Free Republic

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt said on Wednesday it would not be swayed by threats to aid when investigating foreign-funded pro-democracy groups and NGOs, a case that has prompted Washington to warn that U.S. military support worth $1.3 billion a year may be in jeopardy. The United States wants Egypt to drop travel bans on at least 19 U.S. citizens involved in the case but Egypt's government says it cannot intervene in a judicial probe of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over whether they violated laws such as receiving foreign cash without official approval. A total of 43 foreign and local activists are...

(Cairo, Egypt)  --  Egypt is set to try 19 Americans, including the son of former Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood. Egyptian officials announced yesterday that Sam LaHood is among the 43 people to be tried for what prosecutors called using funds from their non-profit organizations to foment unrest in their country.

The son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is among 19 Americans being referred to criminal trial for allegedly receiving foreign funds illegally and being involved in banned activity in Egypt, several news agencies reported Sunday. In all, Egyptian officials say 44 non-governmental organization workers will be put before the court after investigating judges claimed they had reason to try the democracy and rights workers. The move is likely to further sour relations between Egypt's military rulers and the United States, the Arab nation's chief western backer for more than 30 years. The decision came just after Secretary of State Hillary...

If you’re wondering who’s funding the network of left-wing, non-government organizations in Israel, which aim to topple Netanyahu’s government and turn Israel into an Arab majority state, it turns out to be the same man who’s funding the Occupy Wall Street mobs: George Soros. Tel Aviv has had to contend with the same left-wing protests, tents and all, obviously all coordinated by one central global puppeteer. That is why the Israeli Knesset passed the NGO Funding Transparency Bill by 40 to 34 in February. It was a hard-fought battle. But despite its neutered state, the bill survived and was enacted....

As Occupy Wall Street droned on about the evils of corporate avarice last month, a multimillion-dollar international scandal broke in Bogotá, exposing greed and corruption in the "nongovernmental organization" (NGO) world of human rights.

In 35 seconds, the city of Léogane was almost entirely destroyed by last year’s earthquake. A year after, 80% of the victims are still living in camps surrounded by rubble, without water or electricity. Despite millions in international aid, the rebuilding process is at a standstill.

Bicycles instead of cars? Dense apartment clusters instead of single homes? Community rituals instead of churches? "Human rights" instead of religious freedom? The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) which met June 3-14 [1996]in Istanbul, painted an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN. And politically correct "tolerance"-meaning "the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism"...

Tunisian Revolt: Another Soros/NED Jack-Up? National Endowment for Democracy (NED) by Dr. K R Bolton January 18, 2011 “Spontaneous” demonstrations of thousands of youths pouring out into the streets with such force as to compel the flight of a long-time president… To which country are we alluding: Georgia, Serbia, Myanmar,[1] Ukraine, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Iran, Hungary…? This time it is Tunisia. All of these “revolts” followed the same pattern. Already the Tunisian revolt is being called a “color revolution” by media and political pundits, and it has also been provided with a name; the “Jasmine Revolution,”[2] like the abortive “Green” and...

Today a UN committee looked into whether Israel was complying with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). And, of course, human rights groups came out in full force to blame discrimination against Palestinian women on Israel — including the poor quality of girls’ education, domestic violence, and early marriage. According to an NGO Monitor press release this morning, left-wing human rights groups like Badil, Al Haq, and the Defense for Children International “submitted a statement to the Committee prior to the review, regarding women’s rights in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. In...

A left-wing Israeli civil rights group accuses Israel of killing an Arab about whom it is “not known” if he took part in fighting Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, says the terrorist was killed when the bomb he was carrying blew up. Arab affairs correspondent Yehonatan Dehoah-HaLevy, writing for the News-1 Hebrew-language website, has found further proof of his thesis that “not everyting B’Tselem reports must be believed.” He writes that the organization continues to blame Israel for the death of Iyad Lafi Yusuf Al-Ahres, and that the death came about for no apparent reason.

Have you ever wondered how capitalism was pushed over the edge of the cliff just six weeks before the American presidential election? According to financial experts, the world, as we know it will change dramatically by the year 2012. People, who provided for their families only three years ago, will be desperately searching for food. The story of the economic meltdown of 2008 begins and ends with the United Nations and its carefully managed One World Order. Behind the curtain of this dark chapter in human misery are ogres Maurice Strong and George Soros. It is both power lust and...

