GENEVA: Half of Yemen’s children under 5 are acutely malnourished and more than half a million suffer from potentially fatal food deprivation, the UN said on Tuesday.
The children’s agency UNICEF warned that a decade of conflict had stolen childhoods and left an entire generation fighting to survive, and the humanitarian crisis was escalating.
Malnutrition was “agonizing, life-threatening, and entirely preventable,” the agency’s Yemen representative Peter Hawkins said. “It weakens immune systems, stunts growth, and robs children of their potential. In Yemen, it is not just a health crisis — it is a death sentence for thousands.”
US President Donald Trump imposed a freeze on foreign aid in January and canceled most programs run by the US Agency for International Development. “The issue with the USAID cuts is that they diminished the capacity overall here in Yemen quite extensively,” Hawkins said.
While UNICEF has been able to continue nutritional programmes, he said these needed to be complemented by food and cash assistance for an optimum nutritional crisis response, with those areas now compromised. “And therefore it makes our job much more difficult,” he said.
“Without urgent resources, we cannot sustain even the minimal services we are able to provide in the face of growing needs. Yemen’s children cannot wait another decade.”
Half of children in Yemen starving, UN says
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Half of children in Yemen starving, UN says
Laylat Al-Qadr: Worshippers pack Holy Mosques for 27th night of Ramadan
- Makkah’s Grand Mosque received over 4 million and 200 thousand worshippers on Wednesday night
RIYADH: Millions of Muslims from around the world flocked to the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah for the 27th night of Ramadan, where they performed Taraweeh and Tahajjud prayers.
In a new record, the Grand Mosque received over 4 million and 200 thousand worshippers on Wednesday night, according to Al-Ekhbariya.
Worshippers were seeking Laylat Al-Qadr (The Night of Power), one of the most important nights in Islam and is, as stated in the Qur’an, better than a thousand months.
Laylat Al-Qadr falls within the final 10 days of Ramadan but its exact date remains unknown, however it’s widely regarded as falling on the 27th of Ramadan. Mislims are also encouraged to seek this night during the odd-numbered nights of the last 10 days.
Operational plans on Wednesday included preparing the Mataf (Area of Circumambulation) to accommodate 107,000 pilgrim per hour, ensuring a smooth movement inside the Grand Mosque.
Authorities have also equipped 428 escalators and 28 elevators and modern audio systems including 1,300 speakers, in addition to providing power sources with a capacity of up to 90,000 tons to cool the Grand Mosque.
The Makkah region Health Affairs Department has boosted its services through medical centers located within the Grand Mosque and its courtyards to provide medical services to pilgrims.
Canadian Prime Minister Carney calls Trump’s auto tariffs a ‘direct attack’ on his country
- Autos are Canada’s second largest export, and Carney noted it employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries
- The tax hike on auto imports starting in April means automakers could face higher costs and lower sales
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that US President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs are a “direct attack” on his country and that the trade war is hurting Americans, noting that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low.
Trump said earlier Wednesday that he was placing 25 percent tariffs on auto imports and, to underscore his intention, he stated “This is permanent.”
“This is a very direct attack,” Carney responded. “We will defend our workers. We will defend our companies. We will defend our country.”
Carney said he needs to see the details of Trump’s executive order before taking retaliatory measures. He called it unjustified and said he will leave the election campaign to go to Ottawa on Thursday to chair his special Cabinet committee on US relations.
Carney earlier announced a CA$2 billion ($1.4 billion) “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.
Autos are Canada’s second largest export, and Carney noted it employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries.
“Canada will be there for auto workers,” he said.
Trump previously granted a one-month exemption on his stiff new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada for US automakers.
The president has plunged the US into a global trade war — all while on-again, off-again new levies continue to escalate uncertainty.
The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its USconsumer confidence index fell 7.2 points in March to 92.9, the fourth straight monthly decline and its lowest reading since January of 2021.
“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt more. I see that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low,” Carney said earlier while campaigning in Windsor, Ontario ahead of Canada’s April 28 election.
The tax hike on auto imports starting in April means automakers could face higher costs and lower sales.
Trump previously 25 percent tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminum and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products — as well as all of America’s trading partners — on April 2.
“He wants to break us so America can own us,” Carney said. “And it will never ever happen because we just don’t look out for ourselves we look out for each other.”
Carney, former two-time central banker, made the earlier comments while campaigning against the backdrop of the Ambassador Bridge, which is considered the busiest US-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25 percent of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.
Carney said the bridge carries $140 billion Canadian dollars ($98 billion) in goods every year and CA$400 million ($281 million) per day.
“Now those numbers and the jobs and the paychecks that depend on that are in question,” Carney said. “The relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. We did not change it.”
