US aid agency is in upheaval during foreign assistance freeze and staff departures

On Tuesday, Rubio issued a broader waiver for programs that provide other “life-saving” assistance, including medicine, medical services, food and shelter, and again pointed to the possibility of waivers. Rubio pointed to the broadened exemptions in an interview Thursday with SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly. (AP)
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Updated 31 January 2025
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US aid agency is in upheaval during foreign assistance freeze and staff departures

  • Current and former officials say they were invited to submit requests to exempt certain programs from the freeze

WASHINGTON: Trump administration changes have upended the US agency charged with providing humanitarian aid to countries overseas, with dozens of senior officials put on leave, thousands of contractors laid off, and a sweeping freeze imposed on billions of dollars in foreign assistance.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the pause on foreign assistance Thursday, saying “the US government is not a charity.”
Aid organizations say the funding freeze — and deep confusion over what US-funded programs must stop work as a result — has left them agonizing over whether they could continue operating programs such as those providing round-the-clock nutritional support to extremely malnourished infants and children, knowing that closing the doors means that many of those children would die.
Current and former officials at the State Department and the US Agency for International Development say staffers were invited to submit requests to exempt certain programs from the foreign aid freeze, which President Donald Trump imposed Jan. 20 and the State Department detailed how to execute on Jan. 24.
Three days later, at least 56 senior career USAID staffers were abruptly placed on administrative leave.
Three officials said many of those put on leave were lawyers involved in determining what programs might qualify for waivers, helping write proposals and submitting those waiver requests as they believed they had been invited to do.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. A Trump administration directive that aid organizations interpret as a gag order has left them unwilling to speak publicly for fear of permanently losing US funding.
In an internal memo Monday about the staffing changes, new acting USAID administrator Jason Gray said the agency had identified “several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the President’s Executive Orders and the mandate from the American people.”
“As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions,” Gray wrote.
A former senior USAID official said those put on leave had been helping aid organizations navigate the “confusing process” to seek waivers from the aid pause for specific life-saving projects, such as continuing clean water supplies for displaced people in war zones.
Others were identified as having been involved in diversity, equity and inclusion programming, which the administration has banned.
On Thursday, a USAID human resources official who tried to reverse the action, saying there was no justification for it, was himself placed on leave, according to two of the officials who had viewed internal emails and verified them as authentic. Reporters from ProPublica and Vox first reported the emails on X.
The State Department and White House didn’t respond to messages seeking comment about the staffing changes.
The new leaders at USAID also abruptly laid off contractors who made up about half the workforce in the agency’s humanitarian bureau Tuesday, knocking them out of systems so that some vanished in the middle of videoconferences, the former senior official said. The targeted institutional service contractors do everything from administrative and travel support to grant processing and data analytics.
The staffing changes came three days after the State Department issued guidelines last Friday for implementing Trump’s executive order freezing foreign assistance for 90 days. The department says it’s reviewing the money the United States is spending to ensure it adheres to administration policy.
The guidelines initially exempted only military aid to Israel and Egypt and emergency food programs but also said program administrators and implementors could apply for waivers for programs that they believe would meet administration standards.
On Tuesday, Rubio issued a broader waiver for programs that provide other “life-saving” assistance, including medicine, medical services, food and shelter, and again pointed to the possibility of waivers. Rubio pointed to the broadened exemptions in an interview Thursday with SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly.
“We don’t want to see people die and the like,” he said.
Rubio said there would be a program-by-program review of which projects make “America safer, stronger or more prosperous.”
The step of shutting down US-funded programs during the 90-day review meant the US was “getting a lot more cooperation” from recipients of humanitarian, development and security assistance, Rubio said. “Because otherwise you don’t get your money.”
The State Department said that since the aid freeze went into effect, it has approved dozens of waivers, although many were returned because they did not include enough detail. It said waiver requests for programs costing “billions of dollars” have been received and are being reviewed.
The department did not specify how many waiver requests had been denied but said thus far its actions had stopped more than $1 billion from being spent on programs and projects that are “not aligned with an America First agenda.”
Even with the broadening of exemptions for life-saving care, uncertainty surrounds what US-funded programs legally can continue. Hundreds of thousands of people globally are going without access to medicine and humanitarian supplies and clinics are not getting medicine in time because of the funding freeze, aid organizations warn.


