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Rush Limbaugh caused a bit of a stir recently when he asked the question: “What do you think has fed more mouths, greed or charity?” The question seemed particularly untoward given that Christmas was right around the corner. Who besides Gordon Gekko might ask such a ludicrous question? Rush, obviously… and it turns out that it’s not such a ludicrous question after all. Of course when he says greed, what he is really referring to – and he says as much – is self interest. Basically what he is arguing is that while giving charity to someone may make...

The United States is poised to announce a significant donation of food aid to North Korea this week, the first definite accomplishment after months of diplomatic contacts behind the scenes. An agreement by North Korea to suspend its uranium enrichment programme will most likely follow within days. Discussions have been taking place since summer in New York, Geneva and Beijing. They have already yielded agreements by North Korea to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile testing, readmit international nuclear inspectors expelled in 2009, and resume a dialogue between North and South Korea, according to US diplomats.

<p>Now as the city celebrates its 125th birthday, creative South Africans are seeing gold in warehouses and cheap office space, and they're revitalizing neighborhoods with galleries, museums, shops, studios, clubs and restaurants.</p> <p>JOHANNESBURG - (AP) -- Johannesburg dates its beginnings to the discovery of gold in 1886. Its downtown, where skyscrapers tower over deep mines, was abandoned by business in recent decades, and squatters turned the office towers into high-rise slums. But now, as the city celebrates its 125th birthday, creative South Africans are seeing gold in warehouses and cheap office space, and they're revitalizing neighborhoods with galleries, museums, shops, studios, clubs and restaurants.</p>

GENEVA — The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy, including the potent enticement of foreign aid, to promote gay rights around the world. On Tuesday, she also announced a $3 million program to finance gay-rights organizations to combat discrimination, violence and other abuses.

"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer  of money from poor people in rich countries  to rich people in poor countries." - Douglas Casey  Namibia's new (presidential) 'State House' I wonder if that hyperactive savior-of-the-downtrodden Bono's ever visited any these cribs -you know, just to see where all the cash he guilt-trips from people (inc. GWB) actually goes...? Just another Nigerian mansion under construction... Living The Good Life in Gabon Ghana's garish Presidential Palace (2005) McMansion in Trasacco Valley , Accra , Ghana Mansion (68 rooms!) belonging to Mugabe's nephew... Zimbabwe Sudanese Presidential Palace Jubilee Palace - Addis Ababa, Ethiopa Palais Presidentiel, Djibouti Palais...

Clinton in Libya to offer financial assistanceBy Matthew Lee/ Associated Press Posted: 10/19/2011 01:02:09 AM PDT TRIPOLI, Libya -- The Obama administration offered millions of dollars in new aid to Libya as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encouraged the country's unsteady new leadership to commit to a democratic future free of retribution, and acknowledged in unusually blunt terms that the United States would like to see former dictator Moammar Gadhafi dead. "We hope he can be captured or killed soon so that you don't have to fear him any longer," Clinton told students and others at a town hall-style...

The United States Congress has blocked nearly $200m in aid to the Palestinians, the U.K’s Independent newspaper reported on Saturday. The aid, which was destined for projects related to food aid, health care, and state building efforts, was to have been transferred to the Palestinian Authority during the U.S. fiscal year that ends today, according to the report. However, following what the Independent described as an “unpublicized block” imposed on funding to the Palestinians since August this year, in response to the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN, the remainder of the aid allocated to the Palestinian Authority for...

Egyptian daily Al-Masry al-Youm reported Monday that Israel is behind a US bid to force Cairo to reduce tensions with Israel following a deadly border incident wherein at least three Egyptian soldiers were inadvertently killed by Israeli soldiers pursuing terrorists involved in a deadly terror attack that left 8 Israelis dead. According to the report Washington has threatened to reduce aid to Cairo - which it was planning to dramatically increase - unless it releases Ilan Grapel, an Israeli-American tourist in Egypt who has been accused of being a Mossad spy. Grapel was arrested at his downtown Cairo hotel by...

