Free Republic

A 27-YEAR-old asylum seeker who exposed himself to female paramedics as they were taking him to Selly Oak Hospital has been jailed for 12 months. The paramedics picked up Adam Mohammed ...after a heavy drinking session. He said the year-long sentence would normally result in automatic deportation, but ruled it was unsatisfactory because Mohammed could not be sent back to the Sudan because of the political situation in that country. Mohammed ...had made earlier court appearances

...On Aug. 29 a militia of Lou Nuer killed 43 people and wounded 62 in Wernyol, a Dinka town. Among the dead was Episcopal Church of Sudan archdeacon Joseph Mabior Garang, killed while officiating at a morning prayer service. Most likely, the militia (and its sponsors) targeted Mabior because he was a prominent, beloved leader in the community. He had recently become archbishop of Twic East diocese, newly formed to accommodate the fast-growing church in Bor county, which is part of Jonglei state in South Sudan. ...After Mabior's death, Daau phoned Nathaniel Garang, the bishop of Bor. "Son, I lost...

The Obama Administration apparently thinks that its policy of engaging repressive radical anti-American dictators has been working so well as to extend it now to Sudan. This is the meaning of the new policy to be on this issue October 19. That country’s government, once accused of genocide in the south, is now said to have been doing the same thing in the west. Mass murder and ferocious repression—300,000 people have been killed; 2.7 million made refugees--has been so prevalent that the country’s president Omar al-Bashir is under an international indictment for war crimes and Sudan is on the State...

SNIPPET - QUOTE: Possibly the mystery of the three recent incidents of exploding Yemeni fishing boats can be explained as Iranian missile shipments. The following article asserts Iran is shipping from an African country, likely Sudan, to Yemen. A Yemeni fishing boat also exploded in a Sudanese port and Yemen's Midi Island is a new transit point for Sudanese refugees. Once there's a smuggling route established for weapons, the boats often also transport refugees. However this report is taken from a Yemeni government stooge newspaper, Akhbar al Youm, which once announced that Ayatollah Sistani and I (me Jane) wrote the...

An attempted hijacking by a man wielding a knife from an in-flight meal has been thwarted by guards, EgyptAir officials said. The incident happened shortly after the plane, carrying almost 90 people, took off from Istanbul, Turkey, heading to Cairo. The Sudanese man threatened crew members and demanded that the flight be diverted to Jerusalem, officials said. He was detained by air marshals, and the flight landed in Cairo.

A Sudanese man used a knife from the in-flight meal to threaten crew members after the plane left Turkish airspace and demanded that the flight be diverted to Jerusalem, the official said.

If anyone still naively believes the Obama administration attaches much importance to human rights on the world stage, they should take a look at its new policy towards Sudan. As the Associated Press reports, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have launched a new strategy of engagement with the barbaric regime of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, already responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Darfur. As Obama puts it: “If the government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives. If it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has formulated a new policy for Sudan that proposes working with that country’s government, rather than isolating it as President Obama had pledged to do during his campaign. In an interview on Friday, President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, retired, said the policy, to be announced Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would make use of a mix of “incentives and pressure” to seek an end to the human rights abuses that have left millions of people dead or displaced while burning Darfur into the American conscience.

Living With Osama bin Laden: First Wife Tells of Husband's Bid To Train His Sons As Suicide Bombers Daily Mail Reporter 12th October 2009 Osama bin Laden was a tyrant who trained his own children to be suicide bombers and murdered their pets, his first wife has revealed. In a new book about her time living with bin Laden, Najwa Ghanem has told how she gave birth to 11 of his 14 children because bin Laden said that Islam needed many warriors. And millionaire bin Laden would not allow any modern appliances in his home, even refusing his son medicine...

But, more broadly, Bell fears that the United States does not "have the right strategy" on Darfur, and he warns that the "status quo plays in favor of the government" of Sudan's President Omar Bashir. The group wants Obama to take action and renew pressure on the regime by coming up with a peace initiative, which would include countries with sway in the region such as Egypt and China, and could eventually lead to a tentative peace deal. Since his nomination, Gration has made some risky moves, indicating some openness towards Bashir -- who is the subject of an International...

