Aid to 3.6 million Ethiopians overall is at risk unless new support is sourced, the World Food Programme warns. The World Food Programme (WFP) said it is suspending aid for 650,000 malnourished women and children in Ethiopia due to a lack of funding. The UN agency warned on Tuesday that 3.6 million people in Ethiopia overall are at risk of losing access to food aid in the coming weeks unless new financial support can urgently be sourced. “WFP is being forced to halt treatment for 650,000 malnourished women and children in May due to insufficient funding,” the UN agency said in a statement. The agency said it had planned to reach two million mothers and children with life-saving nutrition assistance in 2025 but will fall short due to a predicted funding shortfall of $222m between April and September. “Cash and in-kind food assistance for up to one million refugees will stop in June if additional funding is not received,” the agency warned. Like many aid agencies, the WFP is caught in the crosshairs of funding cuts instituted by the administration of United States President Donald Trump. Shortly after his inauguration in January, Trump signed an executive order freezing all foreign aid. Conflict, instability and drought are key reasons why more than 10 million of Ethiopia’s 130 million people face the threat of hunger, the UN agency said. The East African country is recovering from two years of brutal civil war between federal forces and rebels in the northern region of Tigray, which ended in November 2022 and killed at least 600,000 people. Tensions are again mounting between longtime foes Ethiopia and Eritrea over Addis Ababa’s quest for maritime access, causing fears of yet another conflict in the Horn of Africa barely seven years after the two neighbours restored ties. Continued violence and instability in Ethiopia’s Amhara region are also obstructing humanitarian operations, the WFP said, adding that below-average rainfall forecast through May in southeastern Ethiopia could further exacerbate conditions. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

World Food Programme says ‘severe funding shortfalls’ to force cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6 per person. The United Nations has warned that it will be forced to halve rations for about one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from next month due to a lack of funds. The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a letter on Wednesday that “severe funding shortfalls” are forcing a cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6 per person. “Unfortunately, we have still not received sufficient funding, and cost-saving measures alone are not enough,” the letter said. Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s top official overseeing Rohingya refugee camps, confirmed the slashing of the aid. “I received the letter confirming a $6.50 cut, which will take effect from April 1,” the Bangladesh refugee relief and repatriation commissioner said. “What they are receiving now is already not enough, so it’s hard to imagine the consequences of this new cut,” he told the Reuters news agency by phone. The WFP announcement comes days before a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is slated to meet Rohingya refugees to mark the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Bangladesh is sheltering more than one million Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority who fled violent purges in neighbouring Myanmar mostly in 2016 and 2017. They live in overcrowded camps in the southern district of Cox’s Bazar, where they have limited access to job opportunities and education. Successive aid cuts have already caused severe hardship among the Rohingya refugees, who are reliant on aid and suffer from rampant malnutrition. Bangladesh has struggled to support the refugees as the prospects of a wholesale return to Myanmar or resettlement elsewhere are remote. Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, said the food voucher cut is “a death sentence” for the Rohingya refugees, already enduring very dire situations. “WFP should emphasise reducing administrative costs and other expenses while increasing quotas for refugees to receive lifesaving support,” he told Al Jazeera. “International donors should prioritise life-saving efforts instead of spending funds on other purposes.” The funding gap is due to a broad shortfall in donations rather than a decision by President Donald Trump’s administration in the United States to cut its foreign aid globally, the WFP said, adding that US support for food aid for the Rohingya has continued. But the decision by the Trump administration to abruptly halt most US foreign aid will impact health facilities in the camps. Rahman said the cuts by Washington mean a “squeeze on operations” at hospitals in the Rohingya camps and in waste management and five US-funded hospitals have had to reduce services. He said if food were to be reduced, it would create a “grievous problem”. “These people are stateless, ill-fated and should not be suffering due to the funding crunch,” Rahman said. The US contributed more than 50 percent of the funds for the Rohingya humanitarian response in 2024, about $300m, Rahman said last month. