Free Republic

Hunt intensifies for al-Qa'ida suspect By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 16 May 2003 The international hunt is intensifying for an alleged senior al-Qa'ida operative charged with playing a central role in the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa and the attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombassa after he was reportedly sighted in neighbouring Somalia. His sighting - and the fear that he may be planning further attacks - appears to have been central to the security alerts which led British Airways to suspend its flights to Kenya. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a Comoros islander also known as Harun,...

...Eloise and John, 70, had recently moved into their own house on a gated farm in Kenya, where they grow food for local children. They were working with the non-profit organization Hope for the Nations, based in Kelowna, B.C. The Bergens' lives have long focused on their faith. John said he first fell in love with Eloise after watching her perform with her family band at his church as a teenager. While in college, he befriended Eloise's professor parents, and before long, asked her hand in marriage. They became ministers together in 1962, and married in 1964. The retired couple...

Not sure what to make of this. Over the 4th July Ellison spent time in Kenya with Obamas grandma. This from Star Tribune: "The 10-day journey, which ended Monday, culminated in a July 4th reception at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Nairobi, Kenya, where Ellison met Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama, the grandmother of presidential candidate Barack Obama." I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for this conversation.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Saturday urged Kenyans to marry across tribes as a means of promoting peace and reconciliation in the country. He was speaking at the wedding ceremony of Bishop Margaret Wanjiru’s son Steven Kariuki and Anne Chipinde at the Nairobi Pentecostal Church. Mrs Anne Kariuki is Kamba-Rabai while Mr Kariuki is a Kikuyu. “This is how we’ll create a united Kenya and avoid what we saw at the beginning of this year. A country torn along ethnic lines is harmful to itself,” said Mr Odinga. Mr Odinga had expressed similar sentiments on Friday during the 232nd anniversary...

African Immigrants Among Obama's Enthusiastic Backers By Darryl FearsWashington Post Staff Writer Sunday, July 6, 2008; Page A08 A catered fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama was held recently at Duke's City, an upscale restaurant and bar nestled amid the hip new condominiums in the District's U Street corridor, where up-and-coming white professionals are slowly taking over an area that was once mostly black. But the owner of Duke's City, Donato Sinaci, is not one of Obama's many young, white supporters. And the host of the event, Michael Endale, is not a native-born black American. They are members of Ethiopians for...

OYSTERS MOMBASA Baked with a Wine Garlic Sauce Yield: 8 portions (4 oysters per person) Nowhere are oysters more delicious than on the east coast of Africa (except for the tiny Olympia oysters you get at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco or in New Orleans). In Kenya, the oysters are opened and each one goes on its own tiny china ramekin or tiny container which looks like a miniature coaster. Twelve of these little dishes are placed on a large platter with a bowl of dark, dark-red cocktail sauce and slices of lemon. Mombasa, that lovely city on the coast...

Obama asks Americans to step up, volunteer COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Continuing to press the themes of values, faith and patriotism, Sen. Barack Obama exhorted Americans on Wednesday to volunteer for public service, pledging to dramatically expand opportunities for those accepting his challenge. On a campaign swing that included visits to military bases, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee sought to emphasize his own love of country. "Loving your country shouldn't just mean watching fireworks on the Fourth of July," he told a small audience at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. "Loving your country must mean accepting your responsibility...

obama-odinga cousins? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBJouPhws1M Obama Root’s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOn9NtEUiv4&NR=1 Senator Obama Goes to Africa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTMaKhUSTQU&feature=related Listen to his words on the Keyan Government. Just Words again from Barack Obama. Al Jazeera interviews Raila Odinga - 11 Jan 08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-acT5ajRjY Who is Raila Odinga and his relationship to Barack Obama Obama, Kenya, and the Muslim connection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Oiq2Ze4Mg&feature=related Hells Bells Barack Obama and Raila Odinga http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjCXCdXKpt8 Obama’s Cousin signs Jihad agreement against the West. The Obama and Odinga Connection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpvLV3d1Eq4 Obama under the spell of Raila Odinga? Odinga says Rigged elections? Will Obama say the same thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBJouPhws1M&feature=related Mama Obama flooded by US media http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEqC7jPM4DI&feature=related...

Totally generic, which is the whole point. He’s walking an image tightrope between exoticism and elitism; on the other side waits the middle class. Don’t look down, Messiah!

