Free Republic

The Yellow-crested Helmetshrike was ready for what might be its first-ever closeup - Matt Brady, University of Texas at El Paso ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No-one has seen the Yellow-crested Helmetshrike for about 20 years. That changed when researchers embarked on a six-week expedition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and captured the dramatic-looking yellow-topped bird in its first-known photo. With nearly 70% of the planet's wildlife populations having declined since the 1970s, there are not often stories worth cheering for when it comes to global animal welfare. But a new find in the remote Itombwe Massif in the Congo is certainly...

Net zero’s dirty little secret is the African child labor and China’s forced labor for mining cobalt. But what that also means is that the United States is heavily dependent on our existential enemy and child labor for one of the most important minerals in modern society. Even NPR recognizes the problem. “Right now, most of the cobalt the US and its allies use comes from mines that are owned or controlled by China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” the outlet reported. Of course, NPR did not explain that those supposedly wonderfully eco-friendly electric cars, besides being unreliable,...

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is in the midst of an mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) outbreak that has led to nearly 600 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Unlike last year’s global outbreak, this one involves a different type of mpox virus (Clade I) that causes more severe disease. For the first time, sexual transmission of this strain is playing a role, especially among men who have sex with men.

It is déjà vu for major oil producers, who are again considering steeper production cuts. It took only a month after the Hamas attacks on Israel unleashed a punishing war for oil prices to fall below their pre-Oct. 7 level. The steep drop in oil prices last week, with Brent crude briefly dropping to $77 per barrel, led to speculation that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allied producers (OPEC+) will decide to cut production at its next meeting. OPEC’s last-minute decision to delay the meeting, now scheduled for Nov. 30, will only add to the speculation. U.S....

US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas going on offense over allegations questioning his ethics. A six-page statement from Justice Thomas's personal lawyer... An unidentified flying object shot down over the northwestern Russian city of Pskov tonight... 48 people killed by the military in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa. Congolese soldiers attacking a religious group protesting the United Nations... The United States military calling on US-supported groups in eastern Syria to stop fighting each other... The inflation average in the Eurozone 5.3 percent... New university research in the Netherlands is translating into stricter official nitrogen...

The U.S. is turning to a much-criticized source as it races to secure supplies of battery metals to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles. To do so, it is homing in on cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s informal mining sector, where miners, sometimes including children, often work with no safety equipment in dangerous, hand-dug mines. Congo supplies around 70% of the world’s cobalt, a key metal in the lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, with about a third of that coming from these so-called artisanal miners. The U.S. Agency for International Development said earlier this year that it...

Politics in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States have something in common: efforts to knock formidable competitors for the presidency out of the race via state action.The Jewish Voice reports:A law barring the Democratic Republic of Congo’s only politician with Jewish roots – and the frontrunner in the African nation’s presidential race – from taking office has sparked outrage.The law, reintroduced to the African nation’s parliament in Kinshasa this week, would block Moise Katumbi from running because he doesn’t have two Congolese parents.Proof that this is not merely some concern over parentage comes from the fact that:The...

President Biden tried Wednesday to downplay House Republican investigations of his embattled son Hunter and the rest of the first family — claiming that voters just won’t be interested. In an interview with “PBS NewsHour” host Judy Woodruff, Biden was asked how he planned to deal with the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into his son’s shady business interests in China and Ukraine. “The public is not going to pay attention that,” Biden, 80, insisted. “They want these guys to do something. If the only thing they can do is make up things about my family, it’s not going to go...

Did you know that, all throughout sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo—Muslims have for many years been terrorizing and slaughtering Christians? Nor is there any hope on the horizon: problems that cannot be honestly addressed are doomed to persist in perpetuity.

Video shows sabotage in the Congo. Vandal cuts ribbon that was holding up a bridge.https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1567525597580070913

Video at https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1567525597580070913KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Sharply-suited dignitaries gathered to inaugurate a footbridge in the Congolese capital on Monday only for the structure to collapse beneath their feet to the barely concealed delight of onlookers, video verified by Reuters showed. Just as an organiser cut the ribbon at the ceremony in Kinshasa's Mont-Ngafula district, the bridge buckled, both its handrails broke off, and the central section slumped into the stream a couple of metres below. Spectators shouted in apparent glee as the VIPs struggled to get off the crumpled wreck. Nobody was reported to have been hurt...

