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For nearly four years, Syrian rebels have clung to a programme of CIA assistance as a symbol of US support in their battle against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. So reports that Donald Trump’s administration will stop the limited scheme to arm and train Syria’s opposition forces have sparked anger and confusion. Rebels say they have not been informed of any changes to the policy introduced by Barack Obama as US president in 2013 as part of efforts to put pressure on Syria’s president and bring about a political settlement. Mr Assad’s main backer, Russia, has long pushed for the US to...

President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials. The program was a central plank of a policy begun by the Obama administration in 2013 to put pressure on Assad to step aside, but even its backers have questioned its efficacy since Russia deployed forces in Syria two years later. Officials said the phasing out of the secret program reflects Trump’s interest in finding ways to work with Russia, which saw the anti-Assad program as an...

U.S. aid for international family planning would be eliminated. Programs to combat HIV/AIDS in the world's poorest countries would be slashed by 17 percent. Efforts to fight malaria would be chopped by 11 percent. Those are just some of the cuts to global health spending called for by President Trump in the proposed budget he unveiled this week. On one level the reductions did not come as a surprise. Trump had already made clear in his "skinny budget" proposal, released in March, that he wanted to lower spending on foreign assistance by more than a third. Yet advocates for global...

Senate Democrats on March 15 vowed to get answers from Turkey one week after Ankara moved to shut down one of the US government's largest partners for aid to Syria. On the sixth anniversary of the start of the Syrian civil war, Mercy Corps CEO Neal Keny-Guyer testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Turkey's recent decision to revoke its registration to operate in the country has disrupted "lifesaving assistance" to 360,000 Syrians every month and "effectively ends" support for 100,000 refugees as well as Turkish families inside Turkey. Turkey hasn't provided a justification for its decision, which was made public March...

CIA-coordinated military aid for rebels in northwest Syria has been frozen since they came under major Islamist attack last month, rebel sources said, raising doubts about foreign support key to their war against President Bashar al-Assad. Rebel officials said that no official explanation had been given for the move this month following the jihadist assault, though several said they believed the main objective was to prevent arms and cash falling into Islamist militant hands. But they said they expected the aid freeze to be temporary.

ROMNEY/RYAN 44479 48.87% OBAMA/BIDEN 42669 46.88%

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Possibly thinking a major U.S. aid package had been terminated, an enraged Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said “bye, bye” to America in retaliation Saturday and threatened to dissolve an agreement that allows U.S. troops to visit the Philippines. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. government aid agency, did not actually cancel the aid. Instead, the agency deferred a vote on the renewal of aid for the Philippines “subject of a further review of concerns around rule of law and civil liberties.” Duterte won the presidential election earlier this year largely based on his promise to aggressively target drug dealers and...

The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) actions of supporting and promoting terrorism against Israel have finally caught up with it, and the US has completely cut its direct support to the PA in 2016 over its belligerent conduct. PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah stated earlier this month that the US has completely stopped funding the PA’s general budget. “2016 is about to end, no shekel or agora, or dinar or dollar has been paid,” he said in an interview with the Voice of Palestine Radio, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). Hamdallah’s remark corroborates a statement made by US Assistant Secretary of...

Congress should quit funding Pakistan's due to the country's complicity in terrorism.Ted Poe is a Republican U.S. representative for Texas' 2nd district. He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and serves as chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation and Trade. The House of Representatives recently gave Pakistan a $200 million raise. In all, it was a $900 million payday for a country that to this day is supporting terrorist groups that kill our service men and women in Afghanistan. It is well known by now that Pakistan gave safe harbor to Osama bin Laden. Before he met...

The United States House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $576 billion defense spending bill which includes $635.7 million for U.S.-Israel missile defense programs, despite a threat by the Obama administration to veto the bill, The Jewish Insider reports. The fiscal 2017 defense appropriations bill includes $268.7 million in research and development funding for U.S.-Israel cooperative missile and rocket defense programs; $25 million in research and development funding for U.S.-Israel directed energy activities, such as laser technologies, to combat missiles and rockets; $72 million for procurement of the Iron Dome rocket defense system; $150 million for procurement of the David’s...