Marauding bands of guerrillas have "crucified" seven Christians during a series of raids on villages in Sudan, with one man tied to a tree and mutilated while six other victims were nailed to pieces of wood and killed. Villagers who found their bodies near the town of Nzara said it was like a "grotesque crucifixion scene", the Catholic Herald reports. Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio is appealing for international help to stop the cycle of violence and attacks by members of the Lord's Resistance Army, saying the government at home appeared powerless against it. In one instance guerrillas stormed...

widespread human rights violations, including mutilation, torture, rape, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers, and a number of massacres. In recent months there has been an increase in violent incidents across provinces of southern Sudan, especially near the Ugandan border. "Everywhere, people are being killed" including at least one church leader, said Bishop Daniel Deng Bul Yak in remarks aired by Radio France International (RFI), monitored by BosNewsLife. "This is why we are appealing to the United Nations and governments in the world like the U.S. Germany and Norway. They should come in now, so that peace...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "That's the way Nick George, a senior at Pomona College, in California, sees what happened to him at the Philadelphia airport two Saturdays ago. George, of Wyncote, Montgomery County, was about to catch a Southwest flight back to school when stereo speakers in his backpack caught the eye of screeners at the metal detector. When they looked though his bag, George said, they found his Arabic/English flash cards, and escorted him to a side screening area. He figures it didn't help that his passport had stamps from Jordan, where he'd studied a semester, and Egypt and...

An Irish aid worker who was kidnapped in Sudan two months ago has contacted her family by telephone, raising hopes for her release. Sharon Commins, 32, from Dublin, was kidnapped in the North Darfur town of Kutum along with a Ugandan colleague, Hilda Kawuki, on July 3, by an armed gang of men who entered the compound of the Irish aid agency GOAL. "She spoke to her family on Thursday. It was her first opportunity to speak to her family," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "The family have asked that we respect their privacy."

British diplomats in Khartoum have demanded that the vehicles, computers, office equipment, medical stores and cash be returned so that it can be redistributed. But Sudanese officials have scoffed at this, saying that neither the British government nor the aid agencies have "the right to control these assets". In total, Oxfam and Medecins Sans Frontieres' French and Dutch operations have reported that they lost roughly £3.25 million of equipment. They had also been forced to pay another £5.6 million to Sudanese staff as lay-off payments because of the shutdown. Sudan has demanded the right to redistribute the materials to its...

Here is a video report on a woman in Sudan that was arrested for wearing pants. She was found guilty of "indecency" and fined $200. In Sudan there is a law based on Islamic teachings that forbids indecent clothing and the punishment could have been "40 lashes." (Watch Video)

Journalist Lubna Hussein, wearing the same pants in the courtroom, is convicted of public indecency and sentenced to a month in jail when she refuses to pay a $200 fine. She could have been lashed.A Sudanese woman was convicted today of public indecency for wearing pants at an outdoor cafe and jailed for one month when she refused to pay a fine. The case has stirred international outrage and spawned protests in Sudan over the Islamic-dominated government's treatment of women. Lubna Hussein, a journalist and former U.N. staffer based in Khartoum, the capital, could have received 40 lashes with a...

A Sudanese woman has been jailed for a month after refusing to pay a fine for "dressing indecently" by wearing trousers, her lawyers say. Lubna Ahmed Hussein did not want to "give the verdict any legitimacy" by paying the fine of about $200 (£122), her lawyer, Nabil Adib, told the BBC. Ms Hussein, a journalist in her 30s, could have been given up to 40 lashes. Before the verdict, she had said she wanted her trial to become a test case for women's rights, correspondents say. Ms Hussein had resigned from her job at the UN, which would have given...

CNN) -- We have been part of an extraordinary social phenomenon over the past four years surrounding Darfur: the development of a genuine anti-genocide people's movement. It's succeeded in cultivating a number of true champions in the political sphere, led by three former senators: Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Now that Obama, Biden and Clinton are in office, and another fierce anti-genocide advocate, Susan Rice, is in as ambassador to the United Nations, we felt there finally would be a consequence for the perpetrators of the genocide, the regime officials in Khartoum, Sudan. But rather than the kind...

More than 160 people were killed when heavily armed South Sudan tribal fighters launched a dawn raid on a rival group, officials said, the latest in a series of bloody ethnic clashes. Mostly women and children died when men from the Murle ethnic group attacked a camp in the Akobo area of the region's swampy Jonglei state, where oil exploration is under way. "One hundred women and children, 50 men and 11 SPLA (soldiers from the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army) are being buried by the riverside this morning," Akobo commissioner Goi Jooyul Yol said. "There may still be bodies...

