UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United Nations announced Friday it is scaling back its humanitarian aid goals in Yemen and Somalia in the latest fallout from a drastic drop in funding from member states.
It said the cuts are putting millions of lives at risk around the world.
In January the UN launched an appeal for $2.4 billion to help 10.5 million people in war-torn Yemen this year, far below the 19.5 million people it deems as being in need of assistance.
But with funding down, the global body and its humanitarian aid partners established new priorities so as to be able to help at least the neediest people there.
The UN announced similar changes in strategy in Ukraine and Democratic Republic of Congo in recent weeks.
Now the focus in Yemen will be on 8.8 million people with a forecast budget of $1.4 billion, said Stephanie Tremblay, a spokeswoman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
In violent and unstable Somalia, an initial $1.4 billion plan to help 4.6 million people has also been trimmed back to $367 million for 1.3 million people, she said.
“This does not mean that there’s been a reduction in overall humanitarian needs and requirements,” Tremblay said.
She said huge funding cuts are forcing humanitarian aid programs to scale back, “putting millions of lives at risk across the world.”
“As in other crises, the consequence will be dire. If we fail to deliver, millions more people will be acutely hungry and lack access to clean water, education, protection and other essential services,” she added.
UN agencies are scaling back operations and staffing around the world as they grapple with big cuts in contributions from member states, in particular the United States under President Donald Trump.
UN scales back aid goals in Yemen and Somalia
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UN scales back aid goals in Yemen and Somalia
- UN agencies are scaling back operations and staffing around the world as they grapple with big cuts in contributions from member states
Epstein ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell finishes interviews with Justice Department officials
Blanche said Maxwell would be interviewed because of President Trump’s directive to gather and release any credible evidence
FLORIDA: Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, finished 1 1/2 days of interviews with Justice Department officials on Friday, answering questions “about 100 different people,” her attorney said.
“She answered those questions honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability,” David Oscar Markus told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida, where Maxwell met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
“She never invoked a privilege. She never refused to answer a question, so we’re very proud of her,” Markus said.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence and is housed at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee. She was sentenced three years ago after being convicted of helping Epstein, a wealthy, well-connected financier, sexually abuse underage girls.
Officials have said Epstein killed himself in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, such as royals, presidents and billionaires, including Donald Trump.
In a social media post this week, Blanche said Maxwell would be interviewed because of President Trump’s directive to gather and release any credible evidence about others who may have committed crimes.
Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and claimed he cut off their relationship long ago. But he faces ongoing questions about the Epstein case, overshadowing his administration’s achievements. On Friday, reporters pressed the Republican president about pardoning Maxwell, but he deflected, emphasizing his administration’s successes.
Markus said Maxwell “was asked maybe about 100 different people.”
“The deputy attorney general is seeking the truth,” Markus said. “He asked every possible question, and he was doing an amazing job.”
Markus said he didn’t ask for anything for Maxwell in return, though he acknowledged that Trump could pardon her.
“Listen, the president this morning said he had the power to do so. We hope he exercises that power in the right and just way,” Markus said.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist.
Maxwell is appealing her conviction, based on the government’s pledge years ago that any potential Epstein co-conspirators would not be charged, Markus said. Epstein struck a deal with federal prosecutors in 2008 that shifted his case to Florida state court, where he pleaded guilty to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.
Epstein in 2019 and Maxwell in 2020 were charged in federal court in New York.
UK’s Keir Starmer condemns Israel in strongest terms yet as pressure mounts for Palestine recognition
- ‘Suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible,’ UK leader says
- Senior figures within and outside govt urge Starmer to follow Macron and recognize Palestinian state
LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has condemned Israel with his strongest comments yet, as pressure mounts within and outside the government for Britain to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
Starmer’s remarks came after French President Emmanuel Macron said his country would recognize a Palestinian state, and as the two leaders, along with Germany’s Friedrich Merz, were set to hold an emergency call on the issue.
“The suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible. While the situation has been grave for some time, it has reached new depths and continues to worsen. We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe,” the UK prime minister said.
For the first time with reference to Israel, his statement failed to mention the country’s right to defend itself, or the hostages held by Hamas and other militant groups.
Starmer “appeared to have lost his patience with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government,” The Independent said, adding that the PM “appeared to be on the cusp of being prepared to recognize a Palestinian state.”
The political movement among major European countries is taking place as Israel faces mounting global anger over its actions in Gaza.
Starvation in the enclave has reportedly surged in recent weeks, with at least 113 hunger-related deaths being recorded, including 82 children, according to Palestinian health officials.
The Israeli military has also killed scores of Palestinians queuing for food at designated aid sites operated by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US charity backed by Israel that is attempting to supersede Gaza’s existing UN-operated aid system.
Starmer added in his statement: “I will hold an emergency call with E3 partners tomorrow, where we will discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they (Palestinians) desperately need while pulling together all the steps necessary to build a lasting peace.
“We all agree on the pressing need for Israel to change course and allow the aid that is desperately needed to enter Gaza without delay.”
