Aid to Russia, Africa. (Insider Report).(American economic assistance to Africa and Russia)(Brief Article)

The foreign aid gravy train rolls on, thanks to Bush's "compassionate conservatism," globalist-style. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill returned recently from a fact-finding junket in Africa, in which rock star Bono, vocalist for the Irish band U2, gave him the grand tour of under-equipped hospitals, villages with inadequate wells, ramshackle schools, and urban squalor typical of Africa's destitute millions. It was undoubtedly one of the most bizarre episodes yet in the already surreal Bush administration: The besuited former corporate executive, who occupies the post once filled by Alexander Hamilton, in the company of the unkempt, ultraliberal rock star. Nicknamed "the odd couple" by a fawning media, O'Neill and Bono spent nearly two weeks flitting about the World's poorest continent. O'Neill came back convinced that the U.S. has, in the words of a Boston Globe report, the "moral duty" to take a more active role in supervising the impoverished kleptocracies of Africa. "I went to those troubled lands," O'Neill said in a speech at Georgetown University, "and I believe this: With the right combination of aid and accountability -- from both rich nations and poor ones -- we can accelerate the spread of education, clean water and private enterprise throughout Africa.... Together, we can produce results for Africa."

Soon after O'Neill's Africa trip, the G-8 nations met at a ...