Free Republic

Esther Duflo is one of those people who are taken seriously by the sort of people who eat up TED talks with a silver spoon. Her big number is how to help people in the Third World up from poverty, which is a surprisingly profitable branch of economics when you consider the sheer number of NGOs and billionaires interested in getting into the aid business. But there’s one particular billionaire at Duflo’s back. Abdul Latif Jameel. Esther Duflo is one of the co-founders of the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, more commonly known as J-PAL for the father of Abdul...

The former treasurer of the Masjid Al Iman mosque has been charged with producing child pornography. Jameel Abdull Raashib, 55, of Lauderhill, pleaded not guilty to the federal felony charge. He was arrested April 14 and is in Broward County Jail awaiting a jury trial in July. A landscaper and auto detailer, Raashib is also charged as an undocumented resident in possession of ammunition and counterfeit registration papers. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years' imprisonment and $750,000 in fines.

As if the threat of deadly drug cartels in Mexico wasn't enough, some of them are joining forces with Middle East terror groups. "Hezbollah are absolute masters at identifying existing smuggling infrastructures," says former DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun, adding that the group "is developing relations with those responsible for operating those smuggling operations and then forming close relations with them, so that they can move anything they have an interest into virtually anywhere in the world." That comment comes from former DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun. He goes on to tell me that the Middle East terror...