Tag: foreign aid

Russian ‘Independent’ Media Surprised Their Funding Came From USAID, Express Anger

Russian independent media has had a rough decade in Moscow, with many forced to leave for Baltic nations or other jurisdictions to be able to report freely.

The Kremlin long has put out a narrative that most of this ‘independent media’ was on the payroll of the American intelligence services.

Now that the Kremlin narrative has turned out to be true, there is shock, surprise, and even anger being expressed by Russian independent media personalities.

Yulia Latynina was one of the main stars of liberal journalism, a permanent host of Ekho Moskvy and one of the most caustic critics of the Russian government. Much has changed in the last three years, writes a journalist interviewing her recently on this subject.

What prompted Yulia, who is still listed as a foreign agent in Russia, to reconsider her attitude to the war, Ukrainian activists and liberal journalists? What does she now think about the empire and the new world order that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are writing? What conclusions did she draw from the USAID story and what is her response to dissatisfied subscribers?

“My ideas about what was happening began to change when I read a very laudatory book by Franklin Foer about Biden. And then I read a recently published book by Bob Woodward. “

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Europe Spent More on Russian Fuel in 2024 than Ukraine Aid

The European Union (EU) has been talking very tough about its unwavering and unlimited support for Ukraine since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous visit to the White House, but data published by an independent research organization shows the EU spent more on Russian oil and gas in 2024 than it spent on Ukraine.

The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a group opposed to burning fossil fuels, calculated that European nations spent $23 billion buying Russian fuel in 2024, compared to $19.6 billion in foreign aid provided to Ukraine.

EU spending on Russian fuel was down six percent from the previous year, but this was largely due to falling prices, since the volume of Russian product imported by the EU was only down by one percent.

CREA also found Russian oil sales to China, India, and Turkey booming, although its total fossil fuel revenue of $254 billion was down three percent from 2023. Russia’s “shadow fleet” of some 558 tankers moved 167 million metric tons of oil in defiance of price caps.

“Despite a host of sanctions, Russian revenues in the third year have dropped by a mere 8% compared to the year prior to the invasion of Ukraine,” the report noted. Furthermore, the effect of sanctions appears to be diminishing, largely due to Russia’s skill at using its shadow fleet to evade price restrictions.

CREA recommended “tighter sanctions” against Russia that could “slash Kremlin revenues” by up to 20 percent – but those sanctions would require the EU to break its addiction to Russian fuel. European purchases have declined greatly since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, but Europe still provides roughly a quarter of Russia’s fossil fuel export revenue.

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Biden Appointed Federal Judge who Blocked Trump USAID Freeze is a Far-Left Activist and Biden Donor, Who Pushed to Defund Police and Drop BLM Charges, Previously Accused Trump of “Hatred Towards Muslim People”

A Biden-appointed federal judge who is trying to stop the President from freezing foreign aid and USAID disbursements was discovered to be a radical-left anti-Trump activist who has accused the President of hating Muslims and lobbied for Black Lives Matter activists and defunding the police.

As The Gateway Pundit recently reported, Judge Amir Ali blocked Trump’s order halting foreign funding and ordered the Trump Administration to pay the foreign contracts last week.

“At least to date, Defendants have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shockwave and upended reliance interests for thousands of agreements with businesses, nonprofits, and organizations around the country, was a rational precursor to reviewing programs,” Judge Ali wrote in a 15-page order reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.

Ali’s order was temporarily paused by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday pending a review of the far-left judge’s ruling.

According to the Daily Wire, Ali, the former Executive Director of the leftist MacArthur Justice Center, is a donor to Democrats, including Joe Biden, whom he gave thousands of dollars during his 2020 bid against Trump, and former DNC Chair Jamie Harrison in a bid for South Carolina’s U.S. Senate race.

Prior to the 2020 election, the judge was an opponent of Trump’s 2017 travel ban, which halted travel and visa issuance from several Islamic nations to prevent terrorists from entering the U.S.

In an editorial for the far-left Guardian newspaper, Ali described the President’s order as a “campaign of animus against people of the Muslim faith.” In a 2022 interview, he further claimed that the President has a “history of animus and hatred towards Muslim people. In the same interview, he also called for DEI to be implemented within the legal profession in DC, calling it a problem that he’s “one of few people of North African or Middle Eastern descent, one of few immigrants to the country, and one of few Muslim Americans.”

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Rubio Expedites Shipment of $4 Billion in Military Aid for Israel

On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had expedited the shipment of $4 billion in military aid for Israel, a strong show of support for Israel as it is threatening to restart its genocidal war on Gaza.

“I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel,” Rubio said in a statement.

He claimed that President Biden had imposed a “partial arms embargo” on Israel, although Biden provided more military aid to Israel in a single year than any US president in history.

