Latest news with #FoodProgramme
Time of India
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Jeffrey Sachs exposes US, Israel's role in Syrian conflict
Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Nuh Yilmaz, World Food Programme Chief Operating Officer Carl Skau, U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen and U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network President Jeffrey Sachs participate in a panel discussion titled 'Syria: Reconstructing and Reconciling the Country' at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. Exposing the US and Israel's role in the Syrian crisis, Jeffrey Sachs said, "American interference, at the behest of Netanyahu's far-right Israel, has left the Middle East in ruins." Show more Show less
Business Recorder
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Gaza still waiting for aid as pressure mounts on Israel
CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Palestinians in Gaza were left waiting for the promised arrival of food on Wednesday despite mounting international and domestic pressure on the Israeli government to allow more aid to reach a population on the brink of famine after an 11-week blockade. Fewer than 100 aid trucks have entered Gaza, according to Israeli military figures, since Monday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government agreed to lift the blockade that has forced Gazans into a desperate struggle to survive. With air strikes and tank fire continuing to pound the enclave, killing dozens of people on Wednesday, local bakers and transport operators said they had yet to see fresh supplies of flour and other essentials. Abdel-Nasser Al-Ajramy, the head of the bakery owners' society, said at least 25 bakeries that were told they would receive flour from the World Food Programme had seen nothing and there was no relief from the hunger for people waiting for food. No aid has been distributed yet in Gaza, UN says 'There is no flour, no food, no water,' said Sabah Warsh Agha, a 67-year-old woman from the northern Gaza town of BeitLahiya sheltering in a cluster of tents near to the beach in Gaza City. 'We used to get water from the pump, now the pump has stopped working. There is no diesel or gas.' The resumption of the assault on Gaza since March, following a two-month ceasefire, has drawn condemnation from countries that have long been cautious about expressing open criticism of Israel. Even the United States, the country's most important ally, has shown signs of losing patience with Netanyahu. Britain has suspended talks with Israel on a free trade deal, and the European Union said it will review a pact onpolitical and economic ties over the 'catastrophic situation' in Gaza. Britain, France and Canada have threatened 'concrete actions' if Israel continues its offensive. 'Pariah state' Within Israel, left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan drew a furious response from the government and its supporters this week when he declared that 'A sane country doesn't kill babies as a hobby' and said Israel risked becoming a 'pariah state among the nations.' Golan, a former deputy commander of the Israeli military who went single-handedly to rescue victims of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, leads a party with little electoral clout. UK halts trade talks with Israel over Gaza But his words, and similar comments by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview with the BBC, underscored the deepening unease in Israel at the continuation of the war while 58 hostages remain in Gaza. Netanyahu dismissed the criticism. 'I heard Olmert and Yair Golan - and it's shocking,' he said in a videoed statement. 'While IDF soldiers are fighting Hamas, there are those who are strengthening the false propaganda against the State of Israel.' Opinion polls show widespread support for a ceasefire that would include the return of all the hostages, with a survey from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem this week showing 70% in favour of a deal. But hardliners in the cabinet, some of whom argue for the complete expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza, have insisted on continuing the war until 'final victory', which would include disarming Hamas as well as the return of the hostages. Netanyahu, trailing in the opinion polls and facing trial at home on corruption charges which he denies as well as an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court has so far sided with the hardliners. Netanyahu says Israel will control Gaza as aid trucks prepare to enter Air strikes and tank fire killed at least 34 people across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Palestinian health authorities said. The Israeli military said air strikes hit 115 targets, which it said included rocket launchers, tunnels and unspecified military infrastructure. As some trucks left Kerem Shalom, the sprawling customs and logistics hub at the south-eastern corner of the Gaza Strip, asmall group of Israeli protestors angry that any supplies were being let into Gaza while hostages were still held there triedto block them. Israel imposed the blockade at the beginning of March, saying Hamas was seizing supplies meant for civilians, a charge denied by the hamas. A new U.S.-backed system, using private contractors, is due to begin aid distribution in the near future but the plan has been criticized by aid groups and many key details remain unclear. The campaign has killed more than 53,600 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip, where aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.
