Free Republic

First lady Jill Biden met with Namibian President Hage Geingob on Wednesday to kick off her five-day, two-country visit to Africa. “We wanted to come because this is a young democracy and we want to support democracies around the world,” Biden said ahead of the meeting. Biden visited with Geingob and Namibian first lady Monica Geingos at the State House and after a photograph together, the three had a closed-door meeting. Geingob asked Biden how her husband was ahead of the meeting and she replied, “He’s great. I will tell him you were asking for him.” Her focus in Namibia...

Cuprous oxide crystal. (University of St Andrews) One of the ways we can fully realize the potential of quantum computers is by basing them on both light and matter – this way, information can be stored and processed, but also travel at the speed of light. Scientists have just taken a step closer to this goal, by successfully producing the largest hybrid particles of light and matter ever created. These quasiparticles, known as Rydberg polaritons, were made with the help of a piece of stone containing cuprous oxide (Cu2O) crystals from an ancient deposit in Namibia, one of the few...

The US will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other nearby countries from next week as fears grow over the new COVID-19 Omicron variant, the White House said Friday. The travel ban, which doesn’t apply to American citizens or permanent residents, will come into effect from Monday. The new restrictions apply to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia €1.1bn (£940m) to fund projects among communities affected by the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel’s government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations. Tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, tortured or driven into the Kalahari desert to starve by German troops between 1904 and 1908 after the Herero and Nama tribes rebelled against colonial rule in what was then named German South West Africa and is now Namibia. Since 2015, Germany has negotiated with the Namibian...

Adolf Hitler Uunona won a seat in Oshana, Namibia, but insisted he has "nothing to do with" the ideologies of the Nazi Party, claiming his father likely didn't understand what the name stood forA politician named after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler has been elected to a seat in Namibia. Adolf Hitler Uunona - representing the southern African country's ruling SWAPO party - received 85 percent of the vote, but insists he has "nothing to do with" the ideologies of one of the most evil men in history. His constituency remains home to a small German-speaking community, while multiple street names...

A politician named Adolf Hitler has won a regional election in Namibia. Adolf Hitler Uunona has been elected with 85 percent of the vote for a seat on the regional council in the former German colony, where street names, people and places still have German names. However, Adolf Uunona says he wants to assure people that he has no plans for world domination. He told German tabloid paper Bild: "My father named me after this man. He probably didn't understand what Adolf Hitler stood for. As a child I saw it as a totally normal name. Only as a teenager...

'Fairy circles' of Africa baffle scientists (Filed: 10/05/2004) Twenty-five years of research fail to find the cause of a mysterious natural phenomenon, reports Tim Butcher at Wolwedans Camp One of Africa's most mysterious natural phenomena still cannot be explained despite 25 years of research, scientists admitted yesterday. Rings known as "fairy circles" that pockmark vast areas of desert in Namibia and South Africa have baffled botanists from the University of Pretoria and the Polytechnic of Namibia. They have ruled out termite activity, poisoning from toxic indigenous plants, contamination from radioactive minerals and even ostrich dust baths as possible causes. "At...

It was 1952, and Alan Turing was about to reshape humanity's understanding of biology. Fairy circles in Namibia. (pum_eva/Getty Images) ============================================================================== In a landmark paper, the English mathematician introduced what became known as the Turing pattern – the notion that the dynamics of certain uniform systems could give rise to stable patterns when disturbed. Such 'order from disturbance' has become the theoretical basis for all sorts of strange, repeated motifs seen in the natural world. It was a good theory. So good, in fact, that decades later, scientists are still discovering stunning examples of it in unusual and exotic places:...

Addis Ababa (AFP) - The chairman of the African Union Commission on Wednesday defended the World Health Organization (WHO) and its leadership from attacks by US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday threatened to cut funding for the UN body. "Surprised to learn of a campaign by the US govt against WHO's global leadership," Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a Twitter post. "The African Union fully supports WHO and Dr Tedros," he added, referring to the WHO's director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian. Faki was later joined by Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Namibian President Hage Geingob, who took to...

A study provides a window into the first 100,000 years of the history of modern humans. The real Garden Of Eden has been traced to the African nation of Botswana, according to a major study of DNA. Scientists believe our ancestral homeland is south of the Zambezi River in the country's north. The conclusion comes after the study of maternal genetic lineage of anatomically modern humans, finding it was closest to those living in the area, which includes northern Botswana, Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east. For 70,000 years, our ancestors thrived in the area before changes...

