World News - "A lethal cocktail of war, natural disasters and economic volatility led the international Red Cross to paint a picture of rising global instability Wednesday as it announced record annual expenditure.

The Geneva-based humanitarian organization's annual report shows it spent EUR 724 million in 2008 with Sudan and Somalia ahead of Iraq and Afghanistan in the league table of aid priorities. 'Millions of people affected by armed conflict have become more vulnerable because of the combined effects of war, natural disasters and continued high food prices,' the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said. ...

The ICRC's breakdown showed over 121,000 tons of food distributed to 2.79 million people worldwide last year, more than twice as much as in 2007. The body said its water, sanitation and construction projects benefited more than 15 million people, with nearly 3.5 million patients treated at health facilities supported by it. ..." [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

BBC News adds that "...Worsening humanitarian situations in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Democratic Republic of Congo stretch the Red Cross budget and look set to continue to do so. But another reason for the record expenditure is the ICRC's success in gaining access to conflict zones that other aid agencies have difficulty operating in - Iraq, Somalia and Georgia, for example. ...

Much suffering could have been avoided, the Red Cross says, if warring parties had complied with international humanitarian law." [BBC News (UK)]