Millions of Afghans face hunger as aid cuts deepen a humanitarian crisis.


Rahimullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, is one of millions of Afghans who rely on humanitarian aid, both from the Afghan authorities and from international charity organizations, for survival. An estimated 22.9 million people — nearly half the population — required aid in 2025, the International Committee for the Red Cross said in an article on its website Monday.

But severe cuts in international aid — including the halting of U.S. aid to programs such as food distribution run by the United Nations’ World Food Program — have severed this lifeline.

More than 17 million people in Afghanistan now face crisis levels of hunger in the winter, the World Food Program warned last week, 3 million more than were at risk more than a year ago.

The slashing in aid has come as Afghanistan is battered by a struggling economy, recurrent droughts, two deadly earthquakes and the mass influx of Afghan refugees expelled from countries such as Iran and Pakistan. The resulting multiple shocks have severely pressured resources, including of housing and food.
UN appeals for help

Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, told the Security Council in mid-December that the situation was compounded by “overlapping shocks,” including the recent earthquakes and increasing restrictions on humanitarian aid access and staff.

While Fletcher said nearly 22 million Afghans will need UN assistance in 2026, his organization will focus on 3.9 million facing the most urgent need of lifesaving help due to reduced donor contributions.

Fletcher said this winter was “the first in years with almost no international food distribution.”

“As a result, only about 1 million of the most vulnerable people have received food assistance during the lean season in 2025,” compared to 5.6 million last year, he said.

The year has been devastating for UN humanitarian organizations, which have had to cut thousands of jobs and spending in the wake of aid cuts.

“We are grateful to all of you who have continued to support Afghanistan. But as we look towards 2026, we risk a further contraction of life-saving help — at a time when food insecurity, health needs, strain on basic services, and protection risks are all rising,” Fletcher said.
Returning refugees

The return of millions of refugees has added pressure on an already teetering system. Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs Abdul Kabir said Sunday that 7.1 million Afghan refugees had returned to the country over the last four years, according to a statement on the ministry website.

Rahimullah, 29, was one of them. The former Afghan Army soldier fled to neighboring Pakistan after the Taliban seized power in 2021. He was deported back to Afghanistan two years later, and initially received aid in the form of cash as well as food.

“The assistance was helping me a lot,” he said. But without it, “now I don’t have enough money to live on. God forbid, if I were to face a serious illness or any other problem, it would be very difficult for me to handle because I don’t have any extra money for expenses.”

The massive influx of former refugees has also sent rents skyrocketing. Rahimullah’s landlord has nearly doubled the rent of his tiny two-room home, with walls made half of concrete and half of mud and a homemade mud stove for cooking. Instead of 4,500 afghanis (about $67), he now wants 8,000 afghanis (about $120) – a sum Rahimullah cannot afford. So he, his wife, daughter and two young sons will have to move next month. They don’t know where to.

Before the Taliban takeover, Rahimullah had a decent salary and his wife worked as a teacher. But the new government’s draconian restrictions on women and girls mean women are barred from nearly all jobs, and his wife is unemployed.

“Now the situation is such that even if we find money for flour, we don’t have it for oil, and even if we find it for oil, we can’t pay the rent. And then there is the extra electricity bill,” Rahimullah said.
Harsh winters compound the misery

In Afghanistan’s northern province of Badakhshan, Sherin Gul is desperate. In 2023, her family of 12 got supplies of flour, oil, rice, beans, pulses, salt and biscuits. It was a lifesaver.

But it only lasted six months. Now, there is nothing. Her husband is old and weak and cannot work, she said. With 10 children, seven girls and three boys between the ages of 7 and 27, the burden of providing for the family has fallen on her 23-year-old son – the only one old enough to work. But even he only finds occasional jobs.

“There are 12 of us … and one person working cannot cover the expenses,” she said. “We are in great trouble.”

Sometimes neighbors take pity on them and give them food. Often, they all go hungry.

