While the U.S. and Russia are backing opposing sides in Syria, there are signs the two may join forces to combat ISIS and bring some relief to civilians.
While the U.S. and Russia are backing opposing sides in Syria, there are signs the two may join forces to combat ISIS and bring some relief to civilians.
On June 9, the U.N. was finally able to get food to residents of Daraya, a small Damascus suburb, for the first time in almost four years.
The language of war could swell volumes with what would at once be the most depressing and coldly technical glossaries of chaos ever scribed. The intersection of political calculation and unrelenting violence is formed by an endless stream of words. Open-air condemnations and closed-door strategizing. Shouts and whispers, threats and rumors. Uncapped fury and profound […]
Syria long ago became a source of a steady trickle of bad news but recent reports coming from several UN agencies working in Syria highlight just how dire the humanitarian situation there has become. First up is a new report from the World Food Programme and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that found as […]
The government of Kenya has been drawing fire for its recent decision to forcibly remove registered refugees from Nairobi and transfer them to already crowded camps. On December 18, 2012 the Kenyan Department of Refugee Affairs announced it would cease to register refugees in urban areas and instructed all existing urban refugees to move […]
Although recent media attention on North Korea has focused on its new first lady, the emergence of a significant humanitarian crisis has quickly replaced the sensational headlines. Compounding recent reports of malnutrition among North Korean children and the “…[estimation] that two-thirds of North Korea’s 24m population suffer from a chronic shortage of food…” , the […]
I came across this quote this morning, and it summed up everything one should say on a day like Father’s Day. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty (Author Unknown). Today, many fathers awoke to smiling children excited to give them special gifts–many handcrafted with […]
In follow-up to my Haiti post, Transparency International has just released a handbook on humanitarian aid. Very interesting and worth checking out.
As millions of dollars in aid and other resources flow to Haiti, it is inevitable that someone will raise the specter of waste through corruption. Often such words come from those who oppose aid on ideological grounds, swaying public opinion by exploiting our natural aversion to corruption. But genuine abuses unfortunately do occur, and their […]