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Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday called for an immediate ceasefire in violence-torn eastern Ukraine to ensure the safe delivery of humanitarian aid to civilian population suffering amid armed clashes between Kiev-led forces and independence supporters. "It is necessary to guarantee the security of the upcoming humanitarian mission," the ministry said in a statement. "We urge the warring sides at this crucial junction to show the political will to alleviate the suffering of the population of the affected region," the statement said. Russia has sent a convoy of 280 trucks carrying some 2,000 metric tons of humanitarian aid to southeastern Ukraine,...

The Red Cross will lead an international humanitarian aid operation with Russia and the European Union into the rebel-held city of Luhansk — a plan that Ukraine says the backing of President Barack Obama. The Kremlin earlier announced that it was dispatching the humanitarian convoy into eastern Ukraine. Ukraine had previously objected to Russia sending any aid into the region, and the West had strongly warned Russia that any attempt to send its military personnel into Ukraine under the guise of humanitarian assistance would be seen as an invasion. In the last week, Ukrainian government forces have been closing in...

President Obama said Thursday that United States military aircraft had dropped food and water to thousands of Iraqis besieged by Islamic militants on a mountaintop in northern Iraq. Speaking Thursday night from the State Dining Room at the White House, the president said he had directed the United States military forces to conduct targeted airstrikes on the militants if they moved to take Erbil, threatening the American citizens and military personnel there. And he said that at the request of the Iraqi government, he had authorized the military to use airstrikes to help provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi citizens,...

Western countries are using aid to Africa as a smokescreen to hide the "sustained looting" of the continent as it loses nearly $60bn a year through tax evasion, climate change mitigation, and the flight of profits earned by foreign multinational companies, a group of NGOs has claimed. Although sub-Saharan Africa receives $134bn each year in loans, foreign investment and development aid, research released on Tuesday by a group of UK and Africa-based NGOs suggests that $192bn leaves the region, leaving a $58bn shortfall.

FULL TITLE: EXCLUSIVE: HHS Bankrolled Catholic and Baptist Church from 2010 to 2013 to Prepare for Obama’s 2014 Invasion!//// A month or two ago news broke that Obama’s HHS was calling for private contractors to help transport illegal aliens throughout the interior United States. What made this already big news even bigger is the fact that the original call for proposals came out in January, long before the bulk of the illegal alien surge began. The breaking news you’re about to read is ten times bigger, because the following proves the Obama administration was bankrolling America’s churches back in 2010....

Gov. Paul LePage understands hardship. He was homeless for a time as a boy. But tell that to Douglas Mpay, an immigrant from Angola who is seeking asylum in the United States and whose family relies on a municipal welfare program in Maine that the governor says will get no state funding if cities and towns continue to assist residents living in the country illegally. (SNIP) But LePage, who has made reforming welfare a priority since taking office in 2011, insists the new policy will preserve assistance for the most needy and bring the state into compliance with federal law....

The U.S. is sending helmets, sleeping bags and generators to support the Ukrainian military -- but stopped short of approving other items the interim government reportedly says it needs to stand up to the might of Moscow, saber-rattling on its doorstep. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Thursday that the U.S. will send the additional non-lethal military aid. The additional aid was announced as fighting between Ukraine's military and pro-Russian factions intensified in the eastern part of the country. Hagel, speaking at a press conference at the Pentagon with his Polish counterpart, said the approved aid would include medical supplies, helmets,...

A look at the latest education news seems to show that academia’s left hand doesn’t know what its far left hand is doing. From the Chronicle of Higher Education we learn that “As students confront rising college costs and a labyrinthine financial-aid process, some are turning to crowdfunding websites like Go-FundMe to cover their expenses.” “While the approach is still novel and hardly widespread, financial-aid officials say, enthusiasm for online campaigns is very much a reflection of the times,” Libby Sander wrote in the Chronicle. “Students are frustrated with the aid process, eager to avoid student-loan debt, and worried over...

For only ten dollars a day or a month you can feed all the starving children in Africa. For only the price of a cup of coffee a year, you can make sure that no one in Kansas City ever goes hungry again. For just a third of your paycheck, you can subsidize a vast bureaucracy that will conduct studies on the best way to save the world and then come up with proposals that will only cost you half your paycheck. This misplaced philanthropic confidence is the idiot stepchild of a free enterprise society where anything can be accomplished...

With billions of dollars in American aid increasingly flowing straight into Afghan government coffers, the United States hired two global auditing firms three years ago to determine whether Afghanistan could be trusted to safeguard the money. The findings were so dire that American officials fought to keep them private. But the money has continued to flow, despite warnings from the auditors that none of the 16 Afghan ministries could be counted on to keep the funds from being stolen or wasted. The problems unearthed by the auditors are detailed in a report to be published Thursday by the Special Inspector...

