Free Republic

U.S. subsidizing massive in-person surveyIn the latest addition to the Obama administration’s growing aid-to-Kenya portfolio, the U.S. will help subsidize a nationwide citizen-health assessment in every Kenyan county without exception. While the estimated project cost remains undisclosed, a separate Kenya-based trade-promotion project unveiled late last week came with an additional $70 million price tag. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, with U.S. taxpayer help, will implement the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, or KDHS. Kenya will coordinate the efforts with United Nations agencies, the U.S. government and “other partners.” The U.S. will fund a KDHS requirement to deploy contractor...

In a move that brings to mind George Soros’ machinations in the various colored revolutions, comes the Alinsky inspired Arab Spring model that our government recently deployed in Cuba by way of a Twitter-like social media platform, ZunZuneo. The project, which was codenamed “ZunZuneo,” slang for a Cuban hummingbird’s tweet, was publicly launched shortly after the 2009 arrest in Cuba of American contractor Alan Gross. He was imprisoned after traveling repeatedly to the country on a separate, clandestine USAID mission to expand Internet access using sensitive technology that only governments use. If you guys are going to spy, could you...

Tony Blair is celebrating another multi-million pound contract after his charity secured a key deal with the US government. This time, the former prime minister’s Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) has won a £3.3 million contract to play a key role in Barack Obama’s flagship African aid programme.… It is thought to be the third grant obtained by Mr Blair’s charity from USAID. The body was, until last February, overseen by Hillary Clinton, who, along with her husband Bill, the former US president, is a close friend of Mr Blair and his wife, Cherie.

Moscow's ambassador to the EU has welcomed what he called the "reunification" of Crimea with Russia but denied that the move was planned. Vladimir Chizhov told the BBC the move was the end of an "abnormality" which had lasted for 60 years. Russia formally annexed the Ukrainian region on Friday after a referendum. On Saturday Russian troops and pro-Russian protesters stormed two Ukrainian military airbases in Crimea, bringing them under Russian control.

Former Rep. Ron Paul says that America’s reaction to Crimea’s vote to secede from Ukraine should be,“so what?” “Why does the U.S. care which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away?” the Texas Republican and libertarian icon wrote in a USA Today op-ed Monday. ...Over the weekend, Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia,which the Russian government has moved to approve. American politicians have called the vote a sham and the administration has said it does not recognize the results of the vote,placing sanctions on some Russian officials in response. Ron...

London (CNN) -- Whatever U.S. and European leaders may say, it seems clear a majority of the residents of Crimea were only too happy to abandon Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The referendum held there on Sunday was illegal according to Ukrainian constitutional law and took place under duress, following the large-scale incursion of "pro-Russian forces" -- and voters did not have the choice to say "no" to severing ties with Kiev. But these failings aside, it appears plain that most of Crimea's population, with the exception of the Tatar minority and some ethnic Ukrainians, was content to return...

Sen. John McCain blasted the "timidity" of the Obama administration’s sanctions on Russian officials Monday, saying that the White House needs a "fundamental reassessment" of the relationship between the United States and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "This president’s response – I don’t know how it could have been weaker, besides doing nothing," McCain said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports. The Arizona Republican said that Putin is likely "encouraged by the absolute timidity" of the U.S. reaction to Russia's incursion into Crimea. "I don’t know when the president and his advisers are going to wake up to what...

On the heels of yet another multi-hour meeting with Russian foreign minister Lavrov, John Kerry takes to the podium to explain next steps... Live feed at link...

Ukraine: Two weeks after Russian troops covertly slipped into Crimea and took over, the consequences of U.S. passivity are clear: some 80,000 Russian troops amassing on Ukraine's border, three hours from Kiev. It's no surprise that they should be: The lack of leadership seen from the U.S. and the European Union in these lost days has been read as a green light for Russia to make a final grab for Ukraine.

China's top envoy to Germany has warned the West against punishing Russia with sanctions for its intervention in Ukraine, saying such measures could lead to a dangerous chain reaction that would be difficult to control. In an interview with Reuters days before the European Union is threatening to impose its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, ambassador Shi Mingde issued the strongest warning against such measures by any top Chinese official to date. "We don't see any point in sanctions," Shi said. "Sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences. We...

