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Although swift food aid and agricultural supplies helped to ward off a post-earthquake food crisis in Haiti, funding shortfalls for farmers is hampering efforts to boost food production six months after the disaster, a United Nations agency cautioned today.

US taxpayers spend about US$140 million every year on non-emergency food aid in Africa, and roughly the same amount to ship food aid to global destinations on US vessels; money that could have been used to feed more people says a new study by researchers at Cornell University in the US.

A proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center has become a flash point of controversy.

The Senate approved a sweeping bank regulation bill Thursday, sending President Obama a crackdown on banks and Wall Street that in some ways is tougher than what he sought. The measure passed by a vote of 60-39.

In Iraq, about 2 million people have been displaced by the war and sectarian fighting. Aid groups estimate that nearly 500,000 of them are living in cities and towns as squatters.

The US and South Korean militaries plan to conduct exercises in the 'near future' to send a clear signal to North Korea following the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez was received here Wednesday by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as Beijing offered to provide advanced technology for Argentina's planned fourth nuclear power plant.

A massive typhoon has raged through Philippines towns and the capital Manila.

A powerful blast ripped apart a mosque and some other shrines in Landi Kotal tehsil of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas'(FATA) Khyber Agency on Thursday morning.

In 2008, as the cost of foodstuffs reached record levels, FAO launched a series of input supply projects to help farmers grow more food and earn more money, via its Initiative on Soaring Food Prices. In Nepal - a country reeling from a decade-long conflict and struggling with drought-induced food shortages - this effort helped generate more resources. One such project, funded by the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund, has helped keep thousands of vulnerable Nepalese farmers from falling deeper into poverty and hunger.