Free Republic

A prominent Obama administration trade advisor is one of the central players in a series of scandals and ethical rows that have reportedly placed him in cahoots with corrupt Congolese warlords and other questionable figures. Kase Lawal, an oil mogul with longstanding ties to the Clinton family, was appointed in 2010 as a member of Obama’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. Since his selection to the trade board, Lawal has become enmeshed in a pact to purchase large quantities of illegal gold from a violent Congolese warlord, according to a U.N. investigation and various reports. The crooked gold...

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Dead bodies lay in the streets, gunfire rang out and hospitals were overwhelmed in east Congo's largest city Goma where M23 rebels backed by Rwanda faced pockets of resistance on Tuesday from army and pro-government militias. A day after the rebels marched into the lakeside city, protesters in the capital attacked a U.N. compound and embassies including those of Rwanda, France and the United States, expressing anger at what they said was foreign interference.

As the Clinton-led State Department dragged its feet against Boko Haram, Clinton Foundation donors made millions from Nigerian oil fields The attacks on Jan. 20, 2012, began not so much as an explosion but as an earthquake. ....In coordinated bombings at 23 separate locations in the city of Kano, including police headquarters and military barracks, the group left one of Africa’s largest cities in disarray and panic. The January attacks killed more than 185 people—Africa’s worst terrorism since the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. ...Boko Haram often showed up better equipped than the Nigerian military...prominently...

A private jet owned by a North Texas company has been impounded for the past 2 1/2 weeks and its passengers and crew detained by the Congolese government in central Africa, where officials say it was used to smuggle gold from rebel territories in the nation's eastern provinces. The plane was leased by Southlake Aviation, based in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, to a subsidiary of CAMAC International, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Sunday editions. CAMAC company is owned by Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born Houston oil tycoon an appointee of President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy...