Free Republic

Suspected dissidents disappear after midnight visits to their homes; chilling screams can again be heard from Idi Amin's infamous torture chambers, reopened after a quarter of a century of disuse. From the few that escape come tales of punishment beatings and even mass executions. Welcome to President Yoweri Museveni's Uganda. One of Britain's favourite African states in recent years has, almost unnoticed in the West, become a sinister land where a corrupt regime uses its secret police to rule through fear. The reasons for this transition are not hard to fathom. Mr Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, when his...

Nelson Mandela at the Communist Party’s first public meeting in post-apartheid South Africa, 1990. You're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, so I figured I'd get a head start.One of the landmark events of my Gen X youth was the 11-hour, internationally televised “Free Nelson Mandela” concert in 1988. Because, come on: how could you not be anti-apartheid? It was a no-brainer, risk-free cause, the type you could support without having to think about it too much or inviting unpopularity or controversy, right? Actually, no. Lots of big-name musicians who now boast of being on that concert roster...

Poachers kill 300 Zimbabwe elephants with cyanide • Cyanide has been used to kill 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's biggest nature reserve - three times the original estimate - as new photos show the scale of the slaughter Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than 300 elephants and countless other safari animals by cyanide poisoning, The Telegraph has learned. The full extent of the devastation wreaked in Hwange, the country's largest national park, has been revealed by legitimate hunters who discovered what conservationists say is the worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years. Pictures taken by the hunters, which...

... Across a series of blogs and far-right message boards, someone going by the moniker of “the Real Luigi Warren” (a.k.a. “Luigi ‘Anthrax’ Warren”) had operated a lurid rumor mill about Hatfill for more than a decade—promoting, in particular, hearsay about the years he lived and worked in southern Africa during the throes of apartheid. In 2010, after the aggressor surfaced in the comments section of theatlantic.com, Hatfill’s lawyers made their move. They sent a six-page letter to the man they assumed to be the real Luigi Warren, a stem-cell researcher at Harvard Medical School named, not incidentally, Luigi Warren....

Sitting on a salvaged sofa in the centre of her small tin shack, Nomfusi Panyaza looks increasingly worried, as heavy clouds gather in the sky outside. “When it rains, the public toilets overflow into my living room,” she says. “Water comes in through the ceiling and the electricity stops working.” Outside her makeshift home in the sprawling township of Khayelitsha, on the eastern edge of Cape Town, barefoot children play on the banks of an open sewer, while cows roam next to an overflowing rubbish heap. Panyaza shares this tiny cabin with her two daughters and four grandchildren, a family...

( Nelson Mandela (right) and F.W. de Klerk) As South Africa descends into what its radical rulers refer to as the “Second Phase” of their communist revolution, warnings about an approaching genocide and full-blown communist tyranny are growing progressively louder. In a statement released last week, the organization Genocide Watch again sounded the alarm surrounding the ongoing, regime-linked preparations to exterminate minority Afrikaner farmers. South Africa’s credit rating, meanwhile, was downgraded again last month to barely above “junk” status. Parliament recently descended into a brawl after a politician called the president a "criminal and a thief." As the warning signs...

SNIPPET: "Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg is among four people who have been arrested on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences, police have said. Mr Begg, 45, who was held by the US authorities for almost three years, was arrested earlier with two other men and a woman in the West Midlands. He was detained on suspicion of attending a terrorist training camp and facilitating terrorism overseas." SNIPPET: "Mr Begg was arrested in Hall Green in Birmingham. The other people arrested - a 36-year-old man from Shirley, a 44-year-old woman and her son, 20, both from Sparkhill - are being...

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...

For decades, it was one of the enduring disputes of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. Was Nelson Mandela, the leader of the African National Congress, really a secret Communist, as the white-only government of the time alleged? Or, as he claimed during the infamous 1963 trial that saw him jailed for life, was it simply a smear to discredit him in a world riven by Cold War tensions? Now, nearly half a century after the court case that made him the world’s best-known prisoner of conscience, a new book claims that whatever the wider injustice perpetrated, the apartheid-era prosecutors were indeed...