Bangladesh army chief warns country ‘at risk’ from infighting

Updated 6 sec ago
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Bangladesh army chief warns country ‘at risk’ from infighting

  • Bangladesh has been riven by a surge of crime as well as protests this month where crowds smashed buildings connected to ex-PM Hasina’s family
  • Last week, rival student factions clashed on a university campus, in a serious discord between groups instrumental in the uprising against Hasina

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s army chief on Tuesday blamed infighting for deteriorating law and order, warning that the gains of the student-led revolution that toppled the government last August were at risk.
The South Asian nation has been struggling to stem a surge in violent crime, with the security forces arresting thousands this month targeting gangs allegedly connected to the party of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
“If you can’t move beyond your differences and continue meddling and fighting among yourselves, the independence and integrity of the country will be at risk — I warn you,” said General Waker-Uz-Zaman, without singling out any group by name.
“Since stakeholders are busy accusing each other, miscreants find the situation favorable. They believe they can get away with anything,” he said at an army memorial event.
Bangladesh has been riven by a surge of crime, as well as protests this month where crowds smashed buildings connected to Hasina’s family.
Last week rival student factions clashed at a university campus, a sign of serious discord between groups instrumental in driving the uprising against Hasina.
Security forces have arrested more than 8,600 people since it launched “Operation Devil Hunt” on February 8, which the government has accused of being Hasina loyalists and of wanting to “destabilize” the country.
“The anarchy we have witnessed is manufactured by us,” Waker said.
Bangladesh has a long history of military coups.
While it was Waker who took charge after Hasina fled by helicopter to India on August 5, he had also urged the people to back Nobel Prize-winning microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus.
Yunus, 84, vows to institute far-reaching democratic reforms and hold general elections in late 2025 or in early 2026, and Waker had sworn in the interim government.
“At the beginning, I said it would take 18 months to hold an election,” Waker said.
“We are on that path. Professor Yunus is doing his best to keep us united. Let’s help him.”
Key student protest leader Nahid Islam resigned on Tuesday from the government cabinet — where he headed the telecoms ministry — ahead of the expected launch of a new political party on Friday.
Yunus has said he inherited a “completely broken down” system of public administration and justice that needs a comprehensive overhaul to prevent a future return to autocracy.
Waker said security forces accused of a raft of allegations “of enforced disappearances, murder, and torture must be investigated.”
“Punishment must be ensured,” he said. “Otherwise, we will be trapped in the same cycle.”
The armed forces were granted judicial powers like the police — including making arrests — after the revolution.
But Waker, a career infantry officer who has spent nearly four decades in the military, serving two tours as a UN peacekeeper, said he just wanted a break.
“I just want to bring the country and the nation to a stable point and then take a vacation,” he said. “After that, we will return to our barracks.”


Pope Francis met at hospital with Vatican No. 2, took major governing decisions

A person places a drawing of Pope Francis at the base of the statue of late Pope John Paul II outside Gemelli Hospital.
Updated 25 February 2025
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Pope Francis met at hospital with Vatican No. 2, took major governing decisions

  • The audience signaled that the machinery of the Vatican is still grinding on even though doctors have warned that the prognosis for the 88-year-old Francis is guarded

