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Washington, DC – Requests for legal support related to pro-Palestine advocacy remained high in the United States last year, as President Donald Trump threatened activists and universities with penalties.

In an annual report released on Tuesday, Palestine Legal, an organisation that “supports the movement for Palestinian freedom in the US”, said it received 1,131 queries for legal support in 2025.

The figure is below the record 2,184 requests the group received in 2024, when pro-Palestine protests swept US campuses — and were regularly met with crackdowns from both school administrators and law enforcement.

Despite universities enacting new restrictions on protests across the country, the figures from 2025 show that pro-Palestine advocacy has persisted, according to Dima Khalidi, the executive director of Palestine Legal.

“Our 2025 year-end report shows that while universities have largely cowered and caved to coercive pressure from the Trump administration and its pro-Israel supporters, student activists for Palestinian and collective freedom remain a model of moral conviction and courage,” Khalidi said.

“Even when facing punitive consequences for speaking out, they are holding the line of dissent against injustice from the US to Palestine, because they understand the cost of surrender for all of us.”

Palestine Legal said that the “overwhelming majority of requests” for legal support came from university students and faculty in 2025, but a growing number, 122, were categorised as “immigration and border-related”.

The group received 851 requests from people or organisations targeted for their Palestine-related advocacy, as well as 280 more asking for legal guidance on conducting advocacy.

Despite the drop from 2024, the rate of complaints last year remained 300 percent higher than in 2022, the year before Israel began its genocidal war in Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Since then, at least 72,560 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

Pressure campaigns

In 2024, Trump campaigned for a second term in the White House in part on a pledge to crack down on the pro-Palestinian protest movement, which sought to shine a light on the human rights abuses unfolding during the war.

He has framed such protests as anti-Semitic, and since his inauguration in 2025, he has led a campaign to penalise schools that played host to pro-Palestinian activism.

To date, five universities have struck deals with Trump after he threatened to withhold billions in federal funding. They include Columbia University, where a pro-Palestine encampment and resulting police crackdown drew international attention.

Columbia eventually reached a $200m settlement with the Trump administration and moved to make several policy changes it said were aimed at combatting anti-Semitism.

Rights groups have condemned such policies as conflating pro-Palestine advocacy with anti-Jewish sentiment. They also warn that Trump’s actions risk dampening free speech, a protected right under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

All told, nearly 80 of the students who took part in Columbia’s protests faced serious academic discipline, including expulsions, suspensions, and degree revocations, as of July 2025.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration used immigration enforcement to target pro-Palestine protesters and advocates, including scholars like Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Badar Khan Suri and Mahmoud Khalil.

To date, the deportation proceedings against Ozturk, who was in the US on a student visa, and Mahdawi, a US permanent resident detained at his citizenship hearing, have been abandoned.

Ozturk has since voluntarily returned to her native Turkiye after completing her doctoral studies at Tufts University.

The government is still proceeding with deportation efforts against Khan Suri, a Georgetown University researcher, and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and permanent US resident.

Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided five homes connected to pro-Palestine activists at the University of Michigan in April 2025, sparking outrage. Federal authorities seized properties, but no arrests were made.

Legal victories

Despite the restrictive climate across the country, Palestine Legal hailed a string of legal victories in 2025 that upheld the right to pro-Palestinian protest.

Last August, for instance, a federal court dismissed a complaint that sought to penalise UNRWA USA, a non-profit that supports the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), under the Antiterrorism Act of 1990.

A separate lawsuit launched by Palestine Legal and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) charged that the University of Maryland had tread on the free speech rights of students by banning Students for Justice in Palestine (UMD SJP). That case resulted in a $100,000 settlement.

Meanwhile, federal judges have sided with Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in their challenges to the Trump administration’s defunding efforts.

“The fights that Palestine Legal and our partners have waged affirm that the Trump administration, universities, and Israel advocacy groups cannot, without consequence, run roughshod over growing demands to respect and protect Palestinian rights,” Palestine Legal said at the conclusion of its report.

“The developments throughout 2025 made crystal clear that if we allow our right to stand for Palestinian freedom to be trampled, all of our fundamental rights will be in jeopardy in the face of an authoritarian slide.”

After talks in Switzerland, the two sides also made progress on a protocol for ceasefire oversight.

The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and rival M23 rebels have agreed to ease aid deliveries and release prisoners, as mediators push to resolve a years-long conflict that has persisted despite multiple peace deals.

The two sides announced the measures in a joint statement shared by the US Department of State on Saturday, following five days of talks in Switzerland.

“The parties agreed to refrain from any action that would undermine the principled delivery of humanitarian assistance within the territories impacted by the conflict,” said the statement.

