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 [...]

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 [...]

Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health not only is a reliable, strong provider of medical care in Haiti, it has been there for years before the earthquake and will be there long after the world’s attention has faded from the current destruction. If you want to donate money for Haiti, consider PIH.
I’ll also put a plug [...]

…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 [...]

It’s sad to see an apparatus of peacemaking, the office of the U.N. special envoy to northern Uganda, close. But why should the United Nations keep it open considering that Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, has proven himself - once again - to be an unreliable peace partner. The charade ought to end that [...]

This news report from Agence France-Presse sounds a hell of a lot like the violence in 2006 that led up to the Islamic Courts winning power in Somalia from the transitional government. That government was created by Western powers from among Somalis outside the country, and had zero public support within Somalia. And it was toppled when the [...]