A Fish and Game commissioner in Idaho who came under fire for circulating images of he and his wife posing with dead animals during a hunt in Africa resigned on Monday, saying he had made "poor judgments." In a letter to Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, the commissioner, Blake Fischer, said those judgments "resulted in sharing photos of a hunt in which I did not display an appropriate level of sportsmanship and respect for the animals I harvested." While claiming the photos were out of character, Fischer apologized and said he hoped the photos would "not harm the integrity and...

Berlin is poised to strip the names of streets linked to atrocities committed during its occupation of Namibia and dedicate them to liberation fighters, part of a late reckoning with Germany’s brutal colonial history. After more than a decade of debate, the three main parties in the Berlin Mitte district assembly voted late Wednesday to recommend new names for streets in the so-called African Quarter in the northwest of the German capital, spokeswoman Melita Ersek said. […] The motion to drop the names associated with bloody suppression of Namibia during Germany’s 1884-1919 occupation of what was then called German South...

Since announcing he will not seek re-election in 2018, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is on a warpath against President Trump. While Flake is lamenting President Trump's rhetoric and nationalist, populist policies, it's important to remember the Arizona lawmaker has a checkered past as a foreign lobbyist who worked for a uranium mining firm with ties to Iran. Yahoo News reports: [Flake] came back to Washington [from Namibia] in 1990 and launched a consulting firm, Interface Public Affairs; he signed up the Rossing uranium mine, one of the new nation's economic drivers, as a client. Flake signed on as the mine's...

Here is an english translation from french. http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/12/1/12030/8816#2 Paris - The Direction Générale de la Sécurité extériéure (Dgse) is the French counter-espionage abroad. Alain Chouet was Vice-Director. Today he is enjoying his retirement in the country but - up to the summer 2002 - he was the man who handled the `Nigergate' on behalf of Paris. He says: "I know what happened. When it happened. How it happened. I guided the French intelligence in this affair. I made the decisions. I communicated and exchanged with the Americans all information concerning this case. At the time I was head of the...

Herero genocide by Marc Ambler Like most visitors to Namibia,1 one of the memorable pictures I carried away was of the noble-looking Herero people. Their women wear colourful, voluminous Victorian-style dresses and hats, and the men wear uniforms on ceremonial occasions. How terribly sad it was to learn that 100 years ago, their great-grandparents had been the victims of the first genocide of the 20th century. ... That the German settlers and a high-ranking officer like General von Trotha would hold to these ‘superior race’, ‘survival-of-the-fittest-through-“cleansing”-of-the-weakest’ views is hardly surprising. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (which is subtitled By...

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....

Explanation: In front of a famous background of stars and galaxies lies some of Earth's more unusual trees. Known as quiver trees, they are actually succulent aloe plants that can grow to tree-like proportions. The quiver tree name is derived from the historical usefulness of their hollowed branches as dart holders. Occurring primarily in southern Africa, the trees pictured in the above 16-exposure composite are in Quiver Tree Forest located in southern Namibia. Some of the tallest quiver trees in the park are estimated to be about 300 years old. Behind the trees is light from the small town of...

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...

AIR Namibia experienced a bird strike incident on Thursday last week when an A319-100 aircraft was landing at Hosea Kutako International Airport. The airline's spokesperson, Paul Nakawa, confirmed the incident yesterday. Nakawa explained that a bird strike is considered dangerous in the aviation industry and can cause serious damage to an aircraft. “Bird strikes are common during landing and taking off of an aicraft because these are the times when the aircraft is flying in the ranges where birds are also flying. Regarding this recent incident, a big bird hit one of our four A319-100 aircraft that services our regional...

Explanation: Is there anything interesting to see in the direction opposite the Sun? One night last month, there were quite a few things. First, the red-glowing orb on the lower right of the featured image is the full moon, darkened and reddened because it has entered Earth's shadow. Beyond Earth's cone of darkness are backscattering dust particles orbiting the Sun that standout with a diffuse glow called the gegenschein, visible as a faint band rising from the central horizon and passing behind the Moon. A nearly horizontal stripe of green airglow is also discernable just above the horizon, partly blocked...