Desmond Tutu Says ANC Government Worse Than Apartheid Regime Over Dalai Lama Visa Flap - International Business TimesOctober 5, 2011 10:04 AM EDT Archbishop Desmond Tutu is outraged by the government of South Africa's refusal to stand up to China by failing to provide a visa for his friend, Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama.   Speaking to reporters in Cape Town, Tutu said the African National Congress-party dominated government of President Jacob Zuma is worse than the regimes under apartheid and that he prayed for the collapse of the ANC.   The Dalai Lama had been invited to Tutu's 80th...

Groan.Via BBC: Tony Blair and George W Bush should be taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague over the Iraq war, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said.Writing in the UK’s Observer newspaper, he accused the former leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction.The Iraq military campaign had made the world more unstable “than any other conflict in history”, he said.Mr Blair responded by saying “this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say”.Earlier this week, Archbishop Tutu, a veteran peace campaigner who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in recognition of...

Johannesburg: Petroliam Nasional Bhd's (Petronas) Engen unit, the biggest South African importer of Iranian crude, said it has suspended imports of oil from the Middle Eastern nation amid economic sanctions by the United States and the European Union. The company had contingency supplies in place, Engen spokeswoman Tania Landsberg said in an emailed response to questions. Engen, which operates the country's second biggest refinery based in Durban and with a capacity of 135,000 barrels a day, normally buys about 80% of its supplies from Iran. Engen was “under heavy pressure” to halt Iranian imports because of sanctions, Petronas chief executive...

Iran is running a global recruiting network for scientists, in efforts to bring them to the country to work on its nuclear program, officials told the UK newspaper The Telegraph. The officials claim the country relies particularly on North Korean scientists, but also looks for people with nuclear expertise from African countries to focus on developing missiles and other nuclear production activities, according to The Telegraph. The arrangement involves North Korea sending technology and scientists to Iran, in exchange for Iranian money and testing facilities, the officials said. The Telegraph quoted Mohamed Reza Heydari, a former Iranian consul in Oslo,...

The United Nations is considering whether to set up an inter-governmental working group to harmonize global efforts by policy makers to regulate the internet. Establishment of such a group has the backing of several countries, spearheaded by Brazil. At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet - specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks. The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for a "takeover" of the internet. India,...

Sting operation by FBI- Press Conference just on FOX: 17 of 18 defendents arrested for attempting to purchase weapons from an undercover FBI agent. One wanted to buy uranium to make a nuclear device in a subway system. FBI spokesperson emphatically stated that did not come to fruition, but the suspect did ask the question. FBI was not involving itself in the end user, the sting operation was focusing on the people who were attempting to purchase the weapons for further sale/distribution. FBI taped over 15,000 phone calls made by the men trying to purchase. Very Dangerous weaponry including: grenade...

<p>Many of us believe that President George W. Bush is not only a courageous leader, but also a man who works hard at his job. Most who toil in Washington know that working in the White House requires almost superhuman skills to avoid unnecessarily offending one or more voting groups.</p>

SNIPPET: "South African police say they have arrested four men in the capital, Pretoria, for attempting to sell what they describe as an industrial nuclear device to undercover officers. The men - all South Africans - were arrested Friday at a Pretoria gas station, where they attempted to sell the device for about $6 million. Police say Interpol was also involved in the operation."

A prominent Muslim scholar banned from the United States for six years returned Wednesday for visits to four cities... "In the name of your fear or mistrust of Muslim-majority countries, you may end up betraying your own values," Tariq Ramadan ... Ramadan said he was happy to be in the U.S. ...to speak on a panel Thursday at The Cooper Union college. "My name has been cleared," he said. The 47-year-old professor at Oxford University in England was permitted to return to the United States after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in January signed orders enabling re-entry for him...

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SNIPPET: "The North African terror group al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has threatened to attack this summer's World Cup games in South Africa. "How amazing could the match United States vs. Britain be when broadcasted live on air at a stadium packed with spectators when the sound of an explosion rumbles through the stands, the whole stadium is turned upside down and the number of dead bodies are in their dozens and hundreds, Allah willing," reads a statement the group published in a recent issue of the Jihadi online magazine Mushtaqun Lel Jannah (Longing to Paradise)." SNIPPET: "In addition...