The United States announced Thursday it would provide $900,000 worth of emergency aid to flood-ravaged North Korea less than a month after the two sides resumed high-level dialogue... The U.S. provided $600,000 in September.. Earlier this month, South Korea offered $4.7 million to North Korea.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy is promoting a bill to suspend U.S. assistance to three elite Israel Defense Forces units, alleging they are involved in human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Leahy, a Democrat and senior member of the U.S. Senate, wants assistance withheld from the Israel Navy's Shayetet 13 unit, the undercover Duvdevan unit and the Israel Air Force's Shaldag unit. (Snip) According to a senior Israeli official in Jerusalem, Leahy began promoting the legislation in recent months after he was approached by voters in his home state of Vermont.

DADAAB, Kenya -- Hundreds of thousands of Somali children could die in the country's famine unless more help arrives, a top U.S. official said Monday as Washington prepared to announce $100 million in new famine aid. To highlight the crisis, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden visited a refugee camp on a patch of desert in eastern Kenya where tens of thousands of Somalis have massed. A drought has turned into famine because little aid can reach militant-controlled south-central Somalia. Jill Biden is the highest-profile U.S. visitor to East Africa since the number of refugees coming across the Somali...

A raucous debate is raging in Egypt over whether to accept some $200 million in US aid to build up long-suppressed civil society organizations, as critics denounce Washington for "meddling" in internal Egyptian affairs by providing assistance to groups not authorized by the interim authorities in Cairo. Several weeks after the February 11 ouster of longtime president Hosni Mubarak, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) allocated around $65 million to democracy-development programs in Egypt, part of an economic and civil assistance package of $200 million.

U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority has become an increasingly controversial matter in the wake of the group's decision to bypass peace negotiations and go to the United Nations for recognition of an independent state. But the outlay of funds to the Palestinians may become even more toxic after the release of a report by a media watch organization detailing the payment of salaries from the U.S.-funded PA to imprisoned terrorists. The report from Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli-based organization that monitors the Palestinian media and culture, said that more than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are getting salaries...

FOREIGN aid has helped fund a multi-million-pound Paris property portfolio for African ­dictators, it emerged yesterday.Scores of the most luxurious houses and flats in the French capital are now owned by men who regularly receive vast handouts – including British cash via European funding. They include Ali Bongo, President of Gabon, with at least 39 properties, and Denis Sassou-Nguesso, President of the Republic of the Congo, who has 16. The portfolio of Teodoro Obiang Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea, includes a six-floor period building on the prestigious Avenue Foch worth at least £15million. It is used by his family on...

The World Food Program can't reach 2.2 million Somalis in desperate need of aid in militant-controlled areas of Somalia, WFP's director said Saturday, meaning refugee camps in nearby Kenya and Ethiopia are likely to continue seeing thousands of new refugees each week. SNIP Al-Shabab signaled in early July that it would accept aid groups it had previously banned, but changed course on Thursday, saying groups like WFP are not welcome. The group's refusal to accept aid from Western and "Christian" aid groups means millions could starve — or be forced to begin the hike to help to Kenya, Ethiopia or...

WASHINGTON: Federal authorities on Monday arrested a prominent US-based pro-Pakistan activist associated with the Kashmiri separatist movement, accusing him of funneling money from the Pakistani spy agency ISI to lobby US decision-makers. In the process, the Obama administration's law enforcement brigade also blew open the Pakistan and its spy agency's two-decade long subversion of the so-called Kashmir cause. The FBI swooped down on the Virginia residence of Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, a well-known representative of Kashmiri separatists in the US and detained him on charges of ''participating in a long-term conspiracy to act as agents of the Pakistani government in...

Pakistan has made the latest chess move in the escalating feud with the US after the successful raid that killed Osama bin Laden just yards from Pakistan’s most elite military academy. Saying that they will “fight the menace of terrorism in our own national interest using our own resources,� Pakistan’s defense minister publicly threatened to fight terrorism by, er, moving the army out of the region where the terrorists operate: Pakistan’s defense minister has said that the country might withdraw thousands of troops from its volatile border areas in response to a suspension of U.S. military aid, a move that...

As the US announces it is to withhold military aid to Pakistan, find out how much money America has given to the country since 1948. The dataset comes from Wren Elhai, at the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD), who in May published a report along with Nancy Birdsall and Molly Kinder analysing the long-term impact of US aid to Pakistan. The numbers - which come from the US Overseas Grants and Loans database and the Congressional Research Service - have been adjusted for inflation and are presented in terms of the value of the US$ in 2009.

