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Elf Aquitaine, until its privatisation in 1994, was much more than a oil company - according to prosecutors at the trial of Elf's top managers. They claim the state-owned firm worked as an unofficial arm of France's murkiest diplomacy. The close relationship between Elf and French officials is well-documented, and goes back to the presidency of General Charles de Gaulle. As the company expanded into Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, Elf paid secret "commissions" to African officials with the blessing of French governments. By the 1980s Elf had operations in Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Angola and Nigeria - which,...

Nigeria (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Gunmen described as “Fulani terrorists” raided a village in central Nigeria on Thursday night (April 9) and killed at least 20 Christians, area residents said. The assailants attacked Mbwelle village, near Bokkos town in Plateau state at about 9 p.m., they said. “An attack is currently ongoing in my village, Mbwelle,” Moses Kefas told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News in a text message. “Twenty members of our community have died, and seven of them are members of my family.” Kefas identified eight of those slain as church elder Iliya Mangut Dakus, Luck Titus...

In Pakistan and Nigeria, some Christians found their Easter turned into a day of mourning after jihadi attacks reportedly caused mass casualty events. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked about persecuted Christians for his Easter message, but heads of supposedly Christian countries in the West ignored the issue. Islamic terrorists often choose holidays to target Christians with deadly violence, and Easter 2026 was tragically no exception. European media outlet Visegrád 24 shared on X on April 5, “Reports of a potential Islamist terror attack against Pakistani Christians on Easter morning. A man rammed a truck into a large Christian procession...

Fulani herdsmen on Sunday (March 29) attacked a Christian wedding reception in Kaduna state, Nigeria, killing 13 Christians and kidnapping dozens of others, a local leader said. In predominantly Christian Kahir village, Kagarko County, community leader Musa Adamu said Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked at about 11 p.m. during the reception following the wedding. “The attackers, who we know to be Fulani herdsmen, invaded our community in large numbers,” Adamu told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “They were armed with deadly weapons which they used in shooting indiscriminately at our people inside the hall where the wedding reception was held; 13...

Terrorists of the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) killed 12 Christians in an overnight assault on Kautikari, a community near Chibok in Southern Borno, multiple sources — including Dr. Pogu Bitrus, President of the Middle Belt Forum — confirmed to TruthNigeria on Tuesday. The attack, which struck during Holy Week, has plunged the Christian community into fresh grief. Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who represents Borno South in Nigeria’s Senate, also confirmed the killings in a statement reviewed by TruthNigeria. He lamented that Nigeria’s military remains poorly equipped to confront the insurgents who continue to terrorize rural communities. “I...

The Nigerian government has denied it gave ransom money to free dozens of children and staff taken from a catholic school by Boko Haram jihadists. The kidnapping occurred back in November in north-central Niger state. It was one of the country’s largest mass abductions Nigeria’s government made the comments in response to an AFP investigation released on Tuesday stating that the government funnelled a ‘huge’ ransom of millions of dollars to the jihadist group. According to the report, the government also freed two commanders from the jihadist group. Nigeria’s information minister insisted that the student’s release was due to ‘professional...

Support Free Republic Your host adding his name to the list of those supporting Free Republic this week. The premier conservative online gathering place celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Rush Limbaugh a big user of FR for show prep... Newsdump Alert: 50 Killed Others Kidnapped In Northwestern Nigeria... Where do we go from here your host grew up with preachers on the radio so I heard about Jesus but many of those preachers mixed in the social commentary the politics if you will... "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land" That hit song in Europe...

Fr. Alphonsus Afina, who served as a priest for many years in the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks, has been captured by the militant Islamist terrorist group – Boko Haram – in his home Diocese of Maiduguri, Nigeria. A social media alert sent on June 2 by Fairbanks Bishop Steven Maekawa called on parishioners to join him for a special Mass on June 3 to pray for Fr. Afina. “I ask for your urgent prayers for Fr. Alphonsus Afina,” Bishop Maekawa stated. “As many of you know, Fr. Alphonsus served in our diocese for six and half years and returned to...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The United States is sending troops to Nigeria to help train the West African nation's military in fighting extremism, Nigerian authorities said Wednesday, as a multifaceted security crisis spreads in the north of the country.The American personnel won't engage in combat or have a direct operational role, and Nigerian forces will have complete command authority, Maj. Gen. Samaila Uba, spokesman for Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, said in a statement.“At the invitation of the Government of Nigeria and in continuation of our longstanding security cooperation and military-to-military partnership with the United States, Nigeria will host a contingent of...

US President Donald Trump don chook mouth again ontop wetin e describe as violence against Christians for Nigeria. Trump say e know say Christians dey come under attack for Nigeria but im no go allow make dat kontinue.