Last night, March 13th, on the streets of Donetsk, Russians and Ukrainians clash. Very violent and very good quality film by Vice News. Link is to youtube video.

Today, as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, U.S.-Russian relations have hit their lowest point since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or of Czechoslovakia in 1969 — or perhaps even since they bottomed out during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Crimean crisis, which began as a power struggle between the ruling authorities in Kiev and opposition forces, transformed in to an attempt to overthrow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by pro-Western and nationalist opposition forces with the support of the U.S. and European Union. The crisis escalated into a conflict between the U.S. and Russia after the West supported a...

Russia conducted new military maneuvers near its border with Ukraine on Thursday, and President Vladimir Putin said the world shouldn't blame his country for what he called Ukraine's "internal crisis." In Crimea, where the public will vote on Sunday whether to break away from Ukraine and become part of Russia, jittery residents lined up at their banks to withdraw cash from their accounts amid uncertainty over the future of the peninsula, which Russian troops now control.

WASHINGTON - The federal government has grown obscenely fat over the years, and under President Obama it's gotten much fatter, eating into our economy and the very foundations that made America great. It has outgrown our incomes and now threatens us with suffocating debt, costly regulations, punishing mandates, and a punitive tax code that's invaded every nook and cranny of our society and our daily lives. You don't hear much about this growing crisis, certainly not in the national news media which never saw a federal domestic program it didn't like. Even a lot less in Congress which enacts our...

Vladimir Putin isn’t the Easter Bunny. On the other hand, he isn’t Joseph Stalin. It takes a truly fevered imagination to see Russian forces in the Crimea as a prelude to Russian tanks rolling across Europe toward Berlin and Paris. Putin is a power player who cares more about Russia’s national interests, and Russian minorities in his near abroad, than in that mythical force known as world opinion. Would that America had a president who cared more about our interests than in promoting globalism and the left’s social agenda. The Crimea’s population is 60% ethnic Russian. For most of the...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine was spurred by American behind-the-scenes actions, says former Ohio Congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday accused Kucinich of being a pacifist because of his opposition to the Iraq War, but Kucinich countered he believed that war was wrong, but not all U.S. military action is so. O'Reilly then asked how Kucinich would have handled the Ukraine crisis had he been elected president. "What I'd do is not have USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy working with U.S. taxpayers' money to knock off an elected government in Ukraine,...

Russia's Black Sea Fleet has told Ukrainian forces in Crimea to surrender by 5.am (0300 GMT) on Tuesday or face a military assault, Interfax news agency quoted a source in the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as saying. The ultimatum, Interfax said, was issued by Alexander Vitko, the fleet's commander.

Move fuels USAID's already exponential growth in Kenya aidNow that an $87 million African trade-promotion project is reaching the end of its five-year run, the Obama administration might spend millions more to decide whether it wisely invested U.S. taxpayer dollars in the venture. If the Competitiveness and Trade Expansion, or COMPETE Trade Hub project, is deemed to have been effective, a follow-up program could receive more cash from the Treasury. In this latest facet of a five-year U.S. Agency for International Development experiment in and around Kenya, the federal government will obtain contractor-conducted project evaluation services before committing additional funding.

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 9, 2014 (C-FAM.org) - Lawyers for U.S. government agencies have failed in an initial attempt to force a watchdog group to remove leaked documents from the group’s website. The documents describe studies showing complications of a long-lasting contraceptive heavily backed by the agencies and the Gates Foundation for use by African women. The U.S. agencies are accused of attempting to conceal their knowledge of studies showing women using the injectable contraceptive Depo Provera are at higher risk of getting HIV/AIDS. Allowing The Rebecca Project to publish the information means “this issue of Depo Provera’s harm now has...

Secretary of State Kerry: promoting gay rights abroad ‘at the very heart’ of U.S. policy by Kirsten Andersen WASHINGTON, D.C., June 10, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – Secretary of State John Kerry wishes homosexuals around the world a “Happy Pride Month.”  That was the message conveyed in a recorded message released Friday to employees of the U.S. State Department, in which he outlined the bureaucracy’s robust approach to promoting homosexual advocacy throughout the world.“I wanted to take a moment to join people around the world in celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride month,” Kerry said in the message.“This month is about...