Free Republic

China Retakes Top Spot as the Biggest Foreign Owner of U.S. Debt By IAN TALLEY It was a short-lived domination. After just a month of being the top holder of U.S. Treasury debt, Japan has once again been pushed into the No.2 slot as China bulked up on Uncle Sam’s bonds and notes. As we noted last month – and several times before that – Treasury’s data is a rough guesstimate. That makes it hard for analysts sifting through the obscure sheaves of digital data to glean anything but rough trends. It also makes it difficult to draw precise conclusions....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Foreign holdings of U.S. debt rose in March as China ramped up its purchases and displaced Japan as the leading owner of U.S. Treasury securities. The Treasury Department says overseas ownership of U.S. debt rose 2.1 percent in March to $6.18 trillion. That is below January's record of $6.22 trillion. China added $37.3 billion ... bringing its stockpile to $1.26 trillion... ahead of Japan, which added just $2.5 billion...to $1.23 trillion. ... The U.S. deficit topped $1 trillion from 2009 through 2012. Foreign governments...account for two-thirds of the foreign holdings...rose 1 percent from the previous month to...

They’re Nigeria’s unlikely saviors – most being white, in their 50s and 60s and combat veterans of the former South African apartheid regime. But, tainted resumes notwithstanding, they’ve been getting the job done in northern Nigeria, hitting the Islamist terror group Boko Haram hard enough to send the jihadists into retreat, liberating dozens of villages and freeing hundreds of women and girls held as slaves and “bush wives” during a six-year-long reign of terror, reported London Telegraph. Boko Haram recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. In recent years, Boko Haram has slaughtered entire...

May 5, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- An African Catholic bishop has said he thinks Hillary Clinton believes she is a god, someone who doesn’t value others’ morals, and he hopes Americans will wake up to what sort of people are running to be their president. “I believe there are three groups of people in this world,” said Bishop Emmanuel Badejo. “Those who believe in God, those who do not believe in God, and those who think they are gods.” “Hillary Clinton I think is one of those who thinks she is a god,” he said. “And I’m not obliged to believe...

“Boko Haram came and told us they were moving out and said that we should run away with them. But we said no… Then they started stoning us. I held my baby to my stomach and doubled over to protect her,” 27-year-old Lami Musa told the Associated Press. Musa escaped along with her five-month-old baby. Boko Haram recently changed its name officially to the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. The rescue does not mean the crisis is over, as the Nigerian government must now resolve how to reintegrate these survivors into society. It is not known exactly where...

Her campaign barely three weeks old, Hillary Clinton already has been attacked by Republicans on everything from donations to her family’s charitable foundation, to her tenure as secretary of state and her ties to Wall Street. But her rivals, and the political action committees that support them, are treading more carefully on one incendiary subject: her age . If elected in November 2016, Clinton would be, at 69, the second-oldest person to take the presidential oath for the first time, behind only Ronald Reagan, who turned 70 weeks after being sworn into office in 1981. Questions of health and fitness...

ROME—In this far reaching, follow-up interview to a story Aleteia brought you in February, Bishop Emmanuel Badejo, who serves as Director of Communications for the African Bishops, discusses with Aleteia the latest developments regarding Boko Haram, and his fellow Nigerian bishop’s claim that he had vision of Jesus Christ, who told him the terrorist organization would be defeated through the power of the rosary.    He also offers his perspective on Hillary Clinton’s statement last week that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health...

LAGOS, Nigeria — After carrying out a mass rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from the forest stronghold of an Islamic insurgent group, Nigeria's military is evacuating them and plans to check their physical and mental health, the army spokesman said Wednesday. The military is flying in medical and intelligence teams to examine the females, many of whom are traumatized, said Col. Sani Usman. He earlier said that none of the so-called Chibok girls appeared to be among those rescued but later said it remains to be seen if any were among the 219 who are still missing more...

A Nigerian bishop says that he has seen Christ in a vision and now knows that the rosary is the key to ridding the country of the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram. Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme says he is being driven by a God-given mandate to lead others in praying the rosary until the extremist group disappears. “Towards the end of last year I was in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament… praying the rosary, and then suddenly the Lord appeared,” Bishop Dashe told EWTN News April 18. In the vision, the prelate said, Jesus didn’t say anything at...

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme, head of the Diocese of Maiduguri in Nigeria's Borno State, was in a chapel praying before the Blessed Sacrament last December when, he says, something extraordinary happened: Jesus Christ appeared holding a sword, which He offered to the prelate. According to Bishop Dashe, the moment he took the sword from Jesus' hands, it transformed into Rosary beads. He then heard Christ repeat three times, "Boko Haram is gone." The bishop recalls, "I didn't need any prophet to give me the explanation. It was clear that with the Rosary we would be able to expel Boko Haram."...