Albert Schweitzer has been attributed with the comment: "When God does not want to make His way known, He uses coincidence." Christians (with a proper understanding of their faith), understand how evil abortion is. It dates back to the Jewish belief that only three things are allowed to be buried in a Jewish cemetery: Holy Books, people and the unborn. I personally consider Ronald Reagan to be the greatest president during my lifetime. He was the one who instituted the Mexico City Policy -- forbidding the use of US Government funds for NGO's to promote abortion internationally. Basically, the Mexico...

New York City, N.Y., Mar 8, 2009 / 09:36 pm (CNA).- Representatives of several countries and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) met at the United Nations this week for the annual Commission on the Status of Women. Purportedly intended to discuss relations between men and women and care for HIV/AIDS victims, the event was instead used to criticize the Catholic Church and to promote radical ideas on abortion, homosexual rights and sex education.According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), radical feminist NGOs criticized the Catholic Church’s strong pro-life stance at several events.At the Center for Reproductive Rights event...

Washington's "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday. Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded. "Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies," the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq,...

The US is turning on old friends in Europe, writes John Laughland. Before he denounced the "prevailing influence" of the US in the "anti-constitutional coup" that overthrew him, President Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan used an interesting phrase to attack those who were stirring up trouble in the drug-ridden Ferghana Valley. A criminal "third force", linked to the drug mafia, was struggling to gain power. Originally a label for covert operatives shoring up apartheid in South Africa before it was adopted by the US-backed "pro-democracy" movement in Iran in November 2001, the third force is also the title of a book...

The Knights Templar are demanding that the Vatican give them back their good name and, possibly, billions in assets into the bargain, 700 years after the order was brutally suppressed by a joint venture between the Pope and the King of France. If the Holy See doesn’t comply, the warrior knights, renowned for liberating the Holy Land, will deploy that most fearsome of weapons: a laborious court case through the creaking Spanish legal system. The Daily Telegraph reports that The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ has launched a court case in Spain, demanding Pope Benedict...

It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.

.....Meanwhile the work of other foreign-funded NGOs in the interest of terrorist organizations warrants urgent attention. Take the Peruvian "human-rights" group Aprodeh, which labored in Europe to get the MRTA off the terrorist list there, even though Peru still considers it a grave threat to its security. In 2007, according to government records, Aprodeh received funding from Oxfam America, George Soros's Open Society, the John Merck Foundation, the city of Barcelona, the Dutch embassy and a U.S. government agency called the Inter-American Foundation, among others. On Friday, the Peruvian government asked Aprodeh to explain how its NGO status allows it...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes in today's Wall Street Journal that George Soros's Open Society Institute has been funding terrorism. In a column entitled Friends of Terror in Peru, O'Grady notes that Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the...

What makes The Heritage Foundation one of the most famous and widely quoted nonprofit companies worldwide? Having a top-notch staff to promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense helps, no question. But as the new book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits shows, it’s more than that. Heritage succeeds because its leaders follow certain “high-impact� practices that have elevated the 34-year-old institution to the forefront of the nonprofit world. Figuring out what those high-impact practices are matters, because success in the nonprofit...

Environmental Activist Funding, Agendas Exposed Written By: Review by Jay Lehr, Ph.D. Published In: Environment News Publication Date: September 1, 2007 Publisher: The Heartland Institute The Green Wave: Environmentalism and Its Consequences Bonner Cohen Capital Research Center, 2006 240 pages, $14.95, ISBN 1892934116 Available online through Amazon.com T.S. Eliot once said, "half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm--but the harm does not interest them. Or they justify it, because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." Eliot...

Deep in the shadows of the New Age is an organization that is linked to the United Nations and striving to create a New World Order.  It is not the stuff of paranoia. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is a simple fact.  Recently, I called attention to Bohemian Grove, a clandestine meeting place for world leaders north of San Francisco, and now would like to call attention to this group on the other coast.  I'd like to know, once and for all, about Lucis Trust. I'd like to know what they want. I want to know why they...