A bridge in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) collapsed as officials gathered to inaugurate it, according to local Khaama Press news agency. Videos of the accident are circulating on social media where people are mocking the construction quality. The small bridge was built to help locals cross a river during the rainy season. The temporary structure that was there before the bridge used to break frequently, the news agency said in its report. One of the videos shows officials standing on the bridge to formally inaugurate it during an official event. The inauguration would have been complete with the cutting...

At least five people have been killed and fifty others wounded on the second day of anti-United Nations protests in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo city of Goma, according to the government. A Reuters reporter at the scene said UN peacekeepers fired tear gas and live bullets at a largely peaceful crowd on Tuesday, killing two and wounding at least two others. Army and police officers deployed to the scene did not open fire. A soldier and a policeman in a bulletproof vest were also hit by bullets, he added. An AFP journalist also reported seeing a UN...

“Those Cuban-CIA men (Bay of Pigs vets) were as tough, dedicated and impetuous a group of soldiers as I’ve ever had the honor of commanding,” wrote legendary anti-communist mercenary “Mad Mike” Hoare, commander of the “Wild Geese,” in his book Congo Mercenary. ''This is the history of a failure,'' said the oddly frank opening lines of Che Guevara’s Congo Dairies. “I stood above Che Guevara, my boots near his head, just as Che had once stood over my dear friend and fellow 2506 Brigade member, Nestor Pino. ‘We're going to kill you all," Che said to Pino.’ Now, the situation...

Islamic extremists raided the village of Masambo in the northeastern province of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on April 3, the Barnabas Fund reported Thursday. The raid by jihadists from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group allied to the Islamic State, is just one episode in a flood of Islamist violence across North Kivu and its neighboring province of Ituri, Barnabas noted in an email Tuesday. “It is a miracle I survived,” said Masambo resident Kakule Saanane. “We were already in bed when we heard the sound of boots outside and bullets. It was...

Michigan police have released footage of a black man being shot in the back of the head by a white cop during a struggle over a Taser following a traffic stop in Grand Rapids, sparking protests across the city with hundreds of people calling for justice. Amid public outcry for transparency, police released the footage on Wednesday showing Patrick Lyoya, 26, face down on the ground as he is fatally shot outside a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 4. The vides also depicts the events leading up to the shooting, including the traffic stop that led to a...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A Black man face-down on the ground was fatally shot in the back of the head by a Michigan police officer, the violent climax of a traffic stop, brief foot chase and struggle over a stun gun, according to videos of the April 4 incident released Wednesday. Patrick Lyoya, 26, was killed outside a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The white officer repeatedly ordered Lyoya to “let go” of his Taser, at one point demanding: “Drop the Taser!” Citing a need for transparency, the city’s new police chief, Eric Winstrom, released four videos, including critical...

For more than a decade, Chinese companies have spent billions of dollars buying out U.S. and European miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt belt - the world’s richest source of a mineral that has become critical to the global transition to cleaner energy. Now the Chinese firms are running into trouble after a court ordered one of the largest to temporarily cede control of one of its mines. Just one electric vehicle can require between 10 and 30 pounds of cobalt to build its battery, depending on the manufacturer, though Tesla Inc. and other auto makers are now...

The marital hat trick was set in motion after the husband-to-be met one of the triplets, Natalie, and quickly fell head over heels with her. However, things took a turn after he visited his budding soulmate and she introduced him to her twin sisters, Nadege and Natasha, who became equally smitten with their sibling’s new squeeze. “My parents don’t understand what I’m doing,” lamented the polygamist, who went ahead with the bridal triple-header without their blessing. He added that they didn’t even attend the ceremony.

A quick review of communist China's calculated territorial imperialism in the South China Sea helps clarify Beijing's calculated economic, political and criminal imperialism in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2016 the Hague's international tribunal ruled that China had seized islets and "sea features" in the South China Sea belonging to the Philippines. It had also plundered Filipino fishing resources. The ruling invoked the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty China had signed. Yet Beijing ignored the verdict. Chinese diplomats contend in Southeast Asia, China is recovering "stolen" territory. That defense is rubbish -- propaganda to blur a wicked...