How conflict, climate shocks and collapsing aid budgets are pushing millions to the brink of starvation

The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises says that without urgent action, today’s shortages could spiral into a catastrophe for fragile parts of the Middle East and Africa. (AFP/File)
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Updated 09 June 2025
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How conflict, climate shocks and collapsing aid budgets are pushing millions to the brink of starvation

  • Global hunger has reached an unprecedented tipping point, as rates of acute food insecurity and malnutrition rise for the sixth consecutive year
  • Nearly 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women and girls, reflecting a stark reflection of systemic gender inequality

DUBAI: There is more than enough food in the world to feed the entire global population, yet 733 million people still go hungry, including 38 million children under five years of age, according to the latest aid agency data.

Global hunger has reached an unprecedented tipping point, with 343 million people across 74 countries deemed acutely food insecure, Stephen Anderson, a representative of the World Food Programme in the GCC, told Arab News.

“This figure represents a 10 percent increase from the previous year and is just shy of the record number seen during the pandemic,” he said. 




Infographic from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises

Anderson said that WFP is supporting about 123 million of the most vulnerable — but nearly half of them (58 million) are at risk of losing food assistance due to funding shortages.

The 2025 Global Report on Food Crises delivers a stark warning — that without urgent action, today’s crisis could spiral into a full-blown catastrophe across some of the world’s most fragile regions.

UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Joyce Azzam said that hunger is no longer a problem of supply — it is a matter of justice.




UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Joyce Azzam. (X: @joyceazzamoffcl)

Hunger today isn’t caused by a lack of food — it’s caused by a lack of fairness,” Azzam told Arab News. “We’re still treating it like a temporary emergency instead of the ongoing crisis that it is.”

Azzam described hunger not as a side-effect, but as a symptom of broken systems, deep inequality and prolonged neglect.

“Unless we confront those root causes — not just with aid, but with bold policy and deep empathy — this trend won’t just continue, it will accelerate.”

The GRFC report, based on consensus among partner organizations, echoed recent WFP findings, revealing that 295.3 million people across 53 countries faced acute food insecurity in 2024.




Infographic from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises

It shows an increase of 13.7 million people facing acute food security from 2023, marking the sixth consecutive year of rising hunger.

“The year 2024 marked the worst year on record since GRFC tracking began in 2016,” Anderson said.

Catastrophic hunger — known as “Phase 5,” which indicates “extreme lack of food, starvation, death, destruction and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels” under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — doubled to 1.9 million people, 95 percent of whom are in Gaza and Sudan.




Infographic from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises

Famine was officially declared in Gaza in 2024. Conditions have now worsened as a result of an 11-week aid blockade imposed by Israeli authorities on March 2.

Since then, at least 29 children and elderly people have died from starvation-related causes, according to Palestinian health authorities. Aid agencies fear the real figure could be far higher.

Azzam said that events in Gaza reflect a broader pattern in which hunger is being weaponized.

“In these regions — hunger is being used as a weapon. It’s deliberate. And it’s devastating,” she said, recalling her own life growing up amid the Lebanese civil war. “Hunger during conflict is about so much more than food. It’s about dignity being stripped away, day by day.”




A child cries as Palestinians gather to receive a hot meal at a food distribution point in the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)

As of the latest assessment in March 2024, the IPC Famine Review Committee classified the entire population of Gaza as being in IPC Phase 3 or higher, meaning everyone is in crisis, emergency, or catastrophic food insecurity.

More than 500,000 people — roughly one in every four Gazans — were assessed to be in IPC Phase 5.

Sudan faces a similarly dire scenario. Famine was officially declared in multiple regions of the country as a result of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Since the start of the war in April 2023, which has devastated infrastructure, disrupted agricultural production and severely limited humanitarian access, nearly 12 million people have been forced from their homes, leading to widespread displacement.




People who fled the Zamzam camp for the internally displaced after it fell under RSF control, queue for food rations in a makeshift encampment in an open field near the town of Tawila in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region on April 13, 2025. (AFP/File)

The deteriorating situation has exacerbated food insecurity, leading to famine conditions in August 2024.

In Yemen, the hunger crisis has also intensified in 2025, with the WFP warning that more than 17 million people — nearly half the population — are facing acute food insecurity. This figure is projected to rise to 19 million by the end of the year.

