DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus USAID, our tax dollars hard at work

Good answer when you have nothing. Let’s play a game here. I’ll give you two statements, both ostensibly true. You tell me which of the statements was true and which statement was censored.

#1- natural immunity is not as effective as vaccine acquired immunity so you need to get the shot even if you had the virus and no matter what your blood antibody level.

#2- natural immunity is at least as effective and probably more effective and longer lasting than vaccine acquired immunity. If you had the virus and you have a good antibody level you do not need the shot.

Can you tell me where that first statement came from? Who it was that made that statement? Can you show where anyone pressured that first statement be made? Because that's the argument you've been making.

So...some believe that the people (Congress) responsible for where we are presently (with the ridiculous spending, fraud & waste) also believe that those same people (Congress) should be the ones leading the charge to clean up the ridiculous spending.

Ooops...I thought I was in the Pure Football Forum...my bad.

Well it's only in the constitution that congress has the power of the purse. (spending) But we shouldn't let a little thing like the constitution get in the way, right?

See, this is part of the problem, who are you to decide whether or not someone is qualified for a position?

Joe Biden wasn't qualified to be President of the United States. Alejandro Mayorkas sure as HELL was NOT qualified to be Director of Homeland Security. He wasn't fit to run a lemonade stand and a ten year old could have done a better than that guy.

Personally I think the Democrats have a deep over trust in government and over reliance in them as a whole. They are fine with the status quo and believe what they are told every step of the way. I'm not really sure why...whether or not they count on certain programs, gifts, money, something they receive from the government, I'm just don't get it. Why aren't they willing to admit when things are wrong? Why were there no audits of programs under Biden? Why? Didn't they care?

Maybe they like to ignore the corruption and past wrong doings because they can't fathom the truth that their side is bad just like the rest of them. The documents are out there of past corruption, programs that actively go against US citizens, special operations that are carried out regardless of which party is in power. They have the audacity to think that long service in government can somehow be used as a barometer of whether or not someone is competent or qualified for the job. This is absolute nonsense! In fact, the longer someone has been in government the more likely they are to be corrupt and fully engulfed in the machine.

Back when this country started all the people appointed to positions came from regular professions such as teachers, blacksmiths cooks, etc. Just because someone has a different life experience doesn't mean that they are any less capable of making sound decisions. In fact their decisions are often better because they're more in touch with the every day man and what regular people are going through. I'd be perfectly fine if 100% of congress were fired tomorrow and replaced by every day folks. Not one person should be scared of that...If you are then I think you should re-evaluate your thoughts about government.

This is how you tell us you haven't been paying attention while you haven't been paying attention.


Biden was elected, not appointed. Musk was appointed.


Yet he was confirmed by the senate and Musk was not.


While you haven't admitted many of the things trump has done since he has been elected is wrong? Or the fact that musk Musk "donated" 270 million dollars to the trump campaign to buy his power.


If you are speaking about the first trump presidency from 2016 - 2020 and America didn't learn anything from it then we agree. It's not that we "trust" the government. It's that we fact check things to see who it is that's really lying. You may find that helpful.


So they didn't have billions in government contracts or donated 270 million to presidential campaigns in order to buy their power in government? You're comparing apples to oranges while trying to make them sound the same. They're not.

Where did I say ANYTHING about Congress' authority over spending? You are seeing things that aren't there...again.

When you stop spending that congress has already approved you are in fact overriding congress and their function of having the control of spending. Maybe it's just that you didn't understand the ramifications of what you posted.

In the immortal words of Cris Carter……. Cmon man!!! Of course you won’t answer so I will. First , the second statement is the true statement. Natural immunity is more effective and longer lasting than vaccine acquired immunity. Numerous studies show that to be a true statement.

Second, which statement was censored? Sadly the Feds pressured the social media sites to keep that information from the public. They censored the truth. And you don’t care.

Fauci and the cdc during 20 and 21 expressed numerous times that people should not rely on natural immunity and should get the shot even if they had gotten the virus. And they demonstrated that with their vaccine mandates. They mandated our military get the vaccine and never once said unless you have had the virus. They discharged our service people for refusing the vaccine and many of them had had the virus.

Clearly the people running the show believed natural immunity was not effective. And they were wrong.

You censorship advocates just can’t admit that censoring truth is a bad idea. Btw there are many examples of the same thing happening, not that you care.