Both sides also pledged not to target civilians and to facilitate medical care for the wounded and sick as they noted progress on a protocol for humanitarian access and judicial protections.

They agreed to release prisoners within 10 days as part of efforts “to continue building confidence”.

In addition, the parties signed a memorandum of understanding for a ceasefire monitoring mechanism that will “begin conducting surveillance, monitoring, verification, and reporting on the implementation of the permanent ceasefire between the parties”.

Since 2021, the M23, backed by Rwanda, has seized territory in eastern DRC, a region ravaged by more than 30 years of conflict.

While the two sides signed a United States-brokered peace agreement in December, fighting has continued, most recently reaching the highland areas of South Kivu, according to media reports.

In a statement last week, Human Rights Watch accused the parties of blocking aid deliveries and stopping civilians from fleeing the South Kivu highlands.

“Civilians in South Kivu’s highlands are facing a dire humanitarian crisis and live in fear of abuses by all parties,” said Clementine de Montjoye, senior Great Lakes researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The latest round of talks, held in the Swiss Riviera town of Montreux, included representatives from Qatar, the US, Switzerland, the African Union (AU) Commission, and Togo serving as the AU mediator.

April 17 (Asia Today) — South Korea will provide 462.2 billion won ($308 million) in emergency support for small businesses and exporters affected by the prolonged Middle East war, the government said Thursday.

Han Seong-sook, minister of SMEs and Startups, visited South Gyeongsang Province to inspect local business conditions and pledged swift policy support for small businesses, exporters and young entrepreneurs.

Han first toured a “glocal” commercial district in Tongyeong, where officials highlighted a local revitalization model that has helped boost sales in the area. The ministry said it plans to expand support for local entrepreneurs and foreign tourism infrastructure beginning in 2026.

Han then visited the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency in Jinju and emphasized special extensions of policy loan maturities and expanded emergency financing. The ministry is pushing to disburse more than 90% of the supplementary budget for logistics support by June to help exporters cope with rising shipping costs.

At Gyeongsang National University, Han discussed expanding the government’s “Startup for All” project with aspiring young entrepreneurs before heading to K-Tech, a defense exporter, for the final stop of the trip.

Companies at the meeting cited soaring raw material costs and higher logistics expenses caused by shipping delays as major difficulties. Han said it could take considerable time for logistics to normalize and for Middle East energy facilities to be fully restored.

“This is a critical moment for a closely woven support safety net to prepare for the fallout from the war,” Han said, pledging to relay companies’ concerns through an inter-ministerial emergency economic response system and to mobilize all available policy tools.

The ministry said the emergency support is part of a broader 1.69 trillion won ($1.13 billion) supplementary budget approved this month, with 462.2 billion won ($308 million) earmarked to minimize damage to export-oriented small and medium-sized firms from the Middle East conflict.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260417010005540

Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher told the UN Security Council that South Sudan is at risk of slipping into ‘full-scale famine and collapse’ as fighting intensifies and the UN peacekeeping mission is cut back.

President Trump has signed a bill restoring federal funding to tech startups in California and elsewhere, money that had been held up for more than six months.

The Small Business Administration money, a key source of capital for new aerospace and defense firms in the Los Angeles region, ran out in October after a Congressional impasse.

The Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act signed by Trump on Monday funds the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) and related programs.

They provide more than $4 billion in seed funding to commercial startups that provide valuable services to the government and public, stimulate the economy and help maintain the country’s competitive edge.

The money is awarded by multiple agencies, including the Health and Human Services and Energy departments and NASA, with the military distributing the largest portion.

The funding has helped launch defense and aerospace startups across Southern California, including Costa Mesa autonomous weapons maker Anduril Industries, now valued at more than $30 billion.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, held up reauthorization over concerns some startups had become reliant on the money instead of developing commercial businesses. She proposed a bill with a $75-million lifetime funding cap for individual companies.

Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the committee’s ranking Democrat, contended the bill would crimp innovation and hurt companies.

The reauthorization includes no lifetime caps but requires departments to set limits on how many times companies can apply each year for the SBA funding, prioritizing startups .

The bill also establishes a Strategic Breakthrough Allocation program that awards up to $30 million in SBA funding to a single company provided it can bring in matching funding.

The new program is intended to assist startups to become commercially viable after they run through their SBIR or STTR funding, which are intended to fund feasibility studies and prototypes. STTR requires a partnership with a research institution.

Other provisions in the bill include new due diligence standards to prevent any tech developed by the startups from falling into the hands of adversaries such as China .

“With a bipartisan, five-year reauthorization signed into law, small businesses are once again empowered to create these innovative technologies and tackle our nation’s most pressing challenges head-on,” Markey said in a statement.