ROME: Pope Francis was well enough to meet with the Vatican secretary of state to approve new decrees for possible saints, the Vatican said Tuesday, in announcing some major governing decisions that suggest he is getting essential work done and looking ahead despite being hospitalized in critical condition with double pneumonia.
The audience, which occurred Monday, signaled that the machinery of the Vatican is still grinding on even though doctors have warned that the prognosis for the 88-year-old Francis is guarded.
Decisions on saints and a formal meeting of cardinals
The Vatican’s Tuesday noon bulletin contained a series of significant decisions, most importantly that Francis had met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Vatican “substitute” or chief of staff. It was the first known time the pope had met with Parolin, who is essentially the Vatican prime minister, since his Feb. 14 hospitalization.
During the audience, Francis approved decrees for two new saints and five people for beatification — the first step toward possible sainthood. Francis also decided to “convene a consistory about the future canonizations.”
Francis regularly approves decrees from the Vatican’s saint-making office when he is at the Vatican, albeit during audiences with the head of the office, not Parolin. A consistory, which is a formal meeting of cardinals, to set the dates for the canonizations is a necessary ceremonial step in that saint-making process, but the announcement of it was also forward-looking, given his illness.
No date was set for the meeting. But it was also at a banal consistory to set dates for canonizations on Feb. 11, 2013, that Pope Benedict XVI announced, in Latin, that he would resign because he couldn’t keep up with the rigors of the papacy. Francis has said he, too, would consider resigning after Benedict “opened the door” and became the first pope in 600 years to retire.
Giovanna Chirri, the reporter for the Italian news agency ANSA who was covering the consistory that day and broke the story because she understood Latin, said that she didn’t think Francis would follow in Benedict’s footsteps, “even if some would want it.”
“I could be wrong, but I hope not,” she told The Associated Press. “As long as he’s alive, the world and the church need him.”
Francis’ English biographer, Austen Ivereigh, said that it was possible, and that all that matters is that Francis be “wholly free to make the right decision.”
“The pope has always said that the papacy is for life, and he has shown that there is no problem with a frail and elderly pope,” Ivereigh said. “But he has also said that should he ever have a long-term degenerative or debilitating condition which prevents him from fully carrying out the exercise of the papal ministry, he would consider resigning. And so would any pope.”
Francis’ ideas about resignation
Francis has said that if he were to resign, he would live in Rome, outside the Vatican, and be called “emeritus bishop of Rome” rather than emeritus pope given the problems that occurred with Benedict’s experiment as a retired pope. Despite his best efforts, Benedict remained a point of reference for conservatives before he died in 2022, and his home inside the Vatican gardens something of a pilgrimage destination for the right.
Francis has also written a letter of resignation, to be invoked if he became medically incapacitated.
Speculation about a possible resignation has swirled ever since Francis was hospitalized, but the Vatican hierarchy has tamped it down. Parolin himself told Corriere della Sera over the weekend that such speculation was “useless” and that what mattered was Francis’ health.
In addition to the audience with Parolin, the Vatican released Francis’ message for Lent, the period leading up to Easter, in yet another forward-looking sign. In a subsequent bulletin, Francis named a handful of new bishops for Brazil, a new archbishop for Vancouver and modified the law for the Vatican City State to create a new hierarchy.
Many if not all of these decisions were likely in the works for some time. But the Vatican has said that Francis has been doing some work in the hospital, including signing documents.
The pope slept well
On Tuesday morning, the Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The pope slept well, all night.”
The previous evening, doctors had said he remained in critical condition at Rome’s Gemelli hospital with double pneumonia, but reported a “slight improvement” in some laboratory results. In the most upbeat bulletin in days, the Vatican said Francis had resumed work from his hospital room, calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.
Doctors have said the condition of the Argentine pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and preexisting lung disease before the pneumonia set in.
But in Monday’s update, they said he hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday, and the flow and concentration of supplemental oxygen has been slightly reduced. The slight kidney insufficiency detected on Sunday wasn’t causing alarm at the moment, doctors said.
Allies and ordinary faithful hopeful
Francis’ right-wing critics have been spreading dire rumors about his condition, but his allies have cheered him on and expressed hope that he will pull through. Many noted that from the very night of his election as pope, Francis had asked for the prayers of ordinary faithful, a request he repeats daily.
“I’m a witness of everything he did for the church, with a great love of Jesus,” Honduran Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga told La Repubblica. “Humanly speaking, I don’t think it’s time for him to go to Paradise.”
At Gemelli on a rainy Tuesday morning, ordinary Romans and visitors alike were also praying for the pope. Hoang Phuc Nguyen, who lives in Canada but was visiting Rome to participate in a Holy Year pilgrimage, took the time to come to Gemelli to say a special prayer for the pope at the statue of St. John Paul II outside the main entrance.
“We heard that he is in the hospital right now and we are very worried about his health,” Nguyen said. “He is our father and it is our responsibility to pray for him.”


