International Affairs

In an "operational update", the International Committee for the Red Cross reported that it had trained and equipped "over 70 members of the armed opposition" as part of a programme to deal with battlefield injuries.

When he set up a nonprofit organization 35 years ago to sell organic vegetables, Kazuyoshi Fujita never expected his pursuit would grow into a big business.

Advocating environmentally friendly foods, his NPO, Daichi wo Mamoru Kai (the Association to Preserve the Earth), is now a company with annual sales of ¥16 billion and 200 employees.

To support basic research that will build a foundation for generating sustainable, science-based solutions to agricultural problems in developing countries, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded 15 grants in the inaugural year of the Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development (BREAD) program.

The five-year program is jointly funded with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Through the partnership between the Gates Foundation and the BREAD program, NSF is supporting international projects, with funding provided to both U.S. institutions and their international collaborators.

More than 30 nonprofit organizations wrote to President Obama today urging him to ease anti-terrorism restrictions that the groups say hinder legitimate charitable giving and aid work abroad.

The organizations -- which include American Jewish World Service, the Charity and Security Network, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council -- reminded Mr. Obama of a statement he made last June in Cairo in which he said that some charitable rules have made giving difficult for American Muslims and that he would work with them to help fulfill their religious obligation to donate.

BEIJING — The Chinese government in the past several weeks has intensified a subtle but steady tightening over the country's freewheeling civil society sector, with some nonprofit groups saying they are feeling increasingly harassed, targeted by tax investigations and subjected to new restrictions on receiving donations from abroad.

"Shame on you, America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and 
mentally ill without treatment — yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations."

September 18, 2009, Time — Starting next January, whenever you buy an airline ticket at a travel agency or online, there'll be a new question to answer before you hand over your credit card: Would you be willing to donate $2 to help fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa?

WASHINGTON, September 2, 2009, USA TODAY — Four chief executives whose government-funded non-profit corporations are paid to deliver U.S. foreign assistance earned more than half a million dollars in 2007, a USA TODAY review of public tax records shows.

July 23, 2009 — The Board of Directors of HealthRight International, Inc. (formerly Doctors of the World-USA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mila Rosenthal as the organization’s next Executive Director.

The cost to aid budgets of the world economic downturn is headed for billions of dollars, slashing assistance to the world's poorest people just as it becomes harder for them to make money for themselves.