 17 million practising Anglicans in...

One of the most powerful figures in the Anglican Church believes that Africa is under attack from Islam and that Muslims are “mass-producing” children to take over communities on the continent. Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, 56, was elected Primate of Nigeria last week and his elevation could exacerbate tensions at a time when Anglicans are working to build bridges with Muslims. Dr Michael Nazir-Ali resigned as Bishop of Rochester earlier this year to work in countries where Islam is the majority religion. Nigeria is split almost half and half between Christianity and Islam. There are about 17 million practising Anglicans in...

The hunt for Albinos is still on © Alida Vanni. A school in Tanzania. The case of 18-year-old Moszy, who landed on a Spanish beach along with several other refugees from Africa, has raised awareness of the plight of albinos in many African countries, where witchdoctors claim albino body parts can bring wealth and good luck. Albinism is an inherited genetic condition characterised by the absence of melanin in skin, eyes and hair and can affect all races. African albinos, easily spotted by their white skin and fair hair, have long been ostracised and discriminated against. The target of superstitions...

Uncle Barack's American Fun House Vision

Does anyone study history anymore? Heavan, forbid.

Suicide attackers breached security at the African Union base in Somalia’s capital by using vehicles with United Nations logos to carry out a deadly double car bombing, the organization told CNN. “The vehicles had U.N. logos on them and they entered inside the headquarters and then exploded,” said Gaffel Nkolokosa, spokesman for the African Union mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM. “We do not know if they were, in fact, U.N. vehicles.” Jean Ping, chairman of the African Union Commission, issued a statement strongly condemning the attack on the base in Mogadishu, saying it had killed “a number of peacekeepers.”...

Shabaab suicide bombers conducted a coordinated assault against an African Union peacekeeper base in Mogadishu. The deputy military commander for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was among the nine people killed in the attack. The suicide bombers entered the AMISOM military compound in Mogadishu driving two white vehicles with United Nations markings, Reuters reported. The two UN-marked vehicles, which were looted from a compound in Baidoa, were followed by two truckloads of Somali troops. "We thought they were real UN cars carrying white people, but moments later deafening thunder shook the ground," a witness at the compound told...

MOGADISHU, Somalia - American special operations forces killed an al-Qaida terrorist during a helicopter commando assault in Somalia on Monday, NBC News reported. U.S. officials told NBC that Saleh Ali Nabhan, suspected in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 bombing of a resort hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, was killed when at least one U.S. special operations helicopter opened fire on a suspected al-Qaida convoy south of Mogadishu. Ali Nabhan was also suspected of operating al-Qaida training camps inside Somalia, NBC reported. Two men were killed and two others wounded when foreign troops in helicopters...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A top Al-Qaeda operative who figures high on an FBI list of wanted terror suspects was killed in a US military raid in southern Somalia Monday, a US official told AFP. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, named the dead man as Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan wanted for questioning for 2002 attacks in Mombasa on a hotel and an Israeli airliner. ABC news and Fox News, quoting US officials, said Nabhan was killed when at least one US helicopter fired on a convoy carrying suspected Al-Qaeda targets in southern Somalia earlier Monday. An American...

just breaking, no article link yet.

KOGELO, Kenya, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- Kenyan relatives and philanthropic organizations seeking President Obama's financial help mostly get financial advice, extended family members say. Requests for assistance have grown since Obama's election, the Boston Globe reported Sunday. In Kogelo, where Obama's father was raised, as well as in other areas of Kenya, politicians are expected to provide financial help to their tribe and family.

KOGELO, Kenya - After Barack Obama was elected to the US Senate in 2004, a delegation from the remote African village where his father was raised journeyed to Washington, seeking financial help. But Obama offered them advice, not money. Now that Obama has moved to the White House, expectations of financial benefit have grown even greater in this tiny hamlet where water is still delivered to thatched huts on the backs of donkeys. “There are still those who are waiting for him to send millions,’’ said Nicholas Rajula, a Kogelo businessman. Dreams alone seem to be sustaining those counting on...