.." Odinga also responded to media reports that Mugabe said that the Prime Minister of Kenya [is] persona non grata in Zimbabwe..."

"At the University of Nairobi two hours later, the senator offered more pointed criticism, something he's done almost every day since arriving last week. After remaining largely silent, the government of President Mwai Kibaki is beginning to respond, suggesting that Obama may have fallen under the spell of opposition leader Raila Odinga. A potential presidential candidate himself, Odinga's been at Obama's elbow here fairly often and is a member of the Obama family's Luo tribe. "Sen. Obama has to look at critically about where he's receiving his advice from," said government spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua. "Just because somebody, somewhere wants...

This article updates and corrects the one previously published on June 13, 2008 with newly uncovered evidence of the audio recording at the center of the controversy. Apparently the Jerusalem's Post's sloppy paraphrase of a radio interview with Barack Obama's half-brother created the false impression that he had explicitly confirmed the "Muslim background" of the likely Democratic Presidential nominee. The newly uncovered recording presents more ambiguous evidence. The Jerusalem Post reported on June 12 that "Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background....

Politico: Accuses Campaign Of "Shameful Offensive Fear-Mongering" Over Picture Calling Attention To Obama's African RootsObama campaign manager David Plouffe accused the Clinton campaign Monday of "shameful offensive fear-mongering" by circulating a photo as an attempted smear. Plouffe was reacting to a banner headline on the Drudge Report saying that aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had e-mailed a photo calling attention to the African roots of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). "The photo, taken in 2006, shows the Democrat front-runner dressed as a Somali Elder, during his visit to Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya," the Drudge Report said....

"For Odinga it was a PR triumph of the first order. The rock star’s glitter rubbed off on his putative cousin by the bucket. Nor did Obama limit his role to boosting Odinga’s image. The senator also criticized the incumbent Kenyan president. Mike Flannery, political editor for CBS2 in Nairobi, reported that Obama had accused the Kibaki government (Odinga’s opponent) of corruption “almost every day since he arrived.” The political temperature grew hotter than the Nairobi summer. Dr. Alfred Matua, a government spokesman, accused Odinga of “using Obama as his stooge, as his puppet.” Matua added, “Sen. Obama has to...

Senator Barack Obama is absent from the list of dignitaries with whom Prime Minister Raila Odinga is scheduled to confer during his current visit to Washington. Prime Minister Raila Odinga during a recent visit in London. Peter Ogego, Kenya’s ambassador to the United States, told the ‘Nation’ on Sunday that an Odinga-Obama meeting is “not in the programme” of official talks that get underway on Tuesday. [Snip]... Mr Odinga has said he is a cousin of Mr Obama’s, although the senator’s representatives deny that the two men are related...

As the post-election violence in Zimbabwe mirrored that of Kenya, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga had recently weighed in on the situation. The countries of Kenya and Zimbabwe may seem alike yet seem very different from one another at the same time. Back in December of 2007, Kenya was having presidential elections. It was the incumbent Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU) against opposition candidate and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga. Odinga claimed to have won and had accused Kibaki of rigging the elections. As a result, a humanitarian crisis was created as Kenya was...

"A crack team of cybernauts will form a rapid response internet “war room” to track and respond aggressively to online rumours that Barack Obama is unpatriotic and a Muslim. As he gears up for his general election fight against John McCain, Mr Obama and his chief advisers are aware of the danger of such rumours, amid polling data showing that a significant number of Americans believe he is a Muslim or are suspicious about his background. Such doubts were a factor in his poor showing with white, blue-collar voters during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton. In recent days Mr...

As he reminded us again after losing narrowly to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, Barack Obama likes to evoke Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. We must all hope that, like King's, Mr. Obama's dream is "deeply rooted in the American dream." But before giving him the keys to the White House, Americans might like to know a little more about the content of Mr. Obama's dream. Let me propose an unlikely place to start looking: Kenya. SNIP Who is behind these massacres? The opposition leader, Raila Odinga, has had a good press in the West, after he...

Two weeks before the seventh anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001--the worst attacks on American soil in the nation's history--the Democratic Party, barring a last-minute upset, will formally pick a Presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama II, whose Kenyan cousin covertly supports Al Qaeda. Raila Odinga, Kenya's current prime minister and opposition leader made a huge fortune during his stint as energy minister by dealing with incredibly rich, Islamist-funding Saudis and Libya's deranged dictator, the terrorist sponsor Muammar Khadaffy. More recently, Odinga promised his country's Al Qaeda-associated Islamists that he would impose Islamic law on all Kenyans,...

