UN chief wants Gaza conflict halt

The UN secretary general has implored Israel and Palestinian militants to halt the fighting in Gaza immediately. Ahead of a trip to the region to push for a truce, Ban Ki-moon said too many people had died and there had been too much civilian suffering.

Investing in Early Childhood Nutrition

It has long been known that good nutrition is essential to children’s physical and cognitive development, but recent evidence sheds new light on the optimal timing of interventions to improve child nutrition. Marie Ruel and John Hoddinott produced this policy paper for IFPRI.

Aid agencies in Gaza resume deliveries

Aid agencies said Monday they have resumed relief operations in Gaza, but fighting still prevents them from evacuating the sickest people and reaching all those who need help. [...] As many 88 percent of Gaza's residents now require food aid, said Helene Gayle, president of the relief organization CARE USA. The three-hour lull in fighting that Israel allows for humanitarian aid to move around Gaza is not sufficient, she said. "Food distribution takes a minimum of five hours under normal circumstances, so three hours with no guarantee of safety is woefully inadequate for us to do our job," she said in a conference call with reporters. [...] The World Food Program handed out 1,200 monthly food rations to people in Gaza and 1,400 emergency bread packages Sunday, said spokeswoman Emilia Casella. But the agency has been unable to reach many people who need food, she said.

DRC Insecurity Hampering Humanitarian Assistance

Humanitarian agencies are still trying to gather information from parts of northeastern DRC that were recently attacked by Ugandan rebels. Attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) killed hundreds of people and caused thousands of others to flee into the bush. UN agencies and others are trying to determine the exact number of people who need emergency assistance and the best way of getting it to them. Jim Farrell, spokesman for the World Food Program, spoke from Goma, in the eastern DRC, to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about the status of relief operations.