Free Republic

To get an idea of what Conan O’Brien’s audience is cheering when it enthusiastically applauds whites soon becoming a minority in America, look to South Africa, a country built by Europeans who immigrated to the region over the course of several centuries, which was coerced into jumping off a cliff into an abyss of political correctness: From legally mandated race-based economic discrimination against whites to the thousands of farm murders targeting Boers across the nation, the problems are only getting worse. Poverty and unrest are spreading quickly as well. The world’s most prominent expert on genocide, President Dr. Gregory Stanton...

The recently retired South African ambassador to Israel has taken a parting shot at the country’s treatment of Palestinians, calling it a “replication of apartheid.” Ismail Coovadia made the statement in a letter to pro-Palestinian activists. In it, Coovadia explained his decision to reject a symbolic gift from the Israeli government—planting trees in his honor in a national park named after South Africa. …

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – As former South Africa President Nelson Mandela remains hospitalized and reportedly in serious condition, questions about the future of increasingly marginalized European-descent South Africans are edging into international headlines. Recent developments on multiple fronts are striking fear into the hearts of many Afrikaners, descendants of primarily northern Europeans who began arriving in South Africa three to four centuries ago. From legally mandated race-based economic discrimination against whites to the thousands of farm murders targeting Boers across the nation, the problems are only getting worse. Poverty and unrest are spreading quickly as well. Genocide The world’s most prominent...

(CNN) -- I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1964, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Civil Rights Act was passed in the United States, and Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison. Mine was a relatively idyllic childhood in the affluent and segregated northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Like many white South Africans, I lived in an ignorant cocoon of privilege, with no idea that having two live-in maids, a full-time gardener and a driver was unusual. It was perfectly normal for my African nannies, Rosina and Phina, to live with...

South Africa is confronted with a grim reality this week: Soon, Nelson Mandela will die. It might not be the lung infection the former president is currently being treated for that takes him (he's in serious, but stable condition). But Mandela's admission on Saturday marks his third lung-related hospital trip of the year. He is nearing his 95th birthday. Humans, generally, don't make it much longer than that. This is a country where a national controversy arose when Nelson Mandela was pictured in an oxygen mask (so strong is the desire to not think about the leader's failing health), and...

The  latest US State Department Human Rights Report on South Africa gave the country a near clean bill of health which is in stark contrast to the reality of what is going on there. Perhaps the Obama’s want to see “Madiba� one last time before he dies and the country no longer holds any interest for them or perhaps the President enjoys being around a Government that rearranges reailty in much the same way as he does. In truth South Africa is a dangerous place both for local minorities and for Americans.

THE United Nations (UN) had brought 93 cases against South African soldiers serving in the peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Wednesday. The charges ranged from murder to drunkenness, but most were related to sexual misconduct. Many others had to do with the use of prostitutes and stealing from them. But in many of the cases no evidence was brought forward to support the allegations. The alleged incidents occurred between 2003 and 2011. One soldier was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Ms Mapisa-Nqakula,...

The Muslim Lawyers Association (MLA) in Johannesburg has submitted a 600-plus page document to the Office of the National Director of Public Prosecution calling for the arrest and prosecution of President Barack Obama when he visits South Africa later this month. The submitted document calls for authorities to “arrest Obama when he visits.” The group says Obama has ordered drone strikes that killed innocent civilians, warranting a formal investigation. “The complaint, dubbed the ‘Obama Docket’ encourages South Africa to take seriously its domestic and international obligations and to act against International War Criminals lest they consider South Africa a safe...

Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was in a “serious but stable” condition on Saturday after being taken to hospital with a recurrence of a lung infection, the government said. The 94-year-old, who became the first black leader of Africa’s biggest economy in 1994 after historic all-race elections, has been in hospital three times since December. He has been battling the infection for several days, a statement said. …

More than a billion dollars in cash, gold and diamonds believed looted by late Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi during his 40-year reign may have been found socked away in South Africa -- just a fraction of the wealth the dead dictator is suspected of stealing. Libyan investigators, who believe Qaddafi may have taken as much as $100 billion of his North African nation’s wealth, have zeroed in on $1 billion or more being held by four banks and two security companies in South Africa, according to The Sunday Times of South Africa. Libyan authorities, who are working with the Arab...