Malik holds a photo of Obama and him in Muslim dress, reportedly when the two first met in 1985. "Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background. I

Apparently the Obamas of Kenya have been reading those scurrilous emails to which Barak likes to refer, because they have no doubt -- contrary to the claims of the Obama campaign, that the presidential candidate was raised a Moslem. They take that as a given. As the Jerusalem Post reports, "Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background. In an interview with Army Radio he expressed a special salutation from the Obamas of Kenya." The Obama brothers' father, a senior economist for the...

(IsraelNN.com) Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama's half-brother Malik, living in Kenya, said Thursday that the candidate will be "good for the Jews" if he is elected the next president of the United States. Malik Obama is a Muslim living in western Kenya, the country where their father was born. Sen. Obama has declared he is a Christian, and he is trying to erase a pro-Arab image, embellished by his middle name, which is Hussein. During his campaign, he told Jews at a Florida synagogue that his first name in Hebrew is Baruch, which means "blessed."

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A group of young Kenyans supporting Barack Obama launched what they called a worldwide campaign on Friday to defend the likely U.S. Democratic presidential nominee from smears by opponents.

No one has to starve in Africa. Hunger there results from the failures of unscrupulous rulers -- and their friends in the West. Paradoxically, it is the aid workers who are standing in the way of progress. If you follow the reasoning of the United Nation's World Food Program, then Kenya is a unique region when it comes to hunger catastrophes. In this east African country, a popular vacation destination with 32 million inhabitants, UN workers hand out more food on an annual basis than they do in southern Sudan, which civil wars have ravaged for decades. But is Kenya...

LONDON, June 4 -- For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States, at a time when the nation's image abroad has been seriously damaged. From hundreds of supporters crowded around televisions in rural Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland, to jubilant Britons writing "WE DID IT!" on the "Brits for Barack" site on Facebook, people celebrated what they called an important racial and generational milestone for the United States. "This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila...

LONDON — Barack Obama’s triumph over Hillary Clinton triggered jubilation among his relatives in Kenya, hope among people around the world — and a few questions about he actually stands for. Many expressed optimism Wednesday that a November victory by Obama — who has relatives in Africa and childhood friends in Asia — would mark a major shift from the deeply unpopular policies of the Bush administration. In Kenya, home to Obama’s family on his father’s side, the Kenya Times newspaper devoted its front page to the story, under the headline ‘‘Obama makes history.’’ ‘‘I’ve just watched him on television,...

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Senator Barack Obama is now the Democratic nominee for President of the United States of America. This seems like a good time to consider who this man is. Here are some quotes from his autobiographies Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope that might help Americans and the rest of the world get a sense of this man who is one general election away from the Oval Office. Before you read them consider that Henry Kissinger once remarked that presidents come into office and leave office the the same men. The job is too demanding to permit opportunities...

HARLINGEN - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents announced the arrest of 56 fugitive immigration violators Friday in a four-day sweep of South Texas. The majority of those detained were located in the Rio Grande Valley, including Juan Alonso Salas, 20, who was found at his Harlingen home Monday, the agency said in a statement. A federal judge ordered Salas, who has previously been convicted on drug possession and assault charges, deported in January 2005, but he has remained in Cameron County since then. "If you ignore a federal immigration judge's deportation order, ICE will find you, arrest you and...

Eleven elderly people accused of being witches have been burned to death by a mob in the west of Kenya, police say. A security operation has been launched to hunt down villagers suspected of killing them in Kisii District. The BBC's Muliro Telewa in the region says the gang had a list of the victims and picked them out individually. The area has witnessed similar attacks in the past when people suspected of engaging in witchcraft have been killed or ostracised. But our reporter says that this is a surprisingly large number of people to be attacked at the same...

As Barack Obama's candidacy comes under increasing scrutiny, his account of his religious upbringing deserves careful attention for what it tells us about the candidate's integrity. Obama asserted in December, "I've always been a Christian," and he has adamantly denied ever having been a Muslim. "The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country [Kenya]. But I've never practiced Islam." In February, he claimed: "I have never been a Muslim. … other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for 4 years...