So you can't provide any source that confirms that one statement you quoted was forced or coerced to be stated by the government. Instead you just ramble on with no varification to support it. Got it.

You do realize that natural immunity only works in people that have already had Covid don't you? And you do realize how many people died when they got covid don't you?

Dear Lord man.

Coming from a card carrying member of Cult of Trump whose media darling/partner wanted to Flood the Zone with excrement so no one knows whats true or BS .... Your post belongs in the Political Jokes thread.

Oh geez Louise. What am I dealing with here???

Where did I say anywhere that someone was forced or coerced to say vaccine immunity was more effective than natural acquired immunity. Where?? Nowhere!!!

I said social media was coerced to prevent publication of the fact that natural immunity is more effective than vaccine immunity so if you have had the virus and have good antibodies you do not need the vaccine!! Ya got it or is this too complex for you??

And you are surely not implying that I think healthy people should walk thru the covid ward to get the virus so they have natural immunity. Implying that would be the height of ___. To paraphrase my friend Tucker , at first I thought you were pretending to be ____, but now I’m not so sure.

Dude, you actually have been saying the government forced people to say things and then posed a question with two statements in it. If you weren't trying to claim the statement was coerced WTH were to trying to say? You just said it again in your last post and then said that's not what you were saying?

The vast majority of people had not had covid. They had no natural immunity and many of them who contracted Covid died because of it. You didn't have to walk through a covid ward to get covid. Millions of people got covid without doing that. As er usual you have become unhinged.

Which statement said anything about somebody being forced to say it?? Answer neither. Look you made a very specific accusation, that I said something. Now you are weaseling around because you now realize I did not say any such thing. So the question now is…. Did you accuse me while knowing full well I did not say it. That would be lying, or did you just make a mistake. Only you know the truth.

Could you explain to me what anything in that second paragraph has to do with acknowledging that natural immunity is and always has been effective and that people who had the virus and had the antibodies did not need the vaccine. All that is so evident to almost everyone but you.

Your entire premise going into those questions was that the government was forcing people to say things and pressuring social media. You then posted those questions asking me which one was true and which one wasn't. I realize exactly what you were saying based on the context of the conversation. And so does everyone else. Pay attention net time. The only one trying to weasel out of that is you.

Show me where I said government was forcing people to say things. I am wracking my brain to think of a context where I would believe that and say it. I’m coming up with nothing. So I am confident I did not was and unless you can show an example where I did then you are just spreading a lie…..again.

Now the coercion of Facebook et al was real and indisputable. So I did say that .

So again, show me where I said government was forcing people to say things. Otherwise you are just making things up.

Right here.

The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food
Hana Kiros
Mon, July 14, 2025 at 10:21 PM EDT
6 min read


Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow, according to current and former government employees with direct knowledge of the rations. Within weeks, two of those sources told me, the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash. (The sources I spoke with for this story requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.)

Sometime near the end of the Biden administration, USAID spent about $800,000 on the high-energy biscuits, one current and one former employee at the agency told me. The biscuits, which cram in the nutritional needs of a child under 5, are a stopgap measure, often used in scenarios where people have lost their homes in a natural disaster or fled a war faster than aid groups could set up a kitchen to receive them. They were stored in a Dubai warehouse and intended to go to the children this year.

Since January, when the Trump administration issued an executive order that halted virtually all American foreign assistance, federal workers have sent the new political leaders of USAID repeated requests to ship the biscuits while they were useful, according to the two USAID employees. USAID bought the biscuits intending to have the World Food Programme distribute them, and under previous circumstances, career staff could have handed off the biscuits to the United Nations agency on their own. But since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency disbanded USAID and the State Department subsumed the agency, no money or aid items can move without the approval of the new heads of American foreign assistance, several current and former USAID employees told me. From January to mid-April, the responsibility rested with Pete Marocco, who worked across multiple agencies during the first Trump administration; then it passed to Jeremy Lewin, a law-school graduate in his 20s who was originally installed by DOGE and now has appointments at both USAID and State. Two of the USAID employees told me that staffers who sent the memos requesting approval to move the food never got a response and did not know whether Marocco or Lewin ever received them. (The State Department did not answer my questions about why the food was never distributed.)