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Friday said he feared a decrease in donor support would put the lives of thousands at risk. “If donor support decreases dramatically – which may happen – the huge work done by the Bangladesh government, aid agencies and refugees will be impacted, putting thousands at risk of hunger, disease and insecurity,” Grandi posted on X. A previous round of ration cuts to Rohingya in 2023, which reduced the amount of food rations to $8 monthly, led to a sharp increase in hunger and malnutrition, according to the UN. Within months, they said, 90 percent of the camp population “struggled to access an adequate diet” and more than 15 percent of children suffered from malnutrition, the highest rate recorded. The cut was later reversed. On Monday, the European Commission announced the allocation of 76 million euros ($79.4m) in humanitarian aid for Rohingya refugees and others affected by conflict in Myanmar. “The EU stands firmly with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, just as we have for the past seven years,” EU Crisis Commissioner Hadja Lahbib said. “With conflict still raging in Rakhine State and across Myanmar, their safe and dignified return remains out of reach,” said Lahbib, who visited refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar on Monday. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

Analysts mull if this isn’t the beginning of the end for the ‘rules-based order’, which has long been accused of hypocrisy. After more than a year of Israeli bombing, tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, and a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the world was largely united in saying “enough is enough”. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 12667 in December was clear in its demand: An immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Countries as diverse as Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Colombia echoed that call. And yet, bucking that consensus were nine “no” votes – chief among them, as is typical when it comes to resolutions calling for Israel to adhere to international law or human rights, was the United States. The US has provided unwavering support to Israel throughout its war on Gaza, even as Israel faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its prime minister has an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant to his name. Gaza had made the US choose openly between adhering to the international “rules-based order” – the system of laws and norms established in the wake of World War II to avoid wars and foster democracy – it claims to uphold, or support Israel. It chose the latter. The Democratic administration of former US President Joe Biden, which was in the last days of its tenure when it voted “no” on the UNGA resolution, repeatedly claimed to be acting in defence of the rules-based order – not least in its condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in all matters other than those related to Israel and Palestine. The US supported Ukraine as a country defending itself from an unjust invasion by a neighbour. In the Asia Pacific, it strengthened partnerships with allies threatened by potential Chinese expansionism, particularly Taiwan. But the first few weeks of US President Donald Trump’s second term upended all expectations. Now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy finds himself berated in the Oval Office by Trump and his Vice President JD Vance, who sent out friendly feelers to Russia. Greenland, Panama and one of the US’s closest allies, Canada, find themselves the subject of Trump’s imperialist rhetoric. Trump has made clear that the old rules are out of the window. His posture towards Ukraine and his push for trade tariffs against allies is part of an isolationist, “America First”, mentality – which sees the world’s issues as not the US’s business, and international cooperation as weak. Vance’s words at the Munich Security Conference in February – insinuating that European governments are authoritarian for not working with far-right parties – highlighted that Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement doesn’t see Europeans as allies, at least not if European leadership remains liberal and internationalist in nature. Is this a sign of things to come? Is the US moving away from its allies and abandoning the rules-based order? And was the rules-based order ever really international – or merely focused on furthering the interests of the West? The short answer: Trump’s current trajectory could mark the final end to a world order that has long faced accusations of double standards and selective application of international law. European leaders are already saying they need to defend themselves and the US cannot be trusted. Analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera believe that the rules-based order cannot survive this onslaught in its current form – it would have to adapt and change. At its heart, what we call the rules-based order is the bedrock of much of modern international relations. In intention, it is supposed to maintain stability, cooperation and a degree of predictability in the way states deal with each other. Emerging from World War II