Free Republic

Vice-president Dick Cheney stepped up America's war of words with North Korea yesterday by calling it a police state run by an irresponsible leader indifferent to the fate of his malnourished people.His words came just 48 hours after the Pentagon announced that it was sending 15 F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter-bombers to South Korea, a US ally, for an undetermined period. The aircraft crews, trained to seek out targets with precision weapons, needed to familiarise themselves with the Korean terrain, the air force said. Speaking to CNN in an interview broadcast last night, Mr Cheney described North Korea's leader, Kim Jong...

The era of suicide bombing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be over and the culture of violence is changing in the region, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an interview aired on Sunday. Abbas made his comments hours after Israel's government agreed to release 400 Palestinian prisoners and days after landmark talks with President George W. Bush, who sought to strengthen the Palestinian leader, in part, by not demanding publicly that he crack down on militants. In an interview broadcast on ABC-TV in the U.S. last night, Abbas renewed calls for Hamas to renounce violence and enter into dialogue with...

JUST over 20 years ago, American Express had an idea that changed the world. Every time someone used its credit card, it donated one cent to charity, thus linking its product to a good cause. The result was an explosion of profit.Its link with the Statue of Liberty restoration appeal sent its credit card usage soaring by 28%, ensuring AmEx recouped far more than it gave away. This act of commercial genius was given a name: cause-related marketing. Give a little to charity, get a lot of kudos - it's a seductive win-win equation which has been adopted world over....

Tsunami victims still wait for aid to arrive By Peter Foster in Colombo (Filed: 28/05/2005) The generosity of millions of Britons who gave money to help the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami is being betrayed by Sri Lanka's army of bureaucrats. They have reduced the international aid effort to "a complete and utter mess", The Daily Telegraph has established. Aid agencies are being frustrated at every turn Five months after the tsunami struck, killing 40,000 and leaving 500,000 homeless in Sri Lanka, more than 100,000 of the poorest victims are still living in tents or crude temporary shelters. Despite...

NEW DELHI - Quietly but surely, India is reopening its diplomatic contacts with the new Iraqi administration. In the first official contact with the new Iraqi government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special envoy for West Asia, C R Gharekhan, met Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari earlier this week. While India has offered to help in rebuilding the war-ravaged country and in the drafting of its new constitution, it is also seeking to cut into the estimated US$100 billion reconstruction business. India hopes to garner as much as $10 billion. During his meeting with Jaafari, Gharekhan handed over a personal letter...

Mugabe admits he needs food aid to rescue Zimbabwe By David Blair in Johannesburg (Filed: 19/05/2005) President Robert Mugabe yesterday abandoned his confident forecasts of a bumper harvest in Zimbabwe and confessed that international food aid was needed to avoid famine. Mr Mugabe, who declared last year that Zimbabweans would be "choked" if aid was "foisted" upon them, climbed down and agreed to meet the head of the United Nations World Food Programme. Mr Mugabe had hailed the 'success' of the land seizures programme Having previously pledged that his seizure of white-owned farms would make Zimbabwe self-sufficient, Mr Mugabe said...

The demand by the US Congress to divert $50 million of President George W. Bush's $200-million pledge of aid to the Palestinian Authority for Israeli checkpoints is something like requiring the Vatican to contribute air-conditioners to abortion clinics or divorce lawyers' fees as part of its policy of easing the plight of Catholic women. The new motto of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is very simple and direct: "From the American People." Recent conditions tacked onto a planned US grant from the American people is adding insult to Palestinian injury. Diverting to Israel millions from monies promised to...

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey waged an assault yesterday against in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants as the students waited to urge lawmakers to approve the controversial bill. ``Breaking the law should not entitle you to public benefits,'' Healey told the Committee on Ways and Means. ``America is a nation of immigrants, but America is also a nation of laws.'' The bill, which has failed to pass before, would provide illegal immigrant students who have been in Massachusetts at least three years and graduated from a state high school the opportunity to attend state colleges and universities at the same cost...

Former Bush aid says 2008 Democratic nomination belongs to Hillary Clinton SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) - A former aide to President Bush says the 2008 Democratic nomination for president is all Hillary Rodham Clinton's if she wants it. But former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Clinton, now a Democratic senator representing New York, has no chance of actually becoming president. Fleischer's comments were made Friday as he spoke at an Oneida County luncheon attended by supporters of Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford. Fleischer said there's not a Democrat anywhere in the country that can beat Mrs. Clinton in a Democratic primary....

Given the lack of interest in a federal election over the revelations from Judge Gomery's inquiry, one wonders how Canadians will react when they learn that Ottawa is sitting on more than $400 million in tsunami relief. The outpouring of compassion following the Dec. 26, 2004 disaster was unprecedented in Canadian history. This is a compassionate country, and Canadians gave from their pockets, piggy banks, and bank accounts. The Canadian media told them not to send blankets or food--send money. And they did. On Jan. 3, Prime Minister Paul Martin committed his government to 'double up,' or match the $40...

