Google Tracking Refugees

Firm responds to organization requests for up-to-date info

(NEWSER) - Google Earth is updating views of Haiti at the request of relief organizations seeking current information to aid rescue efforts. Google, working with geospatial image company GeoEye, has already released an overlay for Google Earth showing post-earthquake devastation while also maintaining views before the massive tragedy. More»

Actress slams president's Darfur policy in Newsweek

(NEWSER) - Angelina Jolie “hates” President Obama so much that she and partner Brad Pitt “get in nasty arguments all the time” about him, sources tell Us —and she lets a bit of her distaste shine through in a piece she wrote for Newsweek on Darfur. “When the administration says it intends to work to 'improve the lives of the people of Darfur,' I would like to know what that means, besides the obvious point that their lives could hardly get worse.” More»

(NEWSER) - Hillary Clinton is hoping text messages can save Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The Secretary of State is asking Americans to text “swat” to 20222 to make a $5 donation to help refugees from the fighting there, Foreign Policy reports. The money would go to a UN agency, which provides food, medicine, and tents for the 1.17 million who’ve been forced to flee their homes in the region. More»

After getting the boot in March, NGOs to return to troubled region

(NEWSER) - The Sudanese government says it will invite new aid groups to work in Darfur and let the UN and other agencies expand their operations in the region. The announcement comes two months after Sudan expelled 13 NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, in the aftermath of the International Criminal Court's indictment of President Omar al-Bashir. The UN's humanitarian chief said he would have preferred if Sudan had reversed the earlier expulsions but was encouraged by the "welcome degree of flexibility." More»

(NEWSER) - George Clooney figures prominently in New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof's latest report from Africa, which Kristof describes as "yet another hand-wringing column about Darfur." He offers to swap dirt on the Hollywood heartthrob for readers' interest—then offers a chilling tale of a "petty and mean-spirited" move by the UN, which yanked the Americans' security escort. More»