US to help Nigeria rescue kidnapped schoolgirls

US Secretary of State John Kerry has vowed that Washington will do “everything possible” to help Nigeria deal with the armed group Boko Haram, following the kidnapping of scores of schoolgirls. “Let me be clear. The kidnapping of hundreds of children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime,” Kerry said in a policy speech in the […]

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela 1918-2013

Lost his house because he owed $134 in property taxes

On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb. Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next came […]

Edward Snowden is hiding

NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, checks out of Hong Kong hotel after expressing concern over US attempts to take him into custody. A former US intelligence worker has apparently gone into hiding a day after revealing himself as the source of leaked details of widespread US spying on private internet and phone records. Edward Snowden, 29, […]

Nelson Mandela still in serious but stable condition

The world collectively holds its breath as Mandela remains in the hospital. Former South African President Nelson Mandela is spending his fourth day at a Pretoria hospital getting treatment for a recurring lung infection By News Wires (text) Nelson Mandela spent Saturday night in hospital in a “serious but stable” condition with a renewed lung infection that […]

Orwellian – 1984 revisited

1984 was published and released in June 1949. ‘I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery’- Thomas Jefferson. US defends vast phone record collection White House says National Security Agency gathering of data on millions of Americans key anti-terrorism tool. The Obama administration has defended its secret collection of millions of telephone records from at least […]

Liberia: From Stabilization to Transformation – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

A decade after the worst fighting of its long conflict, which killed an estimated 200,000 of a pre-war population of 2.8 million and forcibly displaced a majority – as many as 1.8 million people – Liberia has addressed much of the worst devastation. But enormous challenges remain. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says that her first […]