US cuts intelligence sharing for Ukraine, adding pressure for Russia peace deal

GENEVA: The United Nations has released $110 million from an emergency fund to help neglected crises around the world, including Sudan, after donors like the United States ordered major cuts.
The UN forecasts that funding levels, which were dwindling long before US President Donald Trump ordered foreign aid frozen in January, are projected to drop to a record low this year.
The Trump administration announced last month it was canceling nearly 10,000 foreign aid grants and contracts worth almost $60 billion, ending about 90 percent of the US Agency for International Development global work.
Other donors like Britain have also announced cuts as countries face growing pressure to boost defense spending.
“For countries battered by conflict, climate change and economic turmoil, brutal funding cuts don’t mean that humanitarian needs disappear,” said Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
The UN is seeking $45 billion in 2025 to help around 185 million people fleeing conflict and battling starvation in what Fletcher described as “an unprecedented level of suffering.” So far it has received just 5 percent of this.
The money released from the Central Emergency Response Fund will go toward underfunded and neglected crises across Africa, Asia and Latin America, the UN statement said. Around a third of the money will go support Sudan, where nearly two years of civil war has triggered a huge displacement of people and a hunger crisis, and neighboring Chad which has taken in more than a million Sudanese refugees.
Other recipients include Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Niger and Somalia.

BRUSSELS: Facing the possibility of a fundamental disengagement under US President Donald Trump, European Union leaders opened a day of emergency summit talks Thursday to beef up their own military defenses and make sure that Ukraine will still be properly protected by its allies.
Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, was conferring with summit host Antonio Costa over breakfast on how to meet the challenge on a short deadline only days after he and his prospective coalition partner pushed plans to loosen the nation’s rules on running up debt to allow for higher defense spending.
At the same time, the 27-nation bloc was waking up to the news from French President Emmanuel Macron would confer with EU leaders the possibility of using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats.
It all underscored the sea change that has happened in the two months since Trump took office and immediately started questioning the cornerstones of cooperation between the United States and Europe which had been the bedrock of Western security since World War II.
“Given these profound shifts in US policy, and the existential threat of another war on the continent, Europe, must manage its essential defense tasks,” the European Policy Center think tank said in a commentary.
The bloc of 27 will “take decisive steps forward,” Macron told the French nation Wednesday evening. “Member states will be able to increase their military spending” and “massive joint funding will be provided to buy and produce some of the most innovative munitions, tanks, weapons and equipment in Europe.”
Adding to the ebullient message he said that “Europe’s future does not have to be decided in Washington or Moscow.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to be up to the task and has proposed an 800 billion euro ($840 billion) plan that would allow EU member states to spend much more on defense despite their current budgetary woes and profit from loans to kickstart the process.
Part of any plan is also to protect the increasingly beleaguered position of Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to take part in the talks.
Early this week, Trump ordered a pause to US military supplies to Ukraine as he sought to press Zelensky to engage in negotiations to end the war with Russia, bringing fresh urgency to the EU summit in Brussels.
“Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us have seen in our adult lifetime. Some of our fundamental assumptions are being undermined to their very core,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned in a letter to the EU’s 27 leaders, who will consider ways to access more money for defense spending and ease restrictions on it.
But perhaps the biggest challenge for the EU on Thursday will be to take a united stance at a moment when it’s fractured, since much of what the bloc does requires unanimous support.
Even if the challenges are so daunting, Thursday’s summit is unlikely to produce immediate decisions on spending for Ukraine or its own defenses. Another EU summit where the real contours of decisions would be much clearer is set for March 20-21.