09/12/2025

TUESDAY | DEC 9, 2025

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UN slams world’s ‘apathy’

ISRAEL, QATAR AND U.S. MEET IN NEW YORK WASHINGTON: The United States, Israel and Qatar held a trilateral meeting in New York on Sunday, said a senior White House official, months after Israeli jets conducted an airstrike in Doha, unsuccessfully targeting Hamas leadership. The official did not provide any details. Two sources told US news outlet Axios it was “the highest level meeting between the countries since the deal to end the war in Gaza, for which Qatar served as a key mediator”. Axios reported that White House envoy Steve Witkoff hosted the meeting with Mossad spy chief David Barnea and an unnamed senior Qatari official. It said the main focus of the meeting was “on implementation of the Gaza agreement”. – AFP EU TELLS WASHINGTON TO STOP MEDDLING BRUSSELS: European Council president Antonio Costa rejected any attempt by the United States to meddle in Europe’s politics, after Washington published a new security strategy criticising the continent’s policies. “We cannot accept the threat to interfere in European politics,” Costa said. The US National Security Strategy, released last week, saw President Donald Trump lambast Europe as an over-regulated, censorious continent lacking in “self confidence” and facing “civilisational erasure” due to immigration. “The United States cannot replace European citizens in choosing which parties are good and which are bad,” Costa said. “The United States cannot replace Europe in what’s its vision is of freedom of expression.”– AFP IRANIAN ON TRIAL FOR SPYING FOR ISRAEL TEHRAN: Iran’s judiciary said a dual national arrested during the 12-day war with Israel has been referred to trial on charges of spying. The judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency did not name the defendant, describing him only as a “dual national who lives in a European country” and was arrested in Iran during the June war. The judiciary said a court had begun hearing his case, in which he is accused of “intelligence cooperation and espionage in the interest of the Zionist regime”. Mizan said investigations indicated the defendant had been in contact with Mossad and trained as an agent in “the capitals of several European countries and the occupied territories”. – AFP SUDAN PARAMILITARY SEIZES KEY OIL FIELD PORT SUDAN: An engineer at Sudan’s largest oil field said yesterday that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had seized the facility along the country’s southern border, forcing the evacuation of its staff. “This morning the RSF took control of the Heglig field in Kordofan. Our technical teams shut it down and halted production and workers were evacuated to South Sudan,” the engineer told AFP by phone. The Heglig field is the country’s largest and is also the main processing facility for South Sudan’s oil exports, which make up nearly all of Juba’s government revenue. – AFP

the lowest in a decade, it said. That only allowed it to help 98 million people, 25 million fewer than the year before. According to UN data, the United States remains the top humanitarian aid donor, but that amount fell dramatically this year to US$2.7 billion, down from US$11 billion last year. Atop the list of priorities for next year are Gaza and the West Bank. The UN is asking for US$4.1 billion for the occupied Palestinian territories to provide assistance to three million people. Another country with urgent need is Sudan, where deadly conflict has displaced millions: the UN is hoping to collect US$2.9 billion to help 20 million people. In Tawila, where residents of Sudan’s western city of El-Fasher fled ethnically targeted violence, Fletcher said he met a young mother who saw her husband and child murdered. She fled, with the malnourished baby of her slain neighbours along what he called “the most dangerous

road in the world” to Tawila. Men “attacked her, raped her, broke her leg, and yet something kept her going through the horror and the brutality”, he said. “Does anyone, wherever you come from, whatever you believe, however you vote, not think that we should be there for her?” The United Nations will ask member states to open their government coffers over the next 87 days – one day for each million people who need assistance. And if the UN comes up short, Fletcher predicts it will widen the campaign, appealing to civil society, the corporate world and everyday people who he says are drowning in disinformation suggesting their tax dollars are all going abroad. “We’re asking for only just over 1% of what the world is spending on arms and defence right now. “I’m not asking people to choose between a hospital in Brooklyn and a hospital in Kandahar – I’m asking the world to spend less on defence and more on humanitarian support.” – AFP

he unveiled a streamlined plan to raise at least US$23 billion (RM94.5 billion) to help 87 million people in the world’s most dangerous places such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Myanmar. The United Nations would like to raise US$33 billion to help 135 million people next year but is painfully aware that its overall goal may be difficult to reach, given President Donald Trump’s slashing of foreign aid. Fletcher said the “highly prioritised appeal” was “based on excruciating life-and-death choices”, adding that he hoped Washington would see the choices made, and the reforms undertaken to improve aid efficiency, and choose to “renew that commitment” to help. The world body estimates that 240 million people in conflict zones, suffering from epidemics, or victims of natural disasters are in need of emergency aid. The UN’s appeal for more than US$45 billion for this year was only funded to the US$12 billion mark –

NEW YORK: The United Nations hit out at global “apathy” over widespread suffering as it launched its appeal for humanitarian assistance next year, which is limited in scope as aid operations confront major funding cuts. “This is a time of brutality, impunity and indifference,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told reporters, condemning “the ferocity and the intensity of the killing, the complete disregard for international law, horrific levels of sexual violence” he had seen on the ground. “This is a time when the rules are in retreat, when the scaffolding of coexistence is under sustained attack, when our survival antennae have been numbed by distraction and corroded by apathy,” he said. He said it was also a time “when politicians boast of cutting aid”, as o Body calls for more humanitarian support

BR I E F S

Supporters of the ruling party in Honduras shouting slogans in Tegucigalpa on Sunday. – AFPPIC

Impatience grows in Honduras over stalled results TEGUCIGALPA: Impatience grew in Honduras on Sunday as electoral officials failed to provide an update on the results of the Nov 30 national elections for over 48 hours, with the presidential race still far too close to call. presidency hangs in the balance. “It’s frustrating,” said Gabriela Osorio, a dentist who voted in Siguatepeque, a small town in central Honduras. “The vote count hasn’t changed in days, and now it’s been a week since the election and we still don’t know anything.” “Honestly, I don’t trust the CNE,” said college student Josue Lainez, who voted in Tegucigalpa last weekend. “I want to believe in the country’s democratic process ... but deep down I’m always worried about fraud.”

Voting on Nov 30 was calm and peaceful, according to independent electoral observers. But the subsequent reporting of the results has been chaotic, marred by starts and stops that have intensified frustrations over the tight race. Members of the electoral council have blamed the company behind the tabulating platform for pauses in the vote count. On Friday, the Organisation of American States’ electoral mission to Honduras called for the tallying process to be “expedited”. – Reuters

In the latest results released on Friday, Nasry Asfura of the National Party led with 40.19%, less than 20,000 votes ahead of centrist rival Salvador Nasralla of the Liberal Party, who stood at 39.49% with 88% of ballots tallied. Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist Libre Party trailed far behind with 19.30%. Some 14% of ballots showed inconsistencies, officials said, and would be reviewed. There have been no updates to these results over the weekend, testing residents’ patience as the

On Sunday, Moncada demanded the elections be annulled and said the party was calling on its supporters to take part in marches, strikes and sit-ins to protest what she has called election fraud. The streets of Tegucigalpa, the capital, and other cities across Honduras have remained calm in the week since the election, as officials have pleaded for patience. But residents say that the delays have undermined their already fragile trust in the electoral body, the CNE.

Moncada ... demanded elections be annulled. – AFPPIC