U.S. Gave $1.3 Billion to N.Korea Since 1995 U.S. aid to North Korea over the last 15 years totaled more than US$1.3 billion, according to official figures. The U.S. Congressional Research Service in a report Sunday said Washington provided $1.31 billion worth of food, energy and medical aid to North Korea since 1995, when the Geneva accords on the dismantlement of the North's nuclear weapons was signed. North Korea has continued to develop nuclear arms, but U.S. aid to North Korea continued every year except 2006, when the North conducted its first nuclear test. Even last year, when UN and...

The United States is providing hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid to countries that it borrows billions from, according to a report by Congress's research arm. The Congressional Research Service released a report last month, a copy of which Fox News exclusively obtained, showing that in fiscal year 2010, the latest year that data was available, the U.S. handed out a total of $1.4 billion to 16 foreign countries that held at least $10 billion in Treasury securities, including China ($27.2 million), Brazil ($25 million), Russia ($71.5 million), India ($126.6 million), Mexico ($316.7 million) and Egypt ($255.7 million)....

A group of self-proclaimed peace activists bringing dual-purpose materials to Gaza have refused to deliver the goods – preferring that they remain at sea rather than be transported through Israel. The activists are aboard a ship carrying 4.6 miles of sewage pipes. Materials such as pipes have been allowed into Gaza only under international supervision in recent years, as Hamas and other terrorist groups often use the pipes in manufacturing short-range rockets to fire on Israeli civilians (pictured right). However, under an agreement reached with the help of the Egyptian and Malaysian governments, the goods could be delivered to Gaza...

Lavish aid to Africa is turning the continent into a ‘spoilt child’, according to the head of a charity backed by Nelson Mandela. Mike Kendrick, founder of the respected Mineseeker Foundation, warned that aid often increased the hardship faced by the world’s poorest people. In a devastating verdict, he told the Daily Mail last night: ‘I sometimes use the analogy of a spoilt child. We have all seen rich parents give their child everything they need, without earning it.

President Barack Obama will unveil an economic aid program for Egypt and Tunisia on Thursday as part of a broad effort to support democratic reform in the Middle East and North Africa, U.S. officials said. Senior advisers to Obama, previewing parts of his speech, said Wednesday the United States would offer debt relief totaling roughly $1 billion "over a few years" to Egypt through a debt swap mechanism that would invest the money to boost youth employment and support entrepreneurs. Washington would also loan or guarantee loans up to a total of $1 billion through the Overseas Private Investment Corp...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will announce this week a new aid plan for the Middle East and North Africa that U.S. officials say will be far bolder than previous American economic assistance to the region. Mr. Obama will outline the plan, which could include debt cancellation and a reprogramming of financial aid the U.S. already provides to countries like Egypt, in a speech he is scheduled to deliver Thursday at the State Department.

Cutting poverty by 50% in Uganda is one of the chief goals of the Obama Administration's 2011-2015 strategy for that African nation, which will receive $3.5 billion under the ambitious plan. Among other stated ambitions is a reduction in cattle-raiding and counter-cattle-raiding in one particularly conflict-prone region of the country. The U.S. Agency for International Development today made available the foll0wing policy documents governing the program: Description: The Country Development Cooperation Strategy 2011-2015 (CDCS) is USAID/Uganda’s approved country strategy and will guide USAID programming over the strategy period. The CDCS demonstrates how a number of important USAID policy initiatives will...

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, is part of the growing fray over U.S. aid to Pakistan, and has introduced a bill that would halt the flow of that money. The raid that resulted in Osama bin Laden‘s killing in Pakistan “made it clear that Pakistan’s leadership concealed, protected and enabled the al Qaeda leader for many years,” according to a statement from Rohrabacher’s office. “We can no longer afford this foolishness,” Rohrabacher said.

Impassioned debate about whether the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a true U.S. ally or is complicit in hiding the now-deceased terrorist Osama bin Laden continues on Capitol Hill — and, according to a review of contracting records, the delivery of military and other aid to that nation continues relatively unimpeded in the meantime. The types of aid flowing to Pakistan range from airport equipment in support of U.S.-provided F-16 fighter bombers to the funding of research into the causes of stuttering among the Pakistani people.