As the morality police crowded around her table in a Khartoum restaurant, leering at her to see what she was wearing, Lubna Hussein had no idea she was about to become the best-known woman in Sudan. She had arrived at the Kawkab Elsharq Hall on a Friday night to book a cousin's wedding party, and while she waited she watched an Egyptian singer and sipped a coke. She left less than an hour later under arrest as a "trouser girl" - humiliated in front of hundreds of people, then beaten around the head in a police van before being hauled...

Poll: Did you know that the Obama administration has a Sudan czar? A Daily Poll.

July 30, 2009 Sudanese woman risks flogging over 'indecent' trousers Tristan McConnell in Nairobi Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein says she will give up her immunity as a UN worker [Pic in URL] A woman journalist is taking on the feared Sudanese morality police to challenge the country’s draconian laws on public dress, insisting on being tried for the crime of wearing trousers in public and risking a punishment of 40 lashes. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein was at a private party in a restaurant in an upmarket district of Khartoum on July 3 when a group of public order policemen —...

A Christian woman who faces 40 lashes for wearing trousers in Sudan made a dramatic appearance in court yesterday to fight her case. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein walked into the packed hearing in the same green slacks that got her arrested. Under Islamic laws used in parts of the country, it is illegal for a woman to wear trousers rather than long skirts in public. But the law is not supposed to apply to non-Muslims like Miss Hussein, a former journalist who works for the United Nations. And it is only imposed sporadically in the capital, Khartoum, where she was arrested....

A Sudanese woman journalist is preparing to be flogged 40 times in Khartoum for wearing trousers, with 10 women already whipped for similar offences against Islamic law. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who writes for the left-wing Al-Sahafa newspaper and works for the media department of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, was arrested in Khartoum earlier this month after being caught wearing "indecent" clothes. "I received a telephone call from the authorities saying I must appear at 10 am (7am GMT) on Wednesday in front of the judge," Hussein said. "It is important that people know what is happening," Hussein said...

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, an angry Khartoum journalist who works for the UN in Sudan, has started a campaign against shariah law by elevating a local police matter into an international embarrassment: She’s invited the world to witness her judicial flogging, thus making her case part of the struggle between religious traditionalists and independent women — a struggle that now may encompass the quadruple murder that was revealed a world away, in Kingston, Ont., on Thursday. In Khartoum, the General Discipline Police Authority patrols the streets, charged with maintaining shariah standards of public decency. Recently it raided a restaurant and arrested...

As a presidential and vice presidential candidate in 2008, Joe Biden repeatedly pledged to use U.S. military force to end the genocide in Darfur. The government of Sudan is rightly listed as a state sponsor of terrorism and poses a threat to U.S. interests. Now that he’s in office, Vice President Biden should persuade President Obama to match their words with action and fulfill his campaign pledge. “I would use American force now. I think it’s not only time not to take force off the table. I think it’s time to put force on the table and use it,” then-Senator...

If we accept the principle that a half truth is not the truth, we then need to consider that the Africa policy of the U.S. Administration is dramatically incomplete in its essence. This is the first lesson we would draw from President Barack Obama's speech delivered in front of the Ghana Parliament on July 11. Hence it is necessary to dissect its policy components making the needed distinctions between abstract principles, applicable anywhere on the planet, and a host of dramatic African realities, so far ignored by Washington's "new direction." There is no doubt that American ideals continue to inspire...

France has condemned the flogging of several women in Sudan, who were being punished for wearing trousers. The foreign ministry called on Khartoum to abandon the prosecution of several others charged with the same offence.

Afghanistan’s Taliban movement turned their attention to the U.S. role in Somalia and elsewhere in Africa in an article published in the latest issue of the Taliban’s Arabic-language magazine, al-Sumud (Media Center of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-Taliban, June 27). The article, entitled “Somalia: Next Target for the Global Tyrant, the United States of America,” focused on the alleged neo-colonial ambitions of the United States, especially in respect to the consolidation and exploitation of African energy resources. The author, using the name Anwar, maintains that God provided Muslims ample blessings in the form of natural resources, but Muslim inattentiveness and...

August 14, 2005 -- LONDON — The $21.3 billion United Nations oil-for-food scandal has now widened to include the brother of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Kobina Annan, the Ghanaian ambassador to Morocco, is said by investigators to be "connected" to an African businessman at the center of the scandal. The probe into Kobina's dealings are at an early stage and he has not been interviewed. However, investigators are understood to suspect that Michael Wilson, an African businessman, and Kobina had a business relationship at the time of the scandal. A source close to the investigation said: "We believe Kobina Annan...

