U.S. officials said Thursday that the Taliban has not officially requested assistance in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday that reportedly killed over a thousand people.
The Taliban’s defense ministry on Sunday claimed the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” has amassed a standing army of over 130,000 troops with hopes to bring that number up to 150,000.
No food from international aid groups has entered northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region since Addis Ababa and Tigrayan separatists announced a truce — specifically to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Tigray — in their civil war on March 25, World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.
Ethiopia’s 16-month-long civil war observed a ceasefire on Friday after separatist militants from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region agreed to a “cessation of hostilities” proposed by Addis Ababa 24 hours earlier to allow humanitarian aid delivery to Ethiopia, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Daniel Bekele, chief of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, said on Friday that a string of highly unusual and little-discussed police raids this month took at least eight Ethiopian government officials into custody, implicity for human rights violations.
The U.N. Security Council (UNSC) voted on Thursday to establish a formal presence in Afghanistan to perform “crucial” humanitarian work, effectively establishing a working relationship with the barbaric Taliban regime, although the resolution was careful not to name the Taliban or expressly recognize it as the legitimate ruling power of Afghanistan.
Russian missiles struck an airport near Lviv on Friday – the far-western Ukrainian city where hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Russian invasion have sought shelter, and hundreds of foreign journalists are based. Lviv is less than 50 miles from the Polish border.
The Chinese Communist government on Wednesday blasted Taiwan for sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine and supporting sanctions against Russia, accusing the island of “taking advantage of others’ difficulties” to score political points against Beijing.
A U.S. nonprofit group, comprised of “mostly special operation veterans,” is conducting rescue and humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Monday his government will “continue resorting to active measures in order to settle this critical situation in Ukraine.”
Samaritan’s Purse International Disaster Relief is taking humanitarian relief to Ukraine as several European Union countries say they are preparing to bring in refugees.
Humanitarian activists and U.N. officials are calling for sanctions against the Taliban to be eased so aid can be rendered to the sick, starving, and soon-to-be freezing Afghan people – but Radio Free Europe (RFE) on Tuesday documented how the Taliban is looting aid programs to pay its officials, and even withholding food to force Afghan civilians into slavery.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday that much of Afghanistan’s population is “hanging by a thread” after the brutal Taliban takeover – and asked member nations to lift sanctions on the very same Taliban, to facilitate humanitarian aid.
The Taliban’s Anas Haqqani was reported to Norwegian police for war crimes over the weekend amid a Taliban delegation visiting the country.
Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled central bank on Thursday announced the receipt of $32 million in cash from the United Nations, ostensibly to finance humanitarian aid.
The Houthi jihadist organization in Yemen is persecution Christians and other minorities there, blocking aid to them, months after President Joe Biden de-listed them as a terrorist group, Open Doors USA CEO David Curry told Breitbart News on Thursday.
In a phone conference with reporters on Monday, U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Thomas West said the Biden administration is considering a “roadmap” to normalizing relations with the Taliban regime.
Several United Nations agencies announced on Thursday that they had begun a nationwide humanitarian aid distribution campaign in Afghanistan, about a month after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the organization was working in the country “with the cooperation of the Taliban.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded “effective financial humanitarian support” from the international community for the brutal Taliban regime in remarks on Wednesday.
The Group of 20 (G20) held a video conference on Tuesday at which they agreed the Taliban must be actively involved in distributing humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. The group insisted this concession should not be construed as formal recognition of the Taliban’s legitimacy.
The Biden administration said on Sunday its first face-to-face meeting with Taliban officials since the brutal extremists reconquered Afghanistan was “candid and professional.” Judging by their comments, the Taliban disregarded everything the Biden team said except its promise of humanitarian aid.
The United Nations announced on Monday it has collected $1 billion in pledges for humanitarian relief in Afghanistan, a sum far greater than the $600 million it originally sought. The United States chipped in $64 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Biden administration and European leaders reacted with “concern” to Tuesday’s announcement of a Taliban government filled with mullahs and terrorists, but none of them seemed to rule out working with – or perhaps even formally recognizing – a regime whose interior minister is wanted by the FBI.
United Nations officials said Sunday they have obtained pledges from the Taliban to protect humanitarian aid workers operating in Afghanistan and to give relief agencies full access to Afghans in need of food, shelter, and medical treatment.
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) confirmed on Monday that it completed delivery of its first shipment of medical supplies to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, arriving in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif aboard a Pakistani plane.
The U.S. Treasury Department reportedly gave humanitarian organizations its approval to provide aid for Afghanistan this week, despite sanctions against the Taliban that would make many of the needed financial transactions technically illegal.
The British Prime Minister said he was looking for the Taliban to respect “internationally agreed standards on human rights and inclusivity”.
The Biden administration said on Thursday it is “beyond fed up” with “brutal” attacks in Yemen by the Iran-supported Houthi insurgency – the very same group Biden acted swiftly to delist as terrorists when he took office.
A 52-year-old French humanitarian worker faces charges of sexually abusing 24 boys in several developing countries during his overseas work from 2013 to 2015.
Mortar fire from terrorists in Gaza at the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel halted humanitarian aid shipments to the Palestinians again on Wednesday.
An Israeli soldier helping to transfer humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip was wounded by a Hamas mortar round fired at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Tuesday.
The same Houthi rebels that President Joe Biden plans to officially remove from U.S. terrorist lists on Tuesday to allow more humanitarian assistance into Yemen are “diverting” aid for starving Yemenis, the State Department recently announced.
President Joe Biden plans to rescind the Trump administration’s decision to label the Houthi Ansarullah movement in Yemen a terrorist organization to allow international humanitarian aid, funded in part by U.S. taxpayers, to flow into areas controlled by the Iran-backed group, a State Department spokesman indicated on Monday.
Iran delivered a large food shipment to its crisis-stricken ally Venezuela on Sunday to set up the country’s first Persian supermarket, the Iranian Embassy in Venezuela claimed this weekend.
Around 1.2 million Nigerians currently live in areas controlled by the Boko Haram jihadist organization, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria warned this week.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said on Wednesday at a House hearing focused on the mistreatment of children who are being sheltered at facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border that some migrants entering the U.S. are “climate change refugees.”
Peter John Dalglish, 62, of Canada, formerly a noted humanitarian activist and United Nations official, was convicted of child abuse in Nepal and sentenced on Tuesday to terms of seven and nine years in jail for two cases of child abuse.
Separatist rebels in Cameroon are attacking humanitarian aid convoys and destroying what they describe as “poisoned” supplies, causing aid workers to become increasingly nervous about entering the conflict zones.
Venezuelan state media attacked President Juan Guaidó on Monday after he called for an investigation into claims two of his subordinates embezzled money meant for the housing and feeding of Venezuelan military defectors.
Some caliphate-seeking “Islamists” in the world’s most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, are the “first” to step up to the plate and provide assistance during natural disasters on the largest island nation in the world, the Associated Press (AP) celebrated this week.