Starmer has faced significant pressure this week from within his own Labour Party, including Cabinet ministers, as well as from trade unions and academics, to recognize a Palestinian state.
He added: “We are clear that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. A ceasefire will put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said yesterday that recognition would lead to “multiple benefits” and send a “strong message” to the Netanyahu government.
She is one of several government ministers who have privately urged Starmer to recognize a Palestinian state in recent months.
The issue has also been raised at regular Cabinet meetings.
Mahmood, the most senior Muslim politician in the UK, told The Times that though pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza was “the most urgent thing of all,” Palestinian statehood represented the “best mechanism to get us through a peace process.”
In its manifesto for last year’s general election, the ruling Labour Party pledged to recognize Palestine once in office.
Labour’s Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, also urged the government to follow France’s lead.
He warned that there could be no two-state solution — a longtime policy target of British governments — if “there is no viable state left to call Palestine.”
Another Labour politician, Emily Thornberrry, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, also urged Starmer to act.
The UK’s actions in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict have “time and time again … come too little, too late,” she wrote in an opinion piece for The Independent on Friday.
Thornberry highlighted the potential of the major joint Saudi-French conference on the two-state solution, set to begin in New York next week.
After addressing Parliament on a visit to London last week, Macron met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday, delivering a letter that said he would formally recognize Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September.
The French president was “right” to do so, Thornberry said.
“A unified move by the signatories to the secret Sykes-Picot agreement which carved up the Middle East more than a century ago would demonstrate our sincere commitment to a two-state solution,” she added.
“The natural reaction of the British public to the scenes of starvation and death in Gaza is to call on their politicians to do something. The challenge for politicians is to ensure that what they do makes a real difference.
“The recognition of Palestine as part of a renewed commitment by the UK to work with others to build a peace process would be just that.”
Jewish group welcomes local English council backing of Gaza ceasefire and friendship links
- Hastings Borough Council voted to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to arms sales to Israel and continued support for its civic ties with Al-Mawasi
LONDON: A Jewish advocacy group has praised an English local council’s recognition of “friendship links” with the Gazan town of Al-Mawasi as “an important act of solidarity” after councilors passed a motion backing an immediate ceasefire in the region, it was reported on Friday.
Last week, Hastings Borough Council voted to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to arms sales to Israel and continued support for its civic ties with Al-Mawasi, an area in southern Gaza that was declared a safe zone by the Israeli military in December 2023, but has since faced repeated attacks.
Hastings Jews for Justice welcomed the move.
“We stand with the Palestinians in Gaza who are being slaughtered and starved right now, and we demand immediate action of our politicians,” they said.
“We applaud all the councilors who chose to stand on the right side of history and used their voice and their vote to fight these crimes against humanity.
“And we reject the idea, shared by several Labour councillors during the debate, that standing up for a people facing genocide is an attack on Jewish people in our community or ‘divisive’,” they added.
The motion, which had been attempted several times over the past 21 months, passed following the local elections that changed the council’s political makeup.
It was carried by a majority of 14 Green and Hastings Independent Group councilors, with three voting against and 11 abstentions, mostly from Labour.
Proposing the motion, Green Party councilor Yunis Smith said: “We must ask ourselves, when the dust settles, will we have done enough? Will we be able to say that we stood up even when it was difficult?
“Or will we, like generations before us, say that we saw the signs and still we did nothing?”
Smith added: “From one coastal town to another, we’ve shown that solidarity, dignity and human connection shine brighter than cruelty. Al-Mawasi, like Hastings, is defined not just by its land but by the resilience of its people.
“They survive, endure and beckon us to witness their struggle and their strength.”
The friendship between the two communities has been fostered by Hastings Friends of Al-Mawasi, which has developed a language exchange and solidarity program in recent years.
The group said there has been a “marked escalation of threatening and abusive behavior” in the town toward those expressing support for Palestine.
Hastings has now joined a growing list of UK councils that have formally called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Hastings Jews for Justice added: “This is an important act of solidarity with a people who are being made to suffer in the most horrific ways imaginable and we are determined to show that as British Jews it is not in our names.”
Council leader Glen Haffenden of the Greens has reportedly received more correspondence from constituents on the issue than on any other since being elected.
Meanwhile, Sussex Police have launched an investigation following reports that a woman was assaulted while wearing a keffiyeh at the De La Warr Pavilion in nearby Bexhill.
UK fears new summer of unrest, year after Southport riots
- 18 arrested since demonstrations flared last week outside hotel housing asylum seekers in Epping
EPPING: Concern is mounting in Britain that recent violent anti-immigrant protests could herald a new summer of unrest, a year after the UK was rocked by its worst riots in decades.
Eighteen people have now been arrested since protests flared last week outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in the town of Epping, northeast of London, and seven people have been charged, Essex police said. In one demonstration, eight police officers were injured.
The unrest was “not just a troubling one-off,” said the chairwoman of the Police Federation, Tiff Lynch.
“It was a signal flare. A reminder of how little it takes for tensions to erupt and how ill-prepared we remain to deal with it,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Anti-migrant sentiments have been amplified by inflammatory messaging on social networks, fueled by far-right activists.
