The Philippines has received 199.48 billion pesos (about 4.44 billion U.S. dollars) from international sources for the rehabilitation of areas struck by typhoon Haiyan ( local name Yolanda) a year ago, a senior government official said Tuesday. Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said the amount came in the form of loans, financial grants and donations.

Cuba is winning accolades for its international “doctor diplomacy,” in which it sends temporary medical professionals abroad—ostensibly to help poor countries battle disease and improve health care. But the doctors are not a gift from Cuba. 

A leftist Russian party has prepared a parliamentary motion calling for immediate military, technical and humanitarian aid to the governments of Syria and Iraq in their fight against Islamic terrorists.

On September 12th, President Raúl Castro’s health minister announced that Cuba would send nearly five hundred health-care professionals to West Africa.(...)No other country, to date, has contributed as many trained health-care professionals to the Ebola crisis as Cuba has. 

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said there are positive signs emerging in the three hardest-hit West African countries that the Ebola epidemic is finally being contained. 

The Philippines cites the kidnapping of peacekeepers and health issues like Ebola as top issues that must be reviewed in UN peacekeeping.

China will dispatch an elite unit from the People's Liberation Army to help Ebola-hit Liberia, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday, responding to U.N. calls for a greater global effort to fight the deadly virus in West Africa.