BRUSSELS: The European Union will suspend sanctions on Syria’s banking, energy and transport sectors Monday, diplomats said, in a bid to help the country’s reconstruction after the ouster of Bashar Assad.
Syria’s new leaders have been clamouring for the West to ease sanctions on the country imposed to target Assad’s regime during the civil war.
But Europe and other powers have been reluctant to move before clear signals from the new Islamist-led rulers in Damascus that they are serious on having an inclusive transition.
The step due to be greenlit at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels is a formal move after the bloc struck a preliminary accord last month to suspend sanctions in key areas.
Diplomats talking on Friday said the sanctions could be reimposed if Syria’s new leaders break promises to respect the rights of minorities and move toward democracy.
The United Nations said on Thursday that at current growth rates, Syria would need more than 50 years to get back to its economic level before the outbreak of its devastating civil war.
Much of Syria’s infrastructure was destroyed and the country’s economy ravaged by years of international isolation after Assad’s 2011 crackdown on opposition sparked the civil war.
The EU and other international powers are jostling for influence in Syria after the ouster of Assad, who was backed by Russia and Iran.
EU to suspend Syria banking, energy, transport sanctions
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EU to suspend Syria banking, energy, transport sanctions
- Syria’s new leaders have been clamouring for the West to ease sanctions on the country imposed to target Assad’s regime during the civil war
Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, aid official says
- More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2024
Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, an aid agency official said Tuesday.
The warning follows the cancelation of foreign aid contracts by President Donald Trump’s administration, including to Afghanistan where more than half of the population needs humanitarian assistance to survive.
Action Against Hunger initially stopped all US-funded activities in March after the money dried up suddenly. But it kept the most critical services going in northeastern Badakhshan province and the capital Kabul through its own budget, a measure that stopped this month.
Its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul is empty and closing this week. There are no patients, and staff contracts are ending because of the US funding cuts.
“If we don’t treat children with acute malnutrition there is a very high risk of (them) dying,” Action Against Hunger’s country director, Cobi Rietveld, told The Associated Press. “No child should die because of malnutrition. If we don’t fight hunger, people will die of hunger. If they don’t get medical care, there is a high risk of dying. They don’t get medical care, they die.”
More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2024. Decades of conflict — including the 20-year US war with the Taliban — as well as entrenched poverty and climate shocks have contributed to the country’s humanitarian crisis.
Last year, the United States provided 43 percent of all international humanitarian funding to Afghanistan.
Rietveld said there were other nongovernmental organizations dealing with funding cuts to Afghanistan. “So when we cut the funding, there will be more children who are going to die of malnutrition.”
The children who came to the feeding unit often could not walk or even crawl. Sometimes they were unable to eat because they didn’t have the energy. All the services were provided free of charge, including three meals a day.
Rietveld said children would need to be referred to other places, where there was less capacity and technical knowledge.
Dr. Abdul Hamid Salehi said Afghan mothers were facing a crisis. Poverty levels among families meant it was impossible to treat severely malnourished children in private clinics.
“People used to come to us in large numbers, and they are still hoping and waiting for this funding to be found again or for someone to sponsor us so that we can resume our work and start serving patients once more.”
Magnitude 5.6 earthquake strikes Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan, EMSC says
- EMSC first reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.4
KABUL: An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.
The quake was at a depth of 121 km (75 miles), EMSC said, and the epicenter 164 km east of Baghlan, a city with a population of about 108,000.
EMSC first reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.4.
US plans to use tariff negotiations to isolate China, WSJ reports
- US officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries and prevent Chinese firms from being located in their territories to avoid US tariffs
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure US trading partners to limit their dealings with China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing people with knowledge of the conversations.
US officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries and prevent Chinese firms from being located in their territories to avoid US tariffs, the report added.
UNICEF projects 20 percent drop in 2026 funding after US cuts
- UNICEF has implemented some efficiency measures but “more cost-cutting steps will be required,” said the spokesperson
UNITED NATIONS: UNICEF has projected that its 2026 budget will shrink by at least 20 percent compared to 2024, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency said on Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump slashed global humanitarian aid.
In 2024, UNICEF had a budget of $8.9 billion and this year it has an estimated budget of $8.5 billion. The funding for 2025 is “evolving,” the UNICEF spokesperson said.
“The last few weeks have made clear that humanitarian and development organizations around the world, including many UN organizations, are in the midst of a global funding crisis. UNICEF has not been spared,” said the spokesperson.