In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told representatives on the House Appropriations Committee that he would ensure that food aid would reach its intended recipients before spoiling. But by then, the order to incinerate the biscuits (which I later reviewed) had already been sent. Rubio has insisted that the administration embraces America’s responsibility to continue saving foreign lives, including through food aid. But in April, according to NPR, the U.S. government eliminated all humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and Yemen, where, the State Department said at the time, providing food risks benefiting terrorists. (The State Department has offered no similar justification for pulling aid to Pakistan.) Even if the administration was unwilling to send the biscuits to the originally intended countries, other places—Sudan, say, where war is fueling the world’s worst famine in decades—could have benefited. Instead, the biscuits in the Dubai warehouse continue to approach their expiration date, after which their vitamin and fat content will begin to deteriorate rapidly. At this point, United Arab Emirates policy prevents the biscuits from even being repurposed as animal feed.

Over the coming weeks, the food will be destroyed at a cost of $130,000 to American taxpayers (on top of the $800,000 used to purchase the biscuits), according to current and former federal aid workers I spoke with. One current USAID staffer told me he’d never seen anywhere near this many biscuits trashed over his decades working in American foreign aid. Sometimes food isn’t stored properly in warehouses, or a flood or a terrorist group complicates deliveries; that might result in, at most, a few dozen tons of fortified foods being lost in a given year. But several of the aid workers I spoke with reiterated that they have never before seen the U.S. government simply give up on food that could have been put to good use.

The emergency biscuits slated for destruction represent only a small fraction of America’s typical annual investment in food aid. In fiscal year 2023, USAID purchased more than 1 million metric tons of food from U.S. producers. But the collapse of American foreign aid raises the stakes of every loss. Typically, the biscuits are the first thing that World Food Programme workers hand to Afghan families who are being forced out of Pakistan and back to their home country, which has been plagued by severe child malnutrition for years. Now the WFP can support only one of every 10 Afghans who are in urgent need of food assistance. The WFP projects that, globally, 58 million people are at risk for extreme hunger or starvation because this year, it lacks the money to feed them. Based on calculations from one of the current USAID employees I spoke with, the food marked for destruction could have met the nutritional needs of every child facing acute food insecurity in Gaza for a week.

Despite the administration’s repeated promises to continue food aid, and Rubio’s testimony that he would not allow existing food to go to waste, even more food could soon expire. Hundreds of thousands of boxes of emergency food pastes, also already purchased, are currently collecting dust in American warehouses. According to USAID inventory lists from January, more than 60,000 metric tons of food—much of it grown in America, and all already purchased by the U.S. government—were then sitting in warehouses across the world. That included 36,000 pounds of peas, oil, and cereal, which were stored in Djibouti and intended for distribution in Sudan and other countries in the Horn of Africa. A former senior official at USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance told me that, by the time she’d left her job earlier this month, very little of the food seemed to have moved; one of the current USAID employees I spoke with confirmed her impression, though he noted that, in recent weeks, small shipments have begun leaving the Djibouti warehouse.


Such operations are more difficult for USAID to manage today than they were last year because many of the humanitarian workers and supply-chain experts who once coordinated the movement of American-grown food to hungry people around the world no longer have their jobs. Last month, the CEOs of the two American companies that make another kind of emergency food for malnourished children both told The New York Times that the government seemed unsure of how to ship the food it had already purchased. Nor, they told me, have they received any new orders. (A State Department spokesperson told me that the department had recently approved additional purchases, but both CEOs told me they have yet to receive the orders. The State Department has not responded to further questions about these purchases.) But even if the Trump administration decides tomorrow to buy more food aid—or simply distribute what the government already owns while the food is still useful—it may no longer have the capacity to make sure anyone receives it.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-incinerate-500-tons-022123377.html

So, aside from the "hate trump" slant, what I read is: Small portion of what the u.s. does, and "while still useful", meaning food expires. I can only imagine the headlines if that spoiled food was sent and people got sick.

Yes, the people that were formerly being paid to distribute the food are no longer employed to do so due to the funding cuts at USAID. So rather than doing the right thing and distributing this food to starving people they chose to let it sit there and rot...............

Food For Millions Rots in Storage After Trump’s USAID Cuts

Roughly 60,000 metric tons of food—enough to feed 3.5 million people for a month—is sitting unused in foreign countries because of the Trump administration’s sudden cut in funding to USAID earlier this year.

According to sources speaking to Reuters, the rations are spread across four warehouses in Houston, Djibouti, Durban, and Dubai and comprise cereals, pulses, and cooking oil. The food, valued at $98 million, was intended for emergency distribution in hunger-stricken regions including Gaza, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most of it will now end up in incinerators or as animal feed.

