The World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday slammed the theft of humanitarian aid in Haiti, where some 500,000 people were made homeless by four hurricanes in August and last month.
“This assistance is donated by the international community to help people who really need it, and it is intolerable that a gift destined to help very poor and hungry people is stolen or trafficked,” the WFP said in a statement.
The WFP was reacting to news that two city officials in northern Gonaives had been arrested and questioned on Monday in connection with a warehouse full of stolen food discovered by police.
“While the case of the food stolen in Gonaives did not concern WFP, WFP is calling for concerted action to prevent such theft and to prosecute the perpetrators of such actions,” it said.
“As a result of the combination of hurricanes and floods and soaring food prices, almost a third of the population is in need of food assistance,” WFP said.
“WFP is providing regular food rations to more than half a million storm victims in Haiti, 266,000 of them in Gonaives,” it said.
In another incident related to the relief effort, a radio station dedicated to the hurricane victims reported that a gunman broke into its studios and threatened to kill everybody inside. Radio announcer Jean-Pierre Blaise said programming was shut down for 48 hours after the incident.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development said on Monday in Rome that they had put together a US$10.2 million “agricultural rescue package” to improve food security for Haitians.
Four big storms — Tropical Storm Fay and hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike — pounded impoverished Haiti in August and last month, killing a total 793 people and leaving more than 300 others missing.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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