Free Republic

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -The coronavirus variant discovered in South Africa may evade the protection provided by Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to some extent, a real-world data study in Israel found, though its prevalence in the country is very low and the research has not been peer reviewed. The study, released on Saturday, compared almost 400 people who had tested positive for COVID-19, 14 days or more after they received one or two doses of the vaccine, against the same number of unvaccinated patients with the disease. It matched age and gender, among other characteristics. The South African variant, B.1.351, was found to...

A new study from Israel indicates the South Africa variant of the coronavirus can "break through" the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to some degree. A team from Tel Aviv University and Clalit Health Services found that the prevalence of the South Africa variant among patients who received both doses of the vaccine was around eight times higher than those unvaccinated – 5.4% versus 0.7%. The study compared over 400 people who received at least one shot of the vaccine and contracted the coronavirus with the same number who were infected and unvaccinated. "We found a disproportionately higher rate of the South African...

It’s only racist when Trump does it. Joe Biden previously called Trump a xenophobe for imposing travel moratoriums on non-citizens from China, Europe and other countries deemed Covid hot spots. Shortly after Trump imposed a travel ban on China last year, Biden came out and labeled him a xenophobe. Biden also attacked Trump for his “Africa ban” in February. Here we are one year later and Joe Biden is banning travelers from Africa, Europe, Brazil and UK. Joe Biden is expected to reinstate the travel ban on the UK, parts of Europe and South Africa. NBC reported:

...and refuse to be released until the US Congress rejects the Iran nuclear deal.

An elaborate hoax based on forged documents escalates the phenomenon of “fake news” and reveals an audience on the left that seems willing to believe virtually any claim that could damage Trump. In the third week of January, an Israeli named Yoni Ariel flew from Tel Aviv to Rome carrying $9,000 in cash on a secret mission to bring down Donald Trump. There, he met with an Italian businessman. Seated at a table toward the rear of a café, away from the street where they might attract unwanted attention, Ariel recalled, he handed over the cash. In exchange he was...

"Strongman politics are ascendant," Barack Obama warned in South Africa. He spoke passionately about "the politics of fear and resentment" at the Mandela Lecture. He worried that we were entering a world, “where might makes right and politics is a hostile competition between tribes and races and religions.” While the media used the remarks to attack Trump's meeting with Putin, Obama had shared a stage with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who had come to power promising to seize land from white farmers. Ramaphosa was the latest in a series of ANC strongmen, including his predecessor, an alleged rapist, beginning...

Cape Town, South Africa, July 9 “Day Zero.” That’s when water taps throughout the city are expected to go dry before Israel declared statehood in 1948, its leaders focused on water security as closely as they did military preparedness. Israel is in the fifth year of drought, today citizens can reliably count on abundant water. Cape Town another story. reservoirs began receding more than two years ago. This problem turned into a crisis because of subsidy-distorted water pricing, inefficient irrigation, and a lack of desalination facilities and a long-term plan. In 2016 officials from Israel’s Foreign Ministry recognized the problem...

SOUTH Africa’s parliament has voted in favour of a motion that will begin the process of amending the country’s Constitution to allow for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation. The motion was brought by Julius Malema, leader of the radical Marxist opposition party the Economic Freedom Fighters, and passed overwhelmingly by 241 votes to 83 against. The only parties who did not support the motion were the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Cope and the African Christian Democratic Party. It was amended but supported by the ruling African National Congress and new president Cyril Ramaphosa, who made land expropriation...

But the day, currently forecast for April 12, has been creeping closer...Residents of the city of 4 million will then be forced to collect a daily water ration of just 25 liters (6.6 U.S. gallons) from 200 water collection points...Reservoirs around Cape Town, in the grip of its worst drought for a century, have gone largely unreplenished for more than three years in the absence of significant rainfall and are about to run dry.

Rest easy, Boone County voters, the Canadians are here to save the day. It’s a relief, eh? Canada’s former minister of communication, David MacDonald, sat in the Boone County Public Library yesterday to let us know that he and others are watching our election today to make sure there is no repeat of the 2000 fiasco marked by Florida’s hanging chads and a presidency decided in the U.S. Supreme Court. "It’s important that Americans from coast to coast … believe it was fair," MacDonald says of today’s vote. To that end, MacDonald and South Africa’s Norman du Plessis will be...

