International Aid

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- As much as $1 billion dollars has disappeared from public funds or been stolen from international aid projects through fraud carried out by the Muslim, Croatian and Serbian nationalist leaders who keep Bosnia rigidly partitioned into three ethnic enclaves, according to an exhaustive investigation by an American-led anti-fraud unit.The anti-fraud unit, set up by the Office of the High Representative, the international agency responsible for carrying out the civilian aspects of the Dayton peace agreement, has exposed so much corruption that relief agencies and embassies are reluctant to publicize the thefts for fear of frightening away international donors.

Having just observed Yom Kippur, Zoey Solomon knew what it felt like to be hungry. But, as the 9-year-old walked through an exhibit Sunday depicting the lives of malnourished children from around the world, she still wrinkled her nose at a container of brown paste that smelled like peanut butter, as a doctor explained that children in other countries enjoy it and rely on it to keep them healthy. "We fasted to observe Yom Kippur yesterday, and she was so hungry by noon," said Lorna Solomon, who brought her daughter to the weekend exhibit in Patterson Park, put on by Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian organization that works in 65 poor and blighted developing countries.

WASHINGTON - Amid continuing efforts by the Bush administration to build international support for its mission in Iraq, allied countries have provided only a small fraction of the reconstruction aid they promised at a conference nine months ago. Of the $13 billion in non-American aid pledged, only about $1 billion has been turned over to the United Nations and World Bank funds set up to take in most of the donations, U.S. and international aid officials said....

B UILDING THE COUNTRY THAT HAITIANS DESERVE Today in New York, donors will be asked to provide $11.5 billion to help Haiti recover from the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. Since the U.S. government has already provided more than $700 million in assistance - a number that will likely rise - some might ask: Why should we give more? To these skeptics, I have two responses. First, more is getting done than you think. And second, more needs to be done than you can imagine. Nearly two months ago, I left my home in Montgomery County bound for Port-au-Prince to lead the relief and recovery efforts of the international aid agency Mercy Corps.

This is an excerpt of a New York Times editorial that appeared yesterday:PRESIDENT Clinton's call for a new multibillion-dollar international aid package for the Palestinians is a necessary complement to the peace agreement he helped put together in Maryland earlier this fall. That diplomatic deal remains wobbly. It can be reinforced by showing that peace delivers tangible FTC economic and social gains to ordinary Palestinians. But outside financial assistance will be effective only if the Palestinians can curtail corrupt practices in administering the aid.The additional $400 million in American aid that Mr. Clinton endorsed can also be a means of dissuading Yasser Arafat from following through on his threats to proclaim an independent Palestinian state when the original timetable of the Oslo peace agreement expires in May.About $2 billion in international aid has been provided to the Palestinians since 1993.

Human resourcefulness is one of the world's mos under-valued assets, and nowhere is that truth more evident that in the plight of the world's rural poor. For nearly 40 years, Western nations have undertaken ambitious development programs to aid poor countries around the world. In most cases, those programs have been designed to "trickle down" to the truly desperate people who most need them. All too often, however, bureaucracy, corruption and plain old greed get in the way.So it should not be a surprise that a new report from the U.N.'s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Four Somali women sat half-buried i a pile of American wheat in a seaside neighborhood, guarded by U.N. soldiers stationed on nearby rooftops. And, for the first time in two weeks, they resumed the job of giving food to the beleaguered citizenry."I was afraid to come today," admitted Kadijo Hassan Mohamud, a 25-year-old mother of four. "But for food, we must trust in God. And if someone kills us, then they kill us."The food relief program, halted in much of this capital after the June 5 massacre of 24 U.N. troops and subsequent U.N. clashes with warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, resumed this week.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if the United Nations issued urgent appeals to stave off an impending famine and got little response? The answer, says U.N. emergency aid chief Jan Egeland is Niger, where 3.6 million people, one third of them children, are facing imminent starvation. Thanks to journalists' pictures of hollow-eyed, emaciated waifs and moving accounts of their plight, money has finally started flowing and the amount of food on its way to the West African nation has increased substantially.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration and Congress began trying to use the power of Western cash yesterday to push a new Palestinian government dominated by the radical Islamic group Hamas toward moderation. Bush administration officials prepared for a meeting in London on Monday in which they will urge the diplomatic group overseeing the Mideast peace effort to warn the Palestinians that they risk losing millions of dollars in international aid unless they renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist.

