Free Republic

LIBREVILLE, gabon–When the body of 13-year-old Ralph Edang N'na was found drained of blood and with gaping wounds in his genitals, chest and neck last month, many in Gabon thought it was politicians who had ordered his killing. The murder of children and young adults, whose organs are eaten or used to make magical amulets, has increased in recent years in the oil-rich central African nation. Campaigners say some Gabonese politicians use the black magic rituals to boost their chances of winning lucrative government posts. With elections to municipal councils on Sunday, many fear a spate of gruesome child murders....

The Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked Britain under Labour, claiming that society has become "fantastically materialistic" and "deeply unforgiving". Rowan Williams with John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, on a march in London yesterday People have become suspicious and mistrustful of the Government, disillusioned with New Labour's failure to fulfil its promises to improve the education and health services, and feel isolated from the political process, he argues. Rowan Williams says that far from seeing Britain transformed since Tony Blair came to power, cynicism and greed are now the pervading sentiments of the country's culture. "We don't feel that the...

IT WAS the night before Christmas and Ebenezer Scrooge was facing a succession of supernatural terrors; or, as the latest medical thinking would have it, he was succumbing to a brain disease so obscure that doctors would not give it a name for another 150 years.A pair of medico-literary sleuths claimed last week to have tracked down the illness that haunted Scrooge. They concluded that Charles Dickens brilliantly observed the symptoms in A Christmas Carol. Robert Chance Algar, a Californian neurologist, and his aunt Lisa Saunders, a medical writer and physician, believe that the affliction that made Scrooge a byword...

A WITCHDOCTOR refused to give police a blood sample because it could turn him into a violent zombie. The African healer told cops the sight of blood would make him "act like a lion". But yesterday Nyararia Mukandiwa was convicted of failing to give a specimen after a court overturned a ruling clearing him of the charge. The engineering student was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, in February last year. The 33-year-old told police he was a Mhondoro - a Zimbabwean medicine man - and that seeing blood sent him into a trance He refused to give...

Channel 10 Executive Producer Avi Barzilai on Wednesday repulsed the idea of broadcasting a tape of the Pulsa Denura ceremony against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, calling the rite "a despicable ceremony by despicable people bought and broadcast by individuals who pretend to be journalists and would do anything in order to raise their ratings." "As a senior journalist," he told Army Radio, "I don't regard them as members of the profession," Barzilai continued. Israel Segal - chief editor of Channel 2's current affairs program Mishal Ham that acquired the tape for $5,000 - claimed that the moment the tape became...

By JAMES AMOS The Pueblo Chieftain The group seeking to recall four city councilmen on Tuesday submitted their petitions targeting council President Bill Sova. Members of Puebloans for Common Sense in Government turned in petitions with an estimated 5,086 signatures to City Clerk Gina Dutcher- approximately 27 percent more than the 3,697 signatures needed to force a recall election against Sova. The group is composed of bar owners and others unhappy about the city's now-suspended smoking ban, which initially passed in December on a 4-3 council vote. Sova was joined by Councilmen Mike Occhiato, Bob Schilling and Ted Lopez Jr....

Greenland's coalition government was on the verge of collapse on Saturday in a row over cronyism after just three weeks in power, officials said on Saturday. Political leaders on the vast Arctic island, which is home to a US military base slated by Washington to be part of its missile defence shield, were in talks on forming a new coalition backed by a majority in the home-rule parliament. Greenland is part of NATO-member Denmark but the home-rule administration runs local affairs with Copenhagen responsible for foreign, security and defence policy. The coalition between the left-wing, nationalist Inuit Ataqatigiit (Inuit Brotherhood,...

A quiet battle is raging over the Bush Administration's plan to appoint a scantily credentialed doctor, whose writings include a book titled As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, to head an influential Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel on women's health policy. Sources tell Time that the agency's choice for the advisory panel is Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician-gynecologist who also wrote, with his wife Linda, Stress and the Woman's Body, which puts "an emphasis on the restorative power of Jesus Christ in one's life" and recommends specific Scripture readings and prayers for such ailments...

Young woman dies after 'exorcism' By Rana Husseini AMMAN — Zarqa police are questioning a so-called witch doctor who on Wednesday reportedly beat an 18-year-old girl to death to exorcise what he believed to be a demon inside her, official sources said. The victim, Mariam Salem, was taken by her family to the witch doctor in Zarqa after complaining of stomach pains, the source said. “The man stomped on the young woman's stomach and she fainted,” the source said. Her family rushed her to Zarqa Government Hospital and told the attending physicians that she was sick but did not describe...

Disgruntled Witch Doctors Paid Off, at Last Sat Apr 6, 1:03 PM ET ABIDJAN (Reuters) - A decade after Ivory Coast's soccer team swept to its sole African Nations Cup victory, a government minister has finally paid off disgruntled witch doctors who claim to have helped win the trophy. Witch doctors in a suburb of Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan were enlisted by the minister of sport before the 1992 Cup to give the national side an extra edge. The Elephants won the final beating Ghana in a dramatic penalty shootout in Senegal but the witch doctors from the village...