Nearly 500 tons of high-energy biscuits in Dubai are set to expire in July, one former USAID official told Reuters. They could have fed 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month.

The failure stems from USAID’s rapid dismantling by the Trump administration and a pause on the contracts and funds needed to ship supplies to where they are needed.

“USAID is continuously consulting with partners on where to best distribute commodities at USAID prepositioning warehouses for use in emergency programs ahead of their expiration dates,” a State Department spokesperson said. Internal proposals to release the food remain on hold, awaiting sign-off from the Office of Foreign Assistance, now headed by 28-year-old Elon Musk appointee, Jeremy Lewin.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/food-for-millions-rots-in-storage-after-trumps-usaid-cuts/

You know, that " people are starving trump hate".

The point is that all of this was avoidable in the first place.

Elon set his sights on an agency that was investigating his own company; an agency that was a huge source of soft power for the US. We’ve heard of guns and butter, well this was the butter and it got DOGEd.

And now we have to incinerate the food needlessly. Oh, and what did we do with all that “savings” we got from eliminating USAID?

We passed a bill that increases the deficit even worse.

Hope it was all worth it. Just keep on pulling that lever.

Well, I do vote. And I'll never vote for trump again.

So ""they" don't want to give food designated for starving children in other countries. Fine
But why let it sit aaround until it needs to be destroyed?
At least see the expiration date coming and find a way to redirect to the starving children in this country

Amen

IMO, there's nothing wrong with looking at govt spending. One could also make the argument that the cuts to USAID and other foreign assistance makes sense.

This money has already been spent. Nothing is gained by not sending it. I could them not sending it to feed hungry Americans, but that's also not what we're doing.


Letting the food expire and burning it (which will incur a cost) is just spiteful... and coincidentally is happening under the direction of one of the most spiteful political personalities we've seen.

Unless he plays "King trump" he is serving the last term he's allowed to serve. The phrase "A day late and a dollar short" comes to mind.

Several people on this very board warned you.

Fairly certain he can SAY he may run again. But I'm also fairly certain he can't.

And what did people warn me of? If you can come up with anything, let me know.

But those "several" people also told the board biden was fine, mentally.

You were warned he would use executive orders to act like a dictator and he has done so. He has used them to cancel funding that congress, who has the power of spending had already approved. You were warned he would base his administration on Project 2025 and he has done so. You were warned he would use his presidency to be vindictive to his political enemies and he has done so.

And now you even say you wouldn't vote for him again. So what has he done to change your mind about your vote for him? Surely there are things you didn't expect and or don't accept that caused you to change your mind.

I can't vote for him again, as he can't run again.

What part of Childhood cancer would you consider to be Pork? Musk cut that! Is helping your fellow man PORK?

As for Musk, NOT ONE ACCOUNTANT ON HIS TEAM! No Auditors, no Forensic accounting professionals! He's cutting things HE decided are wasteful. HE DECIDED! Things like Childhood Cancer Reasearch!

Every consultant that every president has appointed had recommendations that they make/made reviewed by a congressional oversight before any of those recommendations were carried out. Especially if it involved major job or human services cuts.

The reasons we Dems are angry over these things is that there is a method to accomplish everything Trump is trying to do. A Constitutional method is provided by the founding fathers. You know, The guys that thought this entire country up...

If he followed those methods, and got these things cut, they would need to have been done with forethought and with consideration for all the things they affect.

The thing is this, I think Trump, Miller and the rest of these morons are VERY aware that they would never be allowed to cut those things if they followed the rules. NEVER... so they go out and try to circumvent the rules and call it "CUTTING THE PORK" like you did, and with an equal amount of willful ignorance.

So, I'm right, you do believe they are eating Dogs and Cats in Springfield Ohio

Talk about trying to disinform people... Do you ever have anything of value to add?

Thousands of people have already died due to cutting off USAID funding and food. That will only be the tip of the iceberg. Why would any of them want to reply, and if they do, stay focused on the topic? Who could possibly say they are a Christian or be pro life and advocate this administration be directly responsible for these deaths? They can't defend it and refuse to speak badly about their leader. Reminds me of the GOP controlled congress.

When an opportunity to show they are full of crap comes along, I take it.

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program. But in Myanmar, families say their loved ones have died as a direct result of the aid cuts.

MAE SOT, Thailand — Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family’s food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.