and the Holocaust, the rules-based order, underpinned by international law and multinational organisations like the UN, was intended to embody shared principles of sovereignty, self-determination, territorial integrity and dispute resolution through diplomacy rather than force. Its supporters, such as the US and Europe, argued the system promotes peace, democracy, human rights and economic stability. But it has its critics: Global South countries say its institutions are biased in favour of the West. That may be because the system emerged at a time when the US was able to cement itself as the global hegemon. Throughout its history, the rules-based order has been supported by the US’s economic, diplomatic and military heft. That only increased after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in 1991, when the US’s only real challenger for international dominance threw in the towel. The first few weeks of the second Trump presidency feel far away from that post-Cold War high, when Francis Fukuyama argued, in The End of History and the Last Man, that liberal democracy had won in the battle of global ideologies. Now, Trump tells Zelenskyy he does not “have the cards right now” in his country’s fight against Russian invasion, and demands a deal for Ukraine’s natural resources in return for support. For Europe, and the US under Biden, Ukraine’s battle was about sovereignty and defending democracy against autocracy. Those arguments do not interest Trump – who portrays himself as a “peacemaker”, but a realist one, who understands that might is right. An indifference to the principle of sovereignty can also be seen in Trump’s Gaza “plan”, which would involve the US takeover of the territory – and ethnically cleansing the Palestinians who live there. While he recently appeared to walk back his talk of expelling Palestinians, there is little indication that the idea is fully off the table. “Donald Trump’s willingness to betray Ukraine and his rejection of the basic principle of territorial sovereignty is consistent with simultaneously giving Israel a green light to proceed in ways that break the law and seem likely only to fuel an endless cycle of violence,” Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin, who previously worked at the ICJ, told Al Jazeera. And as for global free trade – one of the goals of the rules-based order – Trump sees it as a fool’s game, one in which the US has been “ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth”. Instead of a global spirit of cooperation underpinned by US leadership – however flawed that was in reality – Trump appears to see the reality of a multipolar world with spheres of influence, and little place for liberal ideals. That brings him in line with actors like Russia, and may explain why Trump seems, on occasion, to be more friendly when talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin than he is about European Union leaders. The Trump administration’s barely disguised contempt for traditional systems of global governance has prompted observers to suggest that the lip service paid to a rules-based order may be over and the world instead faces a return to “machtpolitik”: The pure, naked power that dominated international relations in the 19th century. Increasingly, Professor Michael Doyle of Columbia University explained, the reasons given for aggressive unilateral actions by powerful states are as brazen as they are self-serving. “What is new is the articulations of overwhelmingly imperial ambitions and purely acquisitive aims: Ukraine to restore the Russian empire, Greenland for minerals and sea lanes, Panama for naval control of sea lanes and to exclude China from the region,” Doyle told Al Jazeera. “There is no credible claim to self-defence or multilateral norms,” he continued, explaining that the world is experiencing a “return to the rules of 19th-century imperialism and the foreign policy norms of Mussolini and the other 1920s and 1930s fascists”. HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) agrees, but added: “It’s not inevitable, we could still redirect, but it’s still the direction of travel and has been for at least the last decade.” Faced with a US untethered from international norms, what action, if any, the international community can take to check its ambitions remains uncertain. Few mechanisms exist whereby states can directly influence the actions of others, and most still rely on economic dominance. Typically, in trying to enforce international law, countries can use sanctions, tariffs, trade embargoes, UN condemnation or can seek an ICJ ruling or a criminal trial against an individual in the ICC. Since the end of World War II, the US dollar has been the preferred reserve currency for many of the world’s central banks, meaning that any economic sanction that damages the dollar carries the risk of repercussions elsewhere. There is also the scale of the US economy to consider. As of 2023, the US generated about one-seventh of global gross domestic product (GDP), with much of the world dependent on it for trade and defence – dramatically reducing the likelihood of a state bringing a case against it. The chances of the ICC bringing a case against the US president on the grounds that Trump’s