Supply of humanitarian aid for people displaced by the conflict has been complicated by air and sea route closures.

Aid groups have said they’re seeking to boost humanitarian relief shipments into Iran as the effects of the United States-Israeli war hit the population.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Tuesday that it had delivered “life-saving” aid and medical supplies, marking one of the first humanitarian shipments since the war began.

The shipment entered the country through Turkiye on Sunday, IFRC spokesman Tommaso Della Longa said in a statement. Iran faces a deepening humanitarian crisis after nearly six weeks of conflict that has killed more than 3,000 people, according to Iranian authorities, and displaced up to 3.2 million, he stressed.

“The operation is critical as humanitarian supply chains into Iran have been severely disrupted in recent weeks due to the conflict, making it increasingly difficult and more costly for essential medical and relief items to reach those in need,” the spokesman said.

The convoy, which departed from the Turkish capital Ankara on Friday, carried around 200 trauma kits containing emergency medical supplies along with tents and blankets.

‘Needs are high’

The Turkish Red Crescent Society also dispatched four trucks separately carrying 48 tonnes of aid, including emergency shelters, hygiene kits and first-aid supplies.

“Needs are high, medical needs in particular, but also the psychological toll on people is immense,” Della Longa said.

He noted the toll on the Iranian Red Crescent Society has been high, confirming that the organisation had lost four relief workers in the line of duty.

The effort to respond to humanitarian needs in Iran is growing.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday that it had dispatched 14 trucks from Jordan carrying household supplies for around 25,000 people, including mattresses, jerry cans, kitchen sets and solar lamps.

In addition, ICRC said, 200 generators and 100 motor pumps purchased locally had been donated to the Iranian Red Crescent Society to support relief and rescue operations

Air and sea routes have been blocked by the conflict, it said, making overland crossings through Turkiye and Jordan critical for aid delivery.

The relief comes amid a fragile two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

According to the Turkish Red Crescent Society’s president, Fatma Meric Yilmaz, around 3.6 percent of Iran’s 90 million people have been displaced, while 62,000 homes and more than 20,000 businesses have been destroyed.

April 13 (UPI) — Cuba’s fuel shortages are disrupting the distribution of humanitarian aid managed by the Catholic Church and international organizations as the island’s basic services continue to deteriorate.

The crisis has particularly affected Caritas Cuba, one of the country’s main social assistance channels, which relies heavily on local transportation networks to deliver food and hygiene supplies to vulnerable communities, according to CiberCuba.

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski told USA Today in an interview Sunday that aid shipments are being distributed through improvised means with almost no motorized transport because of gasoline shortages.

Wenski, who has coordinated aid shipments from South Florida for three decades, said Cubans have told him the island is approaching “ground zero” of humanitarian collapse.

Organizations linked to Caritas say more people are turning to soup kitchens for food, underscoring worsening food insecurity among vulnerable populations, digital outlet CubitaNow reported.

Cuba has faced increasingly frequent blackouts, chronic shortages of food and medicine and a transportation system largely paralyzed by fuel scarcity in recent years.

The arrest of Nicolás Maduro by the United States interrupted Venezuelan oil shipments of between 25,000 and 35,000 barrels per day that had supplied most of Cuba’s fuel needs, worsening the energy crisis. Mexico also suspended shipments following sanctions imposed by Trump administration.

According to United Nations reports, about 170 containers of essential goods valued at $6.3 million remain stranded at ports because of the fuel shortage.

Francisco Pichón, the U.N. resident coordinator in Cuba, warned that the country’s humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate as the energy crisis compounds damage caused by Hurricane Melissa.

Despite limited fuel deliveries, including a recent Russian oil shipment, Pichón said “humanitarian needs in the country remain very urgent and persistent.”

He said more than 96,000 surgeries have been postponed, including 11,000 involving children. Another 32,000 pregnant women face heightened risk because of unstable prenatal care access, while 3,000 children are experiencing vaccination delays.

Nearly 500,000 children and teenagers are attending shortened school days.

About 1 million people have been affected by water shortages because they depend on trucked water deliveries.

Pichón noted that Cuba has the oldest population in Latin America, increasing the vulnerability of elderly residents amid the crisis.

The United Nations system and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs have proposed a $94.1 million plan to import fuel specifically for humanitarian use and sustain essential services that include healthcare and water access.

Washington, DC – Preliminary data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has found that international development aid from its members dropped by about 23 percent from 2024 to 2025.

Much of that decline was attributed to a major shortfall in funding from the United States.

The forum, which includes many of the the largest economies across Europe and the Americas, said on Thursday that the US saw a nearly 57 percent drop in foreign aid in 2025.

