George Clooney Robbed by Sudanese Children With AK-47s

It’s hard to imagine there are people that don’t know who George Clooney is. Turns out he isn’t the same superstar in Sudan as he is here. He feared for his life during a recent trip there with the United Nations, and was held at gunpoint and robbed by child soldiers. Sounds like one of his movies, but this really happened. He was there as a messenger of peace of all things to focus on the plight of the region’s refugees for ten days. And his trip started out by getting stopped at checkpoints by machine gun-wielding adolescents who took aim at George and his entourage before stealing anything of value from his vehicle

“It was in southern Sudan and as we were going through checkpoints, there were all these young kids with AK47’s. They went through the car and just took what they wanted. We hid all the tapes and stuff, but they pointed guns at us and stole what they could. It happens all the time. They obviously didn’t know who we were. They don’t have great TV out there.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone would go after George. He’s such a great guy, and he was there to do such important work. Hopefully the soldiers will know who is for next time. Either that or Sarah Larson needs to put a lock down on her man!

Source

 

Bush makes case to dump more US tax dollars into Africa

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania – President Bush is betting
Congress will hear him better from the heart of Africa
than it does from down the street in Washington.

Foreign aid programs that Bush sees as crowning achievements — and which he holds dear — are having their spending levels questioned on Capitol Hill. By visiting Africa for six days to showcase their results, Bush aims to change that in the short term and secure the programs’ future beyond his presidency.

His first stop Saturday was Benin, a tiny sliver on West Africa’s coast. Hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars are helping to pay for an aggressive anti-malaria campaign, the training of tens of thousands of teachers and reforms to Benin’s judiciary, port and financial systems.

Full story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080216/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_africa