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Obama to Africa: Be Wary of Foreign Powers, Even United States

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama pledged $7 billion in aid Sunday to provide electricity to sub-Saharan Africa, as he warned Africans to be wary of exploitation by other countries, including the U.S.

“I’m calling for America to up our game when it comes to Africa,” Mr. Obama said in a speech at the University of Capetown in South Africa, midway through his weeklong tour of the continent. “We want to unleash the power of entrepreneurship and markets to create opportunity here in Africa.”

Funds from the electricity initiative, dubbed Power Africa, will be distributed over the next five years to six countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania. Mr. Obama said the U.S. wants to help Africa without interfering like colonial powers did in the past.

“You will always find the extended hand of a friend in the United States of America,” he said.

But on his three-nation tour, the president also has been warning Africans not to automatically trust foreign powers offering help, including the U.S.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Call for Tolerance of Homosexuality Publicly Rebuked by President of Senegal

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Dave Boyer. A day after the Supreme Court granted victories to same-sex couples in the U.S., President Obama’s visit to Africa got off to a rough start when his call for tolerance of gays on the continent was rebuffed publicly by the president of Senegal, where homosexuality is a crime.

“People should be treated equally,” Mr. Obama said Thursday at a news conference in Dakar, Senegal, on the first full day of his three-nation tour of the continent.

He said that although Africans have a variety of religions and customs and “we have to respect the diversity of views” of people who personally oppose gay rights, the laws of African nations must grant all people equal protection, regardless of sexual orientation.

“I want the African people just to hear what I believe … when it comes to how the state treats people, how the law treats people, I believe that everybody has to be treated equally,” Mr. Obama said.

That view was promptly rejected by Senegal’s President Macky Sall, who was sharing the stage with Mr. Obama. Read more from this story HERE.

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Nancy Pelosi: ‘Thank God’ for gay ‘marriage’ rulings

By Ben Johnson. Among those celebrating the two Supreme Court’s rulings handed down yesterday that favor the homosexual political agenda is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who told Politico her first reaction was, “Thank God.”

Pelosi, who regularly identifies herself as a “devout” practicing Catholic, said the Deo gratias poured out of her heart the moment she heard that the High Court effectively overturned her home state’s Proposition 8 and invalidated a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by a 5-4 margin in two cases.

“I was thinking when we were walking over here, ‘I’ll be devastated if it’s anything other than that’ for two reasons,” she said. “For what it means for the lives of people first and foremost, but secondly it’s clearly unconstitutional. I’m glad to hear that the court agrees.”

Another prominent figure who expressed gratitude that DOMA was repealed is the same president that turned the federal marriage bill into settled law for 17 years. President Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA without fanfare or a photo op in a late night ceremony in 1996, said, “By overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, the Court recognized that discrimination towards any group holds us all back in our efforts to form a more perfect union. ”

His wife, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, joined his statement. During her tenure as Secretary of State, Hilary put the promotion of homosexuality at the heart of U.S. foreign policy, a tactic continued by her successor, John Kerry. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Family’s June Africa Trip Could Cost a Colossal $100 Million

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Photo Credit: senorglory

When President Obama makes his first extended trip to sub-
Saharan Africa this month, the federal agencies charged with keeping him safe won’t be taking any chances.

Hundreds of U.S. Secret Service agents will be dispatched to secure facilities in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. A Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious ship, with a fully staffed medical trauma center, will be stationed offshore in case of an emergency.

Military cargo planes will airlift in 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines and three trucks loaded with sheets of bullet­proof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the first family will stay. Fighter jets will fly in shifts, giving 24-hour coverage over the president’s airspace, so they can intervene quickly if an errant plane gets too close.

The elaborate security provisions — which will cost the government tens of millions of dollars — are outlined in a confidential internal planning document obtained by The Washington Post. While the preparations appear to be in line with similar travels in the past, the document offers an unusual glimpse into the colossal efforts to protect the U.S. commander in chief on trips abroad.

Any journey by the president, such as one scheduled next week for Northern Ireland and Germany, is an immense and costly logistical challenge. But the trip to Africa is complicated by a confluence of factors that could make it one of the most expensive of Obama’s tenure, according to people familiar with the planning.

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Marine Corps Rapid-Response Team Ordered To Africa To Thwart Another Benghazi Attack

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U.S. Marine CorpsU.S. Africa Command will get a new Marine Corps rapid response force as part of a plan to beef up its crisis response capabilities.

