Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst.

China says Taiwan is becoming a powder keg.

After the White House announced a $345 million military aid package for it last week.

The aid will come from U.S. stockpiles so that it can get to Taiwan quicker.

But as NPR's John Ruich reports, Beijing says it won't shake China's will to, quote,

unify the Motherland.

Beijing says Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party or DPP and the U.S. are turning Taiwan

into an ammunition dump.

It also says they are aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait.

Taipei and others, however, see the main threat of war is coming from China, which is ramped

up pressure on the island and increased military activity near Taiwan in recent years.

The DPP has stepped up arms purchases, but there have been delays, so the latest package

from Washington is part of a presidential drawdown authority approved by Congress last

year.

That means the weapons will come directly from U.S. stockpiles, John Ruich and P.R. News.

In Pakistan, at least 44 people are dead, more than 130 are injured after a suicide

bombing at a political rally on its border with Afghanistan.

No one has claimed responsibility so far.

In a group in Haiti says a New Hampshire nurse and her young child have been kidnapped

there, and Pierce Joe Hernandez has more.

Elroy Haiti says on its website that Alex Dorsenville and her child were kidnapped from the

aid group's campus outside Port A Prince on Thursday.

...