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The United States slashing foreign aid risks piling pressure on already acute humanitarian crises across the globe, a World Health Organization official said Sunday, also warning against withdrawing from the UN agency.Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has effectively frozen foreign aid funding, moved to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other programmes, and announced plans to leave the WHO.Washington, which had long been the WHO’s biggest donor, did not pay its 2024 dues, and it remains unclear if the United States will meet its membership obligations for 2025The agency, already facing a gaping deficit this year, has proposed shrinking its budget by a fifth, likely reducing its reach and workforce, according to an earlier AFP report citing an internal email.”The WHO with its partners have a significant role in sustaining healthcare systems, rehabilitation of healthcare systems, emergency medical team training and dispatching, pre-placement of trauma kits,” Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, told AFP.”Many of these programmes have now stopped or are not going to be able to continue,” she said.The funding cuts will likely hinder the ability to continue delivering robust aid to communities in desperate need of care.Balkhy cited the ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, and Yemen as areas where healthcare institutions and aid programmes were already under pressure before the funding shakeups.In the Gaza Strip, where more than a year and a half of fighting has seen large swaths of the Palestinian territory reduced to rubble and few hospitals remain functioning, the public health situation is dire.”The emergency medical team support, procurement of the medications and the rehabilitation of the health care facilities, all of that has been immediately impacted by the freeze of the US support,” said Balkhy.In Sudan, the WHO is facing mounting issues amid a bloody civil war that has displaced millions, with several areas hit by at least three different disease outbreaks — malaria, dengue and cholera, according to Balkhy.”We work significantly to identify emerging and re-emerging pathogens to keep the Sudanese safe, but also to keep the rest of the world safe. So it will impact our ability to continue to do surveillance, detection of diseases,” she added.A US departure from the WHO will also undercut long established channels of communication with leading research facilities, universities and public health institutions that are based in the United States.That in turn would likely prevent the easy sharing of information and research, which is pivotal to heading off global public health crises like an emerging pandemic, said Balkhy.”These bacteria and viruses, number one, know no borders. Number two, they are ambivalent to what’s happening in the human political landscape.”

At first glance, there is nothing unusual about the bulky bulldozer turning up soil at a testing site in central Israel, but as it pulled closer it became clear: the driver’s cabin is eerily empty.This is the Robdozer, a fortified engineering vehicle manned remotely, and in this case operated from a military expo halfway across the globe in Alabama.Army engineers and military experts say that the Robdozer — the robotic version of Caterpillar’s D9 bulldozer — is the future of automated combat.The Israeli military has used D9 for years to carry out frontline tasks like trowelling roads for advancing troops, removing rubble and flattening terrain.But since war in Gaza broke out in October 2023 and later in Lebanon, the Israeli military has increasingly deployed this robotic version in a bid to enhance its field operations and reduce the risks to its troops.”The idea is to eliminate the person from the cockpit of the dozer,” said Rani, whose team at the state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries developed the Robdozer.During the Gaza war, the military has increasingly opted for the unmanned version, which can carry out a full range of tasks “even better than a human”, said Rani, using his first name only for security reasons.While such vehicles and other systems are currently operated by humans, future versions could be autonomous, raising ethical and legal concerns over the unchartered future of warfare being shaped by the Israeli military in the Gaza war.- ‘Changing the paradigm’ -Israel’s increasing use of advanced technology on the battlefield, from air defence systems to a broad range of AI-driven intelligence tools, has been well-documented but also criticised for inaccuracies, lack of human oversight and potential violations of international law.Analysts say the growing Israeli deployment of the Robdozer reflects broader global trends towards automation in heavy combat vehicles, like remote-controlled personnel carriers that operate much like drones.An Israeli military official, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, told AFP that the army has been using “robotic tools for over a decade, but in very small numbers. Now it is being used in large-scale warfare”.Troops can now operate machinery without having to enter enemy territory, said the official.Andrew Fox, a retired British army major and a research fellow at the London-based Henry Jackson Society, said the Israeli military was likely the first force to use remote-controlled combat machinery in an active war zone.”It’s a really big development” that is “changing the paradigm” of warfare, carrying out tasks as effectively but at a far reduced risk to personnel, he said.- New era -“This is the future,” said John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the US military’s Modern War Institute at West Point.Many “have been experimenting with it, but nobody has seen direct deployment into active modern combat,” he added. “It is very unique.”But beyond ethical and legal drawbacks to such advanced technology, there is also the need for an overriding human presence to make decisions particularly in unusual situations.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war was a disastrous example for that, when Palestinian militants breached the high-security border, said Tal Mimran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.”I think that October 7 showed us that you can build a wall that may cost $1 billion, but if you do not patrol the border, then someone will infiltrate your country,” said Mimran, a lecturer and researcher of international law who has been closely following the Israeli military’s technological developments.”We must take note of the opportunities and of the risks of technology,” he said.”This is the era in which artificial intelligence is exploding into our lives, and it is only natural that it will also have a manifestation in the security field.”

