World

(WASHINGTON) — The U.N. World Food Program (WFP), the largest anti-hunger initiative around the globe, is grappling with the worst funding shortage in its 60-year history and “we are in a desperate situation,” Executive Director Cindy McCain said on Sunday.

“It’s a combination of things — it’s COVID, it’s climate change, it’s conflict and also the cost of being able to do business,” McCain told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl about the reasons behind the lack of money. “Those things combined and, of course, a world that has kind of grown tired of all this. There’s a great malaise right now within countries about foreign aid and giving.”

“The bottom line is those that are going to suffer [are] those who can’t afford to,” McCain said.

In September, the WFP said it “has been struggling to meet the global need for food assistance …. And for the first time ever, WFP has seen contributions decreasing while needs steadily increase.” The organization has already had to make “significant cuts in hot spots such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Jordan, Palestine, South Sudan, Somalia, and Syria.”

McCain warned on “This Week” that in Afghanistan, for example, the food program doesn’t “have enough money to even get through October.”

The WFP has been providing crucial services to the needy in the country, which was taken over in 2021 by the Taliban, who then imposed a wave of restrictions.

“Unless we can build up some funding for Afghanistan, we’ll have to pull it completely out,” McCain said.

Emphasizing the urgency, she said, “Right now, women can’t work. They can’t hold jobs of any kind. And in the case of WFP, we’ve been feeding women, feeding women and children. And if we have to pull out, starvation and famine is going to be the result of this.”

Karl asked, “Who’s not giving money that used to give money? What’s happened?”

McCain said other international conflicts had, in a way, overshadowed the broader needs of the hungry around the world at the same time that voters have become warier of sending money overseas.

“Ukraine, for better or worse has sucked the oxygen out of the room. And I — we certainly understand the need to support Ukraine. But there’s other hot spots in the world that are deeply and as much desperate as Ukraine is,” McCain said.

“So we have to make sure that we remind the world the importance of taking a look around the globe,” she continued. “But people are talking to their parliaments, their parliaments are saying no, their constituents are saying no. And we are facing some of the same things here in the United States.”

There were national security implications to supporting at-risk communities abroad, McCain said: “The terrorist groups are feeding people. And it’s primarily a lot of the stuff they steal from us.”

“We have to pay attention to it because we’re either going to feed them now or fight them later. And there’s no way about this. And … as a human being and a humanitarian, we cannot turn our backs on this,” McCain said. “We can’t. If we don’t do it, who will?”

McCain, widow of late Arizona Sen. John McCain, said her husband “would be furious” at the current state of affairs.

“I know he’d be traveling the world to make sure that people got the message and understood the importance and the desperation of the situation we’re in,” she said.

Cindy McCain, a Republican, has been vocal about her critical views of former President Donald Trump. But asked by Karl about what she thought would be the outcome if he won the 2024 election, she declined to answer specifically, citing her current work with the apolitical WFP.

Still, she said, “We have to consider what’s at stake and why and the influence and impact a single human being can have on this situation.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(TEHRAN) — Iranian authorities detained the father of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in police custody last year, as he left his home to visit his daughter’s grave on the first anniversary of her death, human rights observers said.

A few hours later, Amjad Amini was taken home by security guards and has been under house arrest, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said Saturday.

Mahsa Amini died in a hospital on Sept. 16, 2022, due to injuries sustained during her custody. She had been arrested by the Islamic Republic’s hijab police, known as the morality police, in Tehran allegedly for not fully complying with the compulsory hijab rules of the country.

Though the government claimed Amini died from a previous medical condition while in police custody, her family and critics of the regime believe that she died as a result of being beaten by police.

Her tragic death sparked months of nationwide protests known as the “Woman Life Freedom” movement. At least 537 people were killed by the regime in a brutal crackdown on the demonstrations and at least 22,000 were arrested, Iran Human Rights reported in April.

Tens of thousands of protesters were arrested during the monthslong demonstrations, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) later confirmed.

Despite the intelligence and security pressure against his family, Amjad Amini stated in a public post on his Instagram that the family would hold a commemoration ceremony on the anniversary day. However, he invited people to abstain from violence.

“While we honor the pains and concerns of dear fellow citizens, we would invite everyone to abstain from violence and to react against it,” the statement said.

After the news of Amjad Amini’s arrest circulated on social media Saturday, Tasnim News Agency, a state-linked news outlet, denied the arrest and said he had been “accompanied” on his way to his daughter’s grave.

