It’s a phenomenon that’s disturbing to see: Armed groups targeting aid workers. It’s not a new phenomena, though its increasing frequency suggests that such attacks are becoming an accepted tactic by some, much as suicide bombing has been embraced by some armed groups as a legitimate tactic.
It’s not.
Suicide bombing and targeting aid workers purposely shred [...]

Nate Henn, 25, was one of the victims in yesterday’s bombing in Kigali, Rwanda of a rugby field where the World Cup final was being televised on a giant screen. Nate listed himself as a 2007 graduate of the University of Delaware. When I was on the Inquirer’s editorial board writing about Northern Uganda from about [...]

The Enough Project has produced this great spoof of the Mac-PC commercials to educate the public about how computers, yes, the ones in our homes and offices, are made with conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Militias do the mining and then use the considerable profits to finance the continued fighting in DRC that has [...]

Here’s part of a great story from IRIN that raises the same question: How can such a small group of rebels endure and cause such havoc in so many countries, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo as examined by IRIN. The story doesn’t give many satisfying answers, except to say that the LRA uses such brutal [...]

It’s the NGO’s annual State of the World’s Mothers report and it’s just out and available here from Save the Children. A cause being important and worthy, and a product about it, such as this report, coming from a well-regarded organization, doesn’t mean journalists and others will automatically give them attention. Advocates who want attention [...]

I got the following press release this morning from the International Crisis Group, which points out the continued, bloody existence of the Lord’s Resistance Army. As much as I respect the crisis group, the conclusions in its new report aren’t new at all. The LRA has been a regional menace for years. Think tanks and humanitarian groups [...]

Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Myanmar — there still are crises in these countries and others around the world requiring a slice of attention. Even as the urgency of Haiti clearly rises to the top of the agenda, as I’ve said before, the world must be able to multitask on humanitarian situations. Look to Thomson Reuters Foundation [...]

And thank goodness she did, human gaffes and all.
Secretary of State Clinton will always be a lightning rod for people who are at odds with her or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. I remember back when Bill Clinton was making his first run for president, and there were wild stories out there that said [...]

…because it reports hugely important stories like this that get late, little or no attention from the mainstream media. This story on Somalia underscores how children ALWAYS suffer tremendously from fighting.

MOGADISHU, 14 July 2009 (IRIN) - At only 14, Ali Hussein Sid is already the sole breadwinner of his family, his father having been killed [...]

The outreach effort described below in an International Criminal Court press release could be a good thing — if it has a positive impact. The question in my mind is whether the ICC has planned a way to assess what impact this radio program has? All too often in humanitarian initiatives, there is too little [...]