The OECD’s four other top contributors — Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan and France — also saw declines in their foreign aid assistance.

The report marked the first time foreign development assistance from all five of the OECD’s top donors simultaneously declined. The total assistance for 2025 totaled only $174.3bn, down from $214.6bn the year before, representing the largest annual drop since the OECD began recording the data.

OECD officials warned the dramatic decrease comes at a time when global economic and food security has been cast into doubt amid the stresses of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

“It’s deeply concerning to see this huge drop in [development funding] in 2025, due to dramatic cuts among the very top donors,” OECD official Carsten Staur said in a statement.

Thursday’s preliminary data shows that only eight member countries met or exceeded their funding from 2024.

“We are in a time of increasing humanitarian needs,” Staur added, citing growing global uncertainty and extreme poverty. “I can only plead that DAC donors reverse this negative trend and start to increase their [assistance].”

The data covers the 34 members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which provide the vast majority of global foreign assistance.

But the numbers offer an incomplete picture of global development aid, as it fails to include influential non-DAC members including Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and China.

The data tracked by the OECD distinguishes official development assistance from other forms of aid, including military funds.

US drives ‘three-quarters of the decline’

In its preliminary assessment, the OECD noted that the US “alone drove three-quarters of the decline” in 2025, the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Trump has overseen widespread cuts to the US’s aid infrastructure, including dissolving the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a wider effort to shrink government spending.

The US contributed about $63bn in official development assistance in 2024, which was cleaved to just short of $29bn in 2025, according to OECD.

Research this year from the University of Sydney has suggested that cuts to US funding over the past year have corresponded with an increase in armed conflict in Africa, as state resources grow more scarce.

Other experts have noted that the slashed assistance is likely to prompt upticks in cases of HIV-AIDS, malaria and polio.

Analysts at the Center for Global Development have projected that the US cuts were linked to between 500,000 and 1,000,000 deaths globally in 2025 alone. A recent article published in the medical journal The Lancet found that a “continuation of current downward trends” in development funding could lead to over 9.4 million new deaths by 2030.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has maintained it is transforming, not eschewing, the US aid model.

In recent months, it has struck a handful of bilateral assistance agreements with African countries that it says are in line with its “America First” agenda.

But while the details of such deals have not been made public, critics note that some negotiations appear to have involved requests for African countries to share mineral access or health data.

‘Turning their backs’

Oxfam, a confederation of several non-governmental aid organisations, was among those calling on wealthy countries to change course following Thursday’s report.

“Wealthy governments are turning their backs on the lives of millions of women, men and children in the Global South with these severe aid cuts,” Oxfam’s Development Finance Lead Didier Jacobs said in a statement.

Jacobs added that governments are “cutting life-saving aid budgets while financing conflict and militarisation”.

As an example, he pointed to the US, where the Trump administration is expected to request between $80bn and $200bn for the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has currently been paused amid a tenuous ceasefire.

The administration has separately requested a historic $1.5 trillion for the US military for fiscal year 2027.

“Governments must restore their aid budgets and shore up the global humanitarian system that faces its most serious crisis in decades,” Jacobs said. 

Safiya Baidi spent six months living in a 1987 Mitsubishi Galant. She slept in the front seat; her two baby girls slept in the back seat. Food was stored in the trunk.

It was a way to keep orderly the only home she had. Most nights, though, that order was interrupted by her children’s needs.

“They always wanted me to sleep close to their noses, so I put the seat back,” Baidi said. “It was very uncomfortable, but that’s what they wanted.”

On Thursday, the needs of her children led Baidi to join about 150 frustrated tenants who converged on downtown’s Pershing Square to protest the suspension of federal housing assistance to 1,500 families in Los Angeles.

The problem, advocates say, may soon grow worse. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that about 10,000 families in Los Angeles County could be cut from the Section 8 program if the 2005 budget proposed by the Bush administration is passed by Congress.

Officials with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, however, view the proposed budget in a starkly different way.

“The president’s proposal would provide enough flexibility for local housing authorities to still cover as many people with vouchers as it currently does,” said Larry Bush, a HUD spokesman. “In the case of Los Angeles, this will require better management than we have seen to date.”

Section 8 is a federal program that subsidizes the rents of low-income tenants, who pay about 30% of their income in rent. The federal government pays the rest.

In Los Angeles, for example, a family of four with an income of $29,750 is considered very low income. A family of four with an income of $17,850 or less is considered extremely low income.

With her voucher, Baidi would have been able to rent a two-bedroom apartment. She had found a place in Hawthorne. Now that her voucher is suspended, the 22-year-old, who works full time at a hospital, remains in the homeless shelter that took her in after her long stint living in her car.

