16 h. ago The UN is our best defence against a third world war. As Trump wields the axe, who will fight to save it? | Simon Tisdall

If the US cuts off the cash it will have world-changing effects, but it’s not the only country falling short in its obligations to the United Nations The United Nations and its agencies have long struggled with funding shortfalls. Now an entrenched problem is becoming an acute crisis in the shadow of Donald Trump’s executioner’s axe. The US is the biggest contributor, at 22%, to the UN’s core budget. In February, the White House announced a six-month review of US membership of all international organisations, conventions and treaties, including the UN, with a view to reducing or ending funding – and possible withdrawal. The deadline for decapitation falls next month.Trump’s abolition of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and scrapping of most aid programmes, has already badly damaged UN-led and UN-backed humanitarian operations, which rely on discretionary funding. Yet Trump’s axe symbolises a more fundamental threat – to multilateralism and the much-battered inter...

Politics

64 h. ago UNAids chief ‘shaken and disgusted’ by US cuts that will mean millions more deaths

Winnie Byanyima tells the Guardian she considered resigning when Donald Trump cancelled Pepfar fundingThe head of the global agency tackling Aids says she expects HIV rates to soar and deaths to multiply in the next four years as a direct impact of the “seismic” US cuts to aid spending.Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids, said that if the funding permanently disappeared, the world faced an additional 6 million HIV infections and 4 million Aids-related deaths by 2029. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago Top expert reveals shocking first sign of type of dementia that hits in your 30s

Paul Little, CEO of biotech firm Vesper Bio, has heard of people aged 29 being told they have FTD, a rare form of dementia which can kill in just two years.

Events

4 d. ago The supreme court is cracking down on judges – and letting Trump run wild | Steven Greenhouse

The justices’ decision limiting judicial injunctions gives a red light to the most effective check on the president’s power grabEver since Donald Trump returned to power, he has carried out an unprecedented assault against the country’s rule of law. But we can be thankful that one group of people – federal district court judges – have bravely stood up to him and his many illegal actions.His excesses include gutting federal agencies, deporting immigrants without due process, seeking to cut thousands of federal jobs despite their legal protections, and ordering an end to birthright citizenship. Intent on upholding the constitution and rule of law, district court judges have issued more than 190 orders blocking or temporarily pausing Trump actions they considered illegal. Their decisions have slowed the US president’s wrecking ball as it demolishes federal agencies, devastates foreign aid, decimates scientific research and demoralizes government employees.Steven Greenhouse is a journal...

Events

1 week ago Scientists criticise cut in UK funding for global vaccination group

Five-year £1.25bn pledge to Gavi is 40% cut in real terms, which experts say will cost lives in developing countriesThe UK has cut its funding to a leading global vaccination group by a quarter, a move that experts say will directly lead to the avoidable deaths of many thousands of children in developing countries.The Foreign Office billed the £1.25bn commitment over five years to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) as a major boost to the group’s work as well as to the UK’s status as a developer of vaccines. A series of aid agencies praised the decision. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘The world is cutting foreign aid – but there is a better way to tackle the climate crisis’

Leslie Maasdorp, boss of British International Investments, speaks to Nick Ferris about the changing global aid landscape – and reveals that the agency gave a record amount to climate causes in 2024

Events

2 w. ago Johnny Depp shares harsh assessment of himself in rare comments about disastrous Amber Heard relationship

Johnny Depp had some harsh words for himself in newly published comments about his former relationship with Amber Heard.

Events

2 w. ago Thousands of Afghans are fleeing Iran every day to escape war and deportation

A major international aid agency and a Taliban official say thousands of Afghans are fleeing Iran every day to escape war and a deportation campaign

Events

2 w. ago Red Path review – Tunisian drama tells traumatic story of Islamic State’s horrific cruelty

Based on the true story of the brutal murder of a teenage shepherd, Lotfi Achour’s sombre film honestly attempts to encompass the unbearable grief suffered by the familyA low cloud of misery and horror settles on this sombre movie from Tunisian writer-director Lotfi Achour, inspired by a brutal event in his country from 2015. A teenage shepherd called Mabrouk Soltani was murdered and beheaded on Mount Mghila in central Tunisia by members of Jund al-Khilafah (“soldiers of the caliphate”), the Tunisian branch of Islamic State, which habitually hides out in that remote, rugged region. They videoed their grotesque homicide, claiming the boy was an army spy and ordered his terrified 14-year-old cousin, who was with him, to carry the severed head back to his village as a brutal “message” – and this boy obeyed, in a stricken state of trauma that can only be guessed at. This horrifying event was to assume the status of national scandal in Tunisia two years later when the victim’s elder brot...

Events

3 w. ago UK government admits being ‘too slow’ to spot US mistreatment of prisoners after 9/11

Court admission comes in trial over claims British agents were complicit in CIA torture operationsThe UK government has admitted its intelligence agencies were “too slow” to realise the CIA was mistreating prisoners in its post-9/11 torture programme, acknowledging in court for the first time involvement in US detention operations.The admission was made during a trial that concluded on Friday at the investigatory powers tribunal, which has been investigating claims that British intelligence was complicit in the mistreatment of two men who were repeatedly tortured by the CIA in the early 2000s. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago UK spy agencies too slow to realise CIA was mistreating prisoners after 9/11, government admits

Government acknowledges UK involvement in detention operations for first time in Guantánamo inmates caseThe UK government has admitted its intelligence agencies were “too slow” to realise the CIA was mistreating prisoners in its post-9/11 torture programme, acknowledging in court for the first time British involvement in the US agency’s notorious detention operations.The admission was made during a trial that concluded on Friday at the investigatory powers tribunal, which has been investigating claims that British intelligence was complicit in the mistreatment of two men who were repeatedly tortured by the CIA in the early 2000s. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Keir Starmer must come to the defence of his chancellor’s spending review

Editorial: In spite of Rachel Reeves’s much-vaunted increase in MoD expenditure, a rise to 2.6 per cent of GDP can only be achieved by draining the overseas aid budget, reallocating intelligence agency funds, and other sleights of hand. When the prime minister faces Nato leaders, including Donald Trump, he will have no choice but to spin the numbers

Politics

3 w. ago Leaked Russian spy memo claims China plotting secret land grab inside Russian borders

Russia is facing an internal crisis as a leaked document has shown Vladimir Putin's government is in fact fearful of China and believes it is plotting to annex key territories

Politics

3 w. ago Claims that UK spy agencies aided CIA torture after 9/11 to be heard in rare trial

Cases filed by two Guantánamo Bay prisoners allege MI5 and MI6 were complicit in their mistreatmentThe UK government’s decades-long efforts to keep details of its intelligence agencies’ involvement in the CIA’s notorious post-9/11 torture programme hidden will face an “unprecedented” challenge this week as two cases are brought before a secretive court.The cases, filed by two prisoners held at the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, will be heard across a rare four-day trial at the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT), which has been investigating claims the UK’s intelligence agencies were complicit in their mistreatment. Continue reading...

Politics