SNIPPET - quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1955.aspx Treasury Announces New Sanctions Against Iran Actions Target Iran’s Nuclear and Missile Proliferation Activities 5/23/2013     WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury is taking action today against 20 individuals and entities for their involvement in Iran’s nuclear and missile proliferation networks and Iran’s continued attempts to circumvent sanctions. These networks are responsible for moving supplies and providing essential services to Iran’s clandestine nuclear and weapons programs. These actions are designed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by tightening sanctions against Iran’s energy sector and exposing key proliferation related networks that span the...

In South Africa, apartheid has been over for two decades. So it's really no surprise that being white in the country feels different now from the way it did under the forced system of harsh, institutionalized racial segregation that curtailed the rights of black residents in favor or the ruling Afrikaaner population. As the BBC's John Simpson acknowledges in a piece today, the legacy of apartheid means that white South Africans still have a disproportionate influence on the economy, politics and media and have far more wealth than their black counterparts. But Simpson, seemingly somewhat nostalgic for "the old days"...

Apartheid South Africa looked after white people and nobody else. Now some of its white communities face a level of deprivation, or of violence, which threatens their future in the country. Everyone here, regardless of colour, tells you that white people are still riding high. They run the economy. They have a disproportionate amount of influence in politics and the media. They still have the best houses and most of the best jobs. All of this is true but it is not the only picture. Look below the surface and you will find poverty and a sense of growing vulnerability....

Auto theft is rampant in South Africa. If they catch you, justice is swift and sure. Police vehicle POV.

'Welkom in Orania' proclaims a mural, painted in white, blue and orange. But this South African town, in the remote Northern Cape province, does not extend its welcome to everyone. The colour scheme on the wall - accompanied by the community emblem of a boy pulling up his sleeves - harks back to the old apartheid flag. Orania, one of the last outposts of racial segregation, is a whites-only enclave. Around 1,000 people live in the rural community, established in 1991 during the last years of apartheid.

During the 1990s, Welsh professor Tudor Parfitt, known around the world as the “British Indiana Jones,” discovered evidence that the Lemba tribe in central Zimbabwe and northern South Africa has Jewish roots. He identified a genetic element in the male chromosomes of the tribe that comes from the Kohanim, the Jewish priestly line. This year, Dr. Parfitt published his latest of 25 books, Black Jews in Africa and the Americas. He also joined the faculty of Florida International University (FIU) and led an expedition to Papua New Guinea to visit the Gogodala tribe, which like the Lemba claims to be...

The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa. The account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month in advance of his upcoming appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday. According to excerpts released Monday,...

A cocktail of forgiveness, understanding, compensation and cooperation has been proposed by the mainly white Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) as a way to rescue and stabilise Zimbabwe’s stricken agriculture industry. Such a restructuring, they say, would start the process of underpinning the Zimbabwe economy and rebuilding it from the ground up.   Key to the plan is to transform the country’s 15m or so hectares of farming soil into a proper land bank with accessible value as viable financial feedstock. Now the parties need to sit down and find a solution in a process of dialogue and compensation for...

MALELANE, South Africa, April 19 (Reuters) - Reclaiming land seized during white minority rule was a dream come true for black families in the South African farming town of Malelane. But the community had no farming experience, equipment, money or market access. In search of a plan for its 3,300 hectares (8,150 acres) of sugarcane land, it agreed a joint venture with the whites who had owned the land before. Land reform is a sensitive issue in South Africa, where some politicians are demanding a forced redistribution of white-owned farms along the lines of neighbouring Zimbabwe and twice as many...

Mandela is on the mend. Good news. The bag I packed can be unpacked. But not for long I fear. For the truth is Mandela is on the wane. At 94, with recurring lung infections and pneumonia, he’s spending almost as much time in hospital as out of it.   A couple of years ago, during another of Mandela’s bouts of ill health, I spoke to his wife Graca. “The body is frail,” she told me, “but inside is one tough guy.” She is obviously right. Once again the old trouper has confounded the odds. But South Africa must brace...

