Foreign
Trump administration seeks legislative backing to terminate vaccine funding
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The President Donald Trump administration plans to terminate the United States’ financial support for the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunisation, the organization that has helped purchase critical vaccines for children in developing countries.
Some other programs terminated is funding for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, which conducts surveillance for diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans, including bird flu, in 49 countries. Some major programs to track and fight malaria, one of the world’s top killers of children, have also been ended.
Those decisions are included in a 281-page spreadsheet that the United States Agency for International Development sent to the US Congress, listing the foreign aid projects it plans to continue and to terminate.
The New York Times obtained a copy of the spreadsheet and other documents describing the plans.
For many years, developing countries have relied on GAVI support to combat malaria.
Gavi is estimated to have saved the lives of 19 million children since it was set up 25 years ago. The United States contributes 13 percent of its budget.
The terminated grant to Gavi was worth $2.6 billion through 2030.
By Gavi’s own estimate, the loss of U.S. support may mean 75 million children do not receive routine vaccinations in the next five years, with more than 1.2 million children dying as a result.
The U.S. has been among the top donors to the organization since its creation, and became the largest during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gavi was counting on a pledge made last year by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for its next funding cycle.
New vaccines with the promise to save millions of lives in low-income countries, such as one to protect children from severe malaria and another to protect teenage girls against the virus that causes cervical cancer, have recently become available, and Gavi was expanding the portfolio of support it could give those countries.
The loss of U.S. funds may set back the organization’s ability to continue to provide its basic range of services — such as immunization for measles and polio — to a growing population of children in the poorest countries, let alone expand to include new vaccines.
While European countries have historically provided significant funding, many are now reducing foreign aid spending as they grapple with the change in U.S. policy on Ukraine and the U.S. demand that they increase their defense spending.
Japan, another major Gavi donor, is struggling with a depreciating currency.
GAVI’s chief executive, Dr. Sania Nishtar said that she hoped the Trump administration would reconsider the decision to end its support. “Gavi’s work keeps people everywhere, including Americans, safe. In addition to protecting individual children, vaccination reduces the possibility of large outbreaks. The organization maintains global stockpiles for vaccines against diseases such as Ebola and cholera, deploying them in rapid response efforts for epidemics,” she said.
Gavi’s structure requires countries to pay part of the cost of vaccines, with their share growing as income levels rise; middle-income countries are weaned from support.
The Trump administration, according to the letter has decided to continue 898 U.S. Agency for International Development Awards and to end 5,341.
It says the remaining programs are worth up to $78 billion.
But only $8.3 billion of that is unobligated funds — money still available to disburse, because the amount covers awards that run several years into the future.
The figure shows a massive reduction in the $40 billion that U.S.A.I.D. used to spend annually.
The administration has decided to continue some key grants for medications to treat H.I.V. and tuberculosis, and food aid to countries facing civil wars and natural disasters.
The cover letter details the skeletal remains of U.S.A.I.D. after the cuts, with most of its funding eliminated, and only 869 of more than 6,000 employees still on active duty.
The memo says that 869 U.S.A.I.D. personnel were working as of last Friday, while 3,848 were on administrative leave and 1,602 are in the process of being laid off.
Of 300 probationary employees who were initially fired, 270 have returned to work following a court order prohibiting their dismissal.
A spokesperson for the State Department, which now runs what is left of U.S.A.I.D., confirmed the terminations on the list were accurate and said that “each award terminated was reviewed individually for alignment with agency and administration priorities, and terminations were executed where Secretary Rubio determined the award was inconsistent with the national interest or agency policy priorities.”
Although the administration has repeatedly said publicly that its foreign assistance review process has been concluded, the information in the documents suggests that there is still some fluidity in which programs will survive.
Staff members of one major malaria program that was terminated weeks ago, and which appears on the list of canceled projects sent to Congress, for example, were informed on Monday that it is being restored.
Nevertheless, cuts to malaria response are deep. While awards that fund the bulk purchase of bednets and malaria treatments have been preserved, many of the programs to deliver these and other malaria control efforts in individual countries such as Cameroon and Tanzania — among the most affected in the world — have been terminated.
Some organizations with awards that have not been officially canceled have received no funds for more than two months, and have folded. Without them, there is no one to take treatments from ports to local clinics, or deliver them to children.
Iran on Saturday fired back at US President Donald Trump’s claim that he would soon declare the Strait of Hormuz part of US territory, saying the crucial energy waterway it has blockaded “will remain Iranian”.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that the strait, which Tehran effectively closed at the start of the Middle East war in late February, is under US control despite traffic remaining throttled.
“The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on X.
“This strait will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command.”
Trump told a political rally in New York state on Friday that after the US defeats Iran, “pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States”.
“It’s true,” he added.
An unnamed White House official later clarified that Trump was joking, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Last week, a top Iranian official set out a list of conditions for reopening the strait, including an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq”.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr also demanded the end of crippling sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage.
– Ongoing attacks –
As diplomacy stalls between the longtime foes, attacks in the Hormuz strait have continued, highlighting the continued risks to regional shipping.
