LONDON: Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged Britain not to cut overseas aid, ahead of a major announcement by the country’s finance minister on Wednesday.
Rishi Sunak is expected to suspend a legal commitment to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income on international development.
Reports suggest he will cut the level of aid to 0.5 percent in his Spending Review, as the government seeks to support the coronavirus-ravaged economy and looks for savings from an aid budget worth £15 billion ($20 billion, EUR17 billion).
In a tweet late on Tuesday, Yousafzai reminded Sunak and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the 0.7 percent pledge, renewed in last year’s Conservative election manifesto.
“When you announce spending priorities... I hope you’ll deliver on that promise,” she wrote.
The Pakistani education campaigner wrote that leaders must “prioritize education” as “Covid-19 could force 20 million more girls out of school.”
Her plea came as five former prime ministers also opposed the planned cut.
Among them was former Conservative leader John Major, quoted by The Times newspaper on Wednesday as saying the spending cut was “morally wrong and politically unwise.”
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair said on Saturday that Britain’s overseas aid budget had an impact “measured literally in millions of lives.”
David Cameron, whose coalition government enshrined the 0.7 percent in law, has said abandoning it would be a “moral, strategic and political mistake.”
Johnson’s government has repeatedly committed to maintaining the spending and his Conservatives made it a key plank of the election manifesto last year.
The government also promised not to grab ring-fenced aid money when it merged the foreign and development ministries earlier this year.
But Sunak on Sunday told Sky News the UK was under “enormous pressure and stress” and faced an “economic shock.”
Any cut — even a temporary one — is likely to trigger a battle with Conservative MPs.
Tom Tugendhat, who chairs parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in The Times: “If we cut aid we’ll fall behind.”
He retweeted Yousafzai’s message, saying the UK needs “others to join us” as other G7 nations spend less on foreign aid.
The leaders of 187 charities including Save the Children, Greenpeace UK and Christian Aid on Friday urged Johnson not to cut the aid budget.
Don’t cut foreign aid, Malala Yousafzai urges UK
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Don’t cut foreign aid, Malala Yousafzai urges UK
- The British finance minister is expected to suspend a legal commitment to spend 0.7 percent of gross national income on international development
Colorado funeral home owner who abused nearly 200 corpses gets 40 years
- Hallford’s attorney unsuccessfully sought a 30 year sentence, arguing that it was not a crime of violence
COLORADO SPRINGS: A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed 189 decomposing bodies in a building over four years and gave grieving families fake ashes was sentenced to 40 years in state prison on Friday.
During the sentencing hearing, family members told Judge Eric Bentley they have had recurring nightmares about decomposing flesh and maggots since learning what happened to their loved ones.
They called defendant Jon Hallford a “monster” and urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence of 50 years.
Bentley told Hallford he caused “unspeakable and incomprehensible” harm. “It is my personal belief that every one of us, every human being, is basically good at the core, but we live in a world that tests that belief every day, and Mr. Hallford your crimes are testing that belief,” Bentley said.
Hallford apologized before his sentencing and said he would regret his actions for the rest of his life. “I had so many chances to put a stop to everything and walk away, but I did not,” he said. “My mistakes will echo for a generation. Everything I did was wrong.”
Hallford’s attorney unsuccessfully sought a 30 year sentence, arguing that it was not a crime of violence and he had no prior criminal record.
His former wife, Carie Hallford, who co-owned the Return to Nature Funeral Home, is due to be sentenced April 24. She faces 25 to 35 years in prison.
Both pleaded guilty in December to nearly 200 counts of corpse abuse under an agreement with prosecutors.
During the years they were stashing bodies, the Hallfords spent lavishly. That included purchasing a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, pricey goods from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co. and laser body sculpting.