Human rights observers have accused the regime of putting pressure ahead of the anniversary on families of the victims of the crackdown, along with activists, former political prisoners and anyone with leadership roles in the protests.

Video circulating on social media show the extensive presence of security guards and plain clothes police forces especially in central Tehran and Saqez, the hometown of Amini.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — The death toll from devastating floods in eastern Libya has surpassed 11,000, according to the Libyan Red Crescent, as rescuers work to understand the full scope of the disaster.

As of Saturday, the bodies of nearly 4,000 people have been recovered and identified, the World Health Organization said. More than 9,000 people are still missing, according to the WHO, which is working with the Libyan Ministry of Health to track the dead and missing.

“This is a disaster of epic proportions,” Dr. Ahmed Zouiten, a WHO representative in Libya, said in a statement.

The Libyan Red Crescent said Friday that at least 11,300 people have died and another 10,100 were reported missing. A Red Crescent official told ABC News it was difficult to give an accurate tally of deaths.

“Bodies are washing up on the shore every minute, on beaches as far as 150 km away,” Ahmed Al-Hadl, the head of aid in the port city of Derna for the Red Crescent, said.

Eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel, meanwhile said Friday the number of recorded deaths stood at 3,166.

Mediterranean storm Daniel is behind the widespread flooding in the North African nation, as it washed away entire neighborhoods over the weekend and swept bodies out to sea.

Derna was the worst affected following the collapse of two dams, which wiped out a quarter of the area. Libya’s chief prosecutor announced late Friday he has ordered an investigation into the collapse of the dams — and whether better maintenance could have avoided the disaster.

Derna has been declared a disaster zone, with electricity and communication having been cut off, according to local officials. The head of Libya’s eastern parliament-backed government Osama Hamad told reporters Friday evening that authorities would take precautionary measures that might include sealing off the city of Derna for fear of the spread of diseases.

An assessment team visiting Derna on Thursday said people were returning to what was left of their homes in desperation.

“What I saw there is … the situation is devastating … a lot of destruction and ruins, around 25% of the city was basically destroyed as a result of the flooding,” Talal Burnaz, the acting country director in Libya for the International Medical Corps, told ABC News.

“Whenever you see a search and rescue team you will see families standing there with tears in their eyes asking for support and hoping that they will basically find one of their family members alive,” Burnaz said.

Burnaz said they were still pulling people out of the rubble Thursday. He saw one rescue and heard of four more when he visited the last remaining government-run hospital in Derna. The survivors had been trapped under rubble since the early hours of Monday morning.

Some help is getting through the one road that leads to the devastated areas. Burnaz saw international search and rescue teams — from Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and Spain — and he drove past convoys of help coming from all over Libya.

“There were many local authorities there — army, police, scouts, Libyan Red Cross — trying to retrieve either bodies or trying to find survivors under the rubble,” Burnaz said.

The WHO said Saturday that 29 metric tons of health supplies arrived in Benghazi, Libya, from the WHO Global Logistics Hub in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The supplies include medicines, trauma and emergency surgery supplies, and medical equipment, as well as body bags.

Doctors Without Borders dispatched an emergency team from Misrata to Derna that arrived Thursday to assess the needs in the aftermath of storm Daniel, despite challenging conditions as the city was split in two between east and west by the flooding.

The group’s medical coordinator for Libya said the situation is chaotic with volunteers coming from everywhere in Libya to help, leaving an enormous need for coordination.

“There are no dead bodies in the street anymore, no wounded that we can see in the hospital,” Manoelle Carton, Doctors Without Borders’ medical coordinator for Libya, said Friday. “It’s more the day-to-day health needs that are coming up again — chronic diseases. We can clearly identify a huge need in mental health support. Everybody is asking for it, from people in the streets, to the medical doctors that assisted people, from the people who saw the events, to the people who lost their entire families.”

Carton said the emergency team, comprising a logistician and three medical staff, began assessing primary health centers in the city on Friday.

“We visited three health centers in the west — one is not active because almost all of the medical staff died. The two other health centers are active with volunteer doctors from Tripoli, but they are asking for support — mainly for mental health to support people coming to the center,” Carton said.

Carton said the situation of internally displaced people is still unclear, saying the group identified a space in the west of Tripoli with about 3,000 displaced people, but there are more sheltering in the homes of friends and colleagues.

In Derna, those who have lost their homes are being housed in municipal buildings like schools and universities, according to Burnaz.