Manned by a pair of high trained officers, a large private security jeep moves slowly past the high walls lining a residential street in the suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The ANC has expressed outrage over a BBC documentary on the Marikana Lonmin mine massacre. The two-hour documentary, titled “South Africa: The Massacre That Changed a Nation”, depicted what appeared to be the ANC’s failures in providing services for the people since the organisation came to power in 1994. It was created by British Labour Party MP and filmmaker, Peter Hain, who visited the scene of the Marikana massacre and the Eastern Cape to interview the families of the deceased miners. ANC spokesperson, Jackson Mthembu, said it was not for the first time that the British media created a bad...

A police officer was jailed after she shot and killed a 15-year-old during a road rage incident. A female police officer who is a mother of two, was convicted of killing the teenager and attempted murder of four others in an incident of road rage. Officer Hlengiwe Mkhize, who is 31-years-old, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Mkhize was an officer at the KwaZulu-Natal police department before she was jailed by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday for murder and attempted murder. According to court proceedings, 15-year-old Ngobo Mkhize, was driving a car with four of his friends when...

South Africa’s parliament has voted in favor of a fiercely contested secrecy bill which critics say will muzzle the media and provide cover for government corruption. The Protection of State Information Bill, which would replace apartheid-era legislation on classified information and espionage, passed with 189 votes in favor to 74 against, with one abstention. … The Bill has met fierce opposition from the media, rights groups and the opposition, which fear it will be used to persecute whistleblowers and stifle press freedom in country where the media regularly uncover government corruption and wasteful spending. …

Whites still dominate South Africa's top management positions, a report by the Employment Equity Commission revealed. The 13th edition of the report shows whites constituted 72.6 percent of top management positions in the country last year, down from 81.5 percent in 2002. The report reflects the public and private sectors. Blacks occupied 12.3 percent of top management positions in 2012, compared to 10 percent in 2002. Commission chairman Dr Loyiso Mzisi Mbabane handed the report to Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant at a Transformation Indaba in Boksburg, on the East Rand. Coloureds occupied 4.6 percent of top management positions in 2012,...

CAPE TOWN — For countless foreign visitors, Cape Town is an indelible symbol of the beauty and promise of post-apartheid South Africa. Beyond its gorgeous scenery and great wines, its very logo — an outline of majestic Table Mountain superimposed over a rainbow — emphasizes its historic mix of races and cultures, and its most famous resident, Desmond Tutu, is revered as a symbol of tolerance, inclusiveness and forgiveness. But for many black South Africans, this city represents something very different: the last bastion of white rule.

Few South Africans have the moral stature of retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who campaigned against apartheid and now laments the crime and inequality that plague the nation two decades after it cast off racist white rule. "We can't pretend we have remained at the same heights and that's why I say please, for goodness' sake, recover the spirit that made us great," Tutu said. "Very simply, we are aware we've become one of the most violent societies. It's not what we were, even under apartheid."

Click on link to access the video in order to compare then and now.

If African-Americans go to Johannesburg and Cape Town to "rediscover their cultural roots", then the land of the Flemish and Dutch is where young white Afrikaans speakers should go to rediscover their heritage and history from 350 years ago.

"All hell will break loose," said the voice on the radio. It was a call-in show - on a topic that is on many minds here these days: the fate of a 94-year-old man lying in a hospital bed in Pretoria, and the fate of South Africa once he is gone. For years people here have been understandably reluctant to discuss the death of Nelson Mandela - out of a profound respect for the man who, more than any other, steered this country from apartheid to democracy. But the passage of time, and the health scares of recent months -...

Report: SA to give Saudi Arabia killer drones A Paris-based journal has said Denel intends to sell Saudi Arabia drone aircraft capable of firing missiles. This has been a capability the United States has denied the Middle Eastern nation and would thrust South Africa into a politically-fraught market. In 2010, Denel started dropping hints that the new version of its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the Seeker, could potentially offer more than just reconnaissance. Now it seems the weapons manufacturer has found its first customer for drone aircraft capable of blowing up a house or vehicle with few unintended casualties. According...

A man who once claimed to be a white child enslaved by a black family has been found murdered, apparently stoned to death. Happy Sindane was found dead yesterday in the village of Tweefontein, having been “severely assaulted”, said police. No arrests have been made and there are said to be no known motives for the killing. … In 2003, Sindane walked into a police station near Pretoria and claimed he had been kidnapped from a white family 12 years before and had been living in a black township. Sindane, then 16, said he was abused and forced to live...