On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher’s little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: “No one has died” because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: “No children are dying on my watch.”

That, Taher says, “is a lie.”

“I lost my son because of the funding cuts,” he says. “And it is not only me — many more children in other camps have also died helplessly from hunger, malnutrition and no medical treatment.”

Taher’s grief is echoed in families across conflict-ravaged Myanmar, where the United Nations estimates 40% of the population needs humanitarian assistance and which once counted the U.S. as its largest humanitarian donor. Now, in Asia, it has become the epicenter of the suffering unleashed upon the world’s most vulnerable by President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

And like Taher’s son, Mohammed Hashim, it is Myanmar’s children who have borne the brunt of the fallout. A study published in The Lancet journal in June said the U.S. funding cuts could result in more than 14 million deaths, including more than 4.5 million children under age 5, by 2030.

Taher is one of 145,000 people forced to live inside squalid, prison-like camps in the state of Rakhine by the ruling military. Most, like Taher, are members of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, which was attacked by the military in 2017 in what the U.S. declared a genocide.

After their food rations evaporated, Taher’s family meals shrank from three a day to one. Taher, his wife and his five children grew so weak, there were days they could not walk.

Little Hashim faded. The clever, caring toddler, who loved playing football and whose cheerful chirps of “Mama” and “Baba” once filled their shelter, could barely move. Anguished by his son’s sobs, Taher tried to find help. But with soldiers banning residents from leaving the camp to find food, and with no money for a doctor, there was nothing Taher could do.

On May 7, Taher and his wife watched their baby take his final breath. Their other children began to scream.

Neighbor Mohammed Foyas, who visited the family after Hashim died and was present for his burial, confirmed the details to The Associated Press.

Asked who is to blame for the loss of his son, Taher is direct: the United States.

“In the camps, we survive only on rations,” he says. “Without rations, we have nothing — no food, no medicine, no chance to live.”

‘The lowest layer of hell’

Throughout Myanmar and in the refugee camps along its borders, the cuts in aid have left children screaming and crying for food. The USAID cuts come at a time when other countries have slashed humanitarian aid, in some cases saying they need the funds to shore up defense. Myanmar’s population has also already been weakened by years of war.

Health care services have been hobbled, and, in some places, vanished. The sick and the starving have wasted away, and people must forage for hours in the jungle each day to find food. Violence and stealing have surged, and young people are huffing glue to numb their hunger pains.

This story is based on interviews with 21 refugees, five people trapped inside Myanmar’s internment camps, and 40 aid workers, medics and researchers.

Safehouses that sheltered dissidents have shuttered, leaving people at the mercy of Myanmar’s merciless military, which has killed more than 7,300 civilians and imprisoned nearly 30,000 in its torture-rife detention centers since its takeover in 2021.

“For Myanmar, we are in the lowest layer of hell already,” says Victor, who headed an emergency program for the aid group Freedom House that helped hundreds who defied Myanmar’s military regime.

Since the U.S. cuts shut down the program, around 100 civilians have sent Victor frantic messages pleading for help he can no longer give.

“I don’t know what to tell them,” says Victor, who goes by one name.

Though the U.S. only spends around 1% of its budget on foreign aid, Trump declared USAID — once the world’s leading donor of humanitarian assistance — a waste of money and dissolved it.

Kneecapped by aid cutbacks, the U.N.’s World Food Program in April severed assistance to 1 million people across Myanmar. In central Rakhine, the number of families unable to meet basic food needs has jumped to 57% from 33% in December 2024, according to the WFP.

The military has long been accused of blocking aid to parts of Rakhine. The funding cuts have thus made an already critical situation even more dire, says Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK.

“These U.S. cuts to humanitarian aid are assisting the military in their genocidal policy of starvation against the Rohingya,” says Tun Khin.

The cuts have come during Myanmar’s darkest hour. In the aftermath of a massive earthquake that killed more than 3,800 in March, the U.S. sent three aid workers to Myanmar — all of whom received notices of their impending termination from the Trump administration while in the disaster zone.

A statement from the State Department that did not address most of AP’s questions said the U.S. “continues to stand with the people of Burma,” using another name for Myanmar.

“While we continue to provide life-saving aid globally, the United States expects capable countries to increase their contributions where possible,” read the statement from the department, which has absorbed the few remaining USAID programs.

Michael Dunford, the WFP’s country director for Myanmar, visited Rakhine in April and said some mothers had resorted to making a thin soup out of grass to feed their children.