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s commissioner for the environment sought Thursday to tamp down expectations that wealthy nations would immediately hand over vast sums of money demanded by developing countries to manage global warming. Such funds “cannot be a blank check,” the commissioner, Stavros Dimas, said at a news conference. José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, said fast-emerging economies should be expected to do more to finance efforts to combat climate change... Under the plan, E.U. member nations would pay €2 billion to €15 billion, or $22 million, annually by 2020 from their national...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson called it "Medical Diplomacy." Exporting medical care, expertise and personnel, we can help defeat terrorism by enhancing our medical and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable countries. In August 2007 a combined team of medical and veterinary professionals from the U.S. Army Reserve, a dental team from the U.S. Air Force and medical personnel from the U.S. Navy joined host country doctors and nurses from Mali to provide medical, dental and veterinary care to rural villages in the impoverished West African country. In each village visited, host country personnel...

I do not purport to take a stance on the Obama birth certificate controversy, save to say that his refusal to release the full document is suspicious. I do take issue with falsehoods being put up in Obama's defense though. One of those falsehoods is currently being used to "debunk" the rumor that Obama was born in Mombassa, Kenya instead of Hawaii. The false claim is that Mombassa was part of Zanzibar in 1961 when Obama was born, and it is being repeated without scrutiny by the slothful mainstream media. As with so many things about Obama, this claim is...

RADICAL Islamist al-Shabaab militants linked to al-Qa'ida and based in Somalia plotted to kill US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her trip to Africa last month, it was disclosed yesterday. A planned series of bomb attacks set to take place in Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya, while Mrs Clinton was there - one in the hotel where she was staying - was foiled at the last minute, media reports, citing senior security officials, said. "Al-Qa'ida wanted to strike at the heart of Nairobi (while Mrs Clinton was here)," the senior security official was quoted as saying, adding that...

A radical Islamic sect based in Somalia and linked to al-Qaida and based in Somalia plotted to kill US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her trip to Africa last month, according to The Australian newspaper. The plot was to be carried out through a planned series of bomb attacks set to take place in Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya, while Clinton was there - one in the hotel where she was staying. The plot was foiled at the last minute, media reports, citing senior security officials, said. According to yesterday's reports, al-Shabaab, which is viewed as increasing regional...

Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo, 41, is taking legal action claiming Hergé's controversial Tintin In The Congo is propaganda for colonialism and amounts to "racism and xenophobia". "Tintin's little (black) helper is seen as stupid and without qualities. It makes people think that blacks have not evolved," he said. Mr Mbutu Mondondo launched a case in Belgium two years ago for symbolic damages of one euro from Tintin's Belgian publishers Moulinsart, and demanded the book be withdrawn from the market.

The members of the ruling class of the British Isles seem to be committed to demonstrating that they are nothing but hopeless neo-socialists busy sacrificing their green and pleasant land on the altar of nanny-state multiculturalism. It seems that every day there is a report of some new Labor assault on free speech, a fresh disaster in the decaying single-payer health care system, or another craven surrender to domestic jihadism. The latest atrocity is Scotland’s politicians’ ”compassionate release” of Lockerbie mass-murderer Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, a shameful maneuver that managed to combine greed, cowardice and self-righteousness all into one gutless package. I...

European countries like Britain will be forced to take on more refugees from African and Middle-East countries under sweeping new plans proposed by the EU. The EU Commission wants member states to share the burden of the influx of refugees from Africa, which it says falls heaviest on southern countries like Italy, Malta and Spain, where most illegal migrants arrive. The proposal will spark fears that the UK will now have to take on thousands more immigrants from African countries under some form of quota system. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1210689/EU-set-guidelines-number-immigrants-European-country-take.html#ixzz0PxP9B2SP

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Travel Warning: Mali CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Mali 31 Aug 2009 The U.S. Department of State issued the following Travel Warning on August 31: The U.S. Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the risk of travel to Mali and that Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) may use the Islamic month of Ramadan as an opportunity to conduct further attacks against Americans and other foreign nationals. Faith-based organizations, regardless of location, may be particularly targeted....

