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North Korea is refusing to proceed further with its nuclear disarmament unless other countries at arms talks guarantee promised energy aid, a South Korean official said Thursday. Seeking to break the latest stalemate at the nuclear negotiations, the five other countries in the arms talks - the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - met with the North on Wednesday in the truce village of Panmunjom in the middle of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas. "The North has taken the position that if that (energy aid) is not fully guaranteed, it cannot cooperate in making further steps" at...

MONTERREY, Mexico - U.S. lawmakers will review the language of a US$1.4 billion anti-drug plan that Mexican officials contend infringes on their nation's sovereignty, a senior U.S. senator said Sunday.

Myanmar cyclone: Burma's junta turns away US aid ships By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent Last Updated: 1:46PM BST 04/06/2008 Four American navy ships, laden with relief supplies, are steaming away from the Burmese coast because the military junta will not allow them to help starving cyclone victims. On board the boats were 22 urgently needed heavy-lift helicopters, amphibious vehicles and water purification equipment. The Burmese regime claimed that, far from wanting to help the 2.5 million survivors of last month’s cyclone, the US was in fact intent on stealing the country’s oil resources. "I am both saddened and...

U.S. Navy ships positioned off the coast of Myanmar will soon leave the area after the country's junta refused to give them permission to deliver aid to cyclone victims, a top U.S. commander said Wednesday. Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, said the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Essex and other ships will resume their previous operations Thursday.

Mr Bush wrote that the July 7-9 summit of the Group of Eight major industrial powers, to be held in Japan, needed to take concrete action to tackle AIDS and other scourges afflicting Africa. "My message to my fellow leaders will be that our past promises are just empty words unless we provide meaningful follow-through," Mr Bush wrote. "And if we do, we can continue to help save lives and spread hope across the continent of Africa." Mr Bush said the US was doubling aid to Africa by 2010 and highlighted a $US15 billion ($A15.7 billion) AIDS relief fund launched...

BAGHDAD — Leaders and Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division distributed humanitarian aid to residents in Shula, a neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, May 26. Soldiers travelled door-to-door handing out staples such as rice, lentils and tomato paste to 100 residents. At the end, nearly 300 residents throughout Shula received aid during a three-day period beginning, May 24. Shula resident’s movement to and from markets had been hampered by criminal activity in the area, making Soldiers clad in desert uniforms bearing boxes filled with food a welcome sight. Capt. Joseph Sincere, a fire support officer with...

The United States has reached a deal with North Korea to provide 500,000 tons of food aid over the coming year to the isolated communist nation. The U.S. administration says the aid has little to do with its nuclear disarmament deal with Pyongyang, although both have involved an unusual intensity of U.S. diplomacy with North Korea, a nation President George W. Bush once included as part of a rhetorical ``axis of evil.'' ``We don't see any connection,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was quoted as saying. ``We're doing this because America is a compassionate nation and the United States and...

Myanmar's junta kept a French navy ship laden with aid waiting outside its maritime border on Saturday, and showed off neatly laid out state relief camps to diplomats. The stage-managed tour appeared aimed at countering global criticism of the junta's failure to provide for survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which left at least 134,000 people dead or missing. The junta flew 60 diplomats and U.N. officials in helicopters to three places in the Irrawaddy delta where camps, aid and survivors were put on display. The diplomats were not swayed.

Myanmar cyclone: Burma junta may be prosecuted over aid block By Philip Sherwell in New York Last Updated: 6:17PM BST 17/05/2008 Burma's ruling generals could be threatened with prosecution for crimes against humanity as a last resort to pressure them to allow an international relief operation to reach desperate cyclone survivors. A boy looks out onto his devastated village near Yangon, Burma "The strategy is to raise the bar for the consequences of not allowing humanitarian intervention by introducing the threat of prosecution for crimes against humanity," said a senior US health expert involved in the discussions. "The goal is...

The letter shows that the US has resisted the idea of loans, preferring to give developing countries grants. "We understand that grants would be the US preferred approach," the British ministers say. Both their departments are understood to have argued strongly that the money should be in direct grant form on principle, but were overruled by the Treasury. Last night several countries joined environment and development groups to condemn the loans. "We need urgently to prepare for climate change, but we are not in a position to pay back loans," said a spokesman for the Bangladesh high commission in London....