In the auto sector, parts can go back and forth across the Canada-US border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, whose province has the bulk of Canada’s auto industry, Ford said auto plants on both sides the border will shut simultaneously if the tariffs go ahead.
“President is calling it Liberation Day. I call it Termination Day for American workers. I know President Trump likes tell people ‘Your fired!” I didn’t think he meant US auto workers when he said it,” Ford said.
Trump has declared a trade war on his northern neighbor and continues to call for Canada to become the 51st state, a position that has infuriated Canadians.
Canadians booed Trump repeatedly at a Carney election rally in Kitchener, Ontario.
The new prime minister, sworn in March 14, still hasn’t had a phone call with Trump. It is unusual for a US president and Canadian prime minister to go so long without talking after a new leader takes office.
“It would be appropriate that the president and I speak given the action that he has taken. I’m sure that will happen soon,” Carney said.
Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said the tariffs will damage American auto workers just as they will damage Canadian auto workers.
“The message to President Trump should be to knock it off,” Poilievre said. “He’s changed his mind before. He’s done this twice, puts them on, takes them off. We can suspect that may well happen again.”
Hamas spokesperson Qanoua killed in Israeli airstrike, Al-Aqsa TV reports
- Al-Qanoua was killed when his tent was targeted in Jabalia in northern Gaza
- Earlier this week, Israel killed senior leaders Ismail Barhoum and Salah Al-Bardaweel
CAIRO: Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua has been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza, Hamas-affiliated media said early on Thursday, the latest group figure to be killed since Israel resumed its operations in the enclave.
Al-Qanoua was killed when his tent was targeted in Jabalia, the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television said. The same strike wounded several people, while separate attacks killed at least six in Gaza City and one in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, medical sources said.
Earlier this week, Israel killed Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas’ political office, and Salah Al-Bardaweel, another senior leader.
Both Bardaweel and Barhoum were members of the 20-member Hamas decision-making body, the political office, 11 of whom have been killed since the start of the war in late 2023, according to Hamas sources.
Last week, Israel ended a two-month-old ceasefire by resuming bombing and ground operations, increasing pressure on Hamas to free the remaining hostages in its captivity.
At least 830 people, over half of them children and women, have been killed since Israel resumed major military strikes in Gaza on March 18, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel and Hamas accused each other of breaching the truce. It had broadly held since January and offered respite from war for the 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza, which has been reduced to rubble.
Hamas, which still holds 59 of the 250 or so hostages Israel says the group seized in its October 7, 2023 attack, accused Israel of jeopardizing efforts by mediators to negotiate a permanent deal to end the fighting.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals to secure a ceasefire extension. He repeated threats on Wednesday to seize territory in Gaza if Hamas failed to release the remaining hostages it still holds.
Child slips through fencing at White House and is intercepted by Secret Service
- Similar intrusions have happened at th White House before, including in April 2023 when a toddler squeezed through the metal fencing
WASHINGTON: A child slipped through fencing outside the White House on Wednesday and was intercepted by Secret Service officers.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said the young trespasser squeezed through the fence on the North Lawn around 6:30 p.m., about an hour after President Donald Trump announced planned auto tariffs from the Oval Office.
“Officers quickly reunited the child with their parents without incident,” Guglielmi said in a social media post.
Video posted on social media shows an armed officer carrying a young child wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt across the lawn before handing off the child to another officer.
Such intrusions have happened before. In April 2023, a toddler squeezed through the metal fencing, also on the North Lawn, and was later reunited with his parents, who were briefly questioned.
It was bacteria — not a miracle — on a communion wafer in US church
- The host, or bread, with red marks had fallen out of a Mass kit at St. Anthony Church in Morris, Indiana
- A biochemical analysis revealed only “fungus and three different species of bacteria, all of which are commonly found on human hands”
MORRIS, Indiana: A laboratory analysis turned up nothing miraculous about red marks found on a Communion wafer at a Catholic church in Indiana.
The discovery at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Morris was unusual enough for a formal inspection, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said.
But a biochemical analysis revealed only “fungus and three different species of bacteria, all of which are commonly found on human hands,” the archdiocese said Monday, adding that no blood was found.
The Catholic faith teaches that wine and a bread wafer signify the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Typically, they’re consecrated by a priest at Mass.
The host, or bread, with red marks had fallen out of a Mass kit at St. Anthony Church.
“Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, there have been well-documented miracles and apparitions, and each has been thoroughly and carefully reviewed,” the archdiocese said.
Before the analysis, some members of St. Anthony Church were excited about what might be found.
“We have such a little town. You can drive through and blink and you’re through it,” Shari Strassell, a church member, told WKRC-TV. “It means the world, it does, and I think there is something special about our church up here.”
