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FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq — Residents of the Adhamiyah section of eastern Baghdad picked up needed supplies following a visit by Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division and their Iraqi Army counterparts this week. In coordination with the Adhamiyah District Council, U.S. and Iraqi troops delivered clothes, toys, vitamins, and toiletries to over 500 residents in a local theater. Especially popular with the youth were soccer balls and comic books. Also, a U.S. medic treated a woman with low blood sugar. It would have been impossible to deliver the goods without U.S.-Iraqi cooperation, according to...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2007 – An Iraqi neighborhood north of Ramadi celebrated the reopening of its school Jan. 23, U.S. and Iraqi forces provided aid to citizens in Adhamiyah this week, and students in Tal Afar received cold weather gear from Iraqi forces Jan. 22, military officials reported. Visiting Iraqi army soldiers and coalition forces attended the celebration for the school reopening north of Ramadi. Community leaders asked Maj. Derek Horst, civil affairs team leader with the 4th Civil Affairs Group, to cut the ribbon for the Al Haitham School, which provides classes for the Abu Jassim tribe. The...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2007 – Injured in Iraq, Katie Kriesel’s husband is facing a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here. But her employer, Eagle Global Logistics, is making sure she’ll get to stay by his side. Katie and John Kriesel pose with their boys, Elijah, 5, (left) and Brody, 4, in front of a race car at Camp Shelby, Miss. John is a sergeant in the Minnesota Army National Guard and was severely injured Dec. 2 while serving south of Fallujah, Iraq. Courtesy photo  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. On Dec. 3, Katie, of Cottage...

Link only, per FR policy:Millions in Katrina Aid Still Available

Latin America: The weekend inauguration of Rafael Correa as president of Ecuador was a spectacularly sorry show of anti-U.S. sentiment. Maybe it's time the U.S. just quit funding this ungrateful country. Correa did more than bring in his best pal Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as guest of honor at his extravaganza. Correa also went out of his way to dedicate the inauguration to ailing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. "Down with imperialism," he shouted, using the regional code to accuse the U.S. Seldom has anti-Americanism been so in our faces. But to make sure the U.S. knew the inaugural wasn't just...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of President George W. Bush has asked Congress to authorize 86 million dollars in military aid to boost security forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, a senior US official said. "Eighty-six million is the figure we're looking at with Congress, that's our starting point," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Scandinavia wastes an annual of $11,3 billion on fruitless "foreign aid" projects. This despite strong evidence that foreign aid to communist and corrupt regimes is a poor alternative to progressive capitalism. "An illustrative example is that South Korea was about twice as rich as Zambia in 1960. Since then Zambia has received 13 times more in foreign aid per capita compared to South Korea. Today however, South Korea is fully 38 times richer than Zambia. " (Quote from the article below). Sweden, in resemblance to the other Scandinavian countries, have pledged to annually spend at least 1% of its GDP...

<p>President Bush's legacy is sure to be defined by his wielding of U.S. military power in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is another, much softer and less-noticed effort by his administration in foreign affairs: a dramatic increase in U.S. aid to Africa.</p>

COLLEGE COSTS can be daunting. A year at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst costs Massachusetts residents more than $17,000. A year at a private college can run more than $45,000. At those prices, some students fall into a tuition gap. Even with financial aid, they do not have enough money to pay all their college bills, according to a report from the state's Board of Higher Education. In Massachusetts, the average size of that gap is $4,500 -- a cold reminder that having money matters. Some wealthy schools provide relief. At Harvard, families with earnings of $60,000 or less are not...

US reaps mutual benefit of aid to Israelhttp://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Views%5El277&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Views US reaps mutual benefit of aid to Israel By Mark Wagman December 24, 2006 Mark Wagman is chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Delaware. A recent letter to the editor of the Wilmington News Journal (Delaware) questions what America gets for helping Israel. The writer poses this question out of hostility toward Israel or, perhaps, opposition to foreign aid in general. But even among the majority of Americans who support aid to Israel, many do not appreciate just how close the strategic relationship is between the...

  The Arab Palestinians' biting the Israeli hand that feeds them     If you thought that the aftermath events, following Israel's extraordinary give away of Gaza to the "Palestinian" Arabs (2005) was a mere "incident", think again. It was a metaphor.   I am referring of course to the "Palestinian" rampage in destroying the greenhouses donated by the good hearted Jews to the ungrateful Arabs, so they can improve their economy.   This self destruction that is so traditional all throughout history of the group of Arab people that started to call themselves "Palestinians" in the late 1960's,  ...

