WHO says 80 percent of Afghanistan operations risk shutdown by June

WHO says 80 percent of Afghanistan operations risk shutdown by June
Afghan burqa-clad women health workers administer polio vaccine drops to a child during a campaign in Jalalabad on August 21, 2023. (AFP/ file)
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Updated 17 March 2025
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WHO says 80 percent of Afghanistan operations risk shutdown by June

WHO says 80 percent of Afghanistan operations risk shutdown by June
  • The UN health agency has been sounding the alarm since US President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the agency
  • This pullout and the end of Washington’s contributions put at risk the global measles surveillance network, which until now has been entirely funded by US

KABUL: The World Health Organization said Monday 80 percent of services that it supports in Afghanistan could shut down by June due to a funding shortage.
The UN health agency said the cash shortfall, which comes amid massive US aid cuts, is tied to a shift in “development aid priorities.”
“Without urgent intervention, over 220 more facilities could close by June 2025, leaving an additional 1.8 million Afghans without access to primary health care,” WHO said in a statement.
The agency said that 167 such operations have already closed due to a lack of financial support.
“The consequences will be measured in lives lost,” said WHO’s Afghanistan chief Edwin Ceniza Salvador.
“This is not just about funding. It is a humanitarian emergency that threatens to undo years of progress in strengthening Afghanistan’s health system,” Salvador added.
WHO has been sounding the alarm since US President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the agency.
This pullout and the end of Washington’s contributions put at risk the global measles surveillance network, which until now has been entirely funded by Washington.
Afghanistan saw more than 16,000 suspected measles cases and 111 deaths in January and February, according to WHO.
The figures are disputed by the Taliban authorities, who returned to power in 2021 with the ousting of the US-backed government.
The Taliban government is not recognized internationally and relies largely on NGOs, UN agencies and aid donors to keep the health system afloat.
WHO said Afghanistan is also facing “multiple health emergencies,” including outbreaks of malaria and dengue.
There are ongoing efforts to vaccinate enough children to eradicate polio, which remains endemic in only two countries: Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
The lack of funds has also hit Save the Children, which said last week 18 health facilities supported by the charity and its partners have closed.
“Only 14 Save the Children clinics have enough funding to remain open for one more month, and without new financial support, they will be forced to close. These 32 clinics supported over 134,000 children in January alone,” the charity said.
In addition, Afghanistan suffers one of the world’s highest maternal mortality ratios of 638 per 100,000 live births.
This is likely to worsen due to the US funding cuts, with the UN forecasting an additional 1,200 maternal deaths between now and 2028.
Malnutrition is also widespread in the country, which is facing economic, humanitarian and climate crises after being battered by four decades of war.
Ten percent of children under five are malnourished and 45 percent are stunted, the UN says.
 


Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats
Updated 16 sec ago
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Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

Maduro calls Rubio ‘imbecile’ over Venezuela threats

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday slammed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as an “imbecile” following the American’s warning to Caracas against attacking its oil-rich neighbor Guyana.
“There goes the imbecile Marco Rubio threatening Venezuela from Guyana. No one threatens Venezuela because this is the homeland of the liberators,” Maduro said.


German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane

German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
Updated 16 min 29 sec ago
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German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane

German air force wards off Russian reconnaissance plane
  • Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022

BERLIN: A Russian reconnaissance aircraft approached northeastern Germany on Thursday before it was escorted away by fighter jets, the German air force said.
The air force said on its Whatsapp communication channel that its Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) was activated at the Laage air base near Rostock, on the Baltic coast in the northeast.
“The reason was an unknown aeroplane over the Baltic Sea, which was flying without a flight plan or activated transponder,” the air force said in the message, which confirmed an earlier press report in Bild.
German Eurofighter jets were scrambled to identify the Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance plane, which was subsequently “escorted” back toward the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, from where it was first tracked.
Bild said the Russian aircraft was found early Thursday east of the German Baltic island Rugen from where it was heading toward “German air space.”
The fact that the aircraft’s transponder was deactivated presented “a considerable danger to civilian air traffic,” Bild said.
Military sources quoted by Bild said that Russian reconnaissance planes were occasionally identified off the German coast.
Many NATO nations have a QRA system to help protect their air space.
Tensions over the Baltic Sea have heightened since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
 


Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages

Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages
Updated 25 min 45 sec ago
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Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages

Judge orders Trump administration to preserve Yemen attack plan messages
  • A government accountability group sued federal agencies involved in the chat on Tuesday, alleging that the use of Signal, which allows for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain time span, violated a federal record-keeping

WASHINGTON: A US judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to preserve messages sent on the Signal messaging app discussing attack plans against the Houthis in Yemen that became public after they were inadvertently shared with a journalist.
The order from US District Judge James Boasberg requires federal agencies whose leaders participated in the chat, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, to maintain all messages sent through Signal from March 11 until March 15, the period during which an editor for The Atlantic magazine documented activity in the chat.
A lawyer for the Trump administration earlier said federal agencies were already working to determine what records still existed so they could be preserved.
American Oversight, a government accountability group, sued federal agencies involved in the chat on Tuesday, alleging that the use of Signal, which allows for messages to be automatically deleted after a certain time span, violated a federal record-keeping law.
“We are grateful for the judge’s bench ruling to halt any further destruction of these critical records. The public has a right to know how decisions about war and national security are made — and accountability doesn’t disappear just because a message was set to auto-delete,” Chioma Chukwu, American Oversight’s interim executive director, said in a statement.

Text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen are shown during a US House of Representatives hearing on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images via AFP)


The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Atlantic magazine published on Wednesday messages it said were exchanged in the group after Trump administration officials said they were not classified in an attempt to play down the impact of the breach.
The messages revealed discussions among senior national security officials about planned military strikes targeting the Houthi militant group. Hegseth shared information about the timing of attacks on March 15, including one aimed at someone identified in the chat as a terrorist, hours before the attack began, according to the report.
The existence of the group chat, and the inadvertent disclosure of messages to a journalist, has sparked a brewing controversy over the Trump administration’s treatment of sensitive military and intelligence information.
The lawsuit was unrelated to the national security implications of the disclosure and instead focused on American Oversight’s claim that the messages should count as government records that agencies are legally required to preserve.


Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia

Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia
Updated 40 min 46 sec ago
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Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia

Fears mount over resurgence of extremism in Somalia
  • Al-Shabab militia shows signs of resurgence after making gains in strategic regions, analysts say

MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al-Shabab militia shows signs of resurgence after making gains in strategic regions and coming close to assassinating the president with a roadside bomb last week.

The extremist group was on the defensive in 2022 and 2023 after a concerted military push by the government and its international partners.

However, analysts say those gains are being reversed at a time when support from the US and African Union is looking increasingly shaky.

The group has seized key locations in Middle and Lower Shabelle, coastal regions on either side of the capital Mogadishu.

And a bomb blast that narrowly missed the convoy of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 18 showed that Al-Shabab again poses a significant risk in the capital itself.

On Wednesday, Somali officials said the group had taken control of the center of a key town in Middle Shabelle, Masaajid Cali Gaduud.

That came just a day after the president traveled to the region in a high-profile bid to push back the militants.

“There were explosions and heavy gunfire this morning,” Abdulkadi Hassan, resident of a nearby village, said by phone.

“The Somali government forces and local community militias have retreated from the town, and Al-Shabab are now in control.”

Analyst Matt Bryden, co-founder of research group Sahan and an expert on the conflict, said this was typical of recent clashes.

He said the government had lost strategic chokepoints, including three of four bridges in Lower Shabelle.

“We see the evidence of an army in disarray and in retreat,” said Bryden.

He said the government was enlisting clan militias, police and prison guards — “throwing everything it has into the war effort.”

“People in Mogadishu also are beginning to fear the government is not capable of securing the city and that there’s a chance of Al-Shabab fully encircling or possibly even at one stage overrunning the city,” said Bryden.

The president has remained defiant, establishing a temporary headquarters in Cadale, about 220 km north of Mogadishu.

“The war will not stop; we are not coming back from where we are now, and we will attain the victory we seek,” Mohamud told troops gathered at nearby Adale earlier this week.

However, the government faces the threat of reduced international support.

African Union-led forces began supporting the Somali government in 2007, eventually becoming the largest multilateral peacekeeping force in the world, with more than 20,000 troops at its peak.

