Morning Briefing

The U.N. top aid chief "in Somalia has fired back at a report that suggests food aid is being skimmed off by contractors as 'a cost of doing business' in the war-torn nation, an allegation he calls 'completely misleading,'" CNN reports. CNN continues: "A March 10 report by the world body's Somalia Monitoring Group found that humanitarian aid was being diverted to military uses in the conflict, and that some Somali contractors hired by aid agencies were channeling profits into armed opposition groups. One part of the report suggested as much as 45 to 50 percent of World Food Programme [WFP] shipments may have been skimmed off by transport companies, local distributors and the armed groups that control the districts in which they operate" (McKenzie, 3/25).