UN figures show 2024 deadliest year for children crossing English Channel

Updated 25 February 2025
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UN figures show 2024 deadliest year for children crossing English Channel

  • International Organization for Migration: ‘More safe and regular routes are urgently needed’
  • IOM: Record number of 82 people dead, including 14 minors, likely an underestimate

LONDON: A record number of children died in the English Channel trying to reach the UK last year, with the route witnessing its highest-ever fatality figures.

The Missing Person’s Project of the UN’s International Organization for Migration recorded 82 people dying in the Channel — one of the world’s busiest sea lanes — of whom 14 were minors.

The 82 deaths in 2024, which officials say are likely an underestimate of the true total, are more than three times the number from the previous year.

In the period spanning 2018 to 2024, child deaths in the Channel never exceeded five fatalities in a single year.

Not all of the children who died making the crossing in 2024 have been identified. However, those named include 14-year-old Obada Abd Rabbo from Syria and his compatriot Mohamed Al-Jbawi, 16, both of whom died on Jan. 14.

Several Iraqi children are also known to have died making the trip, including 7-year-old Rola Al-Mayali, who was on a boat carrying her and her family which capsized in a canal approaching the Channel.

Seven-year-old Sara Al-Ashimi, also from Iraq, drowned on April 23. The youngest victim — Maryam Bahez, who was just a month old — died on Oct. 17 after falling from her father’s hands in an overcrowded boat. Her family was from Iraqi Kurdistan.

The IOM warned that even children who survive the journey are often left vulnerable when arriving in the UK, with many separated from their parents.

Christa Rottensteiner, chief of mission for the IOM in the UK, told The Guardian: “The record high number of children who died in the English Channel last year is a wake-up call that more needs to be done. 

“For those whose nationality is known, you can see that they are from war-torn countries or extremely volatile contexts.

“More safe and regular routes are urgently needed, and the right support need to be in place for separated children looking for their families.”

Dr. Wanda Wyporska, CEO of Safe Passage International, told The Guardian: “Crossing the Channel in these small and overcrowded boats is a terrifying experience no child should have to go through.

“Young people we support have shared heartbreaking descriptions with us. They thought they were going to die, have been hospitalised with painful petrol burns from broken engines, and were petrified of falling into the water as they couldn’t swim. 

“We know children are often deeply traumatised from this journey, and it can take a long time for them to be able to talk about their frightening ordeal in these boats.

“It’s horrifying so many children have died on this unnecessary journey. This is a clear consequence of the lack of safe routes which would save children’s lives.”


Ahead of Starmer meeting with Trump, UK to raise defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027

Updated 25 February 2025
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Ahead of Starmer meeting with Trump, UK to raise defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027

  • UK currently spends 2.3 percent of gross domestic product on defense
  • Prime Minister Keir Starmer is due to meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday

LONDON: Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged Tuesday to raise UK defense spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, saying Europe is in a new era of insecurity that requires a “generational response.”
The announcement came two days before Starmer is due at the White House to try to persuade US President Donald Trump to maintain American support for Ukraine and the NATO alliance.
“We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace, then the economic instability and threats to our security, they will only grow,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
“And so as the nature of that conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus, a new era that we must meet as we have so often in the past, together, and with strength.”
The UK currently spends 2.3 percent of gross domestic product on defense, and the government had previously set a 2.5 percent target, without setting a date.
Starmer told lawmakers that the increase amounts to an additional 13.4 billion pounds ($17 billion) a year. He said the goal is for defense spending to rise to 3 percent of GDP by 2035.
To pay for it, overseas development aid will be slashed from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent of national income, he said.
Starmer said that his announcement amounted to the “biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War,” and necessary because “tyrants like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin only respond to strength.”
The announcement came as European countries scramble to bolster their collective defense as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to quickly end the war in Ukraine.
Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the US provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.
Starmer is due to meet with Trump at the White House on Thursday.
The prime minister has offered to send British troops to Ukraine as part of a force to safeguard a ceasefire under a plan being championed by the UK and France, but says an American “backstop” will be needed to ensure a lasting peace. Trump hasn’t committed to providing security guarantees for Ukraine, saying Monday after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House that “Europe is going to make sure nothing happens.”
Starmer’s center-left government is seeking closer defense cooperation with Europe, as part of a “reset” with the European Union after years of bitterness over Brexit.
He also wants good relations with Washington, even as Trump, who advocates an “America First” foreign policy platform, disparages allies, threatens tariffs on trading partners and labels Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — but not Putin — a “dictator.”
“We must reject any false choice between our allies, between one side of the Atlantic and the other,” Starmer said. He said that he would tell Trump: “’I want this relationship to go from strength to strength.’“


Women peacekeepers gather in New Delhi for first Global South summit

Updated 25 February 2025
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Women peacekeepers gather in New Delhi for first Global South summit

  • Global South countries are top troop contributors to UN peacekeeping missions
  • India led the way, providing female peacekeeping troops in Liberia in 2007

NEW DELHI: Women peacekeepers are gathered in the Indian capital for the first summit of UN blue helmets representing the Global South.

Hosted by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Defense, and the Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping, the two-day conference, “Women in Peacekeeping: A Global South Perspective,” brought together 35 women peacekeepers from 35 countries representing the developing world.

Global South countries are the leading contributors of troops to UN missions. India, alongside Bangladesh, Nepal, and Indonesia, has the biggest number of peacekeeping troops.

Women peacekeepers were sent to the field for the first time during the UN Operation in the Congo in 1960. However, their involvement at that time was limited to non-combat positions such as medical personnel and administrative staff.

India became a pioneer in the provision women peacekeeping troops when it sent an all-female Formed Police Unit to Liberia in 2007. Today, women make up more than 20 percent of its 5,000 deployed military observers and staff officers. 

“The participation of women in peace operations makes it more diverse and inclusive,” Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar told the participants during the conference’s opening session on Monday.

“It is essential that we continue to increase the representation of women in peacekeeping. This is not only a matter of quantity but equally of quality. Women peacekeepers often have unique access to local communities, acting as role models for women in conflict zones.”

The peacekeepers were also received by President Droupadi Murmu at her official residence, Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Those taking part in the conference told Arab News how important it was for them to meet and share their experiences.

“We learn (from) all the thoughts, ideas that each of us has — by their own experience. For me it is powerful,” said Lt. Marinliz Irene Chicas, a peacekeeper from El Salvador.

Maj. Mariam Thermite from the Republic of Guinea Armed Forces, who has served in the UN Mission in South Sudan and in the engineer corps in Western Sahara took part in the New Delhi meeting to share her insights.

“We need to improve women’s qualifications,” she said. “Women are very important in peace keeping ... These missions are very important for (the affected) women and children, and without women we can’t (access them).”

UN Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted in 2000, recognized the importance of female participation in peacekeeping and called for the inclusion of women in all levels of decision-making and peace processes as critical to such operations.

Women’s participation ensures that peacekeeping missions consider the security needs of all populations, including marginalized groups. Female peacekeepers help address issues such as the specific vulnerabilities faced by women and children in conflict areas.

“There is a degree of trust between military women and the (affected) population,” Maj. R. Salhi from the Tunisian Armed Forces told Arab News.

“Men cannot reach in the field (where) women can. For example, in the interaction with populations, investigations especially ... dealing with populations and families, children — the easiest way to contact these people is through women.”