More Leathernecks will be at the ready after the military was unable to get timely aid to Benghazi, Libya last year, during a terror attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and members of his security detail.

Gen. Carter Ham, Africom’s commander, told Congress this week about the planned new force, Stars and Stripes reported Friday.

“The Marine Corps have proposed a new … Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force specifically tailored for crisis response in Africa,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The force had not yet been formally approved, he said, but added, “we think that that will be available in the relatively near future.”

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Scientists Say Baby Born With HIV Apparently Cured

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Photo Credit: APA baby born with the virus that causes AIDS appears to have been cured, scientists announced Sunday, describing the case of a child from Mississippi who’s now 2½ and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of infection.

There’s no guarantee the child will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing uncovered just traces of the virus’ genetic material still lingering. If so, it would mark only the world’s second reported cure.

Specialists say Sunday’s announcement, at a major AIDS meeting in Atlanta, offers promising clues for efforts to eliminate HIV infection in children, especially in AIDS-plagued African countries where too many babies are born with the virus.

“You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen,” Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who is familiar with the findings, told The Associated Press.

A doctor gave this baby faster and stronger treatment than is usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. That was before tests confirmed the infant was infected and not just at risk from a mother whose HIV wasn’t diagnosed until she was in labor. “I just felt like this baby was at higher-than-normal risk, and deserved our best shot,” Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi, said in an interview.

Read more from this story HERE.

Al Qaeda Finds New Stronghold In Rugged Mountains Of Mali As It Regroups In Africa

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Photo Credit: APAl Qaeda has established a vast mountain stronghold in Mali’s lawless north, launching attacks and then melting into the rugged hills, which they vow will become an Afghanistan-style quagmire for North African governments and Western militaries, according to experts.

Like Tora Bora, the mountain labyrinth in Afghanistan where Al Qaeda evaded Western militaries for years under Usama bin Laden, Mali’s Tigharghar Mountain chain allows terrorists to strike within the region and then vanish when pursued, according to a new report by Stratfor, a Texas-based intelligence firm. Caves, tunnels and land mines have made the jagged mountains an impenetrable safe haven for the terrorists, who authorities say were behind last month’s attack on an Algerian gas plant and yesterday’s car bombing that killed six in Kidal, a key city in northern Mali.

The terrorist groups are believed to be behind a month-old insurgency in Mali, which the government is fending off with help from France, which seeks to protect the interests of mining and energy companies in the region. But experts believe the effort is part of a larger bid to destabilize northern Africa, where Al Qaeda is regrouping after fighting American-led Western allies for more than a decade in the Middle East. Extremists vow the mountain refuge will ultimately be worse for their enemies than the decade-long struggle in Afghanistan.

“They made the mountains’ terrain even more impassable by using land mines and improvised explosive devices and digging tunnels,” the report states. “The militants could already use the extensive network of caves in the mountains, the entrances to which are extremely difficult to spot; in fact, the only way to confirm a cave’s location is to observe militants entering and exiting the cave.”

Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Africa — Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM — has been a lurking presence for years in Mali, a country decimated by poverty and hunger. But political instability following a military coup last year has emboldened them to take over an enormous territory larger than France or Texas — and almost exactly the size of Afghanistan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ugandan President Repents of Personal, National Sins

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Should a president lead citizens in a national prayer of repentance? Uganda’s Christian president believes so.

The Ugandan newssite New Vision reports President Yoweri Museveni celebrated Uganda’s 50th anniversary of independence from Britain at the National Jubilee Prayers event by publicly repenting of his personal sin and the sins of the nation.

“I stand here today to close the evil past, and especially in the last 50 years of our national leadership history and at the threshold of a new dispensation in the life of this nation. I stand here on my own behalf and on behalf of my predecessors to repent. We ask for your forgiveness,” Museveni prayed.

“We confess these sins, which have greatly hampered our national cohesion and delayed our political, social and economic transformation. We confess sins of idolatry and witchcraft which are rampant in our land. We confess sins of shedding innocent blood, sins of political hypocrisy, dishonesty, intrigue and betrayal,” Museveni said.

“Forgive us of sins of pride, tribalism and sectarianism; sins of laziness, indifference and irresponsibility; sins of corruption and bribery that have eroded our national resources; sins of sexual immorality, drunkenness and debauchery; sins of unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred and revenge; sins of injustice, oppression and exploitation; sins of rebellion, insubordination, strife and conflict,” Museveni prayed. Next, the president dedicated Uganda to God.

Read more from this story HERE.