UNITED NATIONS, United States: The United States has ended emergency food aid for 14 countries, endangering the lives of millions of hungry or starving people, a United Nations agency said Monday.
The World Food Program (WFP), which was already grappling with a 40 percent drop in funding for this year, said it had been advised of the new American aid halt to 14 countries.
In comments on X, the agency did not name these countries.
“If implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” the agency said.
The WFP is not the only UN body hit by US funding cuts, as the United States under President Donald Trump turns sharply inward and stops trying to help other countries around the world as part of an isolationist agenda.
The Trump administration told the UN Population Fund, an agency dedicated to promoting sexual and reproductive health, that it was ending two programs, the organization told AFP Monday.
One of programs was for Afghanistan, while the other involved Syria.
Other countries besides the United States have also announced funding cuts in recent months, causing alarm among NGOs and international organizations.
The Trump administration has largely gutted USAID, the main US humanitarian assistance organization. It previously had a yearly budget of $42.8 billion, which was 42 percent of all aid money disbursed around the world.
US aid cuts a ‘death sentence’ for millions: UN
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US aid cuts a ‘death sentence’ for millions: UN
- The Trump administration has largely gutted USAID, the main US humanitarian assistance organization
Moscow records heaviest snowfall in over 200 years
- Commuter trains in the Moscow area were delayed and cars were stuck in long traffic jams on Thursday evening
- Snow piles on the ground reached as high as 60 centimeters in some parts of the capital
MOSCOW: Russia’s capital Moscow has this month seen the largest snowfall in more than 200 years, Moscow State University meteorologists said on Thursday.
AFP images from the city of around 13 million people showed residents struggling to make their way through heavy piles of snow on the streets in its central district.
Commuter trains in the Moscow area were delayed, AFP reporters witnessed, and cars were stuck in long traffic jams on Thursday evening.
“January was a cold and unusually snowy month in Moscow,” the university said on social media.
“By January 29, the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory had recorded almost 92 mm of precipitation, which is already the highest value in the last 203 years,” it added.
Snow piles on the ground reached as high as 60 centimeters (24 inches) in some parts of the capital on Thursday.
Snow is mostly air, meaning the level of settled snow far surpasses scientific measurements of precipitation — which measures the amount of water that has fallen.
The record snowfall was “caused by deep and extensive cyclones with sharp atmospheric fronts passing over the Moscow region,” the observatory said.
“There was much more (snow) when I was a kid, but now we practically don’t have any snow at all, there used to be much more,” Pavel, a 35-year-old bartender and Moscow resident, told AFP, grumbling about a feeling of “emptiness” in the dark, snowy winter.
Earlier this month, Russia’s far east Kamchatka region declared an emergency situation due to a massive snowstorm that left its major city partially paralyzed.
Images, widely circulated online, showed huge snow piles reaching up to the second story of buildings and people digging their way through roads as snow blanketed cars on either side.