“My job is minimum wage,” she said, above the chants of protesters. “That won’t get me in anywhere.”

The protests, which included speeches by single mothers, the mentally ill and others in need of housing assistance, was organized by the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and Los Angeles Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa joined the group in demanding that Congress, the state and federal government do more to assist those who need housing.

“These are people struggling to find the American dream and our president is trying to take it away,” Alarcon said to the crowd. “I think we need to take away his public housing and kick him out of the White House.”

The program had been supported by previous administrations because they “understood something about Section 8,” he said, calling the program “a path to a better place.”

Earlier this year, officials at the Los Angeles Housing Authority canceled housing vouchers of those who had not yet entered into rental contracts. Officials estimated that about 5,000 subsidized households — families already in rental contracts — might lose their assistance unless help came soon.

Local officials pushed HUD for additional funds, more vouchers or an agreement that certain funds could be used to pay for the vouchers. Federal officials blamed problems on the local agency.

On Monday, HUD and local officials announced the signing of an agreement that averted the loss of assistance to the 5,000 families, but so far no hope has been offered that assistance will be restored to those with suspended vouchers. Those families, about 400 of whom are homeless, according to the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, have been left in limbo: stuck in hotels, in shelters or on the streets.

One of the protesters, Laura Figueras, spent 10 years living on the streets, mentally ill and unable to care for herself.

She credits a Santa Monica shelter with helping her reform her life. Now her illness is controlled with medication and she has started to imagine herself living in her own home. She is on a list to receive a voucher.

“It took me a long time to get that far,” Figueras said. When she learned about the suspensions “my world fell apart…. I was pretty devastated,” she said. “But I’m not giving up.”

The voucher suspensions and concerns about possible cuts in the program have given rise to the Save the Section 8 Coalition, several organizations that are pushing for HUD “to release emergency funds to honor the 1,500 Section 8 vouchers.” The coalition is also demanding that the program “remain fully funded to at least its current level. No massive cuts as the Bush administration has proposed.”

A Lebanese family in Beirut has launched a mobile aid initiative to support people displaced by the ongoing conflict.

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March 28 (UPI) — Two missing aid boats en route to Cuba that were reported missing have been found, the Mexican navy announced Saturday.

The navy said aerial search crews spotted the two sailboats — the Friendship and Tiger Moth, operating as part of Our America Convoy — about 80 nautical miles northwest of Cuba on Friday.

The two boats with a total of nine crew members departed Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, on March 20 to transport 2 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba. They failed to confirm their arrival in Cuba on the scheduled dates — between Friday night and Saturday morning — sparking a search operation.

Once found, the captain of one of the vessels told the Mexican navy that the delay was due to unfavorable weather conditions. All crew members were found to be in good health.

A Mexican navy ship was expected to escort the two sailboats the rest of the way to Cuba to ensure a safe arrival.

A representative for Our American Convoy confirmed to CNN that the crew members were safe.

“The convoy continues its course to complete its mission: to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to the Cuban people,” the representative said.

March 27 (UPI) — The Mexican Navy was searching the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico on Friday for two missing aid boats bringing at least two tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba.

The air-sea search and rescue operation involving naval vessels and military aircraft was launched after the catamaran sailboats, Friendship and Tiger Moth, with a multinational crew of at least nine, failed to arrive in Havana on Wednesday, the navy said.

The flotilla, part of Nuestra America Convoy to Cuba, set off on the 250-mile crossing from Isla Mujeres just off Cancun on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on March 20, but there had been communication from the convoy since.

A third vessel in the flotilla, an 80-foot fishing boat, arrived safely in Havana on Tuesday where the crew was personally received by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

The navy said it was in contact with the maritime rescue coordination centers of the home nations of the crew, who are from Cuba, Mexico, the United States, France and Poland, while the Mexican government said consular authorities of the respective nations had been notified.

Before departing from Mexico, the coordinator of the mission, Adnaan Stumo, said the boats were bringing food and medical supplies.

The rescue mission comes after hundreds of activists from 33 countries converged on Havana in support of the Nuestra America effort with organizers saying they had delivered more than 20 tons of essential supplies.

The initiative brought together more than 650 participants from 33 countries, including doctors, activists, political figures, artists and digital content creators. Most participants arrived by air.

Organizers claim Cuba is on the verge of an “imminent humanitarian collapse” for which they blame the recent tightening of the United States’ decades-long economic embargo, including sanctions and restrictions on oil imports.

Mexico has already sent two vessels carrying more than 1,200 tons of food, China 60,000 tons of rice and other neighboring countries in the Caribbean are preparing to ship powdered milk, infant formula, nonperishable food, medical supplies and energy equipment, such as solar panels and batteries.