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, fighting to save his government, took a hit from another corner on Saturday -- rock superstar Bono. Bono said he was disappointed Martin had not kept an earlier promise to boost Canada's foreign aid to a level equivalent to 0.7 percent of gross domestic product. "I'm bewildered really. I'm disappointed. I've not given up hope. I really can't believe that Paul Martin would want to hold up history, or indeed would hold up history," Bono told CBC radio in an interview broadcast on Saturday. Bono, a tireless campaigner on behalf of the poor in Africa...

Even as the association of Canadian Maurice Strong with "Koreagate Man" Tungsun Park was coming under world limelight, Sri Lankans were starting to demand answers about where the $425 million promised by Canada to tsunami victims is. Four months after the tsunami hit, Sri Lankans still don’t have their money. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin rushed to the scene for a weeklong photo op. Generous Canadians donated record amounts of money on line. The Canadian government promised to match dollar for dollar, donations from the public. But the promised mega millions never arrived. According to veteran newsman Garth Pritchard, in...

Jimmy Carter, that sorry excuse of a former US President, harshly criticized his own country and other wealthy states for being stingy with foreign aid and said in rich countries, "We really don't give a damn." Carter said on Thursday, in a speech to a human rights conference in Atlanta, that increasing financial assistance was critical to battling malaria, AIDS and other common diseases that disproportionately affect the poorest parts of the world. Carter actually said, "Unfortunately, in the rich countries like ours, we really don't give a damn."  Thus spoke Carter, the failed president who eventually won a...

MINNEAPOLIS - Tribal leaders on Thursday defended a $5,000 victims-aid grant given to the family of a teenager who killed nine people before killing himself, saying his relatives had "a double burden." Red Lake Tribal Secretary Judy Roy said the tribal council had decided unanimously that shooter Jeff Weise should be considered a victim of the March 21 violence centered on a high school, and that his family should get help paying for his funeral and burial. "It's not for him, it's for the family. ... They have a double burden," she said. Some relatives of others who were killed...

The Nepad Council yesterday asked the international community to stop offering aid to Africa, saying it was no solution to the continent’s poverty. Instead, the council said, the developed world should support increased investment by their firms in Africa. The president of the council, Dr Birahim Seck, said massive flow of aid to Africa over the 50 years had not make any impact on the poverty situation on the continent. He urged African leaders to come up with workable strategies that can attract investment in key sectors such as information and communications technology (ICT). "For the past 50 years, Africa...

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata went to bat for a West Hollywood billboard company being sued by Caltrans in 2001, and three months later received a $10,000 campaign donation from that company, documents show. The events are detailed in campaign finance records, as well as in documents Caltrans has provided under subpoena to a federal grand jury investigating possible public corruption on the part of Perata, D-Oakland, now California's most powerful elected Democrat. "There is no, nor will there ever be, any inappropriate connection between Senator Perata's legislative activity and any political contributions he happens to receive on...

LUANDA (AFP) - The outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in Angola is worse than Ebola, a UN disease expert said, as the world body launched an urgent appeal for funds to fight the fever which has claimed 180 lives. AFP/File Photo Slideshow: Angola Battles Deadly Virus   "Marburg is a very bad haemorrhagic fever, even worse than Ebola," said Allarangar Yokouib from the UN World Health Organisation (WHO). "We have had several Ebola epidemics in the region but none with such a high mortality rate," he told reporters at a press conference in Luanda. In Geneva, the WHO said...

Yet to be discovered, this "UNKNOWN SCANDAL" is certainly a very "Liberal Party of Canada approach" to: Managing International Foreign Aid Funds. This new scandal has been called by one of those who suffered from this ordeal: "Le scandale du travail au blanc". or "Canadian Diplomats and friends on the take...". Canada spend more or less two billions dollars a year in international assistance programmes. In some cases, benefits made on the back of the poorest of the world can reach 80% of an assistance project budget providing a very loose project management monitoring from obliging Civil servants. In the...

KABUL (Reuters) - An annual meeting of donor countries contributing billions of dollars to Afghanistan's reconstruction opened on Monday with a plea from President Hamid Karzai to let his three-month-old government take a leading role. A fierce debate is raging over slow progress in making Afghans' everyday life easier. On Sunday, Karzai accused non-government organisations (NGOs) of squandering funds channelled through them. Karzai skirted the NGO controversy at the outset of the Afghan Development Forum on Monday, and instead pitched for more control over the way money is spent. "The Afghan Government, as the ultimate body accountable to the Afghan...

03.04.2005, 09.22 JAKARTA, April 3 (Itar-Tass) - Two sections of a Russian hospital of the Ministry for Emergencies were set up on Sunday right in the soccer field of Gunungsitoli city on Nias Island, North Sumatra province. Russian doctors started receiving first patients, injured by the strong earthquake on March 28, Tass learnt on Sunday from UN senior coordinator Vladimir Boreiko, working in the quake-stricken area. He heads the first detachment of Russian rescuers, sent to help Indonesia. Components and equipment of the hospital, along with the medical personal, are airlifted from Medan by a Mi-8 transport helicopter of the...