UNICEF did not specifically name the US, but Washington has long been the agency’s largest donor, contributing more than $800 million in 2024. Since UNICEF was established in 1946, all its executive directors have been American.
“At the moment, we are working off preliminary projections that our financial resources will be, at a minimum, 20 percent less, organization wide, in 2026 compared to 2024,” said the UNICEF spokesperson.
Since returning to office in January for a second term, Trump’s administration has cut billions of dollars in foreign assistance in a review that aimed to ensure programs align with his “America First” foreign policy.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that it will cut 20 percent of its staff as it faces a shortfall of $58 million, after its largest donor, the United States, cut funding.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also last month said he is seeking ways to improve efficiency and cut costs as the world body turns 80 this year amid a cash crisis.
UNICEF has implemented some efficiency measures but “more cost-cutting steps will be required,” said the spokesperson.
“We are looking at every aspect of our operation, including staffing, with the goal of focusing on what truly matters for children: that children survive and thrive,” the spokesperson said. “But no final decisions have been taken.”
Justice Department can cut funding for legal guidance for people facing deportation, US judge says
- The main reason for falling prey to immigration scams is the lack of legitimate legal help, said immigrants at the hearing
A federal judge has allowed the US Department of Justice to temporarily stop funding legal education programs for people facing deportation or immigration court while a lawsuit brought by the organizations that provide the service moves forward in court.
The decision from US District Judge Randolph D. Moss in Washington, D.C., means a coalition of nonprofit groups that offer the education programs will lose their federal funding on Wednesday – and possibly, some access to potential clients inside detention centers.
Unlike criminal cases, people in immigration courts and detention centers don’t have a right to an attorney if they can’t afford one themselves. Proponents of the legal education programs say they ease the burden on immigration judges and help immigrants navigate the complicated court system more efficiently.
Congress allocates $29 million a year for four programs — the Legal Orientation Program, the Immigration Court Helpdesk, the Family Group Legal Orientation and the Counsel for Children Initiative — and those groups spread the funding to subcontractors nationwide.
The Justice Department first instructed the nonprofit groups to “stop work immediately” on the programs on Jan. 22, citing an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting illegal immigration.
The nonprofit groups about a week later, and the Justice Department then rescinded the stop-work order. But on April 11, the agency said it was terminating its contracts with the groups nationwide, effective at 12:01 a.m. on April 16.
During a hearing Tuesday afternoon, Moss told attorneys on both sides that he wanted more information about exactly how the Department of Justice came to its decision to end the contracts, any plans for spending the earmarked money in the future, as well as any problems the nonprofit groups run into as they try to provide legal information to detained non-citizens in the coming weeks.
The judge also said he wanted to issue a final decision in the case quickly, and set a hearing for a preliminary injunction and possible final decision for May 14.
A few blocks away from the federal immigration courts in New York City, a leader of the one affected program testified at a city council hearing on immigration fraud.
“We’re often the first attorneys people are able to speak to about their immigration cases,” said Hannah Strauss, an immigration lawyer who supervises a team triaging cases Supervising Attorney of the Immigration Court Helpdesk run by Catholic Charities.
New York state is one of only six states in the US where more than half of immigrants are represented by an attorney in pending immigration cases, according to government data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. That’s thanks in part to state and city grants, as well as a large pool of lawyers who volunteer. But federal funding forms an important part of the system.
Strauss said the $1.2 million federal grant covering New York covered the helpdesk, a skeleton crew relied upon by other NGOs to screen immigration referrals and by immigration judges to explain the basics on laws regarding asylum and other forms of legal immigration.
“Unfortunately today marks the final day of both ICH and FGLOP, as the federal government has chosen to terminate our contracts as of midnight tonight,” Strauss, referring to her organization and the Family Group Legal Orientation Program, run by Acacia Center for Justice.
The main reason for falling prey to immigration scams is the lack of legitimate legal help, said immigrants at the hearing. The immigrants testified without using their names, citing fear they could become targets of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for speaking out, but details they shared were representative of cases that have been investigated by federal prosecutors, costing immigrants thousands of dollars and sometimes ruining their cases.In the hearing, the city council discussed ways to crack down on immigration service providers advertising exaggerated or outright fraudulent services.
For example, it’s considering increasing funding for civil enforcement of business laws through the city’s consumer protection department. The agency uses investigators, sometimes undercover, to investigate violations that can lead to civil penalties, or referrals to criminal prosecutors.