In May 2009, a small experiment involving 13 homeless men took off in London. Some of them had slept in the cold for more than 40 years. The presence of these street veterans was far from cheap. Police, legal services, health care: Each cost taxpayers thousands of pounds every year. That spring, a local charity decided to make the street veterans — sometimes called rough sleepers — the beneficiaries of an innovative social experiment. No more food stamps, food-kitchen dinners or sporadic shelter stays. The 13 would get a drastic bailout, financed by taxpayers. Each would receive 3,000 pounds (about...

Barack Obama, right, is dressed as a Somali elder by Sheikh Mahmed Hassan Somalia has about 1,000 surviving Christians. And that’s a challenge in a country where everyone is either in an Islamic militia or trying to move to the United States to sponge off welfare and plot terrorist bombings.In 2009, four Christian orphanage workers were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam. Now Somalia has gotten enough of its act together to ban Christmas. The Somali Government has banned celebration of Christian festivities in the country.The Director General of the ministry, Sheikh Mohamed Khayrow Aden, and the Director...

The European Union on Monday pledged "unprecedented" levels of support to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the event that the two parties reach a final status agreement which would include the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state in Judea and Samaria, along with the ethnic-cleansing of at least 100,000 Jews in communities throughout the region. Commending US Secretary of State John Kerry for his efforts in launching direct talks between the two, EU foreign ministers said the 28-nation bloc would "contribute substantially" to post-conflict arrangements to ensure the sustainability of a peace deal. "The EU will provide an...

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits rose 68,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the largest increase in more than a year. The surge in first-time applications could be a troubling sign if it lasts. But it likely reflects the difficulty adjusting for delays after the Thanksgiving holiday. Economists will track the next few weeks closely to see if that trend is reversing, or if the surge is a temporary blip caused by seasonal adjustments. The recent drop in layoffs has coincided with a pickup in hiring. The economy has added an average of 204,000 jobs a...

The desire of distant outsiders to fix Africa may be heartfelt, but it is also age-old and even quaint. Curiously repetitive in nature, renewed and revised every decade or so, it is an impulse Charles Dickens described, in a wickedly accurate phrase, as "telescopic philanthropy." That is, a focus from afar to uplift the continent: New York squinting compassionately at Nairobi. Never have so many people, so many agencies, so many stratagems, so much money been deployed to improve Africa -- and yet the majority of the movers are part-timers, merely dropping in, setting up a scheme in the much-mocked...

US Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States will provide an additional $75 million (£46 million) in aid to create Palestinian jobs and help them improve roads, schools and other infrastructure. US officials say the aid is designed to boost Palestinian public support for faltering peace talks with Israel by showing them tangible benefits from the process. Kerry announced the aid in Bethlehem, where he is meeting Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Kerry earlier met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The new aid brings the US contribution to a Palestinian infrastructure programme to $100 million (£62...

U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday urged the White House to lift its suspension of military aid to Egypt, AFP reports. The lawmakers warned that freezing funds and weapons deliveries might unravel decades of cooperation with a key regional ally. Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had initially supported a temporary halt to deliveries of F-16 aircraft to the Egyptian military following its ouster of President Mohammed Morsi in July. “But today I do not believe that suspending the military aid will make the Egyptian government more democratic or make it easier for the...

The United States will cut off aid to Egypt in the wake of the July coup against President Mohammed Morsi and the turmoil that has followed, a U.S. official told CNN on Tuesday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the full suspension has been prompted by an “accumulation of events,” including recent violence against protesters, dozens of whom were killed over the weekend. The suspension will formally take effect in the coming days, the official said. …

The US federal government shutdown could have direct repercussions on the transfer of US aid to Israel, US State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday. "The impact of the shutdown could threaten our ability to provide foreign military financing to Israel and other important allies," Harf said. (Snip) In 2007, the two countries agreed on a 10-year, $30-billion military aid package covering the 2009-18 fiscal years. Total US foreign military funding was about $5.5 billion for more than 80 countries in 2011, according to State Department data. Harf said the State Department had not had to

According to USAID (United States Agency For International Development), the federal agency in charge of distributing the vast majority of foreign aid monies to other countries, United States taxpayers have paid for over one billion dollars in foreign aid packages to help support the “Syrian Humanitarian Response." Despite the threat of continued chemical attacks against the Syrian people that has served as the focal point of rallying cries for advocates of US military intervention (including the Obama administration), The Daily Beast reported that gas masks were not among the items