6 h. ago Lammy says defence spending ‘saves lives’ after criticism of aid cuts

The Foreign Secretary said spending on defence and aid has ‘always gone up and down across different eras’.

Politics

13 h. ago Three ways to help the developing world survive the end of aid | Winnie Byanyima

Wealthy nations are slashing funding for essential services such as the HIV/Aids response, but poorer countries cannot absorb the impact overnightCountries across the world are cutting aid budgets, abandoning the decades-old consensus that supporting health and development is both a moral duty and a strategic interest. But the end of aid cannot mean the end of global solidarity – because our global economy is stacked against low- and middle-income countries to such an extent that they simply cannot afford to respond to global crises alone.Developing countries are drowning in debt, facing interest rates up to 12 times higher than wealthy countries. When interest rates shot up after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the global south was worst hit. Low- and middle-income countries now pay $4 (£3) to the richest in the global north for every $1 they receive in aid. Thirty-four of Africa’s 54 countries spend more on debt than on healthcare. Continue reading...

Events

30 h. ago World Food Program and other UN aid agencies slash jobs amid US funding cuts, officials say

The World Food Program and the United Nations refugee agency will slash jobs because of funding cuts, mainly from the United States

Society

38 h. ago Trump 100 days: ‘unpredictable’ US alienates allies and disrupts global trade

Trump has cut off Ukraine aid, brokered and lost a ceasefire in Gaza and took a sledgehammer to world commerce100 days of TrumpFor US foreign policy, Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were the weeks when decades happened.In just over three months, the US president has frayed alliances that stood since the second world war and alienated the US’s closest friends, cut off aid to Ukrainians on the frontlines against Vladimir Putin, emboldened US rivals around the world, brokered and then lost a crucial ceasefire in Gaza, launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and seesawed on key foreign policy and economic questions to the point where the US has been termed the “unpredictable ally”. Continue reading...

Politics

38 h. ago Trump 100 days: from cornerstone of the west to unreliable ally

Trump has cut off Ukraine aid, brokered and lost a ceasefire in Gaza and took a sledgehammer to world commerce100 days of TrumpFor US foreign policy, Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were the weeks when decades happened.In just over three months, the US president has frayed alliances that stood since the second world war and alienated the US’s closest friends, cut off aid to Ukrainians on the frontlines against Vladimir Putin, emboldened US rivals around the world, brokered and then lost a crucial ceasefire in Gaza, launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and seesawed on key foreign policy and economic questions to the point where the US has been termed the “unpredictable ally”. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Gaza on brink of catastrophe as aid runs out and prices soar, groups warn

Palestinians face starvation and severe malnutrition as Israel’s blockade continues, say aid agenciesSoaring prices of basic foodstuffs, diminishing stocks of medical supplies and sharp cuts to aid distribution threaten newly catastrophic conditions across Gaza, Palestinians and international aid officials in the battered territory are warning.Humanitarian organisations including the World Food Programme and Unwra, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million Palestinians across Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory that serve basic meals to those with no other option. Continue reading...

Events

5 d. ago Cuts to food aid put more than 3 million malnourished people at risk in Ethiopia

The situation facing Ethiopia represents a “perfect storm of overlapping crises”, says the World Food Programme

Events

5 d. ago Trump’s deadline to review US aid cuts has passed – so what happens now?

Programmes say they are facing growing uncertainty as review is extended

Politics

1 week ago Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’

Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siegeGaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip.The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for generators and medical supplies. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago ‘I can’t protect my unborn baby from HIV’: The stark reality of Trump’s aid cuts

From the pregnant woman who fears HIV will now be transmitted to her child, to the father of four lying in agony on a mattress with no access to drugs. In Uganda and Zimbabwe, chief international correspondent Bel Trew finds the US president’s brutal severing of aid – and abrupt halt in medication – is already tearing lives apart

Politics

1 week ago The Aids crisis was set to end by 2030 – now Trump’s cuts will mean 4 million more deaths

HIV infections and deaths from Aids are set to skyrocket in the next five years if US-funded programs are not reinstated, write Rachel Schraer, Alicja Hagopian, Bel Trew and Rebecca Thomas

Events

2 w. ago Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, aid official says

An aid agency official says Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts

Politics

2 w. ago Trump memo outlines plan to slash US state department budget in half

Cuts would mean dramatic decreases in funding for humanitarian aid, global health and international groupsThe Trump administration is reportedly proposing to slash the state department budget by nearly half in a move that could drastically reduce US international spending and end its funding for Nato and the United Nations, according to an internal memorandum.The memo based on spending cuts devised by the White House office of management and budget envisions the total budget of the state department and USAID, the main foreign assistance body which has been largely dismantled by Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, being reduced to $28.4bn, a reduction of $27bn or 48% from what Congress approved for 2025. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago ‘Savage’ UK cuts will deprive 55m people of aid around the world

Exclusive: The cuts will result in a reduction of key programmes for education, family planning, water and food aid. Alicja Hagopian and Kate Devlin report

Politics

2 w. ago Millions of Afghans will be ‘abandoned’ to famine thanks to Trump’s aid cuts, warns UN

World Food Programme says essential programmes to prevent malnutrition and death will not be possible unless Elon Musk-led USAID cuts are reversed

Events

2 w. ago We'll cut your aid if you don't take your citizens back, Friedrich Merz tells foreign countries whose residents continue immigrating to Germany

The foreign aid budget - which has been a huge source of pride for officials in the European country - could be slashed amid a raft of measures to curb illegal immigration.

Politics

3 w. ago Death of five children during gruelling hospital trek blamed on Trump’s ‘America First’ aid cuts

Charity hits out at ‘decisions made by powerful people in other countries that have led to child deaths’

Politics

3 w. ago A lifesaving midwife in Afghanistan: Noriko Hayashi’s best photograph

‘This woman was nine months pregnant but had never had a checkup. Anisa is listening to the baby’s heartbeat with a stethoscope. After foreign aid cuts, including Trump’s, she is now out of a job’My home country, Japan, is one of the safest places in the world to give birth: it has one of the very lowest mortality rates in Asia. A few years ago I had the opportunity to work on a story about midwives in Japan, and I became very interested in their role. In November 2023 I travelled to Badakhshan province in the northeast of Afghanistan, the country with the highest maternal mortality rate in Asia. I wanted to meet midwives there and see how they support women.The Badakhshan province is far from Kabul, with rugged terrain and poor transportation and medical infrastructure. In winter, heavy snowfall blocks roads for months. Women who are about to give birth are sometimes carried on donkeys escorted by family members or neighbours on multi-day trips to clinics. The literacy rate for wom...

Culture

3 w. ago Country 'struggles to contain' outbreak as 150 dead in 'alarming' fatality rise

Disease hits as health sector reels from US aid cuts ordered by the Trump administration

Events

3 w. ago US restores urgent food aid but not in Afghanistan and Yemen, where millions need it

United Nations officials say the Trump administration has reversed sweeping cuts in emergency food aid to several nations while maintaining them in Afghanistan and Yemen

Politics