actions in the Palestinian territory amount to crimes covered by the ICC, such as war crimes or crimes against humanity, are also far from straightforward. “Any attempt to prosecute Trump at the ICC is a legal and political minefield that has virtually no prospect of success,” said Becker, who previously worked at the ICJ. “It could also lead to the entire unravelling of the Rome Statute system under US pressure,” he added, referring to the 1998 statute establishing the ICC, which the US signed but never ratified over concerns its citizens or military could be held to account by the court. “International law is fragile and far from perfect,” Becker said. “But defending some type of world public order not dictated by the whims of the most … powerful states requires other states to stand up and loudly and persistently protest the Trump administration’s actions,” he added. Whether the rules-based order is saved depends on what states are interested in pushing back against Trump. For Russia, China and others, an end to a system they often saw as focused in a purely non-Western direction, may be welcomed. In its own actions, the US has repeatedly acted as if it is beyond the law – for instance, through its invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as targeted assassinations without trial. But Washington has always been too strong to have international punishment imposed on it, despite rulings from the European Court of Human Rights that countries like Romania, Lithuania, Poland and North Macedonia had tortured prisoners on the US’s behalf during its extraordinary rendition programme – where civilians were abuducted and forcibly questioned – in 2012, 2014 and 2018. The US, which is not a party to the ICC, has protested the Court trying people from non-signatory states, like Israel, and has sanctioned members of the ICC after warrants were issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes committed in Gaza. Trump said the sanctions were because the ICC “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”. There is also little doubt that Israel’s war on Gaza in full view of the world has undermined the regard given to a rules-based order. When it comes to Israel, it is not just the US that turns a blind eye to the rules. So far, France, Hungary and Italy have said they will not enforce the ICC arrest warrants. Germany’s expected next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has said he will follow suit. “Israel has waged a war on Gaza for 16 months in complete defiance of international law,” RUSI’s Hellyer said. “The ICJ is hearing a case on genocide and the ICC has indicted Israel’s prime minister, and the response from far too many in the West has been to find all sorts of excuses not to arrest Netanyahu, in a way that they never would with Putin, who was also indicted. “We can’t claim to uphold a rules-based order when it comes to Ukraine, bemoaning America’s failure to stand by it, for example, but then allow for a complete abrogation of that order when it comes to Gaza,” he continued. “To quote [Jordanian Foreign Minister] Ayman Safadi: ‘Gaza has not only become a graveyard for children. It has become a graveyard for international law, a shameful stain on the whole international order.'” According to Karim Emile Bitar, a professor of international relations at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut, the collapse or fundamental weakening of the “so-called liberal-based order” would at least mark an end to the hypocrisy that has characterised its rule for many. “It has always been perceived in the Global South as highly hypocritical because allies of the United States were always shielded from attacks,” he told Al Jazeera. “Even when they were violating human rights, violating international law, trampling on all UN resolutions. They got a free pass, whereas countries that were opposing the superpowers were often targeted.” For it to carry weight, “international law has to apply to everybody”, said Hellyer. “When it isn’t, it sends a clear message worldwide… This is very dangerous and it goes way beyond Israel, Gaza and Ukraine. “An end to multilateralism means we’re less equipped to face the next crisis, whether that’s a health crisis, or the next war,” he added. Where that leaves small states and the Global South remains to be seen. In the short term, at least, those who would first pay the price of the collapse in the rules-based order would be “the Palestinian people and many other small states who were the victims of proxy wars and those exposed to aggressive neighbours”, Bitar said. Without the protection of a rules-based system, Taiwan faces far more of a threat from China, the imperfect solutions of the 1990s, such as the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War, could fall apart, and without international human rights standards, minorities like the Uyghurs in China have even less chance of justice. Bitar believes any hope of a resurgence of any kind of a rules-based order after the war on Gaza is, at best, unlikely. “It took World War II to see the emergence of international institutions and a world based on rule of law,” he said. “Once this has been dismantled … it will be extremely difficult to rebuild it from scratch.” Instead, the world order may be reduced to one of competing spheres of influence, with much of the world’s politics divided between the US, Russia, China and an unmoored Europe. What is more concerning, Bitar pointed out, is that the collapse of a global governance system is concomitant with what he sees as the collapse of democracy in its most vocal upholders in the West. “We are witnessing the rise of what some call illiberal democracies,” said Bitar. “And, simultaneously, the emergence of some sort of oligarchy or plutocracy, where the strongest and the richest rule without any checks and balances.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