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Sudan’s Government Receives Violent Threats Following Extremist Death CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Sudan 23 Jun 2009 U.S. Embassy Khartoum issued the following Warden Message on June 23: This Warden Message alerts U.S. citizens that statements threatening violent action against the Government of Sudan have been posted on a jihadist website, following the death of a suspected Islamic extremist. The U.S. Embassy is concerned that there may be calls for violent action against the Government of Sudan and/or...

The U.S. embassy in Sudan is warning of a threat by Islamist extremists to attack the Sudanese government as well as "Western interests." A statement on the U.S. embassy website warned that a post on a radical Islamist website threatened an attack on the Sudanese government. It indicated the threat is related to the recent death of a suspected Islamic extremist. The statement provided few details of the threat, but warned that calls for violence against the government as well as "Western interests" could also be made during prayers on Friday, and urged Americans in Sudan to exercise caution. US...

Note: The following text is a quote: June 19, 2009 Student jailed for trying to fight British in Afghanistan His fellow traveler, on the other hand, was "acquitted after claiming he thought he was going on a trekking holiday' when he travelled to Turkey, and that he had been deceived by his co-defendant." "Student jailed for trying to fight British in Afghanistan," from Military World, June 19: A gap-year student who vowed to battle British soldiers with a Koran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other has been jailed. Mohamed Abushamma, 21, was intercepted by anti-terror police in...

Yesterday the President's Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration put his foot in is mouth when he declared that. "What we see is the remnants of genocide," he said, implying the region's worst violence is behind it. "It doesn't appear that it is a coordinated effort that was similar to what we had in 2003 to 2006," he said. President Obama disagrees, As recently as June 5, a day after his Cairo speech, Obama described Sudan as a "genocide that's taking place." After Gration made his little fau pax, UN Ambassador Susan Rice,who served as top Africa official at the...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Former Sudanese President Jaafar Nimeiri, who brought Islamic law to Sudan and became a close U.S. ally before he was ousted in a coup in 1985, died on Saturday, government officials said. He was 79-years-old. "We were expecting this for a time, he had developed an illness. Today he died," presidential assistant Magdi Abdel Aziz told Reuters. The funeral will probably be in Khartoum's Omdurman area on Sunday morning. "He was too ill to be taken out of the country for treatment," his secretary Makkawi Ahmed said, without giving any further details of his illness. Nimeiri came...

Four men accused of planning to kidnap two Roanoke County women and hold them for ransom were indicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Joshua Kasongo, 19, of Roanoke; Mohammed Hussein Guhad, 19, of Roanoke; Luke Musa Elbino, 19, of Vinton; and Anthony Eugene Muse, 18, of Roanoke are each charged with conspiring to kidnap and attempted kidnapping. Guhad and Muse are students at Patrick Henry High School. Elbino is a student at Virginia Western Community College.

Note: Read the whole article and check out the hypertext-links in the article. # FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Where does the Obama administration stand on Israel? Although that vexed question is still open, the worrying signs are accumulating. On Sunday it was National Security Adviser James Jones telling ABC that “We understand Israel’s preoccupation with Iran as an existential threat. We agree with that”—and adding: “…by the same token, there are a lot of things that you can do to diminish that existential threat by working hard towards achieving a two-state solution.” With Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu slated...

MUTSAMUDU (Comoros) - Tanzanian troops mandated by the African Union (AU) entered Tuesday morning in the capital of Comorian island of Anjouan Mutsamudu, as part of the operation to overthrow the president of the island Mohamed Bacar , witnesses reported to the AFP. Tanzanian soldiers were visible in the city centre where they have not encountered any resistance from forces loyal to the authorities of Anjouan deemed illegal by the federal government and the AU. The arrival of soldiers from the AU has been greeted with cries of joy inhabitants of Mutsamudu, the witnesses said. The "Democracy in the...

Hey Kristof... You're Late! Posted in: Gerald A. Honigman By Gerald A. Honigman Monday, March 23, 2009 While The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof is no stranger to these positions throughout the year, he frequently comes out with his gems of Middle East wisdom right around Bike Week here in Daytona Beach, Florida, when tens of thousands of Harley enthusiasts arrive to also spread their hot air exhaust around town. This year Nick was a few weeks late. Like others of his ilk--Thomas Friedman (better of late), David Ignatius, Richard Cohen, just to name a few, who are also obsessed...