“If you see the amount of destruction and the area that’s been destroyed — it’s big. You can see cars in the third and fourth floors of the building stuck there … it was massive, like something never seen before,” Burnaz said.

A number of countries have vowed to send aid to Libya, but getting the supplies into the affected areas has proven difficult with many roads blocked and bridges destroyed. Rescue efforts have also been hampered by the current political situation in Libya, with the oil-rich country split between two warring governments — one in the east and the other in the west.

Libya’s National Center of Meteorology reported that more than 16 inches of rain fell in the northeastern city of Bayda within a 24-hour period to Sunday, according to the flood tracking website Floodlist.

The head of the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, said Thursday that most of Libya’s flooding casualties could have been avoided if the divided country had a functioning meteorological service.

In a statement, Taalas said that Libya’s National Meteorological Center did issue early warnings for heavy precipitation and floods, but they didn’t address the “risk posed by the aging dams.”

ABC News’ Will Gretsky contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(DERNA, Libya) — Libya’s chief prosecutor announced Friday he has ordered an investigation into the collapse of two overwhelmed dams during the catastrophic floods — and whether better maintenance could have avoided the disaster.

After Mediterranean storm Daniel brought heavy rains, and widespread flooding, to eastern Libya, two dams near the port city of Derna collapsed earlier this week, wiping out a quarter of the area. The city has been declared a disaster zone.

Decades-old studies showed that the two dams, built in the 1970s primarily to protect the city from floods, suffered cracks and subsidence that may lead to their collapse, according to Libya Attorney General Al-Siddiq Al-Sour.

Al-Sour said around $8 million had been allocated for maintenance that was halted months after it began when the Arab Spring uprising broke out in the country in the early 2010s. Prosecutors are investigating the spending of dam maintenance funds, he told reporters Friday. The investigation would include local authorities as well as previous governments, he said.

“I reassure citizens that whoever made mistakes or negligence, prosecutors will certainly take firm measures, file a criminal case against him and send him to trial,” he said.

A team of 26 prosecutors will also head to Derna to keep a record of victims and identify causes of deaths, he said. His office did not have an accurate tally of deaths as investigations remain underway.

According to the Libyan Red Crescent, at least 11,300 people have died and another 10,100 were reported missing as of Friday in the wake of the destructive floods.

The death toll in Derna could reach upwards of 20,000 people, based on the extent of the damage, Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi said Thursday.

Libya’s National Center of Meteorology reported that more than 16 inches of rain fell in the northeastern city of Bayda within a 24-hour period to Sunday, according to the flood tracking website Floodlist.

The head of the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that most of Libya’s flooding casualties could have been avoided if the divided country had a functioning meteorological service.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Members of the Wagner Group, a private military company with ties to the Russian government, are now subject to prosecution by British authorities after the United Kingdom declared the group a terrorist organization on Friday.

The Wagner Group was added to the list of proscribed organizations in the U.K., alongside 78 other organizations, more than a week after the order was presented in Parliament, the U.K. Home Office said in a statement.

“This order comes into force with immediate effect and will make belonging to the Wagner Group or actively supporting the group in the UK a criminal offence, with a potential jail sentence of 14 years which can be handed down alongside or in place of a fine,” the Home Office said in a statement.

The Wagner Group, whose name is reportedly a reference to the composer Richard Wagner, beloved by Adolf Hitler, has been involved in several major conflicts including in Ukraine, Mali and Sudan.

The group’s founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, were killed along with eight others in a plane crash in Russia’s Tver region in August, just months after launching a short-lived insurrection against Russian military leadership. The cause of the crash is still under investigation, Russian authorities said.

Prigozhin, a former restauranteur who had close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Utkin, a former Russiian officer, launched Wagner during the 2014 Ukrainian-Russian conflict, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

In 2018, U.S. prosecutors charged Prigozhin for his suspected role in funding the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which the U.S. described as a Russian “troll farm” that sought to use digital campaigns to increase political and social tensions in the U.S.

Wagner had roughly 50,000 members fighting in Ukraine back in January, according to White House spokesman John Kirby.

In June, Prigozhin became vocally frustrated with the Kremlin over the war in Ukraine, and the losses that his troops were facing. He and his troops marched towards Moscow as part of a reported insurrection against Russian military leaders before turning back.

Before his death, Prigozhin allegedly struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin where he didn’t face prosecution and was relocated to Belarus, according to the Kremlin.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — American XL Bully dogs could be banned in the U.K. by the end of the year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Friday.

