JERUSALEM – The U.S. budgetary cuts to humanitarian aid institutions helping Palestinians could lead to long-term disastrous consequences, said Catholic aid workers in the region.

VATICAN – Pope Francis sent condolences to Guatemala after a horrific volcanic eruption left more than 60 people dead.

JERUSALEM – Already in a precarious state, Gaza's health system faces a medical emergency, with more than 1,000 people injured in the recent Gaza border demonstrations that flared up since March 30.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Hurricane Irma cut a deadly path through the Caribbean, leveling entire islands as it moved toward Florida Sept. 7, while Haiti prepared for a potential disaster.

OXFORD, England – A Catholic aid worker warned of a worsening crisis in the Central African Republic, as church centers are attacked and more armed groups fight over territory and resources.

In the days and months after Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the central Philippines, the badly battered seaside community of Anibong became a graveyard for colourful cargo ships that were tossed onto shore by 195-mph winds. The November 2013 typhoon killed or left missing more than 7,300 people, most of whom were from the eastern city of Tacloban, where Anibong is located. It also decimated more a million homes, affecting more than 16 million residents across the central Philippines.

VATICAN CITY – Some 5 million people in South Sudan – half of its total population – are on the brink of starvation and a quarter of a million children are already severely malnourished, a representative from the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services said.

WASHINGTON – Wind-whipped rains from Hurricane Matthew shattered Haiti's southwest peninsula, downing trees, ripping open makeshift wooden homes and causing widespread flooding Oct. 4 as aid workers waited for the storm to subside before mobilizing.

LONDON – Catholic Relief Services and other international aid agencies are working with local Christian and Muslim charities to help about 70,000 people fleeing Fallujah, Iraq, as conflict deepens between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces seeking to regain the beleaguered town in Anbar province.

QUITO, Ecuador – Catholic agencies are beginning to build temporary shelters for thousands of families in Ecuador made homeless by the South American country's worst natural disaster in nearly seven decades.

OXFORD, England - A Catholic aid worker in Mali said Islamist violence failed to disrupt friendly ties between Christians and Muslims, and he called for a coordinated development strategy as "the best means to combat extremism."

The Canadian bishops and their development agency are developing a statement of principles in the hope of heading off future social media attacks.

The Canadian Catholic Organizations for Development and Peace will model its statement of principles on the “CRS Guiding Principles” developed by the American Catholic aid agency Catholic Relief Services.

KATHMANDU, Nepal - Truckloads of relief material organized by church charities began moving across Nepal a week after the Himalayan nation was rocked by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake April 25.

WASHINGTON - With extreme poverty having been cut in half over the last generation — and the Millennium Development Goals target of poverty halving having been achieved five years ahead of the 2015 deadline — veterans of the global war on poverty believe it is possible that extreme poverty can be wiped out in the next 15 years.

WASHINGTON - Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, called assertions that it had supplied birth control in Kenya "misleading, exaggerated and untrue."