It’s been only five months since the Gilbert Sister Cities adopted Guabuliga, Ghana, as the town’s first "Friendship City," but the community has already begun to transform education there.

This is a special Labor Day for Vali Iancu. The Scottsdale business owner is seeing the fruits of his labor to show his native Romania that his adopted country, the United States, "is not just good at war, we are good working at peace as well.’’

It started with educational videos on the school announcements. Later, it was asking classmates to donate, just chipping in a few dollars at a time.

October 19, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents abducted the local director of CARE International from her car in Baghdad on Tuesday, targeting a charity worker who has championed ordinary Iraqis for decades.

BEUTONG ATEUH VILLAGE, Indonesia - With the wheels of his clapboard truck stuck deep in the slippery mud, the driver closed his weary eyes in exasperation. Sabril Swardi has been on the road for five days, delivering rice, dried noodles and bottled water to tsunami victims on the hardest hit west coast of Indonesia’s Northern Sumatra.

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Help for hundreds of thousands of Somalis is in jeopardy, two international aid groups said Friday after Islamic insurgents forced one to suspend some operations and threatened the other.

It’s been only five months since the Gilbert Sister Cities adopted Guabuliga, Ghana, as the town’s first "Friendship City," but the community has already begun to transform education there.

LONDON - The United States wants other nations to cut off aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said ahead of an international strategy session on Mideast peace prospects.

ROME - Aid teams from around the world rushed to southern Asian countries devastated by tidal waves, warning that anything less than an urgent response would add many more deaths to the already catastrophic toll.

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's junta warned Thursday it will punish anyone found hoarding or trading foreign aid meant for cyclone survivors, but relief groups said they had seen no evidence of people selling or stockpiling donated goods.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - The massive international relief effort to tsunami victims along the Indian Ocean seems to have found its legs.

MOSCOW - Russia's president said Sunday his country will give military aid to the two separatist regions at the center of the war with Georgia - signaling Moscow has no intention of backing down in the face of Western pressure.

A former Tempe peace activist has compiled a narrative history on efforts by Valley churches, pastors and others to help refugees from Central America during two decades when revolution and repression brought upheaval to their countries.

YANGON, Myanmar - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sought to persuade Myanmar's ruling generals Thursday to let in a torrent of foreign assistance for cyclone victims rather than the current trickle.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Myanmar needs more than food and shelter. It needs human expertise for everything from cleaning water to mental health counseling - and right now, those experts can't get to the hard-hit delta.

YANGON, Myanmar - A French navy ship carrying 1,000 tons of food idled near Myanmar's coast Saturday, awaiting permission from the uncooperative ruling military regime to dock in the cyclone-devastated Irrawaddy delta.

ANKARA, Turkey - With European Union support in hand, President Bush looked to seal an agreement for NATO to help stabilize Iraq as its fledgling government takes over this week.

YANGON, Myanmar - More aid is on the way to cyclone-ravaged Myanmar - but so is the heavy rain. A week after Cyclone Nargis flattened low-lying villages and killed whole families at a time, the military junta finally agreed Friday to allow a U.S. cargo plane to bring in food and other supplies to the isolated country.

YANGON, Myanmar - The United Nations blasted Myanmar's military junta on Friday, calling its refusal to let in foreign aid workers "unprecedented" as survivors of a devastating cyclone waited for food, shelter and medicine.

KARIM RAJIA, Indonesia - U.S. helicopters rescued dozens of desperate and weak tsunami survivors, including a young girl clutching a stuffed Snoopy dog, as the American military relief operation reached out to remote areas of Indonesia with cartons of food and water on Monday.

October 22, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Margaret Hassan, the kidnapped director of CARE International in Iraq, wept and pleaded for Britain to act to save her life in a video aired Friday. "Please help me.