There have been a string of attacks involving the canine breed, including a fatal one in Staffordshire, England.

In a statement, West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) said a male victim had “sustained multiple life-threatening injuries” and was in “critical condition” after an attack by a suspected XL Bully dog.

“The American XL Bully dog is a danger to our communities, particularly our children. I share the nation’s horror at recent videos we’ve all seen. Yesterday, we saw another suspected XL Bully dog attack, which has tragically led to a fatality,” Sunak said in a video statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Although recognized as a breed by the American Kennel Club, the American Bulldog is not officially recognized as a breed by the U.K.’s Royal Kennel Club.

Sunak said he has tasked ministers with assembling a team of experts to define the breed.

“It is not currently a breed defined in law. So, this vital first step must happen fast. We will then ban the breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act and new laws will be in place by the end of the year,” he said.

He went on, “It’s a pattern of behavior and it cannot go on. While owners already have a responsibility to keep their dogs under control, I want to reassure people that we are urgently working on ways to stop these attacks and protect the public.”

The pit bull terrier, Japanese tosa, dogo argentino and fila brasileiro are currently banned in the U.K.

American XL Bully dogs have been at the center of a national debate following viral footage depicting a suspected American XL Bully violently attacking several people, including an 11-year-old girl, in Birmingham, U.K.

“This is appalling,” said U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman following the attack. “We can’t go on like this … I have commissioned urgent advice on banning them.”

Originating in the United States in the 1980s, the American XL Bully is a cross between the American Pit Bull Terrier (Pitbull) and the American Staffordshire Terrier. They have been described as being “friendly” pets by the American Kennel Club. Arriving in the U.K. around 2014, the breed is commonly known for its fighting ability.

The breed has different variations: pocket, standard, classic and XL.

According to Bully Watch UK, the scale of fatal attacks involving the breed is “growing.”

“The genetic makeup of these dogs is often unknown due to constant breeding, making their temperament unpredictable. Peer-reviewed medical studies from around the world clearly show that pit bull type dogs, which include the American Bully breeds, inflict the most damage when they bite,” said Bully Watch. “It is the style of biting, tearing at flesh and bone.”

According to Britain’s Dangerous Dogs Act, it is illegal to own a dog that is “dangerously out of control” and dog owners could face up to 14 years in prison “if a person dies as a result of being injured” from an attack.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(MEXICO CITY and LONDON) — Hundreds of migrants from Central and South America were found “crowded and dehydrated” in the back of a tractor-trailer in southeastern Mexico on Thursday, authorities said.

The discovery was made at dawn after authorities stopped the driver of the trailer at a toll booth in between the cities of Córdoba and Coatzacoalcos in the eastern state of Veracruz, according to a press release from Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM).

A gamma-ray device detected the presence of people inside the container and authorities heard screams and knocking at the back of the unit. When they opened it, authorities found 350 migrants, including men, women and children, the INM said.

A vast majority of the migrants — 340 of them — were from Guatemala while six were from Ecuador, three from Honduras and one from El Salvador, according to the INM.

Those who were minors or traveling as a family were placed under the guardianship of the state’s System for the Integral Development of the Family. The other adults were taken to the INM’s headquarters in Veracruz to begin the process of defining their immigration status in Mexico, INM said.

Meanwhile, the trailer and the driver were taken into custody by the state attorney general’s office, according to the INM.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — The death toll from devastating floods in eastern Libya has surpassed 11,000, according to the Libyan Red Crescent.

The Libyan Red Crescent said Friday that at least 11,300 people had died and another 10,100 were reported missing.

Mediterranean storm Daniel is behind the widespread flooding in the North African nation, as it washed away entire neighborhoods over the weekend and swept bodies out to sea.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

 

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Most of the casualties in the devastating Libya floods could have been avoided if the divided country had a functioning meteorological service, the head of the United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization said Thursday.

At least 6,000 people have died after widespread flooding washed away entire neighborhoods in eastern Libya over the weekend during Mediterranean storm Daniel. At least 9,000 people are missing, according to the Libyan Interior Ministry.

The port city of Derna was especially hard-hit; the collapse of two dams wiped out a quarter of the area. The deaths in the city could reach upwards of 20,000 people, based on the extent of the damage, according to Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi.

World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the tragedy in the North African nation demonstrates the “devastating and cascading consequences of extreme weather on fragile states.”