Three French aid workers in Brazil have been stabbed to death at the offices of the charity they worked for in Rio. Police say the three, a couple who headed the charity and a male employee, were killed by the organisation's treasurer, who allegedly hired hit men. Police say they have arrested the treasurer and that he had confessed to the crime. They say he had stolen funds from Terr'Ativa, a French-Brazilian NGO helping slum children. "The motive was not to leave any trace of the siphoning of the money," deputy district police chief Marcus Castro told reporters.

While this new world of corporate governance/ lobbyists/ privatization of the commons etc; seems difficult to understand (disguised as it is with buzz words – and meaningless jibberish), it’s really not as complex as one might think. After you learn how to ignore the superficial banalities, and get to the meat (if there is any) of the message being given. Most times you’ll hear just fluff and nutter talk – sounds important but isn’t. While we naturally focus upon local issues and concerns such as community development, roads, tons of garbage, forest access, tourism, sportsmen’s rights, lack of snow, no...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Those heaping portions at restaurants -- and doggie bags for the leftovers -- may be a thing of the past, if health officials get their way. The government is trying to enlist the help of the nation's eateries in fighting obesity. One of the first things on their list: cutting portion sizes.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, tells NewsMax that the United Nations is dead set on writing a treaty that will curb domestic ownership of guns. He also says his worst fear is that a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency would allow such a treaty to severely damage Second Amendment rights. "She has never cast a pro-gun vote in the U.S. Senate," advises LaPierre, author of "The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N. Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights." "She will probably be the most anti-firearm Second Amendment candidate to ever run...

Clerics in Kabul mosques are urging worshippers to join the Taliban's fight against the Afghan government and international troops. Some imams here believe the time is right to call for holy war. "The only thing (people) can do is fight against the government and I am telling them they can do that. They can pick up a gun and fight against the government," said Abdullah, a 52-year-old imam wary of giving his full name for fear of reprisals. "It's a reality, the fighters are getting stronger and stronger because the government is alienating the community and the people," Abdullah said....

Something extraordinary is happening in global development circles. For the first time since the 19th century, progressive activists are embracing trade as positive tool for change. The global NGO Oxfam is the latest progressive interest group to change its tune. It has launched a campaign to end agricultural subsidies in the developed world. This could represent a fundamental turning of the tide from a world based on nationalism and violence to a world based on commerce and peace. Oxfam has a new section on its website devoted to "the private sector's role in development," where they acknowledge that "Oxfam GB...

In the campaign in the UK to organize an academic boycott of Israeli universities, led by the British Association of University Teachers (AUT), it turned out that a fanatic anti-Israel faculty member at an Israeli university, Ilan Pappe from the University of Haifa, was the driving force. He was seeking to create a boycott of his own university. That boycott campaign ultimately fizzled and failed. But the attempts by radical anti-Israel faculty members in Israel to promote attacks on their own country continue. Recent campaigns are in some ways more outrageous and far worse than the earlier boycott initiative. The...

At the 55th annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 5-9, 2000, called the Millennium Assembly and Summit, far-reaching plans are underway to turn the corner from a world of sovereign, independent nation-states to a world of disparate peoples subordinated to the supreme authority of the United Nations. These plans call for the total restructuring of the mission and powers of the United Nations. To achieve this goal, the UN is scheduled to consider at least two actions, by consensus rather than by formal vote: adoption of the Earth Charter, a document whose...

Former Governor and current State Senate President Dick Codey sponsors the legislation. He says, "We would be the first in the country to build a building dedicated solely to stem cell research." He adds, "We would be using existing tobacco bond monies so, we're not spending new money." $150 million dollars would be needed leading many critics to ask, "What else could that money be used for?" Codey says, "This is about saving lives in the future." He asks, "If the cure for diabetes or something else came out of this New Jersey facility, wouldn't that be a great legacy…it...

THE American Red Cross has come under fire over payments to publicists who recruited stars to add lustre to its image, even as funds ran short for victims of Hurricane Katrina. The controversy could not have come at a worse time for the charity: this Tuesday, it unveils a “celebrity cabinet” of personalities whose glamour will be exploited to attract money, volunteers and donations of blood. Its critics are unhappy at what they call an inappropriate use of funds. “They’re hoping people will send them money on the basis of celebrity, as opposed to good works and effectiveness,” said Daniel...