He’s making America safe again. President Trump lauded the work of his “patriot” ICE agents as he flashed mugshots of some of the most heinous illegal immigrant criminals the administration has rounded up in Minnesota for deportation — the “worst of the worst” among the thousands arrested in the last year. “These are all from one state — out of many,” Trump marveled at a White House press briefing marking the first full year of his second term in the White House. “Many of them murderers … do you want to live with these people?” the president asked as he...

A highly acclaimed Nigerian professor at Aquinas College is facing two decades in prison after she admitted to swindling more than $1 million from taxpayers and poor minority children in West Michigan. Nkechy Ezeh, founder and CEO of the Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud and tax evasion in a scheme that forced the nonprofit to shut down after a dozen years preparing about 8,000 preschoolers for kindergarten in Kent County, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, WOOD reports. Ezeh worked with ELNC bookkeeper Sharon Killebrew to create nearly $500,000 in fake invoices, as well as created...

The Anglican communion’s newly minted Archbishop of Wales, the Rev. Cherry Vann, is lamenting that people are leaving the church on account of her lesbianism, describing their actions as “very hurtful.” Vann is the first woman to be elected as an Anglican archbishop in the United Kingdom and the first openly gay bishop serving as primate in the Anglican Communion. Notably, Vann is not ‘married’ to her lesbian girlfriend, Wendy Diamond, but has been living in a “same-sex civil partnership” for years. She told BBC News: “There are still patches all over the place where people continue to struggle with...

As the company's sole owner and billing representative, Luke allegedly misled the VA's third-party administrator when it attempted to recover improper payments - allowing the scheme to continue for years. Federal prosecutors say a California health care executive, accused of a sweeping fraud that allegedly drained more than $7 million from a program meant to support aging veterans, was arrested at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday just as he tried to board a flight to Nigeria. Cashmir Chinedu Luke, believed to be 66 and living in Antioch, now faces a criminal complaint alleging he billed the Department of Veterans...

Nigerian authorities have secured the release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren taken by gunmen from a Catholic school in November, according to a presidential spokesman, after 100 were freed earlier this month. “Another 130 Abducted Niger State Pupils Released, None Left In Captivity,” Sunday Dare said in a post on X on Sunday. In late November, hundreds of students and staff were kidnapped from St Mary’s co-educational boarding school in north-central Niger State. The attack came amid a wave of mass abductions reminiscent of the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok. The West African country suffers...

Nigeria's Christians are being pushed to the brink of extinction - and could be wiped off the map within two generations without urgent international intervention. That's the chilling warning from Emeka Umeagbalasi, the outspoken founder of Nigeria's International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety). And he's not mincing his words. The veteran activist says a silent, systematic genocide has swept Africa's most populous nation for nearly two decades - a 'long-running, coordinated campaign' of killings, kidnappings and church burnings carried out mostly by Islamist militants and enabled by the Nigerian state itself. 'If you look at the...

The American interest is best served by finding and backing African statesmen. That won’t be easy.Let me be blunt: since the Wehrmacht’s surrender in Tunisia in 1943, the African continent has offered the United States almost nothing of major consequence to its national interest. Our engagement since has been a costly, sentimental fog of humanitarian gestures and posturing, achieving little while ignoring the realities of power. Washington’s central failure is its refusal to see the continent as it is. There are two successful models for order that have worked over large portions of Africa. The first is the default of...

The State Department has told Newsweek that it is “deeply concerned about the levels of violence against Christians and members of other groups in Nigeria.” It comes after American comedian Bill Maher brought attention to the high number of Christians being killed by Islamic militant groups such as Boko Haram in parts of Nigeria. The country has generally pushed back against narratives that Christians are being “systematically killed” in a “genocide attempt,” as Maher described it, with Nigeria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying in March that the terrorism in the country is “not driven by religious bias, nor targeted against...

Multiple high-dollar donors to the Clinton Foundation are associated with the New York Times, including the Times’ top shareholder, Carlos Slim. Slim, a Mexican telecom tycoon whose net worth of nearly $80 billion makes him the second richest man in the world, became the top shareholder of the New York Times earlier this year after he doubled his shares to take control of 16.8 percent of the company. Not only has Slim contributed between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation, but his company Telmex has contributed an additional grant between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 through its foundation. Slim has also...

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) said that she hopes extremists will be deterred by the strikes in Nigeria, “But if they don’t, I do think that Congress needs to take the step of declaring, or at least taking the vote to declare, because we don’t want to see more unilateral action out of the administration, whether it’s Republican or Democrat.”Host Cheryl Casone asked, “Congresswoman, your reaction to these new strikes in Nigeria. The president had warned the Nigerian government ahead of time, and, apparently, that government agreed that these strikes...