CHINA may allow more countries to help in rescue efforts in the earthquake-devastated south-west region, a Chinese embassy spokesman says. Beijing has agreed so far to allow rescue teams from Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan, as well as Taiwan - which China considers to be part of its territory - and Hong Kong. "I personally expect more foreign rescue teams being allowed into China," Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told reporters. The offers from the four nations were accepted based on their proximity to China, "which may ensure promptness of the aid. "As I understand,...

A soldier of the Iraqi army 42nd Brigade, 11th Iraqi army division, hands out water to young boys before they wait in line for medical care at an abandoned school in the southern portion of the Sadr City District of Baghdad on May 8. The Iraqi army handed out relief supplies and provided medical care in an effort to help the people in the district. More than 250 people showed up to receive free food and medical supplies. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Cohen Young. CAMP LIBERTY — Residents in Sadr City continue to receive humanitarian aid from...

THERE is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster. Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining...

Burma cyclone: Burmese officials selling emergency aid supplies in local markets By Alan Brown in Yangonpauk Last Updated: 7:24PM BST 12/05/2008 Officials in Burma's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta area are appropriating emergency aid supplies and selling them in local markets, it was claimed on Monday. Burmese officials have been accused of selling aid supplies Burmese volunteers who are operating their own private aid missions to the area have said that they are having to hide from local apparatchiks in order to prevent them commandeering their aid and selling it on at markets. The Daily Telegraph learned of the alleged scam from...

President Bush weighed in as well at a White House meeting Wednesday with Republicans. But Hunter’s stance reflects what has been a steady undercurrent of criticism on the right. In trying to pull together the wartime spending bill and still meet other budget priorities, Democrats argue that it is unrealistic for Rice to expect the full $500 million at this time. In his letter to Bush, for example, Hunter argues that the $500 million has no place in the bill “much like other programs not intended to support military operations in the combat theaters of the global war on terrorism.”...

Teams of aid experts allowed into the cyclone-ravaged Irrawady delta have returned to Thailand with the bleakest of warnings: Burma is on the brink of a “devastating public health crisis” compounded by an emerging refugee disaster. But for the hundreds of aid workers who have flown into Bangkok from around the world, the chances of a sudden glut of the precious entry visas appeared slimmer by the hour. Rumours have begun circulating between international aid organisations that the Burmese regime is preparing to close its doors altogether: a decision, warned UN-affiliated aid workers, that will cost the lives of thousands.

The United States is offering to help China in its fight against a viral infection that has killed 34 children, including two reported Friday, and sickened thousands of others. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is making a previously scheduled trip to Beijing next week and plans to discuss health issues with Chinese officials, with the outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth disease expected to feature prominently, U.S. Embassy spokesman Susan Stevenson said. The scope and volume of infections brings to mind the SARS epidemic of 2003, when China was criticized internationally for trying to conceal the emergence of...

The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma's government to allow workers into the country's devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief. The human catastrophe produced by Burma's refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week. There are uncounted numbers of persons dead, homeless and orphaned. Bodies still float in water. The World Health Organization has warned there could be outbreaks of cholera and especially malaria. U.N. member-state India warned the junta the deadly cyclone was headed...

(IsraelNN.com) Israel re-opened Gaza crossings Thursday for shipments of humanitarian aid after terrorist attacks forced a restriction of shipments on Wednesday. The Nahal Oz fuel depot also was re-opened, and 180 tons of cooking and 681,000 liters of fuel were transferred. More than 160 trucks moved through the Sufa and Karni crossings with medical supplies and medications, fruit, poultry, cleaning products, meat, juice, dairy products, sugar, garlic, nylon, fish, carrots, salt, soy sauce, meat preservatives, nylon for greenhouses, wheat and corn.

UN forced to halt Gaza food aid to a million By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 2:38am BST 25/04/2008 The United Nations says it is being forced to stop delivering food aid to Gaza because of the fuel shortages caused by Israel's response to militant attacks. Palestinian refugees carry UN food aid at a Rafah refugee campAlmost a million Palestinians will go hungry if the UN stops deliveries, compounding an already dire humanitarian situation. The fuel blockade means pumps have already been turned off, causing water shortages and sewage problems, while the vaccination stocks at Gaza's main hospital were...