Free Republic

After 16 months of fighting in Ukraine, Russia's military still has nearly all of its combat aircraft, but neither Russian nor Ukrainian aircraft can control the air, the Royal Air Force's top general said Thursday. Jets and helicopters have not disappeared from over Ukraine, but thickets of air-defense systems make the airspace inhospitable. And even though Russia has a vastly larger air force, other issues may keep it from operating effectively, according to two NATO air commanders. In a speech at the Global Air & Space Chiefs' Conference in London on Thursday, Air Chief Marshal Rich Knighton, chief of the...

UN cuts details of Western profiteers from Congo report By Declan Walsh in Nairobi 27 October 2003 A controversial section has been omitted from a UN report on the plunder of wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo due out this week. Senior UN officials objected to part of the report by a UN panel investigating the illegal exploitation of Congo's wealth, fearing it could derail the peace process. Sources say the section includes details on how shady networks of business and military figures, some tied to the governments of Rwanda and Uganda, are continuing illegally to export gold, diamonds...

The strange lioness that has thrice baffled the world by adopting Beisa oryx calves has done it again. The lioness - which has been named by Samburu villagers "Kamuniak'' or the (Blessed One), was seen with another calf yesterday morning by game lovers in the Samburu Game Reserve. The two were spotted near Larsens Camp at the foot of Koitogor Hills, several hundred metres from where Kamuniak had adopted the other three oryxes. A senior warder said the oryx, which is a few days old, was strong unlike its predecessors. The lioness first grabbed the headlines around Christmas last year...

The enigmatic lioness that puzzled the world by adopting its prey, an oryx calf, has done it again. Tourists on a dawn game drive yesterday stumbled on the lioness named Kamuniak (Samburu, for the blessed one) intimately crowding the oryx under a tree, in the far-flung Samburu Game Reserve, one of Kenya's wildlife sanctuaries located 300 kilometres north-east of Nairobi. She was sighted at the base of Lolgotoi Hill, much to the delight of Easter holidaymakers. Samburu game warden Simon Leirana told the Sunday Nation the oryx was about three days old, and in good health. He also said they...