Free Republic

Democratic Republic of Congo has awarded lucrative forestry concessions to a company controlled by a Lebanese businessman who also runs a firm subject to sanctions by the United States as a front for Hezbollah. The 2011 concessions issued by Congo's environment ministry to the Trans-M company, seen by Reuters, could complicate Washington's efforts to curb what it says are the Lebanese militant movement's growing business activities in Africa. The concessions cover 25-year leases for hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest in the central African country, the world's second forest "lung" after the Amazon. … Trans-M is controlled by businessman...

Killer virus red alert as more die April 11, 2005 By Own Correspondents and Sapa-AFP Pretoria/Uige: South Africa has begun implementing precautions against the deadly Marburg haemorrhagic fever, which has claimed the lives of 193 of the 218 people infected in Angola in the worst outbreak of the disease yet. South Africa's precautions follow a World Health Organisation (WHO) warning to countries neighbouring Angola that they should go on the alert. The WHO said late last night that 360 people were being monitored in Angola, where the disease broke out in October. A severe haemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola, the...

Blasts rocked the capital of the Republic of Congo on Sunday, after a weapons depot caught fire, officials said, killing at least 206 people and pinning countless others underneath collapsed buildings, including a church. A morgue in Brazzaville took in 136 bodies Sunday afternoon, as more continued to arrive. A local hospital reported at least 237 patients wounded in the blasts. Didier Boutsindi of the presidential office said untold numbers of people were trapped in St. Louis church, which collapsed. "Many of the faithful are trapped in the debris of the church," he said. "Several of the dead have been...

LONDON (AP) — A British jury on Thursday found a couple guilty of torturing and murdering a 15-year-old boy whom they accused of witchcraft. Magalie Bamu and her partner Eric Bikubi, originally from Congo, were convicted of killing Magalie’s brother Kristy Bamu, who drowned in a bathtub on Christmas Day 2010. Prosecutors at London’s Central Criminal Court said the teenager had 130 injuries inflicted by sticks, a metal bar, a hammer and a chisel. They said he eventually drowned after being forced into a bathtub and doused with cold water. The boy “had been the victim of a prolonged attack...

Fifty years ago today, the life work of Alger Hiss came to fruition. Hiss, a US State Department official, served the United Nations as its acting Secretary General during its founding conference in the spring of 1945. On October 24, 1945 the United Nations Charter became effective as a majority of the countries that had signed it ratified their signatures. Several years later, Hiss went to a federal penitentiary for committing perjury when testifying that he was not a Soviet agent. His personal career was over, but his most important work, the United Nations, lived on. Globalists everywhere are today...

The AU wants Africa to manufacture and export finished products to its trading partners rather than just selling them the raw materials as it does now. She cited China, India, the EU and US and other rising stars in trade with the continent, including Turkey and Latin America, and said the AU had held talks on the new breed of partnerships with some of them. The AU also wants Africa to have a veto-wielding seat on the UN Security Council, and a place at the G20 negotiating table, Ali said. The peace and security that have eluded Africa for decades...

Kristy, 15, was in such pain after days of being attacked with sticks, a metal bar, hammer and chisel that he begged to die, jurors heard. His brother-in-law Eric Bikubi was joined by his partner, Kristy's sister Magalie, in the horror, said Brian Altman QC, prosecuting. And his other siblings were forced to join in before they were all placed in the bath to be hosed down in cold water with a shower head by Bikubi on Christmas Day, 2010. ... The jury was told that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the defendants are originally from, witchcraft...

THE OFFICE OF PROPHET IS ABOUT TO RETURN TO THE CHURCH BODY WORLDWIDE ! The Office of Prophet is about to return , This is not from a person but from a yearn , From the calling of many for my voice to speak out , True guidance directly into My House , For many confusion has been the stage , But now I will speak both in grace and in rage , For judgement is here in My house , Holiness received and strange fire cast out , The true and faithful shall remain and be renewed , But...

Situations may be precarious at times but truly this is merely a lack of prayer as preparation for you are my houses of preparation of my will. So know my will by the preparation of your hearts before me for I AM The LIGHT of your path and way in Me ! John 1:4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. John 8:12 New International Version (NIV) Dispute Over Jesus’ Testimony 12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk...

