Why has the flow of aid money and humanitarian relief been so slow to Pakistan to help its flood victims, versus the huge amounts of aid that went to Haiti after its earthquake? A number of news outlets have looked at that question, including the Christian Science Monitor, PRI’s The World, and NPR.

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 [...]

AlertNet has posted a blog article today written by a Myanmar Red Cross worker and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent on how some Myanmarese are doing two years this month after Cyclone Nargis struck the already-troubled Southeast Asian nation. It by no means gives a complete picture of the situation there, [...]

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 [...]

The title of this post owes itself to the line I’ve put in bold in the IRIN story below. “…Most children who had one living relative were taken in by them,” local caretakers report. Why do I think that statement is so important? Because it runs counter to images among some outside of Haiti that [...]

The BBC reports this story today. Here’s a snippet of it:
Aid workers in Haiti have sent home all but one of the 33 children that US missionaries tried to take out of the country after the January earthquake.
They said all the children had parents to return to. Each family was given food, blankets and $260 [...]