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Across Myanmar and in the refugee camps along its borders, the suffering unleashed by the United States' gutting of its foreign aid program has been severe and deadly, particularly for children, The Associated Press found. In interviews with 21 Myanmar refugees, five people trapped in internment camps inside Myanmar and 40 aid workers, medics and researchers, the AP uncovered widespread devastation due to President Donald Trump's dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. Children are screaming for food, safehouses that sheltered dissidents have shuttered and people must forage for hours in the jungle each day to survive. Here are the key takeaways from AP's investigation, as told through the people who have been impacted: The funding cuts have been fatal Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as h
Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the US for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa hit hard by aid cuts South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the ..
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for seeking additional funds from the US to hold polls in the war-torn country and asserted that he is on his way to becoming the party's nominee for the 2024 presidential elections. In an interview with Fox News, Ramaswamy, 38, defended his statement that he would cut aid to Ukraine if elected as the US president. I have a problem with appeasement too, but I want to be very clear. We have to level with the American people here. Just because Putin is an evil dictator -- and he is -- does not mean that Ukraine is good, he said. This (Ukraine) is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties. This is a country that has consolidated all media into one state media arm, whose president just last week was praising a Nazi in his own ranks, has threatened the United States not to hold its own normal elections this year unless it gets more funding, Ramaswamy said. Now polling third and ..
Global stock markets and Wall Street futures rose Tuesday as Liz Truss prepared to become British prime minister and Europe wrestled with uncertainty about Russian gas supplies. London and Frankfurt opened higher. Shanghai and Tokyo gained. Benchmark US crude rose more than $2 per barrel. The euro edged higher against the dollar. European markets were jolted by Friday's announcement that the suspension of Russian gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would be extended indefinitely. Shortages have pushed up prices and weigh on economic growth. Truss will have to hit the ground running as the U.K. prepares for a brutal winter," Craig Erlam of Oanda said in a report. Noting news reports that Truss plans to freeze energy bills, Erlam said the question is what impact it will have on inflation and gas demand. In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London rose 0.3% to 7,307.22 and Frankfurt's DAX advanced 0.4% to 12,816.01. The CAC 40 in France gained 0.2% to 6,103.77. On Wall Stree