It was the third such ‘honour killing’ in as many monthsA teenager was burnt alive by her mother on Wednesday after marrying a man of her own choice, Pakistani police said. Zeenat Bibi, 16, was set on fire by her mother Perveen Bibi in the eastern city of Lahore a little more than a week after the wedding, police said. "Perveen Bibi killed her daughter Zeenat Bibi by burning her alive around 9:00 am on Wednesday," Haidar Ashraf, a senior police official told AFP, adding the teen had married a man named Hasan on May 29.

The United States on Monday announced a $50 million aid program for Gaza, reports The Associated Press (AP). American officials quoted by the news agency said that the money will be used over five years to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs in the coastal enclave. The money will be distributed by the U.S Agency for International Development in partnership with Catholic Relief Services. The U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, Donald A. Blume, said the effort is meant to address "the dire needs that are obvious in Gaza", according to the AP report. Gaza's economy has sharply declined since...

The United States on Monday announced a $50 million aid program for Gaza, reports The Associated Press (AP). American officials quoted by the news agency said that the money will be used over five years to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs in the coastal enclave. The money will be distributed by the U.S Agency for International Development in partnership with Catholic Relief Services. The U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, Donald A. Blume, said the effort is meant to address "the dire needs that are obvious in Gaza", according to the AP report. Gaza's economy has sharply declined since...

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday that “recalcitrant countries” that refuse to take criminal aliens that are being deported should not get federal aid from the U.S. and the U.S. should not give those countries more visas. “They should not be getting federal aid, and we shouldn’t be giving them visas so that more people from those countries can come to the United States,” said Chaffetz during a hearing on illegal immigration crime.

MIREBALAIS, Haiti – The barefoot farmer oversees three teenage workers as they attack weeds with spades in a sunbaked field of peanut plants, a vital cash crop often grown on Haiti's marginal farmland. If he's lucky, Francois Merilus will reap a meager harvest amid a lengthy drought that has shriveled yields and worsened Haiti's chronic hunger. Now the subsistence farmer is dismayed by what he believes could be the latest challenge to his ability to eke out a living: free peanuts arriving from the U.S. as humanitarian aid. "Foreign peanuts can only make things harder for us," said Merilus, whose...

Textbooks in Pakistan that are used to teach about 41 million children, negatively portray religious minorities such as Christians and Hindus, referring to them as "nefarious, violent, and tyrannical by nature." (Reuters/Kham)Third-grade level students attend class at the Mashal Model School on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan. "Pakistan's public school textbooks contain deeply troubling content that portrays non-Muslim citizens as outsiders, unpatriotic, and inferior; are filled with errors; and present widely-disputed historical 'facts' as settled history," said Robert George in a press release. George is the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). A study done by...

After the last presidential nomination cycle, where Mitt Romney had to struggle a bit to get the nomination, GOP leaders decided to make it easier for one of their own to get the nomination. They figured that a GOP insider, bankrolled with big money from the Chamber of Commerce and other like-thinking crony capitalists who want illegal immigration and business opportunities with Iran, could, with proper funding, get 35% or 40% of the vote in Republican primaries. Therefore, GOP insiders thought that increasing the number of states who award delegates based on "winner take all" – where the largest vote-getter,...

Rut Roh – A “Refugee Relief Supply” cargo container arrives In Greece devoid of “Refugee Relief Supplies”… Watch the video to see what the “aid for Syrian refugees” was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn-UCR5p0y0#t=10

A week ago, City Journal published “Crazy Like a Visionary,” [1] a review essay I had written about Ashlee Vance’s new biography of Elon Musk [2], the man behind Tesla Motors, SpaceX, SolarCity, and sundry other starry-eyed, high-tech enterprises.As I explained in the essay, my interest in “Green energy” and interplanetary space travel is minimal at best — or, to be more accurate, I am indifferent to space travel. I like it here on terra firma, thanks very much, and I am positively hostile to the Green Lobby, which is full of cynical opportunists like Al Gore, who have...