Qatar’s chief negotiator voiced frustration over talks for a truce in Gaza in an interview with AFP, a month after Israel resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory and another round of negotiations ended without a deal.”We’re definitely frustrated by the slowness, sometimes, of the process in the negotiation. This is an urgent matter. There are lives at stake here if this military operation continues day by day,” Mohammed Al-Khulaifi said on Friday.Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which came into force on January 19 and largely halted over a year of war triggered by Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.The initial phase of the truce ended in early March, with the two sides unable to agree on the next steps.Hamas has insisted that negotiations be held for a second phase to the truce, leading to a permanent end to the war, as outlined in the January framework.Israel, which had called for an extension to the opening phase, resumed air and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip on March 18 after earlier halting the entry of aid.Late on Thursday, Hamas signalled the group would not accept Israel’s newest proposal for a 45-day ceasefire. Israel had wanted the release of 10 living hostages held by the Palestinian group, the militant group said.- ‘Noise’ -“We’ve been working continuously in the last days to try to bring the parties together and revive the agreement that has been endorsed by the two sides,” the Qatari minister of state said.”And we will remain committed to this, in spite of the difficulties,” he added.During the long mediation process, Qatar has been the target of direct criticism from Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.At least two of Netanyahu’s aides are suspected of receiving payments from the Qatari government to promote Doha’s interests in Israel, prompting an Israeli criminal probe. Qatar has dismissed the attacks as a “smear campaign”.Earlier in March, an investigation by Israel’s domestic security agency attributed funds from the Gulf state to an increase in Hamas’s military strength before the October 7 attack. Qatar has rebuffed the accusation as “false”.”We’ve been receiving those types of criticism and negative comments since the early times of our involvement,” Al-Khulaifi said.”Critiques without any context, such as the ones that we keep hearing from Netanyahu himself, are often just noise,” he added.Al-Khulaifi rejected recent remarks from Netanyahu to the US-based evangelical Christian channel Daystar that Qatar had promoted “anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism” on US college campuses.- ‘De-escalation’ -“His claims about Qatar’s educational partnerships have been repeatedly disproven. Everything we do is transparent,” the Qatari official added.Qatar, with Al-Khulaifi as its lead negotiator, has emerged as a facilitator in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has flared in recent months, with the armed M23 group making a series of rapid gains in the country’s resource-rich east.In early March, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, who is accused of backing the M23, held surprise meetings in Doha and later expressed their support for a ceasefire.”This meeting happened to really find a pathway towards de-escalation and more of an agreement on an implementation mechanism,” Al-Khulaifi said.”We’ve managed to create this flexible line of communication between the two sides, and we’re hoping there are more successes than you can hear within the next days,” the Qatari minister added.Al-Khulaifi said following the meetings between the leaders that Qatar had convinced the M23, Rwanda and the DRC to “de-escalate” near the strategic mining hub of Walikale.This allowed “a process of withdrawing from Walikale to the eastern sides, to Goma. That movement by itself was, in our view, a positive development,” he added, referring to the M23-held capital of DR Congo’s North Kivu Province.Al-Khulaifi said the United States had been “a reliable partner” in DR Congo and he hoped to discuss the conflict with the US envoy for Africa, Massad Boulos, in Washington in the coming days.In the United States, Khulaifi said he would also raise the issue of ongoing sanctions on Syria following the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad.Along with Qatari funding for gas supplies to Syria, Qatar is discussing with regional partners an increase in public sector salaries in the country.”We’re discussing it very closely with our US colleagues to see, how can we move on within this project,” Al-Khulaifi said.

