aid news stories on Newser

Gazans Blame Hamas for Economic Woes

Drew Nelles — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:25:29 CDT

As joblessness mounts in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, more and more residents are blaming the ruling Hamas party for their woes, GlobalPost reports. Although Gaza has one of the fastest population growth rates on earth, 45% of people have no job and 85% depend on aid to get by. And...

Thawing Relations: South Korea Sending Aid to North

Drew Nelles — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:24:02 CDT

South Korea will send $8.5 million in aid to flood-ravaged North Korea in a sign of warming relations, NPR reports. The 5,000-ton shipment of rice and cement represents the South’s first major aid shipment to its neighbor after an alleged torpedo attack from the North in March that...

Officials May Have Smuggled US Aid Out of Afghanistan

Kevin Spak — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:25:00 CDT

US investigators suspect that high-ranking Afghan officials are smuggling US aid money out of the country and putting it in financial safe havens abroad. More than $3 billion in cash has been flown out of Kabul International Airport in the past three years, the Wall Street Journal reports, and though...

New Game Lets You 'Hurl Berl' Into the Air

Evann Gastaldo — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:49:35 CDT

From his dalliances with women to his "tan" Obama jokes , Silvio Berlusconi has done a lot of things that might make you want to throw him far, far away. But Bono (yep, that Bono) is most angry at Italy's poor record on delivering pledged aid to Africa—and he wants...

Haiti Aid Piles Up at Bottlenecks as Unrest Grows

Jane Yager — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:38:00 CST

Massive amounts of aid are arriving in Haiti only to hit bottlenecks at the Port-au-Prince airport, the port or warehouses, where medicine, bandages, and other desperately needed supplies are piling up. Clogged roads, a crippled government, and outbreaks of violence mean that the aid flowing into Haiti is reaching earthquake...

King Sends Wives on Spree While Africans Starve

Mary Papenfuss — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:12:00 CDT

Swaziland King Mswati III sent several of his 13 wives on a multi-million-dollar shopping spree in the Mideast and Europe while two-thirds of his subjects continue to suffer in abject poverty, reports the Times of London. The move has triggered sharp criticism in Britain, which provides the impoverished nation with...

US Aims to Help Zimbabwe, Not Mugabe

Matt Cantor — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:12:01 CDT

With Zimbabwe’s prime minister visiting President Obama today, the key question is how the West can help Morgan Tsvangirai without boosting Robert Mugabe. Under the government's power-sharing agreement, the president retains control of the police, justice system, spy service, and media, writes Celia Dugger in the New York Times . “The...

New Reactors Could Boost Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal

Matt Cantor — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:18:00 CDT

Pakistan is building two of the largest plutonium-producing reactors in the developing world—facilities that experts say could bolster the nuclear arsenal of a country fraught with turmoil. The US hasn’t publicly condemned the project, MSNBC reports, even though it makes Pakistan “the only country rapidly building up its nuclear...

Bono: 'It's Not Charity, It's Justice'

Amelia Atlas — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 05:41:53 CDT

Bono returns to his New York Times guest columnist spot a week after Easter with a spiritual meditation about the holiday and economics. The season of Lent is not just a time for individual reflection, opines the singer, but also for rethinking our social priorities. Of global projects like the...