Free Republic

Richards Murphy writes that Boko Haram is the brainchild of some powerful interests targeting the untapped natural resources in Northern NigeriaThe curse of natural resources is apparently real or more accurately, cursed interests in resource exploration are real. This evil often goes about masked as something less sinister. Take for instance the insanity that is todayÂ’s Afghanistan, which began in a fashion not too different from what Boko Haram is acting out in Nigeria today. Somewhere in the convoluted mix of transitions and mishmash of Mujahedeen, Taliban and al-Qaeda was UNOCAL, an oil multinational and its effort to construct pipelines...

NASHVILLE SKYLINE: State of Country Music: Going to Hell? Time for Hand-Wringing? Or Time to Cowboy Up? We're inexorably moving toward two separate and perhaps not equal country music societies. And I don't mean traditionalists vs. modernists or Americana vs. mainstream country radio. I mean a total, radical, separatist split. In this scenario, one segment will be comprised of people who know at least something about country music and listen to it for the qualities that have always appealed to them about the music. That group includes the George Jones and Strait trad fans as well as NASCAR dudes and...

East Timor declares its independence in joyous ceremony 05/19/2002 By STEVEN GUTKIN / Associated Press DILI, East Timor East Timor, a land long brutalized by foreign occupiers, was declared independent Monday in a joyous ceremony in this seaside capital, and took its place among the community of nations. The world's newest country came into being minutes after midnight with a dazzling display of fireworks, a solemn declaration of independence by parliamentary speaker Fransisco Guterres and a speech by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "I declare the establishment of the Democratic Republic of East Timor as an independent and sovereign...