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.
The Israeli government on Thursday cut off Mideast peace talks and threatened to impose new sanctions...
An Afghan security guard shot and killed three Americans at a hospital in Kabul on Thursday....
Airstrikes in southern Yemen killed about 30 suspected al-Qaida members on Sunday, local tribal sources said,...