  Victim hood works. The Palestinian PM designate, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader of the new government in Ramallah, some would call it Hamastan, is spewing “taqiyyah,” religiously condoned lying by Muslims to “trick” western unbelievers. He says that the PA would recognize Israel if it gave up all of Samaria, Judea and east Jerusalem and let 3.5 million plus Palestinian refugee "victims" get their rights of return “honored.” Israel promptly rejected these destructive conditions and his lying proposition. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), those wonderful folks who want to replace our Constitution with Shari’a...

WASHINGTON (Feb. 28) - Former President Clinton, a reformed overeater, urged state governors on Tuesday to embrace a long-term effort to change the nation's culture of too much food and too little exercise. He warned the governors that failure to change the nation's eating habits will weaken the economy and threaten the lives of its children. "We have a huge cultural problem and unless we change it our children may grow up to be the first generation with shorter lifespans than we had," the former Arkansas governor told the National Governors Association at the last day of its annual winter...

MATTRAI, Pakistan, February 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A young woman was raped by three men in retribution for refusing to perform illegal abortions in a rural community in the western Punjab last Wednesday.Rubina Kousar, 26, worked as a nurse in the Mattrai health center. She refused to carry out abortions on two women, reported the Telegraph, despite six months of constant pressure from the women’s families.“In the past our staff have been subjected to this type of victimization for refusing to carry out illegal abortions, but they have not raised their voices for fear of retribution,” said Riaz Hussein,...

MONTREAL (CP) - It may take a special tax to help fight what one Canadian sociologist calls the "obesogenic food environment" - the junk food that's prominently displayed in supermarkets and schools. Anthony Winson of the University of Guelph said high-sugar and high-fat products are "aggressively promoted" every week in grocery stores. "You can have maybe 20 special displays in a supermarket that are around every corner promoting types of high-sugar, high-fat products, whether they be candy bars or soft drinks," Winson said in an interview. He said the displays are advantageous for retailers because they bring in extra revenue....

US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is known for his radical views on the world body. The combative diplomat has never taken kindly of its activities. The Group of 77 developing countries are angry over his strong views on reshaping the UN by cutting its budget and tightening its role. His very often contemptuous stand has rattled US allies, such as Britain. Even American senators expressed their displeasure by refusing to confirm his nomination as UN ambassador. President George W. Bush had to resort to circumvention to get him the UN posting. As a fierce UN critic, Bolton...

Green Global Tribunals on the Way "The rights of victims of environmental disasters worldwide are to be formally recognized by the Permanent Court of Arbitration," reported a BBC News dispatch on November 26th. On that date the Hague-based international court signed "an agreement with the Cousteau environmental society as a basis for settling international environmental disputes between organizations and individuals. The Cousteau Society is placing a ship, the Alcyone, at the court’s disposal to carry out fact-finding commissions. It is the first time a court will give legitimacy to environmental disputes between individuals and organizations in an international context." The ...

Marriott refuses counter-terror group, but hosts Muslims Students Association Eastern Zone Conference The Marriott Hotel chain refused to host the upcoming counter terror symposium that is being organized by Jeffrey Epstein and the America’s Truth Forum. According to Epstein, Peter Cantone, General Manager for Marriott Georgetown, turned down the group in November, saying: Your event is too controversial to be held on the property. This decision is based upon business considerations, as the event would call for heightened security since protestors might be attracted from both the student body and off campus. I'm concerned that these protestors might block the...

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--Hundreds of volunteers throughout the state will hit shopping malls and grocery stores Saturday at 9 a.m. as they kickoff efforts to gather nearly one million signatures needed to place an initiative on the November 2006 ballot that would provide critical funding to reduce smoking, keep emergency rooms open, fund health insurance for children and expand nursing education. "This initiative will save lives, by raising the tobacco tax and funding urgently needed community emergency and related health care services," said Paul Knepprath of the American Heart Association of California. "This is the broadest coalition that's ever come together to...

The Hooded Man from Abu Ghraib: The Rest of the Story by Laura Mansfield Do you remember this image? (See attached PDF file for image) The hooded man is Haj Ali al Qaisi. Haj Ali is known throughout the world because of this photograph showing him with a black hood over his head, standing on a box, with electric cords on his hands. The photo came to represent torture in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq at the hands of the American military. Haj Ali, who now lives in Jordan and heads a group called the "Organization of Victims of US...