The federal government is stepping up efforts to relieve overcrowding in public schools, and it is merging those efforts with a concomitant infusion of educational technology and equipment—on behalf of the Ministry of Education (MOE), that is, in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

A trio of additional healthcare projects of the Obama Administration are slated to be administered by a handful of private-sector vendors at a cost of nearly $1 billion—initiatives that contractors will carry out in Africa, Asia/Middle East and the Latin America/Caribbean regions.

Africa receives about $11 billion a year in foreign aid from America, and an equal amount in loans from the World Bank. In spite of this largesse, or perhaps because of it, Africa remains the world's least developed region. In this time of fiscal crisis in the United States, as evidenced by Standard and Poor's downgrade on Monday of Washington's credit-worthiness, it is imperative that Congress reduce spending and borrowing. Aid to Africa is one place to start. George Ayittey, a Ghanian economist and a professor of economics at American University, offers persuasive reasons in a paper he gave earlier...

WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who was relieved of command in Afghanistan after a magazine profile quoted his subordinates as disparaging senior civilian leaders, has been invited back to public service by the Obama administration to help oversee a high-profile initiative in support of military families, White House officials said Sunday.

Pakistan: 92 per cent of USAID projects go to US NGOs By Umar Cheema (The NEWS) ISLAMABAD: Over 92 percent of the US aid money granted in previous years is being spent through the American NGOs resulting in the return of a fair portion of the financial assistance back to the donor country. The News investigation found that of the projects run through $1.05 billion assistance, the government agencies were granted an amount of $29.68 million (2.78% of the total amount), UN bodies received $50.80 million (4.8%) and US NGOs bagged projects of $960 million (92.30%). This coincides with Ambassador...

Post news of Recovery and Relief in Japan....and ways to help.....HERE Here is previous thread.... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2691038/posts?page=20#20

In order to keep people appraised of the RELIEF and RECOVERY efforts going on in Japan, and also to focus on the NEEDS they have, this thread is posted.

I think it would be good to separate the Nuclear Reactor news from the RESCUE operation in Japan....that's the purpose of this thread. Please add links you find.

Sacramento, California - The Assembly Higher Education Committee approved two bills on Tuesday allowing college students who are in the state illegally to receive financial aid. Dubbed the California Dream Act, AB130 allows illegal immigrants to receive privately funded college scholarships, and AB131 allows them to receive taxpayer-funded financial aid such as Cal Grants. Currently, illegal students who spend at least three years in California high schools pay only the in-state tuition rate — a significant cost savings over legal citizens from other states who are attending California colleges. That benefit was provided by AB540, which passed in 2001.

To Japanese and Japan-based Freepers: What's the best, quickest way of getting aid to people on the ground directly -- via local groups, religious instutitons, etc. I'd rather not give it to an international bureaucracy like the Red Cross (Japanese website was confusing), other NGO's or government. This is being posted Front/Breaking because I imagine a lot of other Freepers want this info and, let's face it, it's an emergency over there and these people need quick, effective help as soon as they can get it. I've seen too many stories of waste, corruption and abuse (Haiti, Katrina, etc.) and...

Recently Texas Republican Congressman Ted Poe reintroduced an idea whose time might have finally come. He addressed Congress asking that we review the Foreign Aid we are sending to countries around the world with the purpose of cutting most of it. Referring to the many countries with their hands out looking for Foreign Aid, Poe asked a very direct question, “Why do we need to pay them to hate us?” Poe’s fact filled, but brief, speech contained some compelling points. We are giving Foreign Aid money, our tax money, to 150 of the 192 countries of the world. Some of...

 That's us dishing-out an allowance to  over 78% of the nations in existence... Thanks US taxpayers- but most of them still hate you anyway. And if you feel like a chump- you should: we'll be paying for this dubious investement (+interest) ad infinitum: America doesn't have any money to be giving-away in the first place, all discretionary federal spending is in-effect borrowed these days... [video of Rep Ted Poe (R-Tx)  on foreign aid and where it goes -here-] Maybe for a start we could cut-off, say, Moscow or Beijing... or so you'd think! The interactive foreign aid map linked below tells all......