A white South African man has been granted refugee status in Canada after an immigration board ruled he faces persecution if he is returned to his native country. Brandon Huntley, 31, from Cape Town, said he had been stabbed three times by black robbers, who called him a 'white dog' and a 'settler' - a reference to South Africa's colonial past based on racial apartheid. He told the panel: 'There's a hatred of what we did to them. It is thought to be the first time a white South African man has been granted refugee status in Canada claiming he...

TRIPOLI (AFP) – Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi blasted Israel at a special African Union summit on Monday on the eve of celebrations to mark his 40-year rule, accusing the Jewish state of causing all the woes facing Africa. Israel is "behind all of Africa's conflicts," Kadhafi told some 30 African leaders gathered under a huge tent at Tripoli airport for a summit focused on solving the continent's trouble spots, including Sudan's Darfur and Somalia. However the one-day meeting ended without proposing concrete steps to do so, the leaders merely adopting a "Tripoli Declaration" and a plan of action "to find...

TODAY'S election in the African nation of Gabon will make Inge Bongo -- who's living on welfare with her two kids in California and collecting food stamps -- the first lady of that oil-rich African country. But she's afraid to even visit. Inge, the lovely wife of fabulously wealthy Ali Bongo -- whose father, Omar Bongo, died in June after ruling for more than four decades -- still has the scars from the beatings she endured, and voodoo exorcisms carried out by witch doctors who slashed her and put black-magic medicine in her wounds. SNIP "It's shameful to me that...

Zimbabwe's two main political leaders, President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had talks with outgoing South African Development Community (SADC) chairman and President of South Africa Jacob Zuma into the early hours of Friday morning. Mr. Zuma came to Harare to try and unblock outstanding issues from the political agreement which is nearly a year old and which brought the unity government in Zimbabwe to power in February. Mr. Zuma has had one-on-one talks with both Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai and then with both of them together since he arrived in Harare late Thursday. Mr. Zuma seemed...

Sorry for the intrusive vanity. Several weeks ago, Rush mentioned a woman from Nigeria who wrote an article comparing Obammie the Commie to an African-style communist/Marxist dictator. Can someone please point me either to the article or the author's name? Thanks in advance.

Congo is demanding 3038 billion norwegian kroner (500 billion US dollars) in compensation for an alleged Norwegian plot involving the Norwegian king and the Ugandans against the state of Congo.

The Zimbabwe Defence Forces are heavily factionalised and it is by no means a foregone conclusion that, should anything happen to Mugabe, the army will fall in behind a single successor. This was revealed to me in detail yesterday after an interview I did with SW Radio regarding the story I broke on this blog about Mugabe’s medical trip to Dubai. The factions within the armed forces mirror those within ZANU PF itself. For example, last year in February, when Simba Makoni jettisoned the party to launch a challenge to Mugabe’s hold on the presidency of Zimbabwe, senior army commanders...

ADDIS ABABA, Aug 24 (Reuters) - African leaders will ask rich nations for $67 billion per year to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world's poorest continent, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Monday. Ten leaders are holding talks at African Union (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital to try to agree a common stance ahead of a U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Experts say Africa contributes little to the pollution blamed for warming, but is likely to be hit hardest by the droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels forecast...

Somalia's president marked the beginning of Ramadan Saturday by calling for a truce with Islamic militants and talks to end the country's bloodshed. President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told VOA Saturday he believes peace and stability are attainable through dialogue, and he called on militants to lay down their weapons. Somalia's fragile transitional government is engaged in a fierce battle to regain large parts of the country from Islamist militants led by the al-Shabab group. In the capital of Mogadishu, heavy fighting between government forces and insurgents has killed at least 100 people since Thursday, many of them civilians. Residents...

