As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report.
The report, which has not yet been made public but was shown to The New York Times by diplomats, outlines a host of problems so grave that it recommends that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon open an independent investigation into the World Food Program’s Somalia operations. It suggests that the program rebuild the food distribution system — which serves at least 2.5 million people and whose aid was worth about $485 million in 2009 — from scratch to break what it describes as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors.



A devastating Russian guided aerial bomb strike tore through the center of Sumy on Friday, killing...
At least two people were killed and 16 others injured, including medical workers, after a barrage...
The British Museum removed the terms “Palestine”, “Palestinian” and “Israelite occupation” from its displays in direct...
It's been a week since Venezuela's worst earthquake disaster in over a century. Thousands of people...





