• Almost exactly a year ago on July 29, 2024, three young girls were stabbed to death in a frenzied attack in northwestern Southport.
• The shocking killings stoked days of riots across the country after false reports that the killer was a migrant.
During the demonstrations, protesters shouted “save our children” and “send them home,” while banners called for the expulsion of “foreign criminals.”
Cabinet Minister Jonathan Reynolds urged people not to speculate or exaggerate the situation, saying “the government, all the key agencies, the police, they prepare for all situations. “I understand the frustrations people have,” he told Sky News.
The government was trying to fix the problem and the number of hotels occupied by asylum seekers has dropped from 400 to 200, he added.
The issue of thousands of irregular migrants arriving in small boats across the Channel, coupled with the UK’s worsening economy, has triggered rising anger among some Britons.
Such sentiments have been amplified by inflammatory messaging on social networks, fueled by far-right activists.
Almost exactly a year ago on July 29, 2024, three young girls were stabbed to death in a frenzied attack in northwestern Southport.
The shocking killings stoked days of riots across the country after false reports that the killer — a UK-born teenager whose family came to the country from Rwanda after the 1994 genocide — was a migrant.
Nearly 24,000 migrants have made the perilous journey across the Channel so far in 2025, the highest-ever tally at this point in a year.
The issue has become politically perilous, putting pressure on Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left government, as the anti-immigrant, far-right Reform UK party rises in the polls.
The Epping protests were stirred after a 38-year-old asylum seeker, who only arrived in Britain in late June, was arrested and charged with three counts of sexual assault.
Images from the protests have gone viral on social networks, mirroring what happened last July. But Epping residents have maintained that the protests are being fueled by people from outside the community.
“These violent scenes ... are not Epping, and they are not what we stand for,” the Conservative MP for Epping, Neil Hudson, told parliament Monday.
While calm was restored to Epping, a middle-class suburban town with a population of 12,000, tensions remain palpable.
“This is the first time something like this has happened,” one local who lives close to the Bell Hotel said, asking not to be named.
“The issue is not the hotel, but extremists applying a political ideology,” he added.
Late on Thursday, the hotel, cordoned off behind barriers, was again the center of a protest involving dozens of people, with police making one arrest.
With another protest expected on Sunday, the local council voted through a motion to demand the government no longer house asylum seekers at the hotel.
The UK is “likely to see more racist riots take place this summer,” said Aurelien Mondon, politics professor and expert on far-right and reactionary discourse at Bath University.
Anti-immigrant protests have already erupted elsewhere, with demonstrations in the southeastern town of Diss in Norfolk outside a similar hotel on Monday.
Last month, clashes flared for several days in the town of Ballymena in Northern Ireland after two teenagers with Romanian roots were arrested for the alleged attempted rape of a young girl.
“It is well documented that many of the protests we are witnessing are not the result of grassroots, local movements,” Mondon said.
“Social media plays a role and facilitates coordination among extreme-right groups,” but it is “also crucial not to exaggerate” its power, he added.
Investigators find black boxes from crashed Russia plane
- Investigators are looking into whether the crash was caused by technical malfunction or human error
- Russian authorities have also launched an investigation into the plane’s operator
MOSCOW: Investigators have recovered flight data recorders from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Russia’s far east, killing 48 people, and will send them for analysis, Russian authorities said Friday.
The aircraft, an Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was making a second attempt to land in the remote Siberian town of Tynda when it disappeared from radar around 1:00 p.m. local time (0400 GMT) on Thursday.
A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of Tynda’s airport.
Prosecutors have not commented on what may have caused the crash, but a rescuer quoted by the TASS news agency said the twin-propeller plane — almost 50 years old — was attempting to land in thick cloud.
Investigators are looking into whether the crash was caused by technical malfunction or human error, the agency reported.
“The flight recorders have been found at the crash site and will be delivered to Moscow for decryption in the near future,” Russia’s transport ministry said in a statement.
Russian authorities have also launched an investigation into the plane’s operator, Angara Airlines, and whether it complied with regulations, it added.
“Based on the findings, a decision will be made on the company’s future operations,” the ministry said.
Angara Airlines, a small regional carrier based in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, said it was doing “everything possible to investigate the circumstances of the accident.”
The company’s CEO, Sergei Salamanov, told Russia’s REN TV channel on Thursday that it was the plane’s captain — an experienced pilot with 11,000 hours of flight time — who decided to make the flight.
“The weather forecast was unfavorable,” he said.
The plane came down in a hard-to-reach area and it took a ground rescue team hours to reach the site.
Russia’s transport ministry said the families of the 48 killed — six of whom were crew — would receive five million rubles’ ($63,000) compensation each.
The number killed could have risen to 49 if the Marina Avalyan, who was already sitting on the plane, had not been asked by her daughter to urgently get off and return home, according to a story reported by Argumenty i Fakty newspaper.
The daughter wanted Avalyan to look after her newborn baby, as she was taking her second child to a hospital, the daily said.
“I have no words to describe it: is this a miracle? Thank God she returned! My child has saved my mother,” Zimina told Argumenty i Fakty.