However, ordinary Cubans and dissidents criticized those efforts, particularly the Nuestra America initiative, saying they provided moral and material backing to the communist regime in Havana, which they accused of not passing on the aid to those in need.

“They believe in dictators, that’s why it works like this. None of those donations go to the people, everything goes to the stores — in MLC [a digital currency created by the Cuban government] or dollars,” said activist Yanaisy Curvelo, mother of a political prisoner.

Havana resident Manuel Soria called the Nuestra America Convoy a sham.

“What they came here for is to support the dictatorship of the Castro regime. If it comes under these conditions, then they should not come anymore because we have not seen any help. We have not benefited, what we are is hungrier every day,” he said.

“A bit” is what United States President Donald Trump thinks about the scale of Russia’s military aid to Iran.

Moscow “might be helping them a bit”, he told Fox News on March 13.

A day later, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated laconically that Moscow’s military cooperation with Tehran was “good”.

His words seemed to confirm earlier media reports that Russia is providing Iran with satellite and intelligence data on the locations of US warships and aircraft.

It may not sound like much, given the superiority of Western military satellites and Russia’s battlefield losses and communication problems after Elon Musk’s SpaceX company switched off smuggled Starlink satellite Internet terminals.

But data on US military assets Iran is receiving most likely comes from Liana, Moscow’s only fully functional system of spy satellites, according to an expert on Russia’s space programme and military.

“The [Liana] system has been created to spy on US carrier strike groups and other navy forces and for identifying them as targets,” Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, told Al Jazeera.

Eyes in the sky

Russia also played a key role in the development of Iran’s space programme and its key satellite, the Khayyam.

Launched in 2022 from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome, the 650kg (1,430 pound) satellite orbits the Earth at 500 kilometres (310 miles) and has a resolution of one metre (3.3 feet).

Moscow “can, in theory, receive and process data from Iran’s optical imaging satellite and share data from its own several satellites”, Luzin said.

On Wednesday, Tehran claimed to have struck the Abraham Lincoln carrier with multiple cruise and ballistic missiles, but the Pentagon called the claim “pure fiction”.

On Sunday, Iranian media claimed that a “massive blaze” was caused by a strike on a US destroyer refuelling in the Indian Ocean.

Washington did not comment on that strike.

Russia has, for decades, supplied weaponry to Iran, including advanced air defence systems, trainer and fighter jets, helicopters, armoured vehicles and sniper rifles, worth billions of dollars.

Since Washington and Tel Aviv began their strikes on February 28, Russia has continued aiding Iran with “intelligence, data, experts and components” for weaponry, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.

While Moscow and Tehran loudly proclaim their strategic partnership, they do not have a mutual defence clause, and Moscow has not intervened in the conflict directly.

But the arms supplies have been mutual. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Tehran has provided Moscow with ammunition and artillery shells, firearms and short-range ballistic missiles, helmets and flak jackets.

Drones with ‘comets’

And then there are the Shahed kamikaze drones – slow, noisy, yet cheap to manufacture – which have been launched on Ukrainian cities in swarms of dozens and then hundreds. Ukraine became so adept at bringing these down – now mass-producing cheap interceptor systems specifically to target Shaheds – that it is now providing its own know-how to Gulf states where US military assets have come under fire from Iran in recent weeks.

In the course of its war with Ukraine, Moscow has manufactured and modernised Shaheds, making them faster and deadlier, and equipping them with cameras, navigators and, occasionally, artificial intelligence modules.

And now, some of the upgrades have made their way back to Iran.

A Shahed drone with a pivotal Russian component launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah from southern Lebanon was able to hit a British airbase on Cyprus on March 1, the UK’s Times newspaper reported on March 7.

It reportedly contained Kometa-B (Comet B), a Russian-made satellite navigation module that also acts as an anti-jamming shield, making drones more resistant to interference.

Russia has also perfected the tactic of sending waves of real and decoy drones to exhaust and overwhelm Western-supplied air defence systems in Ukraine.

These days, the scheme helps Iran hit targets in the Gulf, Western officials say.

“I think no one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well,” British Defence Secretary John Healey said on March 12 after Iranian drones struck a base used by Western forces in Erbil, northern Iraq.

However, if Iran is suffering a shortage of drones – as some analysts believe it is – that would render the use of Russian tactics, as well as Russia-supplied satellite data useless, experts say.

“Russia does supply data, it’s obvious, the data helps Iran, but not much,” Nikita Smagin, a Russian expert who has written extensively on ties between Moscow and Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

After four days of intensive strikes using up to 250 drones a day in early March, Iran has been launching only up to 50 drones a day, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University.