Why Eastern DR Congo Is 'Rape Capital of The World' By Fiona Lloyd-Davies November 25, 2011 Masika is a survivor of the conflict in the DRC and a rape victim. She has set up a center where other survivors can come for sanctuary when they have nowhere else to go. Eastern Congo has been called the "rape capital of the world" Writer has noticed disturbing trend of generational rape Dr. Mukwege, a general surgeon, works tirelessly to repair women damaged by rape Editor's note: Award-winning film maker Fiona Lloyd-Davies is one of the UK's most experienced foreign documentary and current...

The eruption of a volcano in Virunga National Park near Goma is seen at night. Volcano fanatics will have to pay $300...The eruption of a volcano in Virunga National Park near Goma is seen at night. Almost three weeks after a fissure opened amidst dense flat forest, the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park has seen an increasing number of tourists seeking to be guided on treks to witness the Nyamulagira volcano spewing geysers of lava into the night.

Ordinary measures are not warranted anymore for I have overcome for you and in Me you reside in the heavenlies. So cast off your flesh when it distracts you from My Will of virtue and Righteousness and "Remain" in "MY" Loyalty for I AM all you need to KNOW! John 15:9 (AMP) 9I have loved you, [just] as the Father has loved Me; abide in My love [[a]continue in His love with Me]. Acts 17:28 28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his...

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — A Congolese army official says Ugandan militiamen launched an overnight attack on a military base in eastern Congo in an attempt to free detained leaders. Col. Eric Ruhorimbere said the fighters descended on a Congolese military base in Mukakira around 4 a.m. Thursday. Nine of the attackers were killed, along with two Congolese soldiers.

President Obama has deployed combat troops to central Africa to aid in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army. In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Obama says 12 troops with "appropriate combat equipment" were deployed on October 12 and approximately 100 in total will be deployed including a second combat team and headquarters, communications and logistics personnel. The forces will provide information and advise and assist "select partner nation forces," Obama explains. The troops will not fight except in self-defense. The full letter is after the jump.

The armed conflict in Darfur, Sudan, intensified throughout the year, resulting in tens of thousands of newly displaced people, some of whom crossed into neighbouring Chad. Civilians were directly targeted in some attacks by armed groups and by government forces. Parts of Darfur remained inaccessible to humanitarian organizations and the joint UN-African Union (AU) mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Humanitarian workers and UNAMID staff were frequently abducted in Darfur, following a pattern similar to that seen in eastern Chad in recent years. Various mediation efforts during the year produced no tangible results. Repression by the Sudanese authorities continued in Darfur, with...

Welcome to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, home of many of the major ticket items on the Brady Campaign wish list that they and their fellow citizen disarmament travelers would like to see imposed globally and locally. By any fair reckoning of Brady scorecard accounting, if they give California their highest four star-rating, the DRC should be off their scale. The following information comes from GunPolicy.org, which, by it’s own self-description, “promotes the public health model of firearm injury prevention, as adopted by the United Nations Programme of Action on illicit small arms.” Here’s what they have to say...

The central African nation of Congo has been called the worst place on earth to be a woman. A new study released Wednesday shows it's even worse than previously thought: 1,152 women are raped every day, a rate equal to 48 per hour. That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations. Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in gender-based violence, said the rate could be even higher. The source of the data, she noted, is a survey that...

According to South Africa-based Standard Bank, mainland China maintained its position as Africa's largest trading partner in 2010. Standard Bank, in which Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has a 20% stake, estimates the value of mainland investment into Africa will increase to $50 billion by 2015. It also anticipates China-Africa bilateral trade will reach $300 billion in 2015, more than double that of 2010. "As the production capacity of Africa's traditional trading partners of the US and European economies starts declining and they buy more and more Chinese goods, raw material trade from Africa to China will be...

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...

(Actor to testify before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights on the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Of all the philanthropic endeavors Ben Affleck makes time for, perhaps none are as close to his heart as his work in one of the most troubled places on earth, the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The more I traveled, the more I was struck about it, the more I fell in love with the people, the more I was horrified by what was happening. And the more I did, I started to develop this idea of partnering with the...