Although renewed under a new name, the AU Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, in January, Washington has yet to confirm its crucial financial contribution.

“Security assistance for the government is being cut, particularly the American assistance, but probably European contributions will shrink as well,” said Bryden.

“The combination of these factors raises the possibility that from July, but possibly even sooner, the balance of forces will shift increasingly toward Al-Shabab,” he said.

Other analysts say Al-Shabab is still far from threatening the capital, and its advances come from the government taking its eye off the ball.

“The government’s been more focused on politics, on other issues,” said Omar Mahmood of International Crisis Group.

He said Al-Shabab had been exploiting local clan grievances in Middle Shabelle and a broader uncertainty around the president’s struggles to introduce direct elections.

“The country is not united right now ... and part of this has to do with politics around the constitution and electoral plans that the government is trying to institute,” said Mahmood.

Al-Shabab “probably saw this as an opportune time to strike ... But this is a long-standing war. I see it as closer to a stalemate than anything else.

“I don’t see this narrative where there’s this march toward Mogadishu right now,” he said.


Peshawar’s iconic Sunehri Mosque sees surge of devotees in Ramadan

Peshawar’s iconic Sunehri Mosque sees surge of devotees in Ramadan
Updated 54 min 25 sec ago
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Peshawar’s iconic Sunehri Mosque sees surge of devotees in Ramadan

Peshawar’s iconic Sunehri Mosque sees surge of devotees in Ramadan
  • Foundation stone for mosque laid in 1946, Sunehri Masjid is famous for its gold domes, tall minarets and Mughal architecture
  • Worshippers frequent Sunehri Masjid, with capacity for 6,000 people, during Ramadan to offer prayers, recite Qur’an, attend large congregations

Peshawar: The 39-meter tall minaret is the first thing that comes into view when one arrives close to the street in Peshawar’s main Saddar Bazaar where the majestic Sunehri Masjid is located. 

Known for its considerable size, built over an impressive 1,670 sq. meters, and Mughal-style architecture, the Sunehri, or Golden, Mosque in the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is one of the most iconic masjids in the region.

The mosque can accommodate at least 6,000 worshippers, making it ideal for the month of Ramadan when believers flock to mosques for Tarawih — special, voluntary prayers performed typically after the Isha (night) prayer, and considered a highly recommended Sunnah, or practice of the Prophet Muhammad.

The foundation stone of the mosque was laid by Habib Ur Rehman, a Peshawar resident, in 1946 but construction work was hit by delays due unavailability of funds and security issues, and was completed in 1992, primarily funded by public donations. 

Rehman modeled the mosque after Lahore’s iconic Badshahi Mosque, built by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the prayer leader at Sunehri Masjid, Maulana Muhammad Ismail, told Arab News. 

“The foundation stone of our mosque was laid in 1946, but the situation deteriorated in Pakistan due to the wars (of 1965 and 1971), so work was stopped for a little time,” he said. 

Explaining the architecture, Ismail said that the central minaret, a hallmark of the mosque, was built at 39 meters (128 feet) so it could be seen from far-flung areas in Peshawar at a time when there were few tall buildings in the city.

“The need for the construction of the 128-feet-high minaret at that time was that our organizers thought that the azaan (call to prayer) of the Sunehri Masjid should reach far-flung areas,” Ismail said.

The mosque is built with red bricks and famed for its signature gold domes and intricate Mughal-style architecture that features arches, domes and pointed cupolas atop the minarets.

In Ramadan, more worshippers than usual throng to the Sunehri Masjid, filling up its halls and prayer rooms as they seek to deepen their connection with Allah, earn rewards, and ask for forgiveness from sins.

Imran Khan, 38, is one such devotee who has been offering prayers at the mosque for the past 12 years.

“This is a beautiful mosque, I come here every Ramadan to worship and recite (the Qur’an),” Khan told Arab News. “I especially visit a lot in Ramadan when I get the chance.”

Khawar Rehman, a Peshawar resident who had come for Asr prayers at the mosque, said that he frequented the place as he liked worshiping in a “known mosque” like the Sunehri Masjid. 

“This mosque has larger congregations and better rewards,” he said, “so I like to come here.”