“Iran ran out of steam really fast,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘A goodwill gesture’

Moreover, Moscow is not necessarily particularly interested in an Iranian military victory, as the war is benefitting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own conflict in Ukraine.

Skyrocketing oil prices make “Putin financially capable of further hostilities,” Lieutenant General Romanenko said.

As Iran strangles shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the price of Brent crude – the international benchmark – has soared past $100 a barrel in the past three weeks. US President Donald Trump was forced to temporarily suspend sanctions on shipped Russian oil to ease the economic backlash. The result has been tankers laden with Russian oil bound for China making U-turns in the open ocean to divert to India, as countries scramble to grab Russian oil cargoes out at sea. The price of Urals crude has bounced.

Putin “hasn’t achieved his goals in Ukraine and will therefore use anything, including the war [in Iran] and lies to achieve his vision, press with his ultimatums,” Romanenko said.

The Kremlin “doesn’t pursue a breakthrough in this war, doesn’t help Iran break the United States and Israel,” Ruslan Suleymanov, an associate fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Center, a US-British think tank, told Al Jazeera.

The current intelligence and military aid is “more of a goodwill gesture, an attempt to create an illusion of help, to show Tehran that despite the lack of formal commitments, Russia doesn’t leave its friend in need”, he said.

And Tehran fully understands how insufficient Moscow’s aid is – and therefore relies on its own stratagem of expanding hostilities to the entire region through strikes on neighbouring states and of crippling the global economy with soaring oil prices.

“Iranians understand that the forces are not equal and it’s impossible to defeat the United States and Israel on the battlefield, and no Russian aid is going to help,” he said.

It seems that Trump’s assessment that Moscow “might be helping them a bit” may not be too far wide of the mark.

March 26 (UPI) — The flow of humanitarian aid to Cuba has increased in recent days with shipments of food, medicine and fuel from governments, regional allies and an international flotilla of activists amid a crisis marked by widespread blackouts and shortages of basic supplies.

However, alongside the arrival of that assistance, a debate has also grown inside and outside the island over its real impact, distribution and motives of some of those behind it.

Mexico provided the most significant shipments, with more than 1,200 tons of food transported on two Navy vessels in mid-March, followed by new cargo announced days later.

Meanwhile, Caribbean countries are preparing additional packages with powdered milk, infant formula, nonperishable food, medical supplies and energy equipment, such as solar panels and batteries. China sent 60,000 tons of rice.

Fuel shipments confirmed by Russian authorities, in an attempt to ease the energy crisis affecting the island, have not arrived and seem to be in limbo because of the U.S. embargo.

Cuba faces a structural deficit in electricity generation — because of a massive shortage of oil — that has led the system to operate under severe pressure, producing barely half of the electricity needed to cover total demand.

The gap between supply and consumption has forced authorities to implement widespread outages to avoid a total collapse, especially during peak hours, causing prolonged blackouts across the country that affect hospitals, transportation, cold chains and daily life.

Seeking to assist, the international flotilla “Nuestra América” arrived in Havana starting Friday. Organizers said they transported more than 20 tons of essential supplies.

The initiative brought together more than 650 participants from 33 countries, including doctors, activists, political figures, artists and digital content creators. Most participants arrived by air, while a vessel arrived Tuesday in Havana. President Miguel Díaz-Canel personally received those aboard.

Organizers of relief missions say Cuba is on the verge of an “imminent humanitarian collapse” and attribute the situation to United States policy, including sanctions and restrictions linked to oil trade.

But inside the island, some Cubans express doubts about the destination of that aid.

“These people come here to benefit the regime in Cuba,” said Berta Solórzano, a resident of Old Havana, in statements reported by Radio Martí.

Activist Yanaisy Curvelo, mother of a political prisoner, expressed an even more direct view:

“They believe in dictators, that’s why it works like this. …. None of those donations go to the people, everything goes to the stores — in MLC [a digital currency created by the Cuban government] or dollars.”

Near the port of Havana, where the relief ship Granma 2.0 docked, a resident identified as Manuel Soria said, “What they came here for is to support the dictatorship of the Castro regime. If it comes under these conditions, then they should not come anymore because we have not seen any help. We have not benefited, what we are is hungrier every day.”

Opposition figure Manuel Cuesta Morúa questioned the convoy’s approach.

“Instead of talking about the conditions and circumstances and the real situation of the country, they decide and dedicate themselves to reviving their utopia,” he said.

He also used a metaphor to describe the situation: “The most powerful image I have was given by [Cuban American] activist [Manolo De Los Santos] Ramallo is that this is like the Titanic. It is like someone playing music on the deck of the ship while it’s sinking.”

