Free Republic

The special UN appeal to be announced Monday in Geneva is intended to address the burgeoning humanitarian crisis on Libya's borders with Tunisia, Egypt, and Niger, according to UN officials. Most of the Egyptian refugees who fled Libya into Tunisia have been returned to Egypt, the officials say, but they add that thousands of mostly Bangladeshi nationals are still stuck just over the border from Libya in Tunisia, in rapidly deteriorating conditions. The torrent of refugees fleeing Libya has slowed to a trickle -- from nearly 15,000 a day crossing into Tunisia to fewer than 2,000 on Thursday, officials said...

Recent events in Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt spell a dangerous new trend in the region. There have been major developments in Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt, each of which is of tremendous importance. In Tunisia, a popular uprising fueled by unemployment, economic suffering and long-term discontent has overthrown the dictator, but not necessarily the dictatorship. In 55 years of independence, the country has been governed by two dictators, the current one being Zine al-Abedin Ben Ali, who has been president for 23 years and was a key power in the regime even before that. Is this going to spread? Does it...

When Hollywood decides a former White House aide is fair game for attack, facts don't come into play. History, however, cannot be so cavalier about the truth. The new movie "Fair Game" - based on the outing of CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson during political battles concerning the war in Iraq - is anything but fair or honest. In depicting former vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as a sinister point man in a broad effort to destroy Mrs. Wilson's career while concocting a fraudulent case for the war, the movie perpetuates myths that improperly damage U.S. credibility....

... the title is drawn from how Karl Rove told Matthews that the CIA agent Valerie Plame was fair game for critics of her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson, you’ll recall, was dispatched by the CIA in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson came back with the answer no, and he was outraged when President Bush nevertheless stuck with the claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, which made the case for war with Iraq. Just three...

Al-Qaeda is poised to overrun five states in North Africa and the Middle East, creating terrorist safe havens from which the network can launch attack on the West, Europe and the US have been warned. Mauritania, Mali and Niger have seen a steady escalation of al-Qaeda activity targeting Western aid workers and experts. Somalia, to their east, has disintegrated in the face of Islamist assault. In Yemen, across the Red Sea from Somalia, security forces have been waging a losing battle against resurgent jihadist armies that have claimed the lives of dozens of troops. Amadou Marou, the President of Niger's...

PARIS (AP) - France has declared war on al-Qaida, and matched its fighting words with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network's North African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it took hostage in April. The declaration and attack marked a shift in strategy for France, usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes battle against terrorism. "We are at war with al-Qaida," Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death of 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau. The humanitarian worker had been abducted April 20 or 22 in Niger...

Militants linked to Al Qaeda are building fortified bun-kers in the Algeria and Mali areas of the Sahara desert to shelter militants from air attacks, security experts claim. The members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have hidden themselves in the desert without any notion of national boundaries, according to the experts. “We have different verifiable reports which enable us to state that AQIM is currently in the process of building shelters, or bunkers, in which to hide against attacks in the desert shared by Mali and Algeria,” a Malian source told Middle East Online, reported AKI. “There is...

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

SNIPPET - quote: Travel Warning United States Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Washington, DC 20520 This information is current as of today, Wed May 12 2010 23:23:37 GMT-0700 (PDT). NIGER May 11, 2010 The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Niger and recommends against all travel to the north of the country due to kidnapping threats against Westerners. Al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist group, continues its attempts to kidnap Westerners, including U.S. citizens in Niger, and has been successful in kidnapping Europeans in the region. On...

Florida Congressman and national embarrassment, Alan Grayson made a fortune as a plaintiffs' attorney specializing in whistleblower fraud cases aimed at Iraq war contractors. For example, employees of one contractor Custer Battles, were found guilty of making fraudulent statements and submitting fraudulent invoices on two contracts in 2003 Grayson disclosed his attorney fees and costs for the case exceeded $4 million, and that's just one case. In 2006, a Wall Street Journal reporter described Grayson as "waging a one-man war against contractor fraud in Iraq" and as a "fierce critic of the war in Iraq" whose car was "emblazoned" with...