The United States and Iran made progress in a second round of high-stakes talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme on Saturday and agreed to meet again next week, both sides said.The Oman-mediated talks in Rome lasted about four hours, Iranian state television and a senior US official said. Tehran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi declared it a “good meeting” that yielded progress.”This time we managed to reach a better understanding on a series of principles and goals,” he told Iranian state TV.The senior US official said in a statement, “Today, in Rome over four hours in our second round of talks, we made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions.”Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the parties  “agreed to resume indirect talks at a technical level over the next few days and subsequently continue at the level of two senior negotiators next Saturday”, April 26.The US official confirmed another meeting next week but did not specify which day or where.Oman said the third round would be in Muscat, returning to the site of the first talks a week ago.Those were the first discussions at such a high level between the foes since US President Donald Trump abandoned a landmark nuclear accord in 2018.Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons — an allegation Tehran has consistently denied, insisting that its programme is for peaceful civilian purposes.After Saturday’s talks, Oman’s foreign ministry said Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had agreed to keep negotiating.The talks, it said, “aim to seal a fair, enduring and binding deal which will ensure Iran (is) completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions, and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy”.Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said the talks were “gaining momentum and now even the unlikely is possible”.Baqaei said the delegations had been “in two different rooms” at the Omani ambassador’s residence, with Albusaidi passing messages between them.Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.After returning to office in January, Trump revived his “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions against Iran.In March he wrote to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging renewed nuclear talks while also warning of military action if diplomacy failed.”I’m not in a rush” to use the military option, Trump said Thursday. “I think Iran wants to talk.”On Friday, Araghchi said Iran “observed a degree of seriousness” on the US side during the first round but questioned their “intentions and motivations”.- ‘Crucial stage’ -In an interview published Wednesday by French newspaper Le Monde, the United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said Iran was “not far” from possessing a nuclear bomb, noting a day later that talks were “at a very crucial stage”.During Trump’s first term, Washington withdrew from the 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers that offered Iran relief from international sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.Tehran complied with the agreement for a year after Trump’s withdrawal before scaling back its compliance.Araghchi was a negotiator of the 2015 deal. His US counterpart, Witkoff, is a real estate magnate Trump has also tasked with talks on Ukraine.Iran currently enriches uranium up to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent limit in the deal but still below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material.On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged European countries to decide whether to trigger the “snapback” mechanism under the 2015 agreement, which would automatically reinstate UN sanctions on Iran over its non-compliance.The option to trigger the mechanism expires in October.Iran has previously warned it could withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the mechanism were triggered.- ‘Non-negotiable’ -Analysts had said the United States would push to include discussions over Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its support for militants in the Middle East.But Araghchi said Saturday the US side had “not raised any issues unrelated to the nuclear topic so far”.He said earlier this week Iran’s right to enrich uranium was “non-negotiable”, after Witkoff called for its complete halt. Witkoff had previously demanded only that Iran return to the ceiling set by the 2015 deal.On Friday US ally Israel affirmed its commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, saying it had a “clear course of action” to do so — a stance Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Saturday.”I will not give up on this, I will not let go of it, and I will not retreat from it — not even by a millimetre,” he said.