BBC News
10-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Stockton children's food and holiday programme poorly attended
A holiday activities programme is to be overhauled after most of its places went Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) project in Stockton, which has been running for five years, offers activities including horse-riding, martial arts and paddle-boarding, as well as healthy meals. However, a review of the programme found that its booking system was "unfit for purpose" and, during Easter last year, 1,580 children and young people attended although there were 6,000 Council, which runs the programme with £1m from the Department for Education (DfE), said it offered balanced meals to children and "much-needed support" for families. The council select committee report found the booking system was not "user friendly".It also found parents and professionals did not know about the programme and many people did not realise they were eligible to take part, despite numerous promotion efforts. It also found low numbers of secondary school children and children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) were not taking up places, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said. The council said the programme offered an "astonishing" range of activities and it was working on providing SEND-only sessions in committee chair Carol Clark said: "These activities allow our children to have fun and make new friends as well supporting their development, including lifelong learning."The council is now considering 16 recommendations including a better booking system and promoting HAF with parish and town councils. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Business Mayor
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Mayor
The Guardian view on Israel's aid blockade of Gaza: hunger as a weapon of war
S hameful. That was the word that Gideon Sa'ar, Israel's foreign minister, used to describe proceedings at the international court of justice (ICJ) last Monday. The United Nations asked the court to determine whether Israel must allow aid to enter Gaza, two months after it cut it off again just before the ceasefire deal collapsed. Supplies are running out. Unicef says that thousands of children have already experienced acute malnutrition. Mr Sa'ar's complaint is that Israel is unfairly targeted. The separate international criminal court case against Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, the former defence minister, also focuses on the alleged starvation of civilians. It is true that withholding food is a common weapon in war, yet has rarely been the focus of international legal cases, in part because intent is hard to prove. It is the rhetoric of Israeli officials, suggests Dr Boyd van Dijk, an expert on the Geneva conventions, which has changed that. Last summer, Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, remarked that it might be 'justified and moral' to starve people if it brought home Israeli hostages seized in the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023, but that 'no one in the world will allow us'. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said last month that its 'policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza'. The far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, insisted that 'there is no reason for a single gram of food or any aid to enter' until hostages were freed. An aid ship destined for Gaza was attacked by drones and disabled on Friday. More than 52,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to its health authorities. Unicef says they include 15,000 children, with hundreds of deaths since the new Israeli offensive began in March. But withholding food kills just as bombs do. Farmland is devastated. Flour is said to cost 30 times more than before the war. Aid warehouses are empty. UN World Food Programme bakeries closed a month ago when supplies ran out; essential community kitchens are now following. Israeli officials have said they need to stop Hamas getting their hands on aid. It's obvious that men with guns will secure food long after others have starved. Donald Trump says that he has told Mr Netanyahu to allow aid in. Yet the US told the ICJ that Israel's security needs override its obligation to do so. The strong legal consensus is that occupying powers have an absolute duty under the Geneva conventions to permit food to be given to a population in need. Israel is reportedly planning to resume aid delivery 'in the coming weeks', but via a radically new mechanism. It claims the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, essential to humanitarian efforts, has been mass-infiltrated by Hamas – an allegation strongly disputed by the UN and others. The proposed alternative, of international organisations and private security contractors handing out food to individual families, looks both unworkable and dangerous for civilians. As Israel and the US attack international courts, other nations – including the UK – must do all they can to defend and bolster them. They must also press harder for the immediate resumption of aid. What is shameful about this ICJ case is the need to bring it. What is shameful is that almost half the children in Gaza questioned in a study said that they wished to die. What is shameful is that so many civilians have been killed, and so many more pushed to the brink of starvation. What is shameful is that this has, indeed, been allowed to happen. Read More Credit hire boom powers firm's 62% profit surge
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration says it cut funding to some UN food programmes by mistake
The US State Department said it had reversed an undisclosed number of sweeping funding cuts to UN World Food Programme emergency projects in 14 impoverished countries, saying it had terminated some of the contracts for life-saving aid by mistake. 'There were a few programmes that were cut in other countries that were not meant to be cut, that have been rolled back and put into place,' State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters. Ms Bruce said she had no immediate information on which countries had US funding for food aid restored after a days-long cut-off. She gave no explanation for how some contracts came to be cancelled in error. The World Food Programme did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The Associated Press reported on Monday that the Trump administration cut funding to WFP emergency programmes helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the agency and officials who spoke to the AP. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programmes and other life-and-death aid even as the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) dismantled the US Agency for International Development. All but several hundred of USAid's thousands of contracts for aid and development programmes abroad have been eliminated. The new cuts had hit some of the last remaining humanitarian programmes run by USAid. Notices sent over the last week had said US funding for WFP emergency programmes in 14 countries were among about 60 being cancelled in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America and the Pacific Islands 'for the convenience of the US Government'. Those latest terminations were at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top Doge lieutenant who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAid programmes, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP. The WFP, the world's largest provider of food aid, had publicly appealed to the US on Monday to reconsider cuts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for food programmes. 'This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,' WFP posted on X.