A private jet owned by a North Texas company has been impounded for the past 2 1/2 weeks and its passengers and crew detained by the Congolese government in central Africa, where officials say it was used to smuggle gold from rebel territories in the nation's eastern provinces. The plane was leased by Southlake Aviation, based in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, to a subsidiary of CAMAC International, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Sunday editions. CAMAC company is owned by Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born Houston oil tycoon an appointee of President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy...

Ernesto "Che" Guevara's famous beret is gone. His iconic beard is filthy and matted against skeletal cheekbones. One bushy eyebrow arches over his half-open eyes. As a Bolivian country surgeon methodically saws off his lifeless hands, Che appears vaguely amused. Gustavo Villoldo, a stocky figure in green army fatigues, stands just inside the tiny laundry room where the Cuban revolutionary's corpse rests atop a sink. For five months, the CIA operative has led soldiers hunting Guevara through the rough crags and valleys of southern Bolivia. Less than 24 hours ago, his team had captured and executed him in a village...

Dozens of women were raped in a coordinated attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo on New Year's Day, Doctors Without Borders said Thursday. The humanitarian agency said 33 women were raped in Fizi, South Kivu, in the eastern part of the war-torn country. "Women had been restrained with ropes or beaten unconscious with the butt of a gun before being attacked, some in front of their children," said Annemarie Loof, an official with the agency, commonly known by its French name, Medecins Sans Frontieres. "Up to four armed men were involved at a time and homes and shops were...

The dirty side of Toyota Prius The Toyota Prius is among the greenest cars to operate. But manufacturing the famous gasoline-electric hybrid can be a dirty business. Toyota studied the car's total environmental impact from factory to junkyard. Not surprisingly, the fuel-efficient Prius was better than average in its class of vehicles in lifetime emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide, according to Toyota. But it was slightly worse than average in emissions of nonmethane hydrocarbons and particulate matter. Toyota says this is because producing hybrid-only parts such as motors, inverters and nickel-metal hydride batteries consumes more energy...

Hunting rope squirrels for food could be fuelling cases of monkeypox in the Congo basinResearchers probing risk factors for human cases of monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a ‘hotspot’ of the disease, found that people living near dense forests favoured by rope squirrels are more likely to contract the virus. “Our finding... is consistent with the fact that rope squirrels are the only natural host that have been demonstrated to transmit the monkeypox virus directly to humans in Africa,” write Trevon Fuller and colleagues this month in EcoHealth. The study suggests that the scant resources available for...

British angler Jeremy Wade looks understandably anxious as he grapples with this ferocious-looking 'giant piranha'. The 52-year-old caught the aptly-named goliath tigerfish during a fishing expedition up the Congo River in Africa. The brave fisherman was forced to hold the fish at arms-length for fear of being bitten by its razor-sharp teeth while posing with it for the camera.

The LRA, which originated in Uganda 20 years ago, has recently mounted deadly attacks in all four countries... The spokesman said the rebels reportedly abducted young girls, looted property and set shops on fire. He added that the LRA had already carried out more than 240 deadly attacks this year, killing at least 344 people... Ministers from the four countries affected by LRA attacks decided to establish the joint brigade - which would be backed by the AU - to go after the rebels. They said they would also set up a joint operations centre, which would facilitate the exchange...

Can United Nations peace keeping deliver peace? It sure failed this summer in an eastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where armed groups went on a spree of gang rape just 20 miles up the road from a contingent of dozens of UN blue helmets. Despite warnings of trouble, it took three days -- during which the raping of hundreds of women continued -- before a UN patrol showed up. It took more than a week before the head of the UN's Congo peacekeeping mission, US diplomat Roger Meece, says he learned of the rapes. And it...

A diplomatic row is raging over a draft of a UN report, leaked to the press late last month, that accuses Rwandan President Paul Kagame's troops of massacring Hutu refugees who had fled to neighbouring Zaire, now Congo, after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of Tutsis and moderate Hutus that left 800,000 dead. The intervention of Kagame's forces has been credited with ending the 1994 killings. The Rwandan government reacted furiously to the UN draft last week, calling it "outrageous" and describing its claims as "immoral". The government is now threatening to pull troops out of UN peacekeeping duties in...