NEW YORK -- Saying economic empowerment is the next frontier of civil rights, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson urged African-Americans to build wealth, buy stock in corporations and own businesses."

Nickolas Benjamin Pippen, a chemical engineer and volunteer, died Aug. 13 of complications from a bone marrow transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Joppatowne resident was 26. Mr. Pippen was born in Baltimore and raised in Joppatowne. He was a 2000 graduate of Joppatowne High School, where he played first base on the school's varsity baseball team and was a member of its golf team. He earned a degree in chemical engineering in 2005 from the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Thousands of frightened Chadians took advantage of a lull in fighting yesterday to flee N'Djamena when rebels withdrew from the capital after two days of heavy clashes with government troops. Officials, however, warned that battles probably were not over, and rebel leaders vowed to attack again. "Rebels still have a capability of fighting," said Capt. Christophe Prazuck, spokesman for the French Ministry of Defense, which has 1,900 troops deployed in the central African country and has evacuated nearly 1,000 foreigners.

Critics of the Bush administration have lambasted its alleged preference for using an aggressive military posture, including pre-emptive war, to conduct American foreign policy. These critics decry the loss of diplomacy in foreign affairs over the last six years. One might assume that under the new congressional leadership, military funding would decrease or plateau, while allocations for "soft power," such as foreign assistance and diplomacy, would increase. However, in seeming contradiction, Congress recently acquiesced to President Bush's demand to fully fund the Iraq war indefinitely and increased defense baseline spending to $481 billion.

BEIJING -- Amid fears that worsening conditions could spur an exodus of refugees across the border with China, humanitarian experts see even more difficulty ahead for long-suffering North Koreans after their government's nuclear test this month. Aid shipments are exempt from restrictions outlined under the United Nations resolution that was passed in the test's wake. But experts say the international community is not in a particularly generous mood, especially after Pyongyang balked at measures designed to ensure that aid would go to ordinary people and not to the military or senior Communist Party members.

JERUSALEM -- Masked gunmen shot and killed a senior official in the Palestinian intelligence service and four aides yesterday near the home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Palestinian officials said Maj. Gen. Jad Tayeh and the aides were in a vehicle in the Shati refugee camp, on the northern edge of Gaza City, when masked men in a sport utility vehicle cut them off and opened fire. The attackers fled after taking weapons and cell phones from the dead, at least three of whom were described as bodyguards, as well as a briefcase containing documents, according to the intelligence service.

Let terror sponsors pay for health care In his column advocating funding health care for Palestinians in an effort to marginalize Hamas, Michael Morse states that until recently, "the Palestinian Ministry of Health had provided a universal insurance program," and also that before the Palestinians elected a Hamas-led government in January, "international aid paid nearly 100 percent of the operating costs" at Palestinian hospitals and clinics ("U.S....

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Many Somalis expect Americans to bring a lot more than food to this famine- and war-ravaged country.They welcome the imminent U.S. military intervention's narrowly focused goal -- protecting the delivery of food aid -- as a mere sideshow to what really interests them: an end to the clan violence, economic reconstruction and political reconciliation.This mismatch in expectations -- the Somalis seeing the Americans as the economic and political salvation of their ravaged country and the Americans planning a mission designed to avoid any long-term involvement -- could turn the operation sour quickly, Somalis and international aid workers say.Educated Somalis, many of whom have been holed up in their houses in the capital for the last two years while the country has been devastated by clan fighting, say the Americans must stay for at least a year to solve the problem of the starving, disarm the population and get political and economic reconstruction going.

JERUSALEM -- Masked gunmen shot and killed a senior official in the Palestinian intelligence service and four aides yesterday near the home of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Palestinian officials said Maj. Gen. Jad Tayeh and the aides were in a vehicle in the Shati refugee camp, on the northern edge of Gaza City, when masked men in a sport utility vehicle cut them off and opened fire. The attackers fled after taking weapons and cell phones from the dead, at least three of whom were described as bodyguards, as well as a briefcase containing documents, according to the intelligence service.

JERUSALEM -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh agreed yesterday to form a new Palestinian unity government, a move Palestinians hope will bring an end to the economic boycott and political isolation of the current Hamas-led government. Under the agreement, the Cabinet will be dissolved within 48 hours, Palestinian officials said, clearing the way for Haniyeh, as prime minister, to create a coalition government composed of Fatah, Hamas and other political factions.