The US vote against Ukraine and Europe’s UN resolution reflects larger policy changes of the Trump administration. Ukraine war: US voted against a UN resolution naming Russia as an aggressor After three years of steadfastly supporting Ukraine, the United States made a sharp turn and voted against a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution condemning Russia for its invasion. The US also filed its own resolution on Monday – one that did not explicitly blame Russia for the conflict and called for an end to the war on neutral terms. These moves reflect the growing divide between the US and Europe, as well as the shift in Washington’s policy on Ukraine under the administration of US President Donald Trump. Here’s what you need to know about the shift in policy: The US was one of 18 countries to vote against the resolution titled, “Advancing a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”. The resolution the US opposed clearly acknowledged that it was Moscow, and not Kyiv, that started this ongoing war in 2022, and called for UNGA members to reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity”. It also asked members to reaffirm that it is illegal for land to be taken by force or the threat of force and called for both sides of the conflict to comply with international law and protect civilians, “especially women and children”. Perhaps most significantly, it demanded that Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine and end the war. The US, alongside Russia, North Korea, Hungary, Israel and a handful of other countries, voted against the resolution. The US proposed its own resolution in the UNGA, titled, “The path to peace”, calling for a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine, but without handing out blame on who started the war. The resolution mourned “the tragic loss of life throughout the Russian Federation-Ukraine conflict.” Additionally, it reiterated that the UN’s purpose was to maintain international peace and to “peacefully settle disputes”. But France made amendments to that draft, adding references to Moscow’s full-scale invasion and to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This resolution was then passed by the UNGA, with 93 votes in favour, 8 against, and 73 abstentions. The US abstained from voting on this resolution. However, the US then pushed the original draft of the resolution to the UN Security Council (UNSC). It passed by a vote of 10-0 with five abstaining – the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia. UNSC resolutions are legally binding and UNGA resolutions are not, but reflect and sometimes influence how the world perceives a conflict. Since the war began, the US has voted in favour of six UNGA resolutions that were similar to the two passed on Monday. With the UNSC paralysed by Russia’s ability to veto, the UNGA has become an important body for resolutions on Ukraine. Here are six previous UNGA resolutions that passed: Only one UNSC resolution focusing on Russia’s war on Ukraine has passed. This was on February 27, 2022, calling an emergency special session in the general assembly over Ukraine. The US voted in favour of this and the emergency special session met a day later. In October 2022, the US co-sponsored a UNSC draft resolution condemning “illegal referendums” conducted in Russian-annexed Ukrainian territory. It also called for Russia to pull out its troops from Ukraine. This resolution failed after it was vetoed by Russia. US Deputy Ambassador Dorothy Shea has said that multiple UN resolutions in the past that have called for Russia to withdraw its troops “have failed to stop the war”. Prior to the vote, Shea said that the war has “dragged on for far too long” and harmed both Russia and Ukraine. “What we need is a resolution marking the commitment from all UN member states to bring a durable end to the war,” said Shea, before the vote. She said that this is the first step that “puts us on the path to peace”. This is a stark contrast to comments made by Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the UN under former President Joe Biden. “Every day, Ukrainian families live in fear of Russian war crimes; to date, troops have committed some 147,000 of them. And every night, Ukrainian families live in fear of Russian aerial strikes, which continue to pound the country,” Thomas-Greenfield said during a UNSC briefing in November 2024. “It is clear that Russia has no regard for Ukrainian life. But it’s also clear that Russia has no regard for Russian life.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...