Free Republic

IT IS common knowledge that oil and territorial issues spark conflict in the Middle East, but there is now growing alarm over the risk that water could be the catalyst for the next war in the region. Middle East nations record some of the highest birth rates in the world but have only 0.4 per cent of the world's recoverable water resources. Some 80 per cent of people in the region rely on water that flows into their country from at least one other. The potential for disputes over this scarce essential resource is obvious, a risk clearly illustrated by...

Even if itÂ’s only the sum of all the times I have watched it, this video is going viral. Watch it for yourself and I dare you not to want to watch it again. HereÂ’s a link to an edited version of the original broadcast in Hebrew, with subtitles.But the reasons itÂ’s going viral are far more than just because this young woman has an incredible voice. We are accustomed to TV reality shows where regular people perform in front of judges to play out a dream to win a competition, if not to launch a career. We are accustomed...

The head of the World Health Organization on Sunday reversed his decision to name Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador, following widespread uproar. “Over the last few days, I have reflected on my appointment of H.E. President Robert Mugabe as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for (Non-communicable diseases) in Africa. As a result, I have decided to rescind the appointment,” the head of the UN agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement. […] Tedros had announced the appointment earlier this week during a speech in Uruguay, where he praised Zimbabwe as “a country that places universal health coverage and...

1. Ahmad Abu Adass In 2005, the last year of his life, Ahmad Abu Adass was 22 and still living with his parents in Beirut, Lebanon. He was kind and liked people, his friends later told investigators, but none of them thought he was very sophisticated. The best way to describe him was simple, one said. He was generous and a little naïve. He was very weak, physically. A Sunni Muslim of Palestinian descent, Adass had become interested in religion and now spent many hours at the Arab University Mosque near his home. It was there, after a prayer session,...

A mountain of trash gave way in a massive garbage dump on the outskirts of Ethiopia's capital, killing at least 35 people and leaving several dozen missing, residents said, as officials vowed to relocate those who called the landfill home. Addis Ababa city spokeswoman Dagmawit Moges said most of the dead were women and children, and more bodies were expected to be found in the coming hours. It was not immediately clear what caused Saturday night's collapse at the Koshe Garbage Landfill, which buried several makeshift homes and concrete buildings. The landfill has been a dumping ground for the capital's...

Ira Magazines, the CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, asked former President Bill Clinton to thank Morocco’s King Mohammed VI for “offering his plane to the conference in Ethiopia.” http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/31/wikileaks-heres-how-the-clintons-free-private-jet-scam-works/

A 30-year-old postdoctoral researcher at the University of California's plant biology department was killed in Ethiopia when the vehicle she was riding in was struck by rocks thrown by protesters. The university said in a statement Wednesday that Sharon Gray was in the East African country for a meeting about her research when she was killed Tuesday while traveling in a car in the outskirts of the capital, Addis Ababa. Her field of study was looking at the effects of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide on certain tomato roots. There has been unrest in Ethiopa for months and is increasingly becoming...

Ethiopian salt miners brave 140 degree Fahrenheit temperatures while working on the hottest place in earth earning on average £5-a-day. The salt mines, situated in the Afar triangle, stretch across 60,000 square miles and at their lowest point are more than 300 feet below sea level. Professional travel photographer and videographer Joel Santos travelled to the area to capture the dry beauty of this brutal expanse of land.

Maj. Yohannes Woldemariam proudly posing in front of the first Northrop F-5A delivered to Ethiopia, in 1966. Photo via S.N. Which is better? The Northrop F-5E Tiger II or the Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-21? There have been countless discussions of this question and, probably, at least as many answers. Over 15,000 of these two cheap, lightweight, simple-to-maintain and -operate fighters were produced and, over the time, they’ve served in more than 60 different air forces — some of which operated both of them. The usual story is that they never met in combat and thus the ultimate question about their mutual superiority...

President Barack Obama toasted the founding dictator of post-colonial Tanzania on Monday, who collectivized the nation’s low-tech agricultural sector, established a one-party state and left that African nation’s economy in ruins.“[Y]ou might say an American child is my child. We might say a Tanzanian child is my child,” Obama said after quoting the Tanzanian saying “my neighbor’s child is my child.”“In this way, both of our nations will be looking after all of our children and we’ll be living out the vision of President [Julius] Nyerere,” Obama continued. “The core values that he proclaimed for Tanzania also describe what both our...