Children among hundreds raped in Congo, U.N. saysBy the CNN Wire Staff September 4, 2010 5:52 a.m. EDT (CNN) -- More than two dozen children were among the hundreds raped by armed rebels in the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said. Twenty-seven minors, including one boy, were among the victims, the U.N. said Friday. One attempted rape was also reported. The children were among 240 people raped by Rwandan and Congolese rebels who raided villages in North Kivu province between July 30 and August 3, aid groups said. Attackers blocked roads and prevented villagers from reaching...

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The number of reported victims of a recent mass rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo has grown by nearly a hundred over the last week, the United Nations said on Wednesday. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York that the world body's MONUSCO peacekeeping force in Congo has received further reports of rapes committed over the course of several days in a town in the eastern part of the country, bringing the number well above the 154 reported last week. "They (MONUSCO) have received by now reports of more than 240...

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- Rwandan and Congolese rebels gang-raped nearly 200 women and some young boys over four days within miles of a U.N. peacekeepers' base in an eastern Congo mining district, an American aid worker and a Congolese doctor said Monday. Will F. Cragin of the International Medical Corps said aid workers knew rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages in eastern Congo the day after the attack began on July 30. U.N. agencies sent text messages to cell phones saying the area was occupied, he said.

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — A mob of Rwandan rebels gang-raped at least 150 women last month during a weekend raid on a community of villages in eastern Congo, United Nations and other humanitarian officials said Sunday. The United Nations blamed the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., for the attack. The F.D.L.R. is an ethnic Hutu rebel group that has been terrorizing the hills of eastern Congo for years, preying on villages in a quest for the natural resources beneath them. The raided villages are near the mining center of Walikale, known to be a...

Two drug couriers from Texas have been charged with first-degree murder in Friday's shooting of two women and two young children in a squalid Prince George's County apartment, police said...law enforcement sources added that the killings stemmed from a drug debt the women failed to pay. PG Police Chief Roberto Hylton said Saturday that Darrell Lynn Bellard, 43, shot the four victims execution-style, firing multiple bullets into each one, and that T'keisha Nicole Gilmer, 18, blocked their escape. Bellard, of Dickinson, and Gilmer, of Texas City, were both being held... Killed were Dawn Yvette Brooks, 38; Mwasiti Sikyala, 41; Shayla...

Chief says living conditions were "horrendous" ... Prince George's County Police Chief Roberto Hylton says that officers responding to a call from a home in Lanham reporting an assault at 2:45a.m. Friday found the two women and a boy and girl under 6 in the residence above a garage at the home. All four were pronounced dead on the scene. ... The second floor apartment was filled with debris. Aerials of the property show a large amount of debris all around the house. Chief Hylton told reporters, "No human being should be living like this." The apartment had no running...

Government regulations cause American businesses to move to the third world. Regulations on the free market cause businesses to leave America. When will the libs learn?

A fuel tanker overturned and burst into flames in eastern Congo, sparking a massive fire that killed at least 220 villagers and wounded more than 200 — some of whom had rushed to siphon leaking liquid from the vehicle illegally, the U.N. and local officials said Saturday.

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The administration launched a $17 million program to fight rape in Congo—but is it effective? Dana Goldstein follows the money—and asks if Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric matches reality. Plus: See our entire Congo package on Giving Beast. Less than a year ago, Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit war-torn regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo—site of the deadliest conflict on the planet since World War II. The trip sparked hope that maybe, finally, the world would take action to stop the fighting, which has been characterized by a brutal and indiscriminate campaign of rape against...

The Nile supplies almost all of Egypt’s fresh water and three quarters of Sudan’s. Both countries claim historic rights over it but neither controls its sources. For thousands of years Egypt has jealously defended its right to use the Nile’s waters as it pleases. Now, amid warnings of conflict and crop failure, the balance of power is starting to change as other countries make new claims on the water. Last month most of the countries that occupy the Nile’s headwaters signed an agreement granting themselves greater control of the river and removing a colonial-era veto, held by Egypt for more...