In a crisis, a Labour politician's first instinct is to reach for his wallet – or, rather, for your wallet. The struggle against the jihadists has not gone as well as had been hoped. Something close to a full-scale war rages in Afghanistan against a new Taliban insurgency. In Iraq, coalition troops and their local auxiliaries are virtually confined to base, while warlords fight it out over great tracts of the country. Tony Blair's response? To spend his way out of trouble, lavishing overseas aid on the Islamist heartlands – notably in Pakistan – in the hope that economic growth...

Many College Students Have Waken Up 20-something pro-S. Korea college students have started to act. 100 members of 'College Student Association for Nation in Crisis', made up of 200 students from 20 colleges, staged a rally and a performance, titled 'Announce the Demise of Republic of Korea, the Spy Republic' in front of NIA Building near Chonggyechon at Jong-gu. They urged thorough investigation of recently captured N. Korean spies dubbed '386 spy ring,' and demanded to scrap the inter-Korean business project such as Mt. Kumgang Resort and Kaesung Industrial Park. The post at front says, "Mt. Kumgang Tourism, is it...

GAZA, Nov. 10 ? Hamas committed today to folding its eight-month government if that would restore the international assistance that was cut off after it won national elections earlier this year. In a shrewd and dramatic speech, the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyah, said he would likely resign in the next ?two or three weeks? to make way for a national unity government more acceptable to international donors than Hamas, the organization responsible for the deadliest attacks against Israel. ?When they put the siege on one hand, and having me the prime minister on the other, I said ?no: Let...

China to double its aid to Africa The African leaders are being given a warm welcome China has pledged to double its aid to Africa and provide $5bn in loans and credits over the next three years. Chinese President Hu Jintao made the announcement as he opened a summit in Beijing attended by nearly 50 African heads of state and ministers. The summit is focusing on business with more than 2,000 deals under discussion. African leaders welcome their booming trade links with China, but critics accuse Beijing of dealing with repressive regimes. Beijing says it is just doing business and...

While hundreds of anti-pride protestors burn trash cans in J'lem, Open House voices disappointment with reports that police intend to ask High Court to cancel pride parade, offer enclosed event instead Efrat Weiss Published: 11.03.06, 15:17 Representatives from the Jerusalem Open House addressed reports that the police intend to petition the High Court of Justice to cancel the pride parade in its current venue and offer an alternative event that would be easier to secure. "The pride parade is a parade of civil rights and freedom of expression," the Open House said on Friday, "it's inconceivable that violence and threats...

EUFAULA, Alabama — Here in this courtly, antebellum town, Alabama’s condom production has survived an onslaught of Asian competition, thanks to the patronage of straitlaced congressmen from this Bible Belt state. Behind the scenes, the politicians have ensured that companies in Alabama won federal contracts to make billions of condoms over the years for AIDS prevention and family planning programs overseas, though Asian factories could do the job at less than half the cost. In recent years, the state’s condom manufacturers fell hundreds of millions of condoms behind on orders, and the federal aid agency began buying them from Asia....

Hamza 'paid £220,000 for house while on legal aid' By Duncan Gardham (Filed: 12/10/2006) Abu Hamza, the radical cleric, bought a house for £220,000 in cash and let it out while receiving legal aid, it was claimed yesterday. An investigation by the Legal Services Commission has led to a freeze on the sale of the four-bedroom property in Greenford, west London. Abu Hamza and the property in Greenford, west London Hamza has been claiming legal aid for his fight against allegations of incitement to murder, for which he received a seven-year jail sentence this year. The bill is thought to...

Earthquake orphans 'in hands of jihadists' By Isambard Wilkinson in Muzaffarabad (Filed: 07/10/2006) Charities linked to jihadist groups have been using humanitarian aid operations to extend their influence over children orphaned by last year's earthquake in north Pakistan. Jemima Khan, a Unicef ambassador, visits a temporary school in the border region devastated by the Pakistan-Kashmir earthquake Contrary to government rules that earthquake orphans must be cared for only by the state or relatives, large numbers have been taken into care by religious charities and madrassa Islamic schools. A senior cleric, Qazi Mahmood-ul Hassan, who runs the Jamia Dar-Uloom al Islamia...

Nato's top brass accuse Pakistan over Taliban aid By Ahmed Rashid in Kabul (Filed: 06/10/2006) Commanders from five Nato countries whose troops have just fought the bloodiest battle with the Taliban in five years, are demanding their governments get tough with Pakistan over the support and sanctuary its security services provide to the Taliban. Nato's report on Operation Medusa, an intense battle that lasted from September 4-17 in the Panjwai district, demonstrates the extent of the Taliban's military capability and states clearly that Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) is involved in supplying it. President Pervez Musharraf Commanders from Britain, the US,...