The original American system promised a society in which the benefits of civilization including liberty, property, privacy, security and justice would be available to all of its citizens who were willing to work for them. However, such a society can only be sustained when the majority of the citizens are mature adults who accept the basic principles of self-government, self-reliance, and mutual respect. Those principles require the individual to assume reponsibility for his own actions, to be a producer rather than a parasite, to exercise his liberty with consideration for others, and to support and defend the system. It doesn't...

Last year was another instrumental year in the advance of world government. While most commentators will concentrate on popularized events, many will not discuss the latest steps taken to cement the final touches to a world governmental structure, that has been in the making for the last 150 years or so. In order to understand the importance of 2005's global achievements in the march towards global governance, which is the integration of the world's peoples, countries, and philosophies, we must briefly visit the past. Let us recount the 1913 birth of the U.S. tax code. Over the past 92 years,...

The UN, left to itself, will end up giving corruption and socialism a bad name. Joseph Klein has written Global Deception to show why. He pinpoints the UN's greatest threat in his subtitle: The UN's Stealth Assault on America's Freedom.The corruption of the UN leadership, and its heavy hitter supporters such as Canadian oil billionaire, Maurice Strong, is a litany of hypocrisy on a par with the glitterati of Hollywood. "Do as I say, not as I do." Most readers are aware of Kofi Annan, the pious critic of greedy capitalists, who plunged so deeply into the Oil for Food...

What will it take to knock the United Nations off the pedestal that it occupies in the minds of American internationalists? Certainly not passivity in the face of genocide. The loathsome record of the UN fiddling while innocents burn in Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur has not dimmed the affections of the world body’s faithful devotees. Nor do serial rape and institutionalised paedophilia seem to serve as disqualifiers, either. The multi-lateralist faith of the UN cheerleading squad appears to be unshaken by a sordid trail of sexual exploitation left by blue-helmeted peacekeepers from Kosovo to the Congo. In 2001, a...

Taking farmers into confidence on opium eradication Sanjay SuriLONDON, Feb 2 (Pajhwok Afghan News) - Proposals being considered for the widespread destruction of opium plantations could end up destroying the lives of millions of farmers, an independent report warns. The report was released a day ahead of the international conference on Afghanistan that concluded in London on Thursday.The report by The Senlis Council, a drug policy advisory forum, says that in the face of mounting violence and instability in Afghanistan, the focus should be on the real stakeholders in Afghanistan's future. ''The Afghan farming communities must be empowered and included...

At one level, the United Nations is merely the latest variant on the Congress of Vienna held almost two centuries ago—a venue where the great powers sit down to resolve the problems of the world to their mutual satisfaction. Unfortunately, unlike Lord Castlereagh, Prince Metternich and Talleyrand, none of whom would be asked to audition for a “We Are The World” charity fundraising single, the UN has become the repository of all the West’s sappiest illusions of one-worldism. Let me give an example. Nearly three years ago, the space shuttle Columbia crashed, and Katie Couric on NBC’s Today show saluted...

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank has criticized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for her role in the rejection of two international gay civil rights groups by a United Nations body. Last month, the U.N. Economic and Social Council, a think tank made up of nongovernmental agencies from around the world, voted not to admit the International Lesbian and Gay Association and the Danish Association of Gays and Lesbians. According to 365Gay.com, their application to join other nongovernmental agencies on the council was rejected without a hearing after the United States voted with some of the world's most repressive regimes, including Iran,...

MEXICO CITY - The U.S. Border Patrol arrested a Mexican immigration official who was allegedly trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into the United States, the Mexican government said Sunday. Immigration agent Francisco Javier Gutierrez was arrested at a checkpoint near Alamogordo, N.M., about 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Mexican Interior Department said in a news release. Gutierrez had been fired on corruption allegations last year but returned to his job after winning a court case in which he claimed he had been unfairly dismissed, according to the National Immigration Institute.

MONTERREY, MEXICO Families of undocumented Mexican migrants who disappear while sneaking into the United States have had nowhere to turn for information on the loved ones' fates. Now, a new Mexican government program to help with their inquiries. It's a computer database designed to help identify migrants who die crossing the border -- as well as find the living who lose touch with family once they are in the United States. The new program links Mexico's Foreign Relations Department's 35 offices in Mexico and 45 consulates in the United States to an Internet database. In the last decade, more than...