Free Republic

In our series of weekly viewpoints from African journalists, Elizabeth Ohene, a former government minister in Ghana and former BBC journalist, looks forward to US President Barack Obama's visit to her country: We in Ghana are going to have our "Obama Moment" later this week. Forget that talk about Ghana being the second country in Africa President Obama is visiting. We know better. That Egypt stopover does not count as a trip to Africa. He did not go there with his wife; he is coming here with Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha. And he will be going to Cape...

Prosecutors in New York have charged 13 people with running a massive mortgage fraud scheme. They say everyone was in on the alleged scheme: lawyers, appraisers and mortgage brokers. According to the indictment, mortgage company AFG Financial Group, based on Long Island, targeted properties whose owners were starting to default on their mortgages. The company recruited "straw buyers" — people with good credit scores — to apply for a loan to buy the target property, while promising the distressed owners that they'd get to stay in the home. The indictment says they paid appraisers to inflate the value of the...

Note: The following text is a quote: 09 July 2009 EGYPT ARRESTS TERRORIST CELL OF 25 MEMBERS CAIRO, July 9 (Xinhua) The Egyptian authorities have arrested a terrorist cell of 25 members, 24 Egyptians and one Palestinian, for plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in Suez Canal, Egyptian Interior Ministry said in statement issued on Thursday. According to the statement, the members of the cell who believe in Jihad (Holy War) were located in Cairo, Alexandria and Daqahlia governorates and communicated through internet with other terrorist groups outside Egypt. The cell's members, mostly engineers, were developing high-tech and electronic devices...

Al Gore suggested the fight against climate change is comparable to that against the Nazis. Watch as Hannity takes a crack at Gore...

Dozens killed in Iraqi bombings Aftermath of the bomb attacks in Sadr City, Baghdad More than 50 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in Iraq in the worst day of violence since US forces withdrew from urban areas on 30 June. The most lethal attack was in Talafar, near Mosul, where at least 34 people were killed and more than 60 injured in a double suicide bombing. In Baghdad, two attacks at markets left at least 16 dead. Several other people were killed in smaller attacks in the capital and in southern Kirkuk. The BBC's Gabriel...

A United Nations delegation will travel to Glacier National Park and the North Fork to see for itself the threats of mining and coal bed methane development could have on the Park. Meeting in Spain last week the 21-member United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee voted unanimously to send a mission to Waterton-Glacier and the Canadian Flathead. American and Canadian interests were in Spain last week to lobby UNESCO to list Glacier as a "World Heritage Site in Danger" — a dubious distinction as Glacier nears its 100th birthday. Will Hammerquist, the Glacier representative of the...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, offered some world leaders the opportunity to squeeze in a visit to meet with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. The pope then used the occasion to present leaders with a special copy of his first social encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" ("Charity in Truth"), which the Vatican released July 7, the day before the G-8 summit began. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met with the pope in a 25-minute closed-door meeting July 9. Australia is not part of the Group of Eight industrialized nations, but was among the...

Obama shakes hands with Qadaffi @ 4:00 pm by Hill Staff President Obama shook hands with longtime U.S. enemy and Libyan President Muammar Qadaffi at a dinner at the G8 summit on Thursday. As the leaders of a number of countries prepared to take a group picture, the president shook Qadaffi's hand. Obama came under fire from Republicans for chatting with and shaking hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas earlier this year.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. Obama has already made sure the Teacher's & Auto Unions and ACORN got a huge payoff! Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08 By Brad Heath USA TODAYJuly 8, 2009 WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year's presidential election. That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration's massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn...

"Maryam and Marzieh – In danger of being forgotten in Iran," from Voice of the Martyrs The two Iranian Christian women, Maryam Rustampoor (27) and Marzieh Amirizadeh (30) continue to be held in Evin prison in Iran because of their Christian faith, unfairly labeled as ‘anti-government activists’, because of the hostility of the government towards practising Christians. In the aftermath of the political turmoil in Iran, they are now in danger of being forgotten. One church leader from Iran said, “With so many hundreds of protestors now in the prison system, Maryam and Marzieh are likely to be forgotten.” Arrested...

Patriots-Against-Barney

Azerbaijan media publish segments from hearing of 2 Lebanese, 4 locals accused of planning terror attack on Israeli embassy in capital city, Baku. According to indictment, suspects admit to being sent by Hezbollah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and al-Qaeda Ynet Published: 07.09.09, 00:20 / Israel News

The relentlessly sanctimonious Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now may not deserve its carefully cultivated image as a defender of the poor. That's because the group has become the leading cheerleader for a controversial real estate development that is slated to use eminent domain to remove the poor people it claims to represent. ACORN, which has long prided itself on fighting the so-called gentrification of neighborhoods as rising property values force the poor to move, has also taken money from the project's developer and signed a binding agreement forcing it to stand behind the project no matter what. In...

Cerberus Capital Management is still declining to let investors out of its main hedge fund, according to the Wall Street Journal. In a letter to clients reviewed by the Journal, Cerberus chairman Stephen Feinberg said the firm is revamping investor terms on its main hedge fund.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When President Barack Obama steps into the pope's private library in the Vatican July 10, he will become only the 12th U.S. president to do so. And while the Vatican has a protocol handbook governing visits by heads of state -- a handbook that covers everything, including the number of Swiss Guards and papal gentlemen in tails present -- the way the visit unfolds is determined by the schedules of the pope and his guest. The fact that Obama is coming to the Vatican directly from the Group of Eight meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, and is...

Note: The following text is a quote: July 09, 2009 IT'S JUST THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S WAY OF MAKING SURE THE FBI KEEPS BUSY... U.S. Takes 1,350 Palestinian Refugees The State Department confirmed Tuesday that as many as 1,350 Iraqi Palestinians will be resettled in the U.S., mostly in southern California, starting this fall - the largest-ever resettlement of Palestinian refugees into the U.S. Palestinians were treated well under Saddam Hussein but their presence was resented by many Iraqis. HT: dailyalert.org

Archbishop Charles Chaput Colorado Springs, Colo., Jul 9, 2009 / 01:11 pm (CNA).- At a Wednesday evening gathering of the Catholic business group Legatus, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver analyzed the influence of the media upon American Catholics. The news media, he said, has the important role in our democracy of protecting truth and pursuing reason, but it is failing to deliver. "America’s news media have enormous opinion-shaping power," Chaput explained. "Therefore it’s vital for Catholics to understand how the media work, and especially how they work on us.""The media’s power to shape public thought is why it’s so...

GENEVA (AFP) – Ballooning US demand and the handgun's surge in popularity drove up the global trade in small arms by more than a quarter between 2000 and 2006, a UN-backed study showed Thursday. Those weapons in the hands of civilians, security forces or armed groups were behind the deaths of 450,000 people, said the authors of the Small Arms Survey 2009. Pistols, revolvers, rifles and heavy machine guns accounted for 60 percent of deaths through intentional violence of any kind, including the use of bombs, knives or bare hands, whether in conflicts or crime, the experts said. By 2006,...