“There have been times when we have nothing to eat at night, and my little children have fallen asleep without food,” Gul said. “I have only given them green tea and they have fallen asleep crying.”

Before the Taliban takeover, Gul worked as a cleaner, earning just about enough to feed her family. But the ban on women working has left her unemployed, and she said she developed a nervous disorder and is often sick.

Compounding their misery is the harsh cold of the northern Afghan winter, when snow halts construction work where her son can sometimes find jobs. And there is the added expense of firewood and charcoal.

“If this situation continues like this, we may face severe hunger,” Gul said. “And then it will be very difficult for us to survive in this cold weather.”

Abdul Kahar #Afghan, The Associated Press

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed to this report.

Indonesian rescuers search for a Spanish coach and 3 children after tour boat sinks.


#JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian rescuers searched for a Spanish soccer coach and his three children on Saturday after a tour boat carrying 11 people sank overnight near Padar Island, a popular destination within Komodo National Park, officials said.

The boat was carrying a family of six, four crew members and a local guide when it went down on Friday evening after suffering engine failure on a trip from Komodo Island to Padar, said Fathur Rahman, who heads the Maumere Search and Rescue Office.

He said three people were rescued by a passing vessel, and four others were picked up by a search and rescue team. The survivors included the Spanish mother and one daughter. The father, two sons and another daughter were missing, he said.

#Man accused of 1996 #Tupac #Shakur killing seeks to suppress evidence.


Las Vegas criminal defense attorneys Robert Draskovich and William Brown filed a motion this week on behalf of their client, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who was charged in the drive-by shooting of the iconic rapper off the Las Vegas Strip.

Davis’ attorneys argue a judge relied on a “misleading portrait” of Davis as a dangerous drug dealer to grant the execution of a search warrant at night, which should only be done in exceptional circumstances, such as if there’s a risk that evidence will disappear if officers wait until morning.

In reality, Davis, an ex-gang leader from Southern California, had left the narcotics trade in 2008 and began doing inspection work for oil refineries, his attorneys say. He was a 60-year-old retired cancer survivor with adult children and grandchildren and had been living with his wife in Henderson, a city outside of Las Vegas, for nine years at the time the warrant was executed.

“The court wasn’t told any of this,” his attorneys wrote in the motion. “As a result, the court authorized a nighttime search based on a portrait of Davis that bore little resemblance to reality — a clearly erroneous factual determination, in other words.”

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department — which conducted the search and collected Davis’ electronic devices, “purported marijuana” and tubs of photographs — declined to comment Friday, citing the pending litigation. At the time of the search, police said executing the warrant under the cover of darkness would allow officers to surround and secure the residence, and that if Davis barricaded himself, the darkness would allow officers to evacuate the surrounding homes with the least exposure to residents.

Davis was arrested in September 2023. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and sought to be released since shortly after his arrest.

His attorneys claim Davis’ arrest stems from false public statements Davis had made in which he claimed to be present in the white Cadillac from which Shakur was shot. They say he has never offered details that would firmly corroborate his presence in the car, and that he benefited from saying he was present. He dodged drug charges by telling the story in a proffer agreement, and he has made money by repeating it in documentaries and his 2019 book, according to his attorneys.

“Think of it this way: Shakur’s murder was essentially the entertainment world’s JFK assassination — endlessly dissected, mythologized, monetized — so it’s not hard to see why someone in Davis’s position might falsely place himself at the center of it all for personal gain,” his attorneys wrote.

Jessica Hill, The Associated Press

A massive crash on a highway in Japan kills 1 person and injures 26 as the holiday season starts.


The Gunma prefectural highway police said Saturday that the pileup on the Kan-etsu Expressway started with a collision between two trucks in the town of Minakami, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) northwest of Tokyo.

A 77-year-old woman from Tokyo died, police said. Out of the 26 injured, five were reported to be in serious condition.

