The State Department announced yesterday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed the United States he will not permit any further activities by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Russian Federation. State officials tried to put the best face on this humiliating rejection, saying they are “extremely …
Recently, The Heritage Foundation reported that the State Department is making major changes to its venerable series of “Background Notes”—transforming them from useful reference materials into a new “fact sheet” format that, in reality, is more often than not just a puff sheet for the Obama Administration’s foreign policy accomplishments. …
The fracture between Iran’s autocratic government and its people is growing ever wider in the aftermath of the two earthquakes that hit northern Iran last weekend. Tehran’s inadequate response is drawing strong criticism from theAzerbaijan region ofIran, where 16,000 people are now homeless and the official count is now 306 …
In 2011, the U.S. government spent more than $22 billion in non-military foreign aid while collecting $6.8 billion in taxes on imports from the world’s poorest countries. Ironically, the government spent $185 million in “trade and investment” aid while collecting 36 times that amount from tariffs on products from poor …
In the midst of Congress’s roaring debate over budget cuts, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Schwartz weighed in last week to decry any talk of cutting foreign aid in a letter he titled “Human Security Is National Security.” Civilian and humanitarian foreign aid, he argued, supports our national security interests …
Back in January, President Obama said that he has no intention of sending U.S. troops into terrorist havens. However, in addition to working with regional partners to support the Dijbouti Peace Process, the administration is currently playing a direct role in providing Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) with increased support …