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has proposed to Congress a $3.1 billion in financial assistance to Pakistan for the year 2012. This is part of the administration's ongoing effort towards its continued funding for operations and assistance in key regions of the world -- Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of this as many as $1.9 billion in assistance has been proposed to promote a secure, stable, democratic and prosperous Pakistan with a focus on energy, economic growth, agriculture, the delivery of health and education services, and strengthening the Government of Pakistan's capacity to govern effectively and accountably. $1.5 billion of this...

WASHINGTON: Despite being in the throes of a crippling political and economic crisis and almost entirely dependent on handouts from the United States and multilateral aid, Pakistan is poking a finger in the international community's eye. Days after it was revealed that Islamabad has doubled its nuclear weapons' inventory in the past decade, American experts have discovered that it has begun building a fourth plutonium-producing reactor to produce even more nuclear bombs to add to the 100-plus it already has. The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) announced on Wednesday that it has obtained commercial satellite imagery from...

On January 12, 2010, an earthquake reaching a magnitude of 7.0 rocked Haiti. Over the next two weeks, 52 aftershocks measuring a magnitude of 4.5 or greater had added to the devastation. The city of Port-au-Prince was littered with rubble and death as impromptu tent cities sprang up everywhere. By July, an estimated $1.3 billion in funds had been raised by U.S. relief organizations. Charity is one of the most selfless, noble activities in which a person can participate; however, good intentions do not always beget good results. A year later the bodies are gone. The tent cities have upgraded...

Israel should give up US military aid It would be wise for Israel to take the initiative, before Tea Party Republicans make a move. 19 January 11 15:06, Ran Dagoni, Washington The time has come to bid goodbye to the military aid that the US extends to Israel, that generous package (currently worth $3 billion) that enables the Israeli taxpayer to share the cost of procuring equipment for the IDF with the US taxpayer. Israel should itself initiate the process of detachment from the Washington breast. It should be done gradually, on terms that will enable Israel to wean itself...

Delay comes as a result of Obama's difficulties in pushing next year's budget through Congress due to Republican opposition. American aid to Israel for developing and buying additional Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries might be delayed for at least a few months due to President Barack Obama's difficulties in pushing next year's budget through Congress. The delay will mean a long wait before the weapons can be bought from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. In May, the House of Representatives approved Obama's decision to grant $205 million in special aid to Israel to buy the additional batteries and intercept missiles. Israel has...

Terror organization faces unprecedented crisis, according to Israeli intelligence assessments, stirring tension with its Iranian patrons. Iran has cut the annual budget it provides Hizbullah by over 40 percent, stirring an unprecedented crisis within the Lebanese Shi’ite guerrilla organization. This comes, according to recent Israeli intelligence assessments, just weeks before a United Nations tribunal is expected to accuse Hizbullah of assassinating former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) – More than half of the 1.4 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration's flagship foreclosure-prevention program have fallen out.</p> <p>A separate report Thursday showed that the number of Americans at risk of foreclosure improved slightly over the summer. The Mortgage Bankers Association said that about 9.1 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment in the July-September quarter. That was down from 9.9 percen6t in the April-June quarter and compared to a record high of more than 10 percent in the January-March quarter.</p>

WASHINGTON, D.C -- A Channel 2 Action News investigation found that the State Department is sending millions of dollars to save mosques overseas. This investment has received criticism as the United States makes an effort to slash nearly $4 trillion in government spending.

WASHINGTON: As it announced a whopping $2.29 billion in new military aid to Pakistan despite India's concerns in this regard, the United States has said its ties with Islamabad do not come at the expense of India and vice-versa. "This is a subject (India's concerns about US military assistance to Pakistan) that comes up in all of our discussions with high-level Indian officials. It comes up in all of our discussions with high-level Pakistani officials," US State Department spokesman P J Crowley told reporters when asked about New Delhi's concerns on the issue. "We continue to provide the same message...

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations. Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities. And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has been critical of growing federal regulation and spending....

A flotilla of ships titled the "Viva Palestina" convoy, hailed by organizers as the largest convoy to break the Gaza embargo, is set to depart this weekend, organizers announced Thursday. The flotilla has been cleared to sail from Syria to the Egyptian port of Al-Arish, from where it will make its way into Gaza. The Egyptian government announced that it will allow the aid convoy to dock at Al-Arish seaport while en route to Gaza. Hussam Zaki of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the convoy will be allowed access to Gaza however he insisted George Galloway, the British ex-parliamentarian