Oliver Dashe Doeme, Bishop of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria, minced no words this weekend in speaking of the atrocities of the jihadist group Boko Haram, which he called a “demonic cult.”

"Seventeen people have died of the mysterious disease since it broke out early this week in Ode-Irele town," said Ondo state government spokesman Kayode Akinmade. The disease, symptoms of which include headache, weight loss, blurred vision and loss of consciousness, killed the victims within 24 hours of their falling ill, he said. Laboratory tests have so far ruled out Ebola or any other virus, Mr Akinmade added. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it had information on 14 cases with at least 12 dead. "Common symptoms were sudden blurred vision, headache, loss of consciousness followed by death, occurring within 24...

Boko Haram Adopts ISIS' Bloody Religious Cleansing Strategy By Steve Dorsey April 19, 2015 The Islamic militant group Boko Haram is adopting ISIS' bloody strategy of stamping out Christianity with a frightening fervor, putting Nigeria's 70 million followers of Jesus in danger for their lives, fearful human rights advocates say. Boko Haram leaders vowed their formal allegiance to IS in an audio message in Arabic posted to Twitter last month, according to intelligence analysts. The militant group has launched murderous rampages across northeastern Nigeria, and into neighboring Chad, Cameroon and Niger. In an attack April 7, Islamist extremists disguised themselves...

Around mid-April, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia –who once wrote a letter to Barack Obama beseeching the president to reconsider his foreign policies which enable the persecution of Christians in Syria — spoke again of the threat of Christian extinction in the Mideast during a meeting with Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos. In the Russian Patriarch’s own words: "I regularly get reports of horrible crimes that are committed there against Christians, especially in northern Iraq. I have visited those places and I remember that there were many churches and monasteries there. The city of Mosul alone had 45...

Full title: Christians in Niger Forgive Muslims Who Burned Churches and Killed Believers: 'We Want Them to Know Jesus Christ' Christians living in Niger, West Africa have offered Christ-like forgiveness to the radical Muslims who destroyed their homes and churches, are are continuing to share the Gospel in the region. On January 17, hundreds of Muslims, angered by the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, destroyed 69 churches and 11 Christian homes. Ten Christians lost their lives and hundreds more were injured in the wake of the deadly rampage. "They took pews, Bibles, chairs...

Today marks one year since the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped over 200 Christian girls from a school in the town of Chibok, Nigeria. In the days before the kidnapping, Boko Haram had massacred some 200 schoolboys at a nearby school who had been on their way to take exams. Despite initially being sent home, the girls had been called back to their school to take their final exams when the middle-of-the-night attack occurred. The regional government had closed all of 85 of its secondary schools and sent 120,000 students home because of previous attacks. […] The girls were...

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow on Monday where the issue of Middle East peace talks will be raised, Russian authorities announced Thursday. “The two leaders will hold talks concerning key aspects of Russian-Palestinian relations and their future, with particular attention on the trade, economy and humanitarian sectors,” the Kremlin said in a statement according to AFP. There will also be “an exchange of ideas on the process of Israeli-Palestinian talks and other problematic regional situations,” the statement continued, adding that North Africa would also be on the agenda. …

At the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast this week, President Obama addressed a room full of Christian leaders. What was clearly scripted to be a general Easter address came dangerously close to political posturing. During his remarks, the President shared that, “on Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love. And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned. But that's a topic for another day.” What followed was spirited laughter, as Obama’s quip was largely understood as a reference to...

Last week, as radical Islamists slaughtered 148 Christian students at a Kenyan university, America’s faithful celebrated Easter and Passover in tranquility, demonstrating why religious liberty is not the eccentric uncle in the human-rights family — it’s the matriarch. Yet with demonic evil spanning the globe, and religion a life-and-death matter, punishment for defending one’s faith is now acceptable in America. Our “live and let live” ethic is increasingly imperiled. Witness the firestorm after Indiana became the 20th state to enact its version of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In our morally upside-down world, we accommodate the nuclear ambitions of...

Full Title: Revealed: Hillary Clinton's State Department refused over and over to brand Al Qaeda group that kidnapped 300 girls in Nigeria as 'terrorists' Under then-Secretary Hillary Clinton, the U.S. State Department repeatedly refused to add the Nigerian al-Qaeda affiliate group Boko Haram – the organization responsible for the recent kidnapping of more than 300 young girls – to its official list of terrorist organizations. In November 2013, current Secretary John Kerry did what Clinton wouldn't. Boko Haram is the group that has claimed responsibility for kidnapping hundreds of girls in Nigeria, promising to sell them into slavery. The Daily...