The crash of the trucks blocked parts of the expressway, and cars coming from behind them were unable to brake on the snowy surface. More than 50 vehicles were involved in the pileup, police said.

A fire erupted at the far end of the pileup, spreading to more than a dozen vehicles, some of which were completely burned. Nobody was injured from the fire, which was extinguished about seven hours later, police said.

A warning about heavy snow was in effect late Friday, when many Japanese started their year-end and New Year holidays.

Parts of the expressway remained closed for police investigation, removal and cleaning of the wreckage.

The Associated Press

#Turkish authorities say they have arrested suspected IS member planning New Year’s attacks.


#ISTANBUL — Turkish authorities said Friday that they have apprehended a suspected member of the extremist Islamic State group who was planning attacks on New Year’s celebrations.

State-run Anadolu Agency reported that Ibrahim Burtakucin was captured in a joint operation carried out by police and the National Intelligence Agency in the southeastern city of Malatya.

Security officials told Anadolu that Burtakucin was in contact with many IS sympathizers in Turkiye and abroad and was also looking for an opportunity to join the ongoing fighting in conflict zones.

Authorities also seized digital materials and banned publications belonging to IS during the raid of his home.

The arrest was reported a day after Istanbul’s prosecutor’s office said Turkish authorities carried out simultaneous raids in which they detained over a hundred suspected members of the militant Islamic State group who were allegedly planning attacks against Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

Zelenskyy says meeting with Trump to happen ‘in the near future’

Zelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday’s talks, and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90 per cent ready.”

An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”

The Ukrainian side will also raise “territorial issues,” he said.

Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved,” but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.

“We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.

The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy’s comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.

“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.

Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas -- an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70 per cent of Donetsk -- the two areas that make up the Donbas.

On the ground, one person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.

Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.

“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.

Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple the Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

By Illia Novikov

#Israeli military says it killed a member of Iran’s Quds Force in Lebanon.

#JERUSALEM -- The Israeli ‍military said on Thursday that its forces ‍killed a member of Iran’s Quds ‍Force in Lebanon who had been involved in planning attacks from Syria and Lebanon.

The military identified the man as Hussein Mahmoud Marshad al-Jawhari, calling him a key operative ⁠in the force’s unit 840.

He was ‍assassinated in the area of Ansariyeh, the military added in a statement, without giving any further details of his death.

Al-Jawhari “operated under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and ​was involved in terror activities, directed by Iran, against the State of Israel and its security forces," ⁠the statement said.

Syria says senior ISIS leader killed, arrests operative near Damascus

#MOSCOW, December 24. Air defense systems on duty destroyed approximately 132 #Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over Russian Regions between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. Moscow time [10 a.m. and 5 p.m. GMT], the Russian defense ministry reported.

"On December 24, between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. Moscow time [10 a.m. and 5 p.m. GMT], 132 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted and destroyed by air defense systems on duty: 46 UAVs over the territory of the Belgorod Region, 42 UAVs over the territory of the Bryansk Region, 15 UAVs over the territory of the Kaluga Region, 12 UAVs over the territory of the Moscow Region, 7 UAVs over the territory of the Kursk Region, 4 UAVs over the territory of the Lipetsk Region, 2 UAVs over the territory of the Ryazan Region, 2 UAVs over the territory of the Oryol Region, 1 UAV over the territory of the Tula Region, and 1 UAV over the territory of the Republic of Crimea," the statement said.

Kennedy Center Christmas Eve jazz concert cancelled after Trump name added to building.

As of last Friday, the building’s facade reads The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. According to the White House, the president’s handpicked board approved the decision, which scholars have said violates the law. Trump had been suggesting for months he was open to changing the center’s name.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown, has been presiding over holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to email seeking comment. The center’s website lists the show as canceled.

President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Kennedy niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to remove Trump’s name from the building once he leaves office and former House historian Ray Smock is among those who say any changes would have to be approved by Congress.