The United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil giant ADNOC said on Saturday that one of its vessels came under attack the night before.
Abu Dhabi’s foreign ministry later blamed Tehran, and said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were engaged in “acts of piracy” in the strait.
On Friday the Gulf nation blamed Iran for other attacks on two vessels linked to ADNOC as they passed through the waterway.
Such attacks led to the collapse of an April ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
As Iran chokes traffic in Hormuz, its Houthi allies in Yemen have also declared a parallel maritime blockade on Saudi ports in the Red Sea, the oil-exporting giant’s only other maritime route.
A June deal between Washington and Tehran — meant to serve as a jumping-off point for negotiations on a permanent settlement — had said Iran and Oman would hash out future arrangements for the Hormuz in discussion with other Gulf countries and “in line with the applicable international law”.
Before the war, the strait carried around a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG exports, and prices have repeatedly surged since the dispute over the waterway erupted, piling economic and political pressure on Washington.
Iran wants to control the strait and charge tolls, powers it did not exercise before the war and ones that the US fiercely opposes.
The closure of Hormuz has driven up prices for US voters, creating a political headache for Trump as November’s midterm elections near.
US Vice President JD Vance said this week that Washington’s top priority in the Iran war was keeping energy prices low for Americans, while preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon ranked second.
Tehran signalled last week that it had agreed with Oman on a route for ships to transit the strait and were finalising arrangements to jointly manage the waterway.
The US has imposed its own retaliatory blockade of Iranian ports in an attempt to cripple its economy.
“We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” Trump said to a cheering crowd of supporters on Friday.
AFP
Who Was Jason Arday, the sociologist whose remarkable rise through academia made him one of Britain’s most prominent Black scholars, has died at the age of 41.
Arday was found unresponsive at an address in Battersea, south London, on Friday afternoon. Police said his death was unexpected but is not currently being treated as suspicious. His cause of death has not been made public, with a report expected to be prepared for the coroner.
His death came days after he was fired from Cambridge University and Jesus College raising dust that something must be amiss.
But before the controversy, Arday had built a career around an extraordinary personal and academic journey.
Despite those early challenges, he went on to pursue higher education, earn a doctorate and establish himself as a sociologist whose work focused on race, inequality, social mobility and education.
Arday’s family said in a statement that they were “in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son”.
They added: “The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.”
Earlier on Friday, police officers were called to an address in Battersea by the London Ambulance Service.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: “At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.”
Cambridge University vice-chancellor Prof Deborah Prentice said: “We are desperately saddened to hear this tragic news.”
“Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time,” she said.
Education Secretary Lucy Powell said she was “deeply shocked and saddened” to hear about the death and she urged people to “remember there are real people with loved ones involved”.
Arday, 41, had denied any plagiarism – but admitted errors in his work – and last week said the recent controversy about his work had led to “an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack”.
The row first erupted after another academic – self-defined “race realist” Nathan Cofnas, who was sacked from his Cambridge role in 2024 – said he found numerous instances of plagiarism in the professor’s work.
Arday said some errors in his early academic work arose because of his autism, as he relied on using mimicry to make sense of information.
Similar scrutiny would find similar errors in work by other academics, he said.
The United States government announced that it has completed 15 consecutive months without releasing any undocumented immigrants into the country, citing over 3 million deportations alongside a series of tightened visa and citizenship regulations.
According to an official fact sheet released by the Department of State, the measures form part of a broader framework aimed at prioritizing American citizens and overhauling federal immigration enforcement following record-breaking border crossings under the previous administration:
“President Trump has delivered on his promise to fix the immigration system, prioritize American citizens, and protect U.S. citizenship. The border is sealed. The results are undeniable.”
Official figures indicate that more than 3 million foreign nationals have been deported, including thousands of individuals convicted of violent offenses. Alongside border enforcement, federal authorities launched an unprecedented denaturalization campaign targeting individuals accused of obtaining citizenship through fraudulent means, with legal claims already filed against 88 individuals.
The policy shift also extends to social welfare, election integrity, and international travel. Federal agencies terminated public assistance benefits for over 1.4 million ineligible individuals, barred non-citizens from more than a dozen taxpayer-funded healthcare programs, and paused visa processing for 75 high-risk nations.
Furthermore, the administration initiated measures to remove tens of thousands of non-citizens from state voter rolls while introducing a revised naturalization exam designed to evaluate applicants’ understanding of American history and government institutions.
Highlighting the continuation of strict enforcement measures initiated via executive order early in the presidential term, officials underscored the operational shift:
“For 15 straight months, no illegal aliens have been released into the country.”
The broader policy push carries significant international implications, particularly in nations with high visa volumes. The U.S. Mission has issued repeated advisories urging visa applicants and holders to adhere strictly to immigration rules, warning that violations, including overstays, fraudulent claims, or criminal conduct—will result in immediate visa revocation and deportation.
With immigration remaining a central focal point ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the administration continues to position its hardline enforcement strategy as a necessary restoration of national security, legal order, and fiscal discipline
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