Even as the world’s most prominent expert on genocidewarns that South Africa’s European-descent Afrikaner population is on the verge of government-linked extermination, the virulently racist U.S.-based “New Black Panther Party” has a delegation visiting the so-called “Rainbow nation” — a country now ruled by a president who openly sings about murdering whites.

South African military involvement in the Central African Republic has from the start been entwined with ANC-linked deals, raising questions about the motivation for the disastrous deployment of South African troops to the troubled country. The figure at the centre of the web is the politically connected businessperson and fixer Didier Pereira. Pereira is currently partnered to the ANC security supremo and fundraiser, Paul Langa, and former spy chief Billy Masetlha. Their group has initiated several business projects in CAR, including some involving diamonds Previously, he partnered with ANC hard man Joshua "General" Nxumalo and the ANC funding front, Chancellor...

South African soldiers have gathered in Uganda for a “new mission” to the Central African Republic (CAR), where 13 of their comrades were killed in a rebel coup at the weekend, South African media and a senior Ugandan officer have said. “The intention of the South Africans is to reorganise themselves and then redeploy massively in CAR and topple these rebels. They were humiliated and they want to avenge,” the ­officer said. The deaths were Pretoria’s heaviest military defeat since the end of apartheid in 1994 and president Jacob Zuma has drawn fierce criticism for reinforcing 26 military trainers in...

South African President Jacob Zuma has sought to reassure his country as Nelson Mandela receives treatment for the recurrence of a lung infection. In an interview with the BBC, Mr. Zuma said that people “must not panic” and that the former president was doing “very well” so far. …

Durban - In a major move aimed at reforming the global financial architecture, the BRICS finance ministers today agreed on the setting up of a development bank to fund infrastructure and development projects in the five-nation grouping of emerging powers. "We are reporting to the Heads (of governments) that the BRICS bank is feasible and viable," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told PTI after a meeting with his counterparts from Brazil, Russsia, China and host South Africa in this port city ahead of the summit tomorrow. The agreement came after weeks of negotiations among the five emerging economies in a move...

Amid the millions of hectares of prosperous farmland filled with lucrative maize crops, residents in the Free State town of Bothaville are going without jobs, and without food. Here, high production does not necessarily mean job creation. Cutting-edge technology and million-rand machinery have almost entirely removed the need for labour. Maize farming is big business in Bothaville, where grain producers supply between 600 000 and 700 000 tonnes of maize worth more than R1.4-billion to the market a year, accounting for more than 5% of South Africa's annual maize production. Bothaville falls under the Nala Local Municipality, where the unemployment rate is...

AFP - Brazil hopes to sign a bilateral accord with China to promote trade in their national currencies at next week's BRICS summit of the world's five emerging powers, Trade and Industry Minister Fernando Pimentel said Thursday. The initiative was tentatively agreed last June with the signing of a memorandum of understanding after a meeting of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and then Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao during the UN summit on sustainable development in Rio. Pimentel said that at the BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa on Monday and Tuesday "we plan to turn this memorandum into a final...

The father of South African Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius recently incited the ire of the country’s ruling political party, the African National Congress (ANC) and his own family when he accused the South African government of refusing to protect whites. Henke Pistorius told U.K. newspaper The Telegraph that the Pistorius family owns so many guns because they have to defend themselves against high levels of violence against whites, given that the ANC-ruled government refuses to do so. According to a South African newspaper, Henke, Oscar's grandfather Hendrik and his uncles Arnold, Theo and Leo own a total of 55 shotguns...

When a 23-year-old woman was raped and tortured to death in Delhi, the case captured the attention of the world. Two months later, a 17-year-old girl was raped and tortured to death near Cape Town in an eerily similar case, but hardly anyone noticed. In both cases, the women were gang raped, mutilated and cut open. But the rape and murder of women has become horrifyingly common in South Africa. Nelson Mandela is still officially venerated as a saint, his smiling face appearing on countless posters, while the man himself, having solved all the problems of his native country, tours...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis this week has told the BBC pedophilia is an illness and not a crime. Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio 5 on Saturday that pedophilia was a "disorder" that needed to be treated. "From my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness. It's not a criminal condition, it's an illness," he said. Napier said he knew of at least two priests who became pedophiles after they were abused as children. "Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who...