In a stark flashback to the events that led to Zimbabwe's terminal collapse into banana republic status, as well as unleashing hyperinflation and economic devastation, on Thursday South African President Jacob Zuma pledged to break up white ownership of business and land to reduce inequality, in a State of the Nation address which as the WSJ reports was disrupted by a fistfight, walkouts and a release of pepper spray in the parliamentary chamber. It appears South Africa is not fond of implementing "Rule 19." Scenes of verbal and physical clashes inside the parliament, some 27 years to the day...

WASHINGTON — When Sen. Barack Obama heads to Africa for a five-nation tour this week, he will take with him a credential no other U.S. senator can claim — and one that may make Africans listen to what he has to say. Obama departs Friday on a 15-day tour that will take him not only to his father's homeland, but also to South Africa, Congo, Djibouti and Sudan. While he has visited Africa twice before, this trip is certain to be different. (snip) Earlier this year, Obama attached an amendment to a pending bill that would provide up to $52...

File this one in the “No good deed goes unpunished” directory. News24 in South Africa reports: THE good Samaritans who took onto their farm over 100 refugees displaced by this year’s xenophobic violence, now claim they have been threatened with murder by the same people they had set out to help. Besides property being destroyed, the ­family who took in the immigrants have also been accused of not helping them to be ­relocated back home or to another country, driving a chasm between them. Owners of Hope Farm in Cato Ridge, ­Andrew and Rae Wartnaby, were yesterday forced to...

JOHANNESBURG -- The Obama administration is stepping up efforts here to combat illegal wildlife poaching, an expanding criminal enterprise in South Africa that has driven several animal species toward extinction and fueled the growth of international gangs. But the effort is coming as South Africa wrestles with its own strategy, which could diverge significantly from Washington's. Just last month, a South African court lifted a ban on domestic trade in rhinoceros horns, reigniting a debate between those who claim that a legal trade within South Africa's borders could help stem the poaching crisis and those who say it would only...

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted the visa ban on the European theoretician of radical Islam and virtuoso Jew-baiter, Tariq Ramadan, allowing him to take up a position similar to that he was offered at Notre Dame University, but which was filled because of his unavailability. At the same time, a U.S. entry prohibition against a South African leftist, Adam Habib of Johannesburg University, was voided. The decision to admit Tariq Ramadan is profoundly wrong. Adam Habib is an innocuous figure. Tariq Ramadan is not. Ramadan was first barred from the U.S. in 2004 ... the denial of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has lifted a U.S. ban on a planned visit by a leading European Muslim critic of the Iraq war, in a move rights groups hailed as a victory for civil liberties. Clinton signed orders which ended the ban on Professor Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University, who was barred due to alleged terrorism ties which he denies, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Wednesday.

Republicans pounced on a report Monday that said top White House adviser David Plouffe took a $100,000 speaking fee from an Iran-tied firm whose technology may have been used to track dissidents, claiming Plouffe's involvement could represent a "loophole" in sanctions against the regime. The White House rejects the notion that anything improper took place. According to The Washington Post, Plouffe was paid for two speeches he made in Nigeria in December 2010 about a month before joining the White House -- and apparently before the company hosting him started coming under heavy scrutiny from the Obama administration. The White...

In 2011 Barack Obama led from behind a NATO coalition bent on removing Moammar Gaddafi from power in Libya. The removal and death of Gaddafi was, Obama put it, a warning to "iron fisted" rulers everywhere. Syria, Iran and North Korea excepted, of course. Over at Foreign Policy this was hailed as a huge success. "Leading from behind" is an important element of this doctrine. It is no insult to lead but let others feel they too are architects of a plan, to lead without making others feel you are bullying, to lead but do so in a way in...

PELINDABA, South Africa – Enough nuclear explosive to fuel a half-a-dozen bombs, each powerful enough to obliterate central Washington or most of lower Manhattan, is locked in a former silver vault at this nuclear research center near the South African capital. Technicians extracted the highly-enriched uranium from the apartheid regime’s nuclear weapons in 1990, then melted the fuel down and cast it into ingots. Over the years some of the cache has been used to make medical isotopes, but roughly 485 pounds remains, and South Africa is keeping a tight grip on it.

Uganda's former President, Milton Obote, has died at the age of 81 in hospital in South Africa. Mr Obote led Uganda to independence as prime minister in 1962, going on to serve two terms as president - both of which ended in military coups. Overthrown by Idi Amin in 1971, he returned to office in 1980, only to be ousted in 1985 by forces led by Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's current president. Mr Obote had spent most of the last 20 years in exile in Zambia.