“Protracted wars also inflate food prices and we see this in Yemen where staple costs rose 300 percent since 2015, paralyzing markets,” Anderson said.

More than a decade of conflict has devastated the country’s economy, healthcare system and infrastructure, leaving more than half the population reliant on humanitarian aid.




Yemenis wait to collect humanitarian aid provided by a Kuwaiti charitable organization to people displaced by conflict, on March 19, 2024, on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Marib. (AFP/File)

However, soaring needs continue to outpace funding and resources.

“These funding gaps have forced WFP to cut rations for 40 percent of the people we served in 2023, as was the case in Yemen and Afghanistan,” Anderson said.

Malnutrition in Yemen is also surging, particularly among women and children.

WFP and UNICEF report that 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished — more than 537,000 of them severely so — while 1.4 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are also affected.




In Yemen, some 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, with more than 537,000 categorized as severe cases. (AFP/File)

In the western coastal region of Hodeidah, malnutrition rates have exceeded 33 percent, with dwindling aid and funding cuts forcing the WFP to scale back food distributions.

Children and pregnant or breastfeeding women are among the hardest hit in food-insecure regions. According to the WFP, 60 percent of the people who are experiencing chronic hunger are women and girls — a number that reflects systemic inequalities.

“When food becomes scarce, women and girls are the first to feel it — and the last to be prioritized,” Azzam said. “We cannot address hunger without addressing gender. Period.”

She added: “That’s not just a statistic — it reflects deep, structural inequality. In many households, women skip meals so their children or husbands can eat. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are especially vulnerable, and often face severe malnutrition without access to basic healthcare.”

This is echoed in the GRFC report, which found that 10.9 million pregnant or breastfeeding women across 22 countries are acutely malnourished.




Infographic from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises

Azzam also pointed out that hunger has particularly devastating effects on adolescent girls, who are often pulled out of school — not only because of poverty, but because they are expected to support their families, care for siblings, or earn an income.

In some of the most desperate situations, families may even marry off their daughters to reduce the number of mouths to feed and gain short-term financial relief.

“Hunger also increases the risk of gender-based violence,” Azzam said. “When resources are scarce and systems collapse, exploitation and abuse rise — especially for women and girls.”

Other factors driving food insecurity include climate-related disasters, such as droughts and floods intensified by the El Nino effect, a natural climate phenomenon that occurs when surface ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm.




Infographic from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises

In 2024, this phenomenon affected 96 million people across 18 countries, more specifically in southern Africa, southern Asia and the Horn of Africa, the GRFC report found.

In the Horn of Africa, successive droughts between 2020 and 2024 — followed by severe flooding — have devastated pastoral livelihoods, Anderson said.

Somalia, for instance, saw its cereal output plummet by 50 percent in 2023. In the Sahel, erratic rainfall and advancing desertification have also taken a toll. “Niger’s millet production dropped 30 percent,” Anderson added.

These environmental shocks are now colliding with conflict. “In Mali and Burkina Faso, climate and insecurity are trapping communities in hunger cycles,” he said.

A




People wait for food distributions and health services at a camp for internally displaced persons in Baidoa, Somalia, on February 14, 2022. (AFP/File)

zzam, who holds a PhD in environmental management, warned that the world is witnessing a “dangerous unraveling” of the systems that once sustained vulnerable communities.

“When fragile communities are hit by climate shocks — floods, droughts, desertification — they don’t just lose crops. They lose soil, homes, water sources, entire ways of life,” she said.

Azzam called for urgent investment in “climate-smart, locally-led solutions,” including regenerative agriculture and sustainable water systems.

Economic shocks, including inflation and currency devaluation, have compounded the problem, pushing some 59.4 million people into hunger.




Infographic from the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises

“Combined with economic instability, many are left with no choice but to migrate, abandon their land or depend entirely on aid — a cycle that leaves little room for recovery,” Azzam said.

If current trends continue, “entire regions could become uninhabitable,” leading to mass displacement, overcrowded urban centers and increased conflict over dwindling resources, she said.

“Most tragically, we’ll see children growing up malnourished, undereducated and cut off from opportunity — a lost generation shaped by crisis,” she added.

To make matters worse, significant cuts to humanitarian spending by the world’s biggest state donors have led to the suspension of nutrition services for more than 14 million children in vulnerable regions, according to the GRFC report. 




UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.P/File)

“The Global Report on Food Crises reflects a world dangerously off course,” said Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, responding to the findings.

In light of these alarming trends, the GRFC called for a comprehensive humanitarian reset — urging ceasefires in conflict zones such as Gaza and Sudan, investment in resilient local food systems, debt relief, and scaled-up climate adaptation to protect the most vulnerable.

“Without urgent, committed action, the gap between those who need help and those who receive it will only grow,” Azzam said. “And in that gap, lives are lost — not because we couldn’t act, but because we didn’t.”
 

 


State prosecution in firebombing attack on demonstration for Israeli hostages moves ahead

Updated 16 July 2025
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State prosecution in firebombing attack on demonstration for Israeli hostages moves ahead

  • Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, had been living in the US illegally with his family at the time

DENVER: A judge ruled Tuesday that Colorado prosecutors can move ahead with their case against a man accused of killing one person and injuring a dozen more in a firebomb attack on demonstrators showing support for Israeli hostages in Gaza.
A police detective had been set to testify at a hearing explaining the evidence gathered against Mohamed Sabry Soliman in the June 1 attack on the weekly event in Boulder. But Soliman’s lawyer, Kathryn Herold, told Judge Nancy W. Salomone that he gave up his right to hear the evidence.
Soliman, wearing an orange and white striped jail uniform, told Salomone that he understood he was waiving his right to a hearing following a discussion with his lawyers Monday.
Despite that, prosecutors and victims who sat across the courtroom from Soliman or watched the hearing online were caught off guard by the decision.
Salomone said the case would now move ahead to an arraignment and scheduled a Sept. 9 hearing for Soliman to enter a plea to murder, attempted murder and other charges over the defense’s objection.
Herold said Soliman would not be ready to enter a plea then because of the large amount of evidence in the case and the murder charges recently added against him following the death of Karen Diamond, an 82-year-old woman injured in the attack. Herold said she expected to ask for the arraignment hearing to be delayed and suggested that a plea deal was possible.
20th Judicial District Attorney Michael Dougherty objected to a delay, saying any discussions could happen before and after an arraignment. He declined to comment on the possibility of a deal after the hearing.
Investigators say Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly event on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall. But he threw just two of more than two dozen Molotov cocktails he had with him while yelling, “Free Palestine!” Police said he told them he got scared because he had never hurt anyone before.
Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, had been living in the US illegally with his family at the time.
Soliman has pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges and is scheduled to go on trial in federal court in Denver in September. However, his lawyers told US District Judge John L. Kane last week that they expect to ask for a delay.
Additional charges related to Diamond’s death could also slow down the federal proceedings. Assistant US Attorney Laura Cramer-Babycz told Kane that prosecutors have not decided yet whether to file additional charges against Soliman.
Federal prosecutors allege the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual connection to Israel. But Soliman’s federal defense lawyers say he should not have been charged with hate crimes because the evidence shows he was motivated by opposition to Zionism, the political movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.
An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.
State prosecutors have identified 29 victims in the attack. Thirteen of them were physically injured, and the others were nearby and are considered victims because they could have been hurt. A dog was also injured in the attack, so Soliman has also been charged with animal cruelty.

 


Pentagon ends deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles

California National Guard are positioned at the Federal Building, June 10, 2025, in downtown Los Angeles. (AP)
Updated 16 July 2025
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Pentagon ends deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles

  • A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way

LOS ANGELES: The Pentagon said Tuesday it is ending the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, accounting for nearly half of the soldiers sent to the city to deal with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines have been in the city since early June. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the 60-day deployment to end suddenly, nor was it immediately clear how long the rest of the troops would stay in the region.
In late June, the top military commander in charge of troops deployed to LA had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for 200 of them to be returned to wildfire fighting duty amid warnings from Newsom that the Guard was understaffed as California entered peak wildfire season.
The end of the deployment comes a week after federal authorities and National Guard troops arrived at MacArthur Park with guns and horses in an operation that ended abruptly. Although the US Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t explain the purpose of the operation or whether anyone had been arrested, local officials said it seemed designed to sow fear.
“Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement in announcing the decision.
On June 8, thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to Trump’s deployment of the Guard, blocking off a major freeway as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire.
A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way.
Mayor Karen Bass set a curfew in place for about a week that she said had successfully protected businesses and helped restore order. Demonstrations in the city and the region in recent weeks have been largely small impromptu protests around arrests.
Bass applauded the troops’ departure.
“This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong. We organized peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court — all of this led to today’s retreat,” she said in a statement, adding that “We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.”
On Tuesday afternoon, there was no visible military presence outside the federal complex downtown that had been the center of early protests and where National Guard troops first stood guard before the Marines were assigned to protect federal buildings. Hundreds of the soldiers have been accompanying agents on immigration operations.
President Donald Trump ordered the deployment against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued to stop it.
Newsom sued to block Trump’s command of the California National Guard, arguing that Trump violated the law when he deployed the troops despite his opposition. He also argued that the National Guard troops were likely violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on US soil.
Newsom won an early victory in the case after a federal judge ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and exceeded Trump’s authority. But an appeals court tossed that order, and control of the troops remained with the federal government. The federal court is set to hear arguments next month on whether the troops are violating the Posse Comitatus Act.
The deployment of National Guard troops was for 60 days, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had the discretion to shorten or extend it “to flexibly respond to the evolving situation on the ground,” the Trump administration’s lawyers wrote in a June 23 filing in the legal case.
Following the Pentagon’s decision Tuesday, Newsom said in a statement that the National Guard’s deployment to Los Angeles County has pulled troops away from their families and civilian work “to serve as political pawns for the President.”
He added that the remaining troops “continue without a mission, without direction and without any hopes of returning to help their communities.”
“We call on Trump and the Department of Defense to end this theater and send everyone home now,” he said.
 

 


Trump unveils investments to power AI boom

Updated 16 July 2025
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Trump unveils investments to power AI boom

PITTSBURGH: US President Donald Trump went to Pennsylvania on Tuesday to announce $92 billion in energy and infrastructure deals intended to meet big tech’s soaring demand for electricity to fuel the AI boom.
Trump made the announcement at the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University, with much of the talk about beating China in the global AI race.
“Today’s commitments are ensuring that the future is going to be designed, built and made right here in Pennsylvania and right here in Pittsburgh, and I have to say, right here in the United States of America,” Trump said at the event.
The tech world has fully embraced generative AI as the next wave of technology, but fears are growing that its massive electricity needs cannot be met by current infrastructure, particularly in the United States.
Generative AI requires enormous computing power, mainly to run the energy-hungry processors from Nvidia, the California-based company that has become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization.
Officials expect that by 2028, tech companies will need as much as five gigawatts of power for AI — enough electricity to power roughly five million homes.
Top executives from Palantir, Anthropic, Exxon and Chevron attended the event.
The funding will cover new data centers, power generation, grid infrastructure, AI training, and apprenticeship programs.
Among investments, Google committed $25 billion to build AI-ready data centers in Pennsylvania and surrounding regions.
“We support President Trump’s clear and urgent direction that our nation invest in AI... so that America can continue to lead in AI,” said Ruth Porat, Google’s president and chief investment officer.
The search engine giant also announced a partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to modernize two hydropower facilities in Pennsylvania, representing 670 MW of capacity on the regional grid.
Investment group Blackstone pledged more than $25 billion to fund new data centers and energy infrastructure.
US Senator David McCormick, from Pennsylvania, said the investments “are of enormous consequence to Pennsylvania, but they are also crucial to the future of the nation.”
His comments reflect the growing sentiment in Washington that the United States must not lose ground to China in the race to develop AI.
“We are way ahead of China and the plants are starting up, the construction is starting up,” Trump said.
The US president launched the “Stargate” project in January, aimed at investing up to $500 billion in US AI infrastructure — primarily in response to growing competition with China.
Japanese tech investor SoftBank, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and Oracle are investing $100 billion in the initial phase.
Trump has also reversed many policies adopted by the previous Biden administration that imposed checks on developing powerful AI algorithms and limits on exports of advanced technology to certain allied countries.
He is expected to outline his own blueprint for AI advancement later this month.


UK union leaders say Met police charges against Palestine activists an attack on right to protest

Updated 15 July 2025
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UK union leaders say Met police charges against Palestine activists an attack on right to protest

  • In January, the Metropolitan Police arrested over 70 people in a pro-Palestine protest, including several prominent activists
  • Union leaders called for the Met to drop charges against former NEU executive member, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

LONDON: Over 20 prominent union leaders in the UK have raised concerns about the erosion of the right to peaceful protest in the country and about the Metropolitan Police’s handling of pro-Palestinian marches.