(Cardinal Napier, third from left) Paedophilia is an illness NOT a crime, says cardinal just days after papal conclave • Claimed people abused as youngsters who then become paedophiles 'not criminally responsible' • Says paedophilia 'is an illness, not a criminal condition' • Says those people do not deserve to be punished because they are damaged • Pope Francis said that he wants a 'church for the poor' A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis has described paedophilia as a psychological illness and not 'a criminal condition'. The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, told BBC Radio...

80 percent of New York City high school students seem to have some trouble reading, but Mayor Bloomberg has no time for them. He’s too busy dealing with serious issues, like soda sizes, gun control in Illinois and the impending destruction of the planet. A summit of city mayors will convene in February of next year in Johannesburg, to discuss ways to fight global climate change. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who serves as chairman of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, said, “Cities around the world… are taking meaningful actions that have quantifiable outcomes… we are having a real impact combating...

Child bridegroom: Eight-year-old boy marries 61-year-old woman after 'dead ancestors told him to tie the knot'An eight-year-old schoolboy has married a 61-year-old woman because the ghost of his dead ancestor told him to. Sanele Masilela tied the knot with Helen Shabangu, who is already married and a mother-of-five. The boy, from Tshwane, South Africa, said he had been told by his dead ancestors to wed and his family, fearing divine retribution, forked out for a wedding. They paid £500 for the bride and a further £1,000 for the big day, which was organised in just two months. Dressed in a...

Almost Half of SA’s Gripens ‘in Storage’ (Source: Business Day; published March 13, 2013) Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has conceded that almost half of the air force’s state-of-the-art Gripen jet fighters have been placed in long-term storage. Twenty-six Gripen fighters were purchased as part of the controversial arms deal at a cost of more than R10bn, but there has long been speculation that some or all of them would have to be mothballed due to lack of funds to keep them flying operationally. The fighters, as well as Hawk trainers, played a critical role in securing South Africa’s air space...

For decades, the country of South Africa was the focus of an international rallying cry against the injustices of apartheid. On June 17, 1991, South Africa’s Parliament abolished the legal framework for the practice of racial persecution. In 1994, Nelson Mandela and his Marxist African National Congress (ANC) assumed the reins of power. The international community looked away, satisfied that justice had prevailed. They continue to look away, even as South Africa has degenerated into another racist pit, best described by an Afrikaner farm owner: “It’s politically correct to kill whites these days.” In July of 2012, Dr. Gregory Stanton,...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Relatives sang hymns and songs from South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle Tuesday as forensic scientists exhumed bodies believed to belong to two young activists last seen 24 years ago at the home of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. ... Madikizela-Mandela has denied all knowledge of the two. But her chief bodyguard, Jerry Richardson, told the commission that he and a colleague had killed the two on her orders. Nicodemus Sono, father of the missing man, told the commission that Madikizela-Mandela had come to his home with his son, face bruised from beatings, in November 1998. She had demanded photographs and documents,...

An elderly man from Upington, in the Northern Cape, shot dead an intruder in his home during a farm attack, it was reported on Wednesday. Albert Strauss (81) and his wife, Chrissie (72) were attacked on the farm Toekoms, about 20km outside the town, on Monday night. The couple's son Johan told Beeld that his father fought furiously to protect his wife. The attacker was thought to have gained access to the house while Chrissie Strauss was hanging up washing in the garden. He attacked her when she went back into the house. According to Johan Strauss, she screamed and...

Graca Machel, the human rights activist and wife of Nelson Mandela, has warned that South Africa is an “angry nation” teetering on the brink of “something very dangerous” if extreme levels of violence in the country are not addressed. ... Mrs Machel was speaking at the memorial service on Wednesday of Mido Macia, a 27-year-old taxi driver who died in custody after he was tied to the back of a police van and dragged for 500 metres by officers, apparently for arguing over a traffic infringement. The death of Mr Macia came after other recent examples of police brutality, including...