“The decision to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo, which wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel, is yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump,” Rubio said.

Rubio said that since President Trump came into office on January 20, his administration has approved $12 billion in arms deals for Israel. “The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats,” he said.

The statement came a day after the statement department approved three separate arms deals for Israel worth nearly $3 billion, which includes a huge number of 2,000-pound bombs. The biggest sale, which will likely be funded by US military aid, includes 35,529 MK-84 or BLU-117 2,000-pound bombs and 4,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads.

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US Releases $870 Million in Military Aid for Taiwan, Angering China

The US has quietly released $870 million in funding for military aid to Taiwan after it was briefly paused during the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid.

Reuters first reported on February 21 that the US released the military aid for Taiwan as part of $5.3 billion in exemptions from the foreign aid pause. China, which strongly opposes US military support for Taiwan, reacted to the news on February 26.

“We are deeply concerned over relevant reports,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian. “China has all along opposed US military assistance to China’s Taiwan region, which has severely violated the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués, undermined China’s sovereignty and security interests, and sent a gravely wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”

Lin added that China urges the US to “stop arming Taiwan and undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

The US has always sold weapons to Taiwan since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei as part of a normalization agreement with Beijing in 1979, but it wasn’t until 2023 that the US began providing US-funded military aid, a step that marked a significant escalation. In 2024, President Biden signed off on more than $1 billion in military aid for Taiwan.

The US military support is done in the name of deterrence, but it has only escalated tensions in the region. During a press conference on February 27, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian issued a strong warning against US involvement in Taiwan, which has been encouraged by the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

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Zelensky posts slew of thanks after Vance accuses him of being ungrateful for support

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spent the last 24 hours making a public showing of gratitude by thanking leaders across the globe for their outpouring of support after Vice President Vance accused him of being ungrateful for U.S. support amid the country’s war against Russia. 

Zelensky shared his appreciation with the presidents of Switzerland, Finland, Estonia, Romania, Latvia and the Netherlands, in addition to prime ministers from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, and many more, in separate posts that have overtaken his feed on X.

“Thank you for your support,” he wrote in response to several world leaders.

Zelensky also made a point to thank the United States.

“We are very grateful to the United States for all the support. I’m thankful to President Trump, Congress for their bipartisan support, and American people. Ukrainians have always appreciated this support, especially during these three years of full-scale invasion,” Zelensky wrote in a Friday statement following a heated debate that led to his departure from the White House. 

“Our relationship with the American President is more than just two leaders; it’s a historic and solid bond between our peoples. That’s why I always begin with words of gratitude from our nation to the American nation,” he added in a separate post. 

The leader also posted a video highlighting the positives from the contentious Oval Office meeting. Before he met with President Trump, Zelensky shared a Feb. 12 post acknowledging his gratitude for a strategic partnership with the Republican leader specifically. 

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Tech Titan Microsoft Partnered Extensively with USAID on Third World Internet Projects

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) became the most visible symbol of government waste and ideological partisanship after DOGE exposed the vast sums it spent around the world promoting a variety of leftist causes including online censorship. What is less well-known is the now-shuttered agency’s work with big tech companies, notably Microsoft.

In 2023, Microsoft partnered with Internews, a USAID-funded global slush fund for journalists, to create the Media Viability Accelerator (MVA). The MVA sought to combine Microsoft’s tech resources with Internews’ global network of ideologically aligned journalists, allowing newsrooms to access market insights, data aggregation, analysis and visualization from Microsoft to support their efforts.

Microsoft and USAID also partnered on the progressive cause of women’s empowerment. A program called the Women’s Digital Inclusion Partnership saw Microsoft working with USAID to increase internet coverage for women in the third world. The program aimed to increase internet connectivity for women in rural areas of Columbia, Ghana, Guatemala, India and Kenya.

It’s unclear if this USAID-backed program was any more successful that the U.S. government’s domestic rural internet program, which according to analysts resulted in $42.5 billion in expenditure while connecting zero citizens.

Another USAID-Microsoft partnership on internet connectivity was the Airband Initiative, which aims to expand internet access around the world. The partnership brought together local coalitions of government agencies, nonprofits, and private sector companies to build digital infrastructure and provide “digital skills” training. The program aimed to expand internet access to 250 million people by the end of 2025, including 100 million people in Africa.

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More Woke Craziness Uncovered by DOGE

The Trump Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to uncover shameless misuse of our taxpayer dollars for insider payoffs and woke activism. 

It really is stunning what our elected officials and unelected bureaucrats believe they have the right to spend our money on. Besides the Taliban condoms, European DEI musicals, and Iraqi muppets already exposed by DOGE, the new department led by Elon Musk has found yet more leftist nonsense and grift to cancel.