Eight activists protesting the expulsion of aid groups in Darfur have been arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. Humanitarian leaders and five U.S. lawmakers, including Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison and Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, were led away in handcuffs Monday from the embassy after crossing a police line. The activists are urging world leaders to take a stand against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's decision to expel 16 aid agencies from Darfur.

An Iranian vessel laden with weapons bound for the Gaza Strip was torpedoed off the coast of Sudan last week, allegedly by Israeli or American forces operating in the area, the Egyptian newspaper El-Aosboa reported on Sunday. Anonymous sources in Khartoum told the newspaper that an unidentified warship bombed the Iranian vessel as it prepared to dock on Sudan before transferring its load for shipment to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. These sources said they suspects U.S. or Israeli involvement in the attack, but neither Washington nor Jerusalem have released a statement yet on the matter. The Israel Air Force, meanwhile,...

RICHMOND Nearly nine years after 17 sailors were killed in a terrorist attack on the USS Cole, a judge has ordered New York banks to release $13.4 million in frozen Sudanese accounts to family members of the victims. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood issued the order last week, ending a six-year quest by 59 spouses, parents and children of the victims to hold the Sudanese government accountable for the deaths. “I’m so excited,� said Lorrie Triplett of Suffolk, whose 31-year-old husband, Andrew, was killed in the Oct. 12, 2000 attack. “I just know Andrew was saying halleluiah for me and...

U.S. response reveals imperialism's double standard Recent revelations and events in Sudan continue to expose the ongoing campaign, by imperialist governments and "civil society," to demonize and isolate Sudan. CBS News reported on Mar. 26 that Israel had attacked a convoy of trucks in Sudan in January. They claimed these trucks were carrying weapons from Iran to Hamas, a Palestinian resistance organization. It was later reported by ABC News that Israel had in fact conducted three different strikes on targets it claimed were carrying weapons to the Gaza strip. U.S. made Israeli F15s. Israel has bombed Sudan three times in...

SNIPPET: "In recent days Egypt has been disclosing details about uncovering a major Hezbollah espionage ring on its soil. AP cites a cabinet minister saying 25 of its 49 members have been arrested so far. The arrests began back in November, but the disclosures have started only now. The leader of the espionage ring—who is among those detained—was a Hezbollah agent named Sami Shehab, and the group he recruited included Lebanese, Syrians, Sudanese, and Palestinians along with 12 Egyptian Shiites. Not surprisingly, they planned attacks on Israeli vacationers in the Sinai, apparently as revenge for the February 2008 killing of...

Christian woman run out of home – and beaten – while another is prohibited from leaving.When Halima Bubkier of Sinar town converted from Islam to Christianity last year, initially her husband accepted it without qualms. “After watching the ‘Jesus Film,’ I felt I needed a change in my hopeless and meaningless life,” the 35-year-old mother of three told Compass. “I lived a life of alcoholism and lacked self control, hence tried Christianity and it worked well for me. I shared this experience with my husband, and he was quite positive about it and allowed me to attend church services.” News...

BARACK OBAMA PIRATE SONG

Hillary Clinton was commenting about the situation concerning the so-called “Somali pirates,” and during her remarks she let loose with a “let’s change the subject” laugh that she hasn’t made since a reporter spotted a cheerleader under Bill’s podium back in ‘93. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMDvOfIzGek&feature=player_embedded

Note: The following text is a quote: https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=100131 YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Travel Warning: Sudan CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Sub-Saharan Africa - Sudan 8 Apr 2009 Printer Friendly Email Article RELATED REPORTS Today SOUTHERN SUDAN STABILITY CONCERNS 24 Mar 2009 SUDAN 2009 CRIME & SAFETY REPORT: KHARTOUM 24 Mar 2009 SUDAN 2009 CRIME & SAFETY REPORT: JUBA 9 Mar 2009 TRAVEL WARNING: SUDAN 4 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: SUDAN DEMONSTRATIONS The U.S. Department of State issued the following Travel Warning on April 8: The Department of State warns U.S. citizens of the risks...

Federal agents searched three money-transfer businesses in Minneapolis on Wednesday, carrying away boxes of documents and copying computer hard drives in a quest for details of financial transactions between the U.S. and several African nations. Agents searched Mustaqbal Express, also known as North American Money Transfer Inc.; Quran Express; and Aaran Financial. FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson confirmed the searches but wouldn't elaborate on the reason.