Foreign Aid

In one of his first acts as president, Barack Obama is planning to lift a rule that prevents federal money from going to international family planning groups that counsel women on abortion or perform the procedure. Obama's repeal of the abortion aid policy is one of several executive actions he will take soon after his inauguration today, according to Obama transition aides. He is also considering lifting Bush administration restrictions on federally funded stem cell research.

Poverty, famine and disease overseas lead to lawlessness, instability, revolution and terrorism that threaten American interests, and Americans, at home and abroad. That's why our second most important means of self-defense after the military is foreign aid. Moreover, our investments in development pay off when poor countries become prosperous enough to become trading partners. To their credit, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton realize this, and repeatedly have said as much -- they just don't appear to be in a great hurry to put that philosophy into practice.

Shattered glass has been replaced, debris swept away and guests have begun trickling back to the Serena Hotel more than two weeks after Taliban militants killed seven staff members and visitors, sending a shudder through Kabul's foreign community. The psychological damage is proving to be harder to repair.

This western Kenya village was slowly dying five years ago. One in three people was HIV-positive, then a virtual death sentence. Coffin-makers couldn't work fast enough and the nearby hospital overflowed with HIV patients. No family went untouched, but stigma was so severe that few got tested and the word AIDS was rarely uttered. Today, with an influx of U.S.-funded antiretroviral drugs, prevalence rates have dropped to single digits. The AIDS ward has shut down.

With old and young providing testament to the success of a U.S.-funded effort to fight AIDS, President Bush on Sunday called for Congress to renew the program quickly and said that helping Africa was in the national and moral interests of the United States. The program provides readier access to antiretroviral drugs, easing the impact of the disease. But it also puts a strong focus on premarital sexual abstinence, drawing criticism in the U.S.

This struggling town along the Euphrates River may long be remembered as the place where U.S. Marines killed 24 civilians in 2005, an incident that led to troops being charged with murder and their superiors accused of dereliction of duty for failing to properly investigate.

A bipartisan coalition in the House voted Wednesday to significantly expand a popular program aimed at combating HIV and AIDS around the world, renewing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by authorizing $50 billion -- $20 billion more than the White House requested -- over five years. "There is a moral imperative to combat this epidemic," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). "Few crises have called out more for sustained, constructive American leadership."

The growing standoff as governments and aid groups around the world await necessary approval from Myanmar to bring in large quantities of badly needed emergency supplies suggests a leadership battered by indecision and fear, analysts said. A small quantity of high-energy biscuits arrived Thursday in the isolated nation aboard a commercial flight, but its load paled against the enormous needs of a battered population.

The Myanmar government's refusal to greenlight an international relief mission spawned louder cries Saturday for the outside world to fly in food, water and shelter to cyclone victims, with or without the military regime's permission.

A top U.S. admiral met the senior Myanmar naval officer on an airport tarmac in Yangon on Monday, urging him to open the country to an expanded international humanitarian mission that could reach hundreds of thousands of hungry and homeless cyclone victims. Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, accompanied supplies of water, blankets and mosquito nets to Myanmar's main city on the first Air Force relief flight allowed to land in the country since the May 4 disaster.