Some 2,500 years ago, a mysterious culture emerged in Nigeria. The Nok people left behind bizarre terracotta statues -- and little else. German archaeologists are now looking for more clues to explain this obscure culture. Half a ton of pottery shards is piled on the tables in Peter Breunig's workroom on the sixth floor of the University of Frankfurt am Main. There are broken pots, other storage vessels, a clay lizard and fragments of clay faces with immense nostrils. The chipped head of a statue depicts an African man with a moustache, a fixed glare and hair piled high up...

Hero's welcome for Lockerbie terrorist link

Although no evidence has surfaced placing Barack Obama's mother in Kenya at the time of the president's birth, a taped telephone conversation in which his Kenyan step-grandmother purportedly claims he was born in the coastal city of Mombasa has become an Internet hit since its submission as evidence in a lawsuit challenging the president's eligibility. Philip J. Berg, a former Pennsylvania deputy attorney general, included a transcript of the tape and sworn affidavits in a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court after lower courts dismissed as frivolous his Aug. 21, 2008, complaint alleging Obama was born in Mombasa. The Oct....

King Mswati III of Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarch and ruler of some of the poorest people in the world, has sent his favourite wives on a multimillion-pound shopping jaunt through Europe, the Middle East and Asia, provoking fierce criticism of his profligacy. Britain has been drawn into the row because of the millions of pounds in aid reportedly given to the kingdom, with campaigners accusing Whitehall of double standards. “They shout about Zimbabwe, but keep quiet about what is happening in Swaziland, even though they are one of its biggest aid donors. They are wasting British taxpayers’ money on...

In recent years, African diamonds have lost much of their lustre. The ruthless hunt for so-called blood diamonds delivered little more than brutal civil wars and misery upon that continent, no more so than in Liberia, which is still recovering from years of conflict. But when Hillary Clinton touched down there on her African tour this week, she cited another nation, Botswana, as a role model for dealing with the precious stones. As Ginny Stein reports, a massive diamond deposit appears to be a godsend for the once sleepy country. REPORTER: Ginny Stein For over 40 years in an arid,...

Fresh from huffily telling an African student questioner that she, Hillary R. Clinton, was U.S. Secretary of State, not her husband, Clinton continues to set an example of how not to make friends and influence people in foreign lands, following the lead of her boss, President Barack Obama (D). Clemente Lisi of the NY Post reports on her most recent arrogant, defamation of the country she represents while uttering a slanderous lie. Clinton caused another firestorm during her trouble-plagued Africa tour last night by drawing comparisons between political corruption in Nigeria and President Bush's contested election win nine years ago...

In a bid to break new ground with governments that have previously come under suspicion for rigged elections, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that “things aren’t necessarily any different in America.” As examples, the Secretary of State suggested that George Bush’s 2000 victory over Al Gore in the presidential election and Barack Obama’s victory over her in the 2008 primary each showed significant evidence of tampering. “In the 2000 election we had George Bush’s brother, Governor Jeb Bush pulling strings for him,” Clinton claimed. “Complex ballot design in one county resulted in the moron vote—a key Democratic constituency—mistakenly...

Hillary Clinton snapped. It was unfortunate, because she is our secretary of state, and she blew a fuse while abroad; but it's only human to unload now and again, and it was all a misunderstanding, in any case. What I find dispiriting is how the media's treatment of situations like this has a decided partisan bias. Unless you were on vacation and avoiding all media, you probably know the story. During her seven-nation tour of Africa, the former first lady lashed out at a student in Kinshasa, Congo, who apparently asked her a question about her husband's views on China...

