The headline here, “U.S. sets example by pledging $60M more to U.N. for Pakistani flood aid,” is a bit too precious, but it’s true that the United States has stepped up their relief aid to $150 million dollars for the tragic events in Pakistan, and that they hope others will follow suit. The U.S. pledge [...]

The flooding crisis in Pakistan keeps growing worse. One-fifth of the country remains soaked, and the public health implications have started to spread: As Pakistan reels from its worst floods in memory, United Nations officials said Monday that 3.5 million children and infants were at a particularly high risk of diseases borne by dirty water. [...]

With fires in Russia, mudslides in China (over 1,000 dead) and flooding all over Pakistan, the need for global humanitarian relief has spiked this month. And the US traditionally sits at the head of the pack in distributing relief supplies, typically through its military resources. That’s particularly needed in Pakistan, where the government’s slow response [...]

Six months after a devastating earthquake, and one of the worst natural disasters in terms of casualties in history, Haiti has still not received many of the financial commitments pledged by the rest of the world. Canadian reporter Isabel Macdonald writes for the Huffington Post that international donors have almost entirely not made good on [...]

This seems like a pretty big deal. Nita Lowey, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the State Department, has decided to cut almost $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan because of worries that the money goes directly into the hands of a corrupt elite rather than into the hands of the people: Rep. Nita [...]

The President spoke to Larry King last night, and said that the Gaza flotilla incident threatened Israel’s long-term security: OBAMA: The United States, with the other members of the U.N. Security Council said very clearly that we condemned all the acts that led up to this violence. It was a tragic situation. You’ve got loss [...]

The President is meeting again with his advisors about Afghanistan today. Despite what appears to be a rough consensus among military and some (but not all) civilian leadership to send at least 30,000 additional troops into the country, Obama has not signed off on the proposal and is seeking different options encompassing different goals, some [...]