During their long effort to pass a financial regulation bill, senators cited many causes for the housing crisis and the financial market collapse that led to the recession. The mining of minerals in Congo was not one of them. Nevertheless, tucked into the bill passed by the Senate on Thursday is a provision that requires any publicly traded company that uses certain minerals to file reports annually with the Securities and Exchange Commission certifying whether the minerals originated in Congo or neighboring countries. It also requires them to report what steps the company took to ensure that the purchase...

In its budget request for the State Department for the 2010 financial year, the Obama administration proposed significant increases in funding for US arms sales and military training programmes for African countries, as well as for regional programmes on the continent, and is expected to propose further increases in its budget request for the 2011 financial year. The 2010 budget proposed to increase foreign military funding spending for Africa by more than 300 per cent, from just over US$8.2 million to more than US$25.5 million, with additional increases in funding for North African countries. Major recipients included Chad, the Democratic...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council has canceled a trip to Congo because of the volcanic ash cloud over Europe. Diplomats from the 15 council nations were scheduled to leave New York for Paris on Friday night and change planes for Kinshasa, but almost all flights to France and many across Europe have been canceled because of the hazardous cloud from an erupting volcano in Iceland....

China said Thursday it was investigating whether a shipment of North Korean arms destined for Congo in violation of UN sanctions transited Chinese territory. UN diplomats said Tuesday that South Africa had notified the UN Security Council panel monitoring sanctions imposed on North Korea that the weapons had been seized in November. "China is looking into this issue... the Chinese side will also take part in relevant discussions," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, in response to a report that the shipment went through the port of Dalian in northeast China. The spokesman refused further comment. China is North Korea's...

The cause of democracy in Africa could have done without this latest affront. Barely six months after giving the French president an undertaking that he would leave power at the end of his second term, Niger’s president, Mamadou Tandja, has rewritten the rules to give himself power for as long as he wishes. A general election was held on 20 October to renew 113 seats in parliament, which Tandja dissolved in May to overcome its opposition to his plans to change the constitution. He organised a referendum on 4 August to obtain popular approval for new rules, doing away with...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Bout and American-born pal Richard Chichakli were accused of creating a new business, Samar Airlines, which they thought was clean of any connection to their own bloody dealings. Starting in the summer of 2007, Samar Airlines started making deals for airplanes and crews to ferry contraband between the United States and Tajikistan, the indictment said." SNIPPET: "The Russian-born Bout is accused of wiring $1.7 million from bank accounts in Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Russia through banks in New York City and Salt Lake City to finance the scheme." SNIPPET: "Bout, who is accused of supplying weapons to real...

It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better. But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted longer than the Holocaust but also appears to have claimed more lives. A peer- reviewed study put the Congo war’s death toll at 5.4 million as of April 2007 and rising at 45,000 a month. That would leave the total today, after a dozen years, at 6.9 million.

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec 9, 2009 / 12:08 am (CNA).- In what the local vicar general called acts of “barbarism,” a priest and a nun have been killed in two separate attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Fr. Father Daniel Cizimya Nakamaga, 51, was shot in the head early Sunday when gunmen broke into the presbytery of Kabare, several miles outside the eastern city of Bukavu.Two days later attackers struck a Trappist monastery just north of Bukavu, killing Sr. Denise Kahambu.A third person died when police trying to catch the killers fired upon a car containing...

(CNN) -- Rape has turned into a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the number of attacks on women having grown threefold over the past few years, human rights activists said in October. Anneke van Woudenberg, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, told Christiane Amanpour that 200,000 women and girls have been raped in Eastern Congo since 1998, and the condition of women has become more dire as the Congolese army has pressed a military campaign against armed groups in the countryside. "Rape is being used as a weapon of war in eastern Congo. So we...

Alarmed by the sharp spike in sexual violence against women, the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday urged governments and the United Nations itself to crack down on the soldiers and civilians who rape and torture with impunity. "As I have said many times over many years, the role and rights of women in todays world is a critical core concern of foreign policy," said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who convened the council after meeting victims of sexual torture on her recent visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Protecting vulnerable women and girls, she told the council,...