Word: aide
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...Deira (aldeira.ps) is a splendid, breezy hotel on the Mediterranean that can be reached only if you are an aid worker or a journalist - or you are someone who chooses to enter the Gaza Strip by a smugglers' tunnel from Egypt. I don't recommend the tunnel route; these snake holes deep in the sand tend to cave in and are frequently bombed by Israeli fighter jets. (See the best new travel products, gadgets and trends...
...cross fire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, and still today, about 300,000 of the nation's 3 million Tamils remain in government camps in Sri Lanka's north. Many expatriate groups are now lobbying their host governments to pressure Sri Lanka into increasing humanitarian aid to Tamils. And since the war's end about six weeks ago, the most vocal and visible Tamil expats fighting for this cause have been the youth, raised outside Sri Lanka, apart from relatives they now spend much of their free time fighting for. (Read a brief history of the Tamil...
Pyongyang has taken an equally self-destructive position on food aid. Thanks to bad floods in 2007, food shortages last year were likely the worst experienced since the 1990s. The World Food Program (WFP) says it has launched a program to feed 6.2 million people in North Korea, or more than a quarter of the population. Yet in March, North Korea, without explanation, rejected all food aid from the United States, its largest official donor, and kicked five aid groups distributing the food out of the country. The step is potentially disastrous for the North Korean people. The WFP figures...
That was seven years ago, but conditions have probably not improved even though Pyongyang continues to funnel scarce resources into weapons programs. Food shortages returned last year, while aid and investment from neighbors such as South Korea and Japan have dwindled. How bad the situation may be is hard to assess since North Korea doesn't reveal significant economic data. Estimates from South Korea's central bank, released on Monday, suggest that North Korea's gross domestic product recovered in 2008 after two years of contraction, with 3.7% growth. The bank attributed the increase to "one-off factors," such...
Other types of aid haven't been flowing into North Korea as in the past, either. During the decade in which South Korea pursued its "sunshine policy" of engagement with the North, Seoul became a major trading partner and source of aid, especially of much needed fertilizer. But current South Korean President Lee Myung Bak reversed the policy when he took office in 2008, linking economic cooperation with Pyongyang's dismantlement of its nuclear-weapons program. The result is that North Korea is now more dependent than ever on its main patron, China. Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea expert...