“The sense of desperation and also the lack of hope for this population was palpable,” Dunford says. “One old gentleman in tears said to me, ‘If WFP doesn’t feed us, and the authorities won’t support us, then please drop a bomb on us — because we can’t continue in this way.’”

For some, the pain caused by the aid cuts has become so intense that death seems like the only escape. So torturous was the sight of his starving family that 40-year-old father of two Mohammed Eliyas took his own life, says his son, Mohammed Amin.

After the food rations disappeared, Amin’s family began subsisting on one meal a day of rice and vegetable leaves.

“My father became restless and hopeless,” Amin says. “The sadness and despair grew so heavy that he began to believe death might be better than continuing to live in such endless hunger and misery.”

One day in June, as the family gathered for a meal, Eliyas began to cry. The family did not realize he’d mixed poison into his rice.

He never said goodbye.

Hungry, hurting and scared

Twelve-year-old Mohama squats in the mud, rain battering his rail-thin frame. He plucks worms from the dirt and places them in a ratty plastic cup.

The worms are bait for the fish he hopes to catch for his family. Recently, he says, there hasn’t been enough to eat in his Thailand refugee camp. So, despite the deluge, he grabs his bamboo fishing pole and wades through rushing water as high as his chest.

Many of Myanmar’s children have survived the horrors of war only to now find themselves hungry and hurting because of a political decision they don’t understand.

Mohama escaped to Thailand with his parents, older brother and two little sisters in 2023 after soldiers attacked their village. He remembers huddling in a bomb shelter, and running alongside hordes of others fleeing for their lives.

Mohama’s parents returned to Myanmar to find work, and his sisters eventually joined them. He lives now with his grandparents and teenage brother in a one-bedroom shelter.

After two hours, Mohama holds up his haul: around 10 tiny fish, each less than 3 centimeters (1 inch) long. It’s enough for a few mouthfuls.

Still, this is lucky. Some days, he says, he catches half as much.

Eleven-year-old Soe fights the river’s current on his own hunt for fish, his skinny frame swallowed by his pink T-shirt. Nearby, children haul logs as big as their bodies back to their shelters for their families to sell.

“Sometimes I get enough food,” says Soe. “But mostly, I’m hungry.”

Some days, he must skip breakfast and lunch and goes to school with a growling belly. At least school is still an option for him; Teacher Saung Hnin Wai says 10 students at her primary school have dropped out since the funding cuts because their parents cannot afford the fees and need their help foraging.

Most of the remaining students are struggling with hunger, she says, and the teaching supplies are dwindling. The funds they once received to repair the leaking roof have evaporated, so they must close the school when it rains.

When the rice runs out at 48-year-old Naung Pate’s shelter, panic sets in among her six children. She walls off her own worry and reassures them that she will find them food, though now there is never enough.

“Seeing my children eating nothing but rice with fish paste and leftover vegetables breaks my heart,” she says, her thin shoulders slumped with fatigue.

She unpacks her basket of foraged bamboo shoots, which will net her 4 baht (12 cents) a kilogram (2.2 pounds). It generally takes her eight hours of scaling mountains to gather enough shoots for one day’s worth of rice.

“If the U.S. doesn’t resume its support, I am worried about my children’s survival,” she says.

From his perch by the river, Ababa frantically points to his mouth, signaling his hunger. Next to him, his 60-year-old mother, Ababa Moe, shakes her head wearily. She has already given him her food for the day.

She has no real way of explaining the danger of their situation to her son, who is 17 years old but cognitively closer to a toddler. And as a single mother too weak to forage, she has no real way of ensuring their survival. She also is too old to benefit from a recent policy change the Thai government made in a bid to prevent mass starvation, granting work rights to some of the 107,000 Myanmar refugees who, like her, live in Thailand’s border camps.

Her son never learned to speak, and needs her help with everything from getting dressed to using the toilet. Since the funding cuts, their survival has hinged on the charity of her Christian church, whose members occasionally give her handfuls of their rice.

She suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, and begins to sweat and grow dizzy when her hunger is at its fiercest. Some days, she eats nothing.

Knowing that everyone in the camp is in the same precarious position is, paradoxically, a grim comfort that staves off the worst of her fears.

