Free Republic

OAKLAND, Calif. – Hundreds of protesters condemning Israel's recent raid on an international flotilla bound for Gaza are picketing at the Port of Oakland, where an Israeli ship is due to arrive. The demonstrators gathered Sunday to prevent the incoming ship from being unloaded. The dock's day shift of longshoremen agreed to not cross the picket line. Meanwhile Sunday, Israel said it will immediately allow all goods into Gaza except weapons and items deemed to have a military use under its decision to ease its three-year-old blockade of the Palestinian territory. Israeli officials had decided last week to ease the...

HARARE, Zimbabwe, May 19 (UPI) -- Appalling conditions in Zimbabwe's Chikurubi prison have resulted in at least 700 of its 1,300 inmates dying in the last year, local media reported. The Zimbabwe weekly The Standard said the maximum security prison, located about 12 miles east of Harare, has one of the highest deaths rates in the world, ranking it among the worst jails in human history, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday. Six inmates were found dead in their filthy cells on Monday, with a similar number dying last weekend, the Standard reported. About 100 rat-mutilated bodies were stacked up in...

President George W. Bush signed an executive order expanding sanctions against the Government of Zimbabwe Friday morning. The executive order focuses on targeting individuals and entities who support the regime of Robert Mugabe.

GOVERNMENT'S unceasing recourse to one economic destruction measure after another belatedly forces an inevitable conclusion that, albeit for some inexplicable motive, it is resolutely determined to destroy the Zimbabwean economy in its entirety. No one can be that stupid as to resort to one catastrophic economic policy after another to the extent that the Zimbabwean Government has done over the last 11 years, unless it is with the deliberate intent to achieve a total implosion of the entirety of the economy. With actions ranging from extreme profligacy, governmental spending being continuously at astronomic levels beyond the nation's means, to the...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. refugee agency urged South Africa on Friday to stop mass deportations of Zimbabwean migrants, since some of those deported may be asylum seekers who have fled violence and political persecution at home. South Africa has deported some 17,000 Zimbabweans in the last 40 days alone through the main border crossing at Beit Bridge, despite the UNHCR's appeal in late May, the agency said. "Our concern is that with these refugees who are fleeing political violence and upheaval in Zimbabwe, they could be at risk of being sent back to danger if they are caught up...