MORE than 1,000 British troops are in a race against time to get aid to the Caribbean as yet another hurricane headed towards the batters the region. Royal Marine Commandos and engineers are continuing to gather medical supplies, food, water and building materials to send to the British Virgin Islands (BVIs), Anguilla, and Turks and Caicos after Storm Maria was upgraded to a hurricane overnight.

After the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that flattened parts of the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu on Saturday and unleashed avalanches on Mount Everest, India and China barely missed a beat. Within hours of the disaster, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dispatched military aircraft carrying workers, medicines and blankets.

Congressional support built Wednesday for increased U.S. military assistance to Jordan following a video purporting to show Islamic State militants burning a captured Jordanian air force pilot to death.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned on Saturday that the world would suffer an “immeasurable loss” if terrorism spreads in the Middle East and pledged about $200 million in non-military assistance for countries battling Islamic State.

Supplying new weapons to Iraq and refurbishing its poorly maintained war stocks has become an urgent priority for Barack Obama’s administration after nearly half the Iraqi Army that was trained and equipped by U.S. forces before 2011 — or about 24 brigades out of 50 — unraveled last summer in the face of the Islamic State’s brutal onslaught.

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.

France and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement on Tuesday for Paris to provide the Lebanese army with $3 billion worth of weapons paid for by Riyadh, the French foreign minister said.