Doubts are not limited to opposition sectors. Cuban researcher Elaine Acosta, affiliated with Florida International University in Miami, described the convoy in statements to El País as a political maneuver more linked to elites than to citizen needs, and she warned about the risk of aid diversion.

Egyptian filmmaker Basel Ramsis Labib, with historical ties to Cuba and experience in flotillas to Gaza, questioned the initiative and described it as “ridiculous.”

“Cuba is not Gaza,” he wrote, adding that anyone who wants to help can send medicine and food directly, without incurring the high logistical costs of a flotilla.

He said those resources could have been allocated more efficiently to the population and criticized what he described as a component of “egocentrism” and a search for political visibility.

He also questioned the symbolic nature of the initiative, including the name “Granma 2.0,” and warned that some attitudes are “insulting” in the face of food shortages, fuel scarcity and the energy crisis.

“The Cuban people need gasoline, medicine, food and serious reform,” he said.

The controversy was amplified by the participation of international figures and scenes that some considered disconnected from the crisis context.

Irish hip hop group Kneecap performed a concert in Cuba during a blackout, which generated criticism on social media over the contrast between the event and the country’s energy situation.

Another focus of criticism was American political commentator Hasan Piker, who participated in the convoy and said he sought to raise awareness about the effects of United States policy on Cuba. During his visit, he described the country as “incredible” and highlighted the resilience of its population.

His statements were criticized and compared to a disconnect between that discourse and his behavior. Piker came under scrutiny for staying at a luxury hotel and wearing expensive clothing and accessories, prompting comparisons with living standards on the island.

Former Spanish Vice President Pablo Iglesias also became part of the controversy after defending the humanitarian mission from Havana in a video recorded from a five-star hotel, according to posts and analysis shared on social media.

In that message, he said the situation is “difficult, but not as it is presented from outside.”

The reaction included direct criticism from Cuba. Journalist Ariel Maceo Téllez questioned the legitimacy of such interventions and said Cubans understand their reality better than foreign observers.

In his message, he denounced the coexistence of widespread shortages and the development of luxury tourism infrastructure, noting that many Cubans cannot access those places.

Humanitarian aid to Cuba has increased in volume and visibility, but its impact is conditioned by internal distribution capacity, state control and the persistent energy crisis.

The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights said in its 2025 report that 89% of the population lives in extreme poverty and that 71% has been forced to skip meals due to food shortages.

The real impact of the aid will depend on its ability to effectively reach the population in a scenario of increasingly widespread needs.

Settler attacks, restrictions on aid, and land seizures marked a week that was supposed to be one of celebration for Palestinians. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim and Tareq Abu Azzoum explain what’s been going on in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

“Cuba, yes! Blockade, no!” An aid flotilla from Mexico is sailing for Cuba as the country suffers under a tightening US fuel blockade.

Hungarian leader sparks EU outrage with veto on $103bn Ukraine aid, citing pipeline dispute amid tense election campaign.

European Union leaders, meeting for a summit in Brussels, have piled pressure on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, accusing him of hijacking and blocking a vital aid package for Ukraine and undermining EU decision-making as Russia’s war on its neighbour is now in its fifth year, with any peace deal remaining elusive.

The EU’s top diplomat warned on Thursday that it was urgent to show support for Ukraine’s war effort.

“It’s really, really time to show our support to Ukraine,” Kaja Kallas told reporters on arrival at EU summit talks where leaders hope to unlock the 90-billion-euro ($103bn) funding, which Hungary had signed up to in December along with the rest of the 27-member bloc.

EU leaders agreed to the $103bn loan in December, but Orban has clashed with ⁠Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and blocked its implementation last month, citing a dispute over a war-damaged pipeline.

Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key ally in an unfriendly bloc, has taken a stance that has angered other EU leaders, as Kyiv could run short of money in weeks if it does not receive new funding. His U-turn has called into question the credibility of the European Council, the EU’s highest decision-making body.

Several leaders arriving at the summit said Orban, who faces a difficult election next month, had to stick to the December deal and stop blocking the loan.

“He’s using Ukraine as a weapon in his election campaign, and it’s not good,” Finnish ⁠Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said, accusing Orban of betraying fellow EU leaders.

Orban, a strident right-wing nationalist admired by United States President Donald Trump, is trailing in opinion polls ahead of elections on April 12.

Part of his election campaign has been to portray Zelenskyy as an existential threat to Hungary.

At the summit, leaders ⁠are expected to point to an agreement by Zelenskyy this week to fix the Druzhba pipeline with EU technical help and funding, and to try to convince Orban to drop his opposition to the loan, diplomats say.

The pipeline carried Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and ⁠Slovakia but was damaged by a Russian attack in January, officials say. Ukraine says it will take some time to repair. Hungary says it is already ready to operate.