The embattled representative from the state of Florida, Alan Grayson found himself on the verge of being caught in a coup in Niger earlier this week. www.southernstudies.org Representative Alan Grayson Democrat from Florida. Alan Grayson, the often outspoken Democratic Representative from Florida was on a trip to Niger earlier this week. While on his trip there was a military coup that Grayson almost found himself caught up in. According to a Grayson's press secretary, Todd Jurkowski, "He heard the gunshots. They were literally in the building next door." Grayson was serving as part of a congressional delegation that was...

Hundreds, if not thousands of people have taken to the streets of the capital, Niamey, Saturday in support of the military junta who seized power in a coup this week. Demonstrators were also out on the streets Friday showing their support for the coup that ousted the increasingly unpopular president, Mamadou Tandja. The demonstration of support comes as condemnations pour in from the international community. On Friday, the African Union suspended Niger and demanded a return to constitutional order.

News has a way of following U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson — even when he travels overseas. The bombastic lawmaker from Orlando was in the Niger capital this week when military officials overthrew President Mamadou Tandja in a show of force. Tandja has dissolved key government institutions in a bid to stay in power indefinitely. “He was very close to the action; he heard the gunfire” said Todd Jurkowski, a Grayson spokesman. He said the freshman Democrat already was on his way back to the United States and should land sometime late Friday or early Saturday. Jurkowski said Grayson’s stay in...

Niger's new military junta says it has dissolved the government after a coup that toppled President Mamadou Tandja in the impoverished but uranium-rich west African country. The Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD) announced on Friday that its head would be squadron leader Salou Djibo, whose heavily armed unit played a key role in Thursday's coup. "The government is dissolved," said a statement signed by Djibo and read by an unnamed military officer on state television.

Niger's President Mamadou Tandja was detained by mutinous troops on Thursday after a coup in the west African uranium exporter that left at least three soldiers dead, military sources said. Three Nigerian military sources said the coup was led by a soldier named Major Adamou Harouna. "The coup leader has succeeded. It is being led by Major Adamou Harouna," one source said. The president and the ministers are being detained not far from the presidential palace, the sources added. Earlier in the day plumes of smoke were seen rising from the palace after soldiers attacked the building where Tandja was...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_4546.html Travel Alert U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs This information is current as of today, Thu Nov 19 2009 21:45:59 GMT-0800 (PST). Niger November 19, 2009 The Department of State alerts U.S. citizens to the risks of travel to Niger due to threat of kidnapping, and recommends against all travel to Niger at this time. This Travel Alert expires February 28, 2010. On December 14, 2008, two United Nations officials, former Canadian diplomats, were kidnapped by the terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) while...

The cause of democracy in Africa could have done without this latest affront. Barely six months after giving the French president an undertaking that he would leave power at the end of his second term, Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, has rewritten the rules to give himself power for as long as he wishes. A general election was held on 20 October to renew 113 seats in parliament, which Tandja dissolved in May to overcome its opposition to his plans to change the constitution. He organised a referendum on 4 August to obtain popular approval for new rules, doing away with...

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (AFP) – Three top Nigerian militant leaders in the volatile oil hub of the Niger Delta gave up their weapons along with thousands of fighters on Saturday under a government amnesty. A senior commander of the main armed group MEND surrendered his weapons in the oil city of Port Harcourt, on the eve of the expiry date of the amnesty extended to rebels who have wrought havoc on Nigeria's oil industry in recent years. "I Farah Dagogo, overall field commander for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) accepts together with field commanders in...

NIAMEY — A Niger opposition chief was put back in prison Tuesday after being freed following his arrest for calling for protests against a new constitution extending the president's rule, his organisation said. Earlier in the day, Niger police teargassed a crowd of political figures and human rights activists who had come to attend the trials of the opposition leader and a prominent journalist. "Marou Amadou has just been kidnapped aboard two 4x4 vehicles by members of the Republican Guard at the prison in Niamey as he was trying to complete formalities for his freedom from prison," Ali Idrissa, a...

Mamadou Tandja, president of the desert nation of Niger, has secured another three years in office and unlimited runs at future terms, in a referendum that opposition officials have called a coup d’etat in all but name. Tandja, a 71-year-old former army colonel, who had promised to step down after his second term expired in December, thanked voters even before the official results were announced on Friday by the country’s electoral commission. Giant posters appeared in the capital of Niamey by Thursday, expressing gratitude for the “renewed confidence” of voters. The commission said Tandja’s proposal for a new constitution received...