Free Republic

Renewing a battle waged during the Clinton administration, President Barack Obama proposed to eliminate private lenders from the student-loan market and have the federal government make all such loans directly. In his spending blueprint for fiscal 2010, Mr. Obama said the shift to the Department of Education's so-called direct-lending program would save more than $4 billion a year in subsidies paid to private lenders and eliminate uncertainty for students "because of turmoil in the financial markets." Direct loans only accounted for about 20% of the $68.2 billion in new federal loans during for the 2007-2008 school year, but interest in...

TRIPOLI, Libya - Hijackers in Sudan's wartorn Darfur region seized a jetliner carrying nearly 100 people, including local Darfur officials, and forced it to land at a World War II-era airfield in the heart of the Sahara Desert in neighboring Libya, officials said. A Libyan official at the remote Kufra airport said there were 10 hijackers belonging to a Darfur rebel group and were demanding enough fuel for the Boeing 737 to continue to France. -snip-

Sudanese Rebels Say at Least 70 Civilians Killed in Government Raid Feb 28, 2004 By Matthew Rosenberg / Associated Press Writer NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Sudanese government forces launched a series of raids on western villages, killing at least 70 civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee, a rebel spokesman said Saturday. The attacks began shortly before noon Friday, when about 300 militia fighters assaulted Tarne, a village 930 miles west of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Hassan Mandela, a spokesman for the Sudanese Liberation Movement, told The Associated Press. Homes were burned, resisters were shot and thousands forced to...

Part One What do Bill and Hillary Clinton, alleged mobsters, Stan Lee, presidential pardons, federal indictments for fraud, the Democratic Party and Hollywood luminaries such as Barbra Streisand, John Travolta, Cher and Diana Ross have in common? The answer is a man charged with robbing Peter to pay Paul through an elaborate scheme of alleged securities and bank fraud that involve the creator of Spiderman and the X-Men comic superheros, securities firms such as Merrill Lynch and Spear Leeds & Kellogg, political heavyweights David Rosen, Aaron Tonken and Terry McAuliffe. Now, the 54-year-old Peter Paul, aka Eric Becker, aka...