At exactly 5 p.m. on March 13, 2007, just as I was preparing to leave my cubicle in Washington for the day, I got a phone call from the journalist Jonathan Landay of McClatchy Newspapers. To this day, I remember his exact words. 'One of your congressman’s constituents is being held in an Ethiopian intelligence service prison, and I think your former employer is neck-deep in this.' The congressman was Rush Holt, then a Democratic representative from New Jersey, for whom I worked for 10 years starting in 2004. The constituent was Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., who...

Ethiopia has blocked social media sites across the country after questions from end-of-year university exams were posted online last month, sparking a national scandal. The online leak of national of the exam papers, which many have called an embarrassment for the government, forced the tests to be postponed. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Viber have been inaccessible in the Horn of Africa's most populous country since Saturday morning, and will continue to be so until the national school examinations are concluded on Wednesday, according to government officials. A government spokesman said the ban was aimed at stopping students taking university entrance...

The researchers trace the fossil record, which illustrates a timeline placing multiple species overlapping in time and geographic space. Their insights spur further questions about how these early human ancestors were related and shared resources... The 1974 discovery of Australopithecus afarensis, which lived from 3.8 to 2.9 million years ago, was a major milestone in paleoanthropology that pushed the record of hominins earlier than 3 million years ago and demonstrated the antiquity of human-like walking. Scientists have long argued that there was only one pre-human species at any given time before 3 million years ago that gave rise to another...

A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a ($100 million pledge) in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.“Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords. When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the...

South Africa’s reputation as top gun when it comes to air power in the southern African region could be shot down by Angola and its powerful new Russian fighters. The west African country is set to take delivery of the first tranche of Sukhoi Su-30K fighters in the next six months and will have 12 in service by the end of next year. Gauteng Afrikaans daily Beeld approached military analyst Helmoed Heitman, retired SAAF and Indian Air Force pilot colonel Rama Iyer and a former officer commanding 2 Squadron for their views on how the SA Air Force’s (SAAF) Gripens...

in the savannah of Alatash National Park, the lion sleeps tonight. This remote part of north-west Ethiopia was considered a possible habitat for lions, but it is seldom visited by people. Now an expedition by the University of Oxford’s Conservation Research Unit has discovered that lions are indeed alive and well in the park – a rare extension of their known range. “During my professional career I have had to revise the lion distribution map many times,” says Hans Bauer, who led the expedition. “I have deleted one population after the other. This is the first and probably the last...

South Sudan's civil war began on the night of December 15, 2013, when a firefight erupted between soldiers serving in the presidential garrison in the capital city, Juba. "Between" is an important word. The battle pitted soldiers from the Dinka tribe (largest in South Sudan) against soldiers in the Nuer tribe (second largest). The government, led by president Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and the rebels, led by Riek Machar, a Nuer, agreed to their first ceasefire on December 31. Fire and combat, however, never ceased. Instead, it spread. Every ceasefire and peace declaration since has failed to hold. Poor communication...

On November 28, the fearless Ethiopian will make a flying debut and marry his fiance Seble Bekele the moment he lands. This will be his second attempt after he first taxied to a runway 40 kilometers but a broken propeller ruined his chance of flying. However, Asmelash Zeferu is all set with a new engine that doubles his power to 78 horsepower and has even sought professional advice for flying. Flying has always been a dream for Zeferu, since childhood he wanted to become a pilot but he had to meet with disappointment when he got to know he did...

Jursidiction is when My Spirit overwhelms the rulers,thrones and principalities with the heavenlies and you shall always find this in worship and praise for it causes an immediate setback and hedge of Holy Fire for My Seraphim guard My Glory and such is the worship of My Children to their KING ! Job 1:6-10 6 Now there was a day when the sons (the angels) of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and accuser) also came among them. 7 And the Lord said to Satan, From where did you come? Then Satan answered the...

An Israeli man was violently attacked by a Sudanese national aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa last week. In the incident last Thursday, the Muslim attacker reportedly took a metal tray, grabbed the Jewish victim's head and hit him repeatedly while shouting "Death to the Jews!" The Israeli Foreign Ministry told Arutz Sheva that Ethiopian police arrested the attacker as soon as the plane landed, and have extended him remand in custody. .....