Kenyans live in squalor as government spends millions on ministries By Mike Pflanz in Eldoret Last Updated: 1:59AM BST 01/05/2008 More than 150,000 Kenyans are trapped in tented camps and fear a resurgence of tribal violence, even as their "unity" government prepares to lavish hundreds of millions of pounds on new ministries. The church in Kiambaa, where 18 people died in January According to the finance ministry, the expanded coalition needs an extra £125 million a month for nine new departments, in addition to the soaring cost of paying for its 93 ministers and their perks. The new government is...

Other than the honor of holding the most far left voting record in the U.S. Senate as a freshman law maker and former black activist from Chicago who has spent the last twenty years supporting the anti-American, anti-white hate sermons of Rev. Wright, we know very little about Barrack Hussein Obama… until now! Agent of Change The Obama campaign is centered on the simple notion of change. But what kind of change are we talking about here? The Obama campaign has remained vague about the specific kinds of change in their agenda, barking platitudes from the stump without offering any...

Nairobi For decades, Kerio Valley and the adjoining areas have been rocked by intermittent ethnic violence but they have never produced an internal refugee. Yet Eldoret, Kericho, Kuresoi, Molo, Nakuru and the surrounding areas produced hundreds of thousands of displaced people after less than six weeks of post-election violence. What is the difference between these two sets of volatile regions in the Rift Valley? The answer is simple; in Kerio, the communities exercise their constitutional right to self-defence. But the rest of the country frowns on the communities for observing this basic rule that guarantees their survival in an environment...

If we Kenyans were granted one wish for 2008, we would request the right to vote for Democratic Senator Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential elections. There would be no more questions about whether he is "black enough." Kenyans believe in Barack Obama so much that I'm willing to bet that if he were to run against our President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga -- the two men at the center of Kenya's disputed December 27 election that has led to widespread tribal violence -- he would win in a landslide. The absolute support that Kenyans offer Obama...

Kenya's cabinet 'soaks up 80pc of the budget' By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi Last Updated: 2:11am BST 17/04/2008 Kenya's expanded new government will spend 80 per cent of the entire national budget on luxury vehicles, inflated salaries for ministers and general running costs, a local anti-corruption group claimed on Wednesday. Raila Odinga speaking after he and President Mwai Kibaki [right] agreed to form a coalition government Of Kenya's annual budget of £5.4 billion, more than £4.3 billion will go on 93 ministers and their government's general running costs. Only £1.3 billion will be left for roads, schools and hospitals for...

Suspected Islamist insurgents dragged two British nationals and two Kenyans out of their home in a Somali town and killed them, witnesses said Monday. The four victims were all from an English school in the town of Beledweyn. They were a British-Somali female teacher, another dual national who was the school's headmaster and two Kenyan teachers, according to witnesses and relatives. A group of heavily armed gunmen attacked the home where the four teachers lived and dragged them out, Abdihakin Mohamoud Hassan, a cousin of the deceased headmaster told AFP. The two Kenyans were shot dead in front of the...

BBC NEWS ARTICLE STATES: "Kenya unveils coalition cabinet Mr Kibaki called for politics to be set aside Kenya's president has announced a new power-sharing cabinet following a deal with the opposition to end the long-running political crisis. President Mwai Kibaki named opposition leader Raila Odinga AS PRIME MINISTER."

NAIROBI, Kenya - Officials say President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have reached deal on a coalition Cabinet. The officials say Kibaki and Odinga agreed on a coalition Cabinet following seven hours of talks and will announce the new ministers Sunday afternoon. The officials, who requested not to be further identified, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. Isaiya Kabira, spokesman for Kibaki, told The Associated Press that there is a "good chance" a coalition Cabinet will be announced Sunday.

U.S. Urges Kenyan Leaders to Fulfill Power Sharing Commitment Statement by Secretary Condoleezza Rice Washington, DC April 8, 2008 On April 7 I spoke separately by telephone with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga to urge them to implement real power sharing by agreeing on the composition of their coalition cabinet. Both emphasized to me their strong commitment to do so. It is imperative that they form the cabinet without further delay and address the vitally important work of the nation. The United States and the entire international community stand ready to assist the coalition government and to...