In the days of colonialism, they called Africa the dark continent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought her own version of darkness to her African tour. She was in Congo hosting a town meeting. One of the African questioners -- through a translator -- asked what "Mr. Clinton" thought of China's forays into African investments. "You want to know what my husband thinks? Bill Clinton is not the Secretary of State. I'll tell you what I think. I won't be channeling for my husband," Hilllary snapped. It was a waspish performance. Her body English needed no translation. She was more...

The American pastor and onetime presidential candidate was honoured at a ceremony with Amon N'Douffou V, king of the Agni people of the Krindjabo kingdom. The crowning ceremony was attended by bare-chested women. The king rules over a million members of his tribe, which venerates Michael Jackson after making him their prince after he visited the kingdom in 1992. Villagers deep in the rainforest launched a search for a successor to the singer who was crowned prince of the Agni people 17 years ago. The tribe held an extravagent two-day royal funeral for Michael Jackson. Traditional dancers and lookalikes of...

Usually it’s Bill who loses it, but Hillary has swallowed a lot of aggravation in the last nine months. The fascinating thing about Bill and Hillary’s relationship is the way they perform their emotional correctives in public. Because Bill got so thoroughly smacked around last year for mouthing off on the campaign trail at the wrong moments and causing Hillary vote-losing blowback, he has been as good as gold ever since—the very model of a discreet, dignified former president. How appropriately stony-faced he looked the other day, sitting next to looney-tunes Kim Jong Il before the handover of the two...

So, it's the southern tip of Africa, about 70,000 years ago, and some humans have built a fire. Maybe it's to keep warm, or to cook up some gazelle steaks. To kill time, they do a little flint knapping — whacking one rock with another to chip off razor-sharp flakes. They use the flakes to cut meat or make spear points. After the fire dies down, someone drags a big stone out of the embers and tries whacking that, and discovers that it makes really good flakes: it chips predictably and the flakes are symmetrical and sharp. Eureka — pyroengineering...

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JOE SCARBOROUGH: Tina Brown, what's wrong with my former, ex-girlfriend Hillary Clinton? TINA BROWN: What's wrong with Hillary is one week too long on this African hellish tour that she's on. Think of it from the human point of view: she is in her second week. She's hot. ..She is feeling fat. She had this horrible business where she suddenly lost it a bit over the whole Bill thing... Frankly, I want to get her home now. I want to get her home. Otherwise, by the time she hits Liberia, she's going to be saying: "what can I tell you?...

<p>Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared Nigeria’s corruption and electoral problems with the 2000 Florida presidential election recount during a town hall meeting today in Abuja, Nigeria.</p> <p>Answering a question about Nigeria’s recent election, Clinton said, “In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for President was the governor of the state. So we have our problems too.”</p>

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made another controversial comment at an African town hall. While discussing the importance of free and fair elections, she uses the 2000 Presidential election and its ensuing recount, and the fact that then-candidate George W. Bush was the brother of then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example in telling Nigerians, "We have our problems, too."

In Congo, Hillary Clinton Suggests Government Ownership of Industry Would be a Good Thing Wednesday, August 12, 2009 By Adam Brickley (CNSNews.com) - In a television interview Monday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that it would be a good thing for the government to take an ownership interest in industry.

Public Advisory #1000 WTNT32 KNHC 111000 TCPAT2 BULLETIN TROPICAL DEPRESSION TWO SPECIAL ADVISORY NUMBER 1 NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL022009 600 AM AST TUE AUG 11 2009 ...SECOND TROPICAL DEPRESSION OF THE ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON FORMS... SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT A TROPICAL DEPRESSION HAS FORMED OVER THE FAR EASTERN TROPICAL ATLANTIC. AT 600 AM AST...1000 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL DEPRESSION TWO WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 14.4 NORTH...LONGITUDE 28.6 WEST OR ABOUT 280 MILES...455 KM...WEST OF THE SOUTHERNMOST CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. THE DEPRESSION IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 13 MPH...20 KM/HR...AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE...