Radio has always been an important part of Haitian society. And since the earthquake, it has played an even more critical role, serving as the primary mode of transmitting information about aid.

In the last three weeks, millions of dollars have poured into Haiti. But at home, it's taken nearly 16 months for Galveston, Tex. to receive federal aid since Hurricane Ike swept through the city. The hurricane destroyed whole neighborhoods and forced thousands from their homes.

Ten American Baptists were detained in Haiti last Friday, where officials say they attempted to take 33 children into the Dominican Republic without proper documentation. The ten are members of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children's Refuge, and they said their intent was to take the children to a hotel in the Dominican Republic that is doubling as a temporary orphanage.

This story is prompting considerable debate, with some saying it is a case of good intentions gone bad, while others say the American group's actions are nothing short of criminal.

• HAITI TAKEOUT: BBC correspondent Karen Allen gives us an update on the Haiti aid effort in Port-au-Prince.
• MARIJUANA TAKEOUT: Medical marijuana advocates in Los Angeles hit a bump in the road with a new local ordinance that will sharply limit the number of marijuana dispensaries in the city, closing hundreds of existing stores; Reuters reporter Steve Gorman gives us details.

We got this email on Sunday from Carol Fipp, an aid worker with The Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Milot, Haiti. She is trying to coordinate an airlift of injured quake victims from Port-au-Prince to their full-service hospital in Milot, which is 75 miles north of Port-au-Prince. So far, the hospital has only airlifted four patients. The New York Times reports a similar story from the medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières.

Later today, the government agency tasked with international development gets a new boss. Rajiv Shah, the new administrator for USAID, will begin with a mandate to fix an agency that has received a lot of criticism in the past few years. Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at the Center for Global Development in which she described a new vision for the nation’s international development efforts. We're joined by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof to talk about what this means for American efforts overseas.

In 1984 famine-ravaged Ethiopia caught the attention of western music stars who garnered an outpouring of western aid and goodwill with fundraisers like "USA for Africa." Twenty-five years later, Ethiopia is again on the brink of disaster. A prolonged drought is devastating harvests and grazing land across swathes of East Africa. On Thursday Ethiopia’s government told aid donors it needs emergency food supplies for more than 6 million people. We talk to the BBC's Will Ross from Kenya, where the drought is also threatening lives and livelihoods, and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Two days of shelling in Sri Lanka's northern war zone killed at least 430 civilians, with some estimates putting the number as high as 1,000. The Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tiger rebels traded accusations over the shelling. The United Nations called the artillery barrages a "bloodbath" that killed more than 100 children, and a coalition of international human rights groups called for the U.N. Security Council to hold formal talks on the war. The Sri Lankan military has twice said it would stop using heavy weaponry against the Tamils, who are surrounded by tens of thousands of civilians in a narrow strip of land along Sri Lanka's coastline. U.N. figures compiled last month showed that nearly 6,500 civilians had been killed in three months of fighting as the government drove the rebels out of their strongholds in the north in a bid to end the 25-year long civil war. The unrest has also displaced thousands of civilians, a situation that is leading the beleaguered nation into a widespread humanitarian crisis. The Takeaway looks at the increasingly violent civil war in Sri Lanka, with BBC Correspondent Charles Haviland and Manivanna Thirumalai of the BBC's Tamil Service.

International aid organizations are expected to release a report today outlining their concerns over the expected troop surge in Afghanistan. This report comes as world leaders are gathered to celebrate NATO's 60th birthday party and President Obama is expected to ask NATO allies to contribute more troops to Afghanistan. But the western aid agencies are worried that more troops will lead to more civilian casualties, a big problem in the effort to win over the Afghan population. To explain their concerns over President Obama's plan is Matt Waldman is head of policy at Oxfam International in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The Red River in Fargo, North Dakota broke a 112-year-old record last Friday morning when it rose past 40.33 feet — the highest level ever measured. Across the river the situation isn't much better officials in Moorhead, Minnesota have asked approximately one-third of the households in the city to evacuate for fear of the river rising.

Joining The Takeaway are residents dealing with the situation on the ground. Dick Bailly lives in Fargo and his home may soon be flooded as the water fills up her back yard. Sarah Mayo, a junior at North Dakota University, is one of the army of volunteers helping put down sandbags. Also joining the conversation is Courtney Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

One Fargo resident made this photo slide show documenting the North Dakota flooding.

In the past fifty years, wealthy nations including the U.S. have given $1 trillion in aid to the continent of Africa. And yet, many African countries remain mired in poverty. So is it time to rethink aid to Africa? The Takeaway talks to Dambisa Moyo an economist and author of the book Dead Aid: Why Aid is not Working and How there is a Better Way for Africa. We are also joined by Lynn Sherr, journalist and Africa correspondent for PBS's World Focus.

For more from Dambisa Moyo, watch the clip of her discussing African aid below.

By now, we’re all aware of the dark side of the world of finance. But there’s another side to finance that starts with a youthful impulse to save the world and evolves into something both savvy and humane. After a funny encounter with a child wearing her cast-off sweater in Rwanda, Jacqueline Novogratz realized how interconnected the world really is. Novogratz has been at the front of a movement that combines social investing and social entrepreneurship in some of the poorest countries in the world. She is founder of The Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capital firm that supports small businesses in developing countries, and author of the book The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World.

Guest: Yuri Shafarenko, communications delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaking from North Ossetia

Heavy fighting in the Republic of Georgia has displaced about 100,000 people. And that number could grow. After a week of heavy fighting, aid groups say they can't reach thousands of vulnerable people in South Ossetia.

In the past month, Somalia has witnessed a sharp increase in violence directed at international aid workers, many of them employees of Western organizations, who deliver food and medical relief to the more that 1.1 million refugees living in Somalia.

Guest: A New York Times reporter, unnamed due to limited press freedom in Myanmar.