Riots erupted in Kenya on Tuesday as opposition leaders announced that they were suspending talks with the government over a stalled power sharing agreement. According to witnesses, dozens of young men stormed into the streets of Kibera, a sprawling slum in the capital, Nairobi, lighting bonfires, ripping up railroad tracks and throwing rocks at police officers in a scene reminiscent of the violence that convulsed Kenya in the wake of the Dec. 27 election.

BBC NEWS Friday, 12 November, 2004 'Miracle baby' a victim – judge Kenyan police allege the Gilbert Deya Ministries is an international baby-snatching ring and have asked the British government to extradite Mr Deya. They say their investigation revolves around the disappearance of babies from Nairobi's Pumwani Maternity Hospital and involves suspects in Britain, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. In September they took 20 of Mr Deya's "miracle babies" into care in Nairobi after they were found to have no genetic link to the women claiming to be their mothers. The pastor denies involvement in child trafficking and his lawyer...

NAIROBI: Kenyan political leaders ended a two-month standoff on Thursday that had plunged this country into violence, reaching a long-sought agreement to share power between the government and the opposition. The country seemed to let out a collective hooray as Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, sat down at a desk in front of the president's office, with a bank of television cameras rolling, and signed an agreement that creates a powerful prime minister position for Odinga and splits cabinet positions between the government and the opposition... For remainder of article, click link

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon announced Monday war crimes charges carrying the death penalty against a Tanzanian inmate held in Guantanamo Bay arising from Al-Qaeda attacks on US embassies in East Africa a decade ago. The Defense Department said Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani would face a special military tribunal on nine counts including murder related to the August 1998 bombing of the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 11 people and injured hundreds. Military prosecutors said that after the twin bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, which altogether killed more than 200, Ghailani worked as a bodyguard for Al-Qaeda leader...

...Whether Mr. Odinga has ordered his men to commit murder and arson is unclear. But his own background does not exactly suggest enthusiasm for democracy and the rule of law. Mr. Odinga's father, Oginga Odinga, led the Communist opposition during the Cold War and Raila Odinga was educated in Communist East Germany. In 1982 he was implicated in a failed coup against the then president Daniel Arap Moi. His eldest son is named after Fidel Castro and his daughter after Winnie Mandela. Even more sinister has been Mr. Odinga's electoral pact with the National Muslim Leaders' Forum — a hardline...

As he reminded us again after losing narrowly to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, Barack Obama likes to evoke Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. We must all hope that, like King's, Mr. Obama's dream is "deeply rooted in the American dream." But before giving him the keys to the White House, Americans might like to know a little more about the content of Mr. Obama's dream. Let me propose an unlikely place to start looking: Kenya. Even in the midst of the primaries, the horrific scenes from that country since the disputed election on December 27 will...

The evolution of Barack Obama into a phenomenon in American politics Story by DAVID JAMES SMITH, SUNDAY NATION Correspondent Publication Date: 3/30/2008 Tony Peterson was visiting his younger brother, Keith, in Boulder, Colorado, in the late 1990s. They were in a bookshop together when Keith plucked a paperback out of the remainder bin and said: “I’m buying this, do you want one?”Tony looked at the book, which was called Dreams from My Father. It meant nothing to him, but his brother said: “Well, look who wrote it.” The author’s name was Barack Obama. “That’s Barry!” said Keith.In the spring...

The misery, injustices and disenchantments that are experienced by countless millions of Americans has created a sense of crisis. Every community in the country has concerns and challenges that impede their progress and trouble their lives. A nonstop media barrage of misery and crisis adds to the sense of woe.Throughout its history minorities in these lands, specifically the Black and American Indian communities, have been literally drowned in sorrow. White Americans have also suffered tremendously. In fact a majority of unemployed poverty stricken Americans are White. Thousands of White Americans paid the ultimate price and laid down their lives for...

SECRET CABINET PAPERS How Kenya’s best kept secret became a hotbed of insurgents By John Kamau Dateline: Saturday, December 12, 1964. At around 3 pm, just as Kenya turned into a republic, the newly sworn-in President Jomo Kenyatta’s convoy drove from State House, Nairobi to the flag-decked Thika Road to officially open what he described as "Kenya’s best kept secret" and Jamhuri Day’s "big surprise" – the so-called Lumumba Institute. He didn’t know it was a communist school of politics designed to topple him. Forty years later, questions are still asked about how the new Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga,...