Free Republic

There's a fortune-cookie-style proverb that sounds like a blessing but, legend says, is really a curse: "May you live in interesting times." The saying is usually attributed to ancient China, but it is, by many indications, entirely American. Which makes it particularly suitable as we pause, on the weekend, to consider the past week — an extremely violent, chaotic, anguished and, yes, horrifyingly fascinating week in our 231-year-old republic. Ugly things. Violent things. Elemental things. Epic things. The forces of nature and human anger unleashed in concentrated form across the land. Water and fire, gun and sky, bringing destruction, death...

Uganda 'draining Lake Victoria' Lake Victoria is an economic lifeline for many East Africans Uganda has been taking more water than agreed from Lake Victoria to generate power, accounting for half of the drop in the lake's levels, a report says. Uganda and Tanzania have blamed drought for recent power cuts because of lower hydro-electric output. But water engineer Daniel Kull says the drought has caused only half of the drop in Lake Victoria's water levels - which are the lowest in 80 years. Analysts have warned of conflict, as East African nations compete for water. 'Pulling the plug' Mr...

Editor's note: Readers may be interested in two related stories: "Invested in Terrorism" and "BBC: U.S. Damned if it does and damned if it doesn't". -ALJ Douglas Farah uncovered the story of al-Qaeda's involvement in West Africa's diamond smuggling while reporting on Africa for the Washington Post, which he described in Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror (New York: Broadway, 2004). Mr. Farah, now a consultant, freelance writer on terror finance and national security matters, and a senior fellow at the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, addressed the Middle East Forum in New York City on...