The 22 trade union leaders criticized in a joint statement on Tuesday the Met’s decision to charge former union members who were arrested during a London protest in solidarity with Palestine.

The Met arrested over 70 people in a pro-Palestine protest on Jan. 18 in London. Among those detained were Alex Kenny, a former executive member of the National Education Union; Sophie Bolt, the general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign; and Chris Nineham, the vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition.

The union leaders referred to the arrests and charges against Kenny and Bolt as a threat to the right to protest.

“Alex Kenny is a long-standing, and widely respected, trade union activist who has organised peaceful demonstrations in London for decades,” they said in a statement.

“We believe these charges are an attack on our right to protest. The right to protest is fundamental to trade unions and the wider movement. The freedoms to organise, of assembly and of speech matter; we must defend them,” they added.

They called for the Met to drop charges against Kenny, Bolt, Nineham, and Jamal.

The signatories include Paul Nowak from the Trades Union Congress, Christina McAnea from Unison, Daniel Kebede from the NEU, Matt Wrack from the Teachers’ Union, Dave Ward of the Communication Workers Union, Mick Whelan of the train drivers’ union ASLEF, and Eddie Dempsey from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers.

They said the decision to charge Kenny and Bolt follows the prosecution of Nineham and Jamal.

Amnesty International, along with dozens of legal experts, expressed concerns over the Met’s handling of the pro-Palestine protest in January, with some describing the arrests as “a disproportionate, unwarranted and dangerous assault on the right to assembly and protest.”

At the protest, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell were interviewed under caution and released pending further investigations. MPs and peers have also called on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to review protest legislation introduced by the former Conservative government.


Europeans open to buying US arms for Ukraine under Trump plan but need details 

Updated 15 July 2025
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Europeans open to buying US arms for Ukraine under Trump plan but need details 

  • “Of course we can’t do it on our own, we need others to partner up,” Rasmussen told reporters
  • European ministers said they would now need to examine how new purchases of US weapons could be paid for

BRUSSELS: Several European countries said on Tuesday they were willing to buy US arms for Ukraine under a scheme announced by US President Donald Trump, although arrangements still needed to be worked out.

Trump said on Monday that Washington will supply Patriot air defense systems, missiles and other weaponry to Ukraine for its war against Russia’s invasion and that the arms would be paid for by other NATO countries.

But much remains undisclosed, including the amounts and precise types of weapons to be provided, how quickly they would be supplied and how they would be paid for.

US officials have suggested that European countries will be willing to give up some of their own stocks of weapons for Ukraine and then buy replacements from the United States. But some of the countries involved say they still don’t even know what is being asked of them.

Such a move would get weapons to Ukraine more quickly but would leave donor countries’ defenses more exposed until new systems are ready.

“We are ready to participate. Of course we can’t do it on our own, we need others to partner up – but we have a readiness,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of European Union ministers.

Speaking alongside Trump at the White House on Monday, NATO chief Mark Rutte said that Germany, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada want to be part of the new initiative.

Many of those countries have been among the biggest military aid donors to Ukraine, either overall or per capita.

Asked whether Denmark could give US arms from its own stocks as part of the scheme, Rasmussen said: “We don’t have these kind of systems – the Patriot systems – so if we should lean in, and we are absolutely ready to do so, it will be (with) money and we have to work out the details.”

European ministers said they would now need to examine how new purchases of US weapons could be paid for. In many cases, that seems likely to involve countries teaming up to buy US weapons systems.

“Now we need to see how together we can go in and finance, among other things, Patriots, which they plan to send to Ukraine,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told Swedish radio.

In Brussels, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said his country is looking into the plan “with a positive inclination”.

Asked about the scheme, Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik told Reuters that Oslo was “in close dialogue with Ukraine” on military aid and “air defense remains a high priority for Ukraine and for the Norwegian military support”.

“Norway has contributed to significant amounts of air defense for Ukraine, including co-financing the donation of a Patriot system and missiles,” he said.

The Finnish Defense Ministry said Helsinki “will continue to provide material support to Ukraine”.

“The details of the US initiative ... are not yet known and we are interested to hear more about them before we can take more concrete lines on this issue,” it said.