“If we are going to starve, everybody will starve,” she says. “It’s not only me.”
‘There is nothing for us here’

The grandfather slides a knife into the sodden jungle floor, pries loose a bamboo shoot and places it into a tattered tote bag slung across his bony back. His stomach is empty, his breath ragged and his energy exhausted. But if he stops now, his family could starve.

Mahmud Karmar has been foraging in the jungle along the Thailand-Myanmar border for two hours and has barely collected enough to feed his wife, six children and 6-year-old grandson two meals. He presses his parched lips into the river, muddied by the monsoon rains, and guzzles.

“I am hungry,” Karmar says, panting. “So I drink the water to get myself full.”

For years, a grant by the U.S. State Department — which saw thousands of its foreign aid awards axed by the Trump administration — provided food and medicine to Karmar and the other Myanmar refugees living in the Thai border camps.

But the ending of that grant on July 31 forced the region’s main aid group, The Border Consortium, to terminate food assistance for 85% of camp residents. The consortium pleaded for donations, but others failed to fill the void left by the U.S.

On Sept. 30, the State Department signed an agreement for a temporary renewal of the grant, allowing rations to resume through the end of the year, says the consortium’s executive director Léon de Riedmatten. But after that, the funds will run out, and the State Department has made clear there will be no further extensions, he says.

Karmar didn’t just lose his food rations because of the aid cuts — he lost his job with the International Rescue Committee, which the State Department had, until July 31, funded to run health clinics in the camps. He has also lost 16 kilograms (35 pounds), his 54-kilogram (119-pound) frame now so slight that he has become unrecognizable even to close friends.

“We are almost dying,” he says. “There is nothing for us here.”

The 55-year-old sits in the dirt and wipes sweat from his brow. A few days earlier, he says, he fainted while attempting to work in a cornfield in a bid to earn 120 baht (US$3.75) — enough to buy one day’s worth of rice for his family.

Like the others languishing in these camps, this was not a life Karmar chose. He was pushed into it, by soldiers who razed his village and beat his brother to death. The bloodshed forced his family to flee in 2006 to the bamboo shelters on the edge of Thailand.

Life here has never been easy, he says. But since the aid cuts, it has become unbearable.

“The sorrow is so deep, I can’t even cry,” he says numbly. “The entire world has forgotten the refugees and the people of Myanmar.”

The lack of food has driven scores of desperate people to steal, he says. At night, he lies awake on the concrete floor of his leaking shelter, listening to the looting. He and several others recently rounded up 27 thieves in one night and sent them to detention.

Among the thieves was one of his friends. Karmar asked him in despair why he was doing this. “We have nothing to eat,” his friend replied.

Karmar refuses to steal, and so, on days when he is too sick to forage, he begs other refugees for help. Most days, though, he pushes his battered body up mountains and through rivers in search of anything his family can eat, trade or sell.

“There’s a heaviness in my heart,” he says, his voice breaking. “The children ask me for pocket money and I cannot give it to them, and that kills me.”

And it is with this thought that the tears trapped inside him finally fall. He wipes his eyes.

All he can do now is hope that the people of the United States show mercy on the people of Myanmar.

“We will all die if it continues like this — I am certain of it,” he says. “We can’t do this forever.”

https://www.adn.com/nation-world/20...sh-devastation-and-death-across-myanmar/

Canada, Europe, or any communist country can give foreign aid to Myanmar.

That's your excuse why we shouldn't? Canada along with most European nations are not communist. Or is that what you call every nation that cares enough about their people to make sure they all have healthcare? And since you would rather spout BS rather than look into anything, both Canada and European countries are significant donors to foreign aid programs. Dear Lord, no wonder trump said he loves your kind.

They love spending our tax dollars. Give free healthcare to foreigners. Give free healthcare to the lazy unemployed, etc... Feed the world. Especially areas that socialism has failed, and their people are starving. It is America's problem. How about allowing American citizens to keep more of their hard-earned money? That is a concept.

How about you act like the Christian you claim to be for a change? Basic vaccines aren't healthcare. Saving the lives of chidren who are starving isn't evil. And now, after you being told all of those other nations also help with money you claim "It's America's problem." Is that what you call everyone in those third world countries? "Give free healthcare to the lazy unemployed"?

You are a real piece of work and no matter what you say there isn't breath of Christianity in your soul.

Taking money from 1 person and dispersing that to another is not a Christian value. Giving from your own free will is a Christian value. I hate paying taxes but have no problem and enjoy giving to charities that I believe align with my values. See the difference.