DOGE on Thursday revealed the following initiatives on which our money was set to be spent, but which fortunately have been shut down:

– $60M for “Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment”

– $74M for “inclusive justice” in Colombia

– $79M for “primary literacy” in Kenya

– $37M for “female empowerment” in Colombia

– $8M to “Reduce stigma, discrimination, and violence against LGBTQI+ communities” in Lesotho

– $3.3M for “being LGBTQI in the Caribbean”

– $25k to increase “Vegan Local Climate Action Innovation” in Zambia

Earlier this week, DOGE identified a substantial amount of cash going to the insidious World Economic Forum and the plan for you to “own nothing” and “have no privacy.” Other ridiculous initiatives also included “$69mm for the Eurasia Foundation to do ‘digital transformation activity’ in Europe.” Whatever the heck that means.

From DOGE:

-$32mm to Internews for programs including “media enabling democracy, inclusion, and accountability in Moldova” and the promotion of “sustainable media outlets”

-$7mm for the American Bar Association to promote the “resilience” of the “Eurasian legal sector and civic society”

-$520mm for a consultant to do ESG investments in Africa and “mobilize private sector resources and expertise”

-$25mm to “promote biodiversity conservation and promote licit livelihoods” by developing “socially responsible” behaviors in Colombia

-$40mm to “improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants”

-$42mm for Johns Hopkins to research and drive “social and behavior change” in Uganda

-$45mm to “address [] the needs, opportunities, and challenges identified by activists and other civic actors engaged in nonviolent collective action”

-$52mm for the World Economic Forum

Nor is that all. DOGE is out to identify unused buildings on which millions of dollars are spent annually. It provided one sobering example of why reform is needed on Feb. 26. “A former ICE employee and Biden transition team member joined Family Endeavors in early 2021 and helped secure a sole-source HHS contract for overflow housing from licensed care facilities,” DOGE explained.

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India’s First Transgender Clinic Shuts Down After Losing Its USAid Funding With ‘No Hope of Resuming’

India’s first transgender clinic has closed after losing its funding from USAid.

Mitr Clinic, located in the south Indian city of Hyderabad, had its USAid slush fund cut off as part of the recent 90-day freeze imposed by President Donald Trump.

All of the staff have been fired and customers have been urged to go elsewhere.

“We were informed that the funds had been cut off because president Trump ordered a freeze on our clinic’s funding,” a former clinic official told The Telegraph.

“We had been serving hundreds of transgender patients, providing mental healthcare and transition-related medical services.”

”We stopped operations in early February, with no hope of resuming.”

The clinic was founded in 2021 by USAID in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

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It’ll Be A Lot Easier Said Than Done For Germany To “Achieve Independence” From The US

The US might go along with this though to accelerate the decline of Germany’s “peaceful” hegemony over the bloc in favor of a “multipolar EU” led by a combination of Poland, France, Italy, and others.

Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz declared on Sunday after the snap elections’ results started streaming in that he envisages helping his country “achieve independence” from the US. This is a dramatic statement that few could have foreseen any German leader saying just several months ago but that just goes to show how fundamentally Trump 2.0 is revolutionizing International Relations. Here’s what he told a televised roundtable about his foreign policy plans:

“The interventions (meddling) from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow. We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my top priority is to create unity in Europe.

My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.

I would never have believed that I would have to say something like that on television. But at the very least, after Donald Trump’s statements last week, it is clear that the Americans – at least this part of the Americans in this administration – are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

That’ll be a lot easier said than done for several reasons. To begin with, Germany hosts around 50,000 US troops at five Army garrisons and two Air Force bases. The US also displaced China as Germany’s top trade partner last year. Moreover, the US became Germany’s largest LNG partner last year too, which covered around 9% of its total gas usage last December. These three factors make it difficult for Germany to “achieve independence” from the US but the US might also go along with this for its own purposes.

Many of its troops in Germany can be redeployed to Asia for containing China and/or to Poland as part of that country’s power play to replace Germany as the US’ top ally in Europe. While casual observers might interpret these outcomes as victories for the military dimension of Merz’s policy, they’d come at a huge economic cost to the local communities that are employed by these US bases and receive their troops’ business. This observation segues into the US’ trade leverage over Germany.

While some think that Trump’s threatened tariffs can create strategic openings for China, at present, the EU is actually working with the US to prevent Chinese “overcapacities” in steel and other products from flooding the bloc as they desperately search for new markets amidst Trump’s new tariffs. In other words, Trump’s tariffs have thus far created a domino effect where China tries to dump newly tariffed products onto the EU, which in turn considers tariffing these same products. This works to the US’ advantage.

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