“If there would have been a normally operating meteorological service, they could have issued warnings,” Taalas said during a briefing Thursday in Geneva. “The emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out evacuation of the people. And we could have avoided most of the human casualties.”

In a statement Thursday, Taalas said that Libya’s National Meteorological Center did issue early warnings for heavy precipitation and floods, but they didn’t address the “risk posed by the aging dams.”

“The fragmentation of the country’s disaster management and disaster response mechanisms, as well as deteriorating infrastructure, exacerbated the enormity of the challenges,” Taalas said. “The political situation is a driver of risk, as we are seeing in many countries currently.”

The country’s National Meteorological Center is also challenged by “chronic” staffing shortages and poorly functioning IT systems, he said.

“The National Meteorological Center is trying to function, but its ability to do so is limited,” Taalas said. “The entire chain of disaster management and governance is disrupted.”

Libya has been politically fractured since a 2011 uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, with two administrations in the east and west.

Gen. Khalifa Haftar, head of the powerful Libyan military faction that controls the eastern part of the divided country, said in a televised address on Tuesday that they have directed the government to form a specialized committee “to assess the damage, instantly begin the reconstruction of roads to facilitate transportation, restore the electricity and to take all immediate and needed measures in that regard.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — Ukraine is training thousands of drone pilots and ramping up its production of unmanned aircraft to bring an “army of drones” to the front lines of its counteroffensive against Russia, Ukrainian military officials and manufacturers told ABC News in rare interviews on the secretive program.

From November through May, Ukraine has trained 10,000 drone pilots, and another 10,000 pilots are being trained right now, according to Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov.

“I want to use all means available to destroy the enemy and achieve victory. The Ukrainian Armed Forces get a lot of support from our Western partners, but we also have to develop our own technologies and use them on a scale never seen before in any conflicts,” a drone pilot said. The name of the pilot and location of the facility are being withheld for safety and security reasons.

For the Ukrainian Armed Forces, drone warfare is already proving to be indispensable on the battlefield.

Some drones spy on Russian positions, identifying targets that are then hit by artillery and mortar fire. Others are attack drones, dropping ordnance or exploding on impact, killing Russian soldiers hiding in trenches, blowing up tanks on the front lines, striking artillery pieces hidden in tree lines and hitting stockpiles of munitions and key supply lines.

One year ago, there were only seven manufacturers making drones in Ukraine. Today, there are at least 80 of them, according to Dmytro Kovalchuk, CEO of drone manufacturer Warbird.

Kovalchuk embodies the entrepreneurial spirit driving this quiet revolution. In one year, he says he’s gone from making just three drones a month to making 150.

“In Ukraine, not a single state enterprise is producing drones. It’s all private enterprises, sometimes partnerships,” Kovalchuk told ABC News.

“It costs $1,000 and can destroy a tank that costs $500,000. We are talking about the development of an army of drones,” Kovalchuk said.

Skyeton is one of the most advanced manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. Its Raybird reconnaissance drone costs over $1 million and can fly for more than 30 hours at an altitude of over 16,000 feet, relaying real-time high-quality images of enemy positions deep into Russian territory.

Oleksandr Stepura, Skyeton’s founder and chairman, says UAVs need to be able to prioritize and identify targets.

“For us, tanks are not objects for recognition and for impaction. For us, it’s warfare systems, it’s artillery systems, air defense systems from [the] other side. So this is the object we’d like to recognize and destroy,” Stepura said.

The Raybird already has basic artificial intelligence built in, but developers are looking at a new generation that could totally transform warfare, Stepura said.

“[The] era of manned aircraft, in terms of Air Force, completely ended with this war,” Stepura said. “This war showed that to have the person inside of the flying bird, no reason to do that, no sense. The pilot doesn’t have time to think, never. Just milliseconds. And any machine will do that better than people…and faster and more accurately.”

This new army of drones is now taking the war to the heart of Russia in Moscow, showing Putin and Russians that the homeland is no longer immune from the war and that Ukraine has new longer-range drone capabilities.

ABC News obtained an image of the drone used in the latest Moscow attacks – a Bober long-range UAV.

A drone developer with intimate knowledge of this top-secret program agreed to talk to ABC News anonymously.

When asked about the psychological impact of the ability to strike inside Moscow or in Russian territorial waters, the developer said, “It’s very important for us. We showed them that two can play this game. It’s very important to make Russians know that we also have weapons. We also can attack them.”

“The more drones that are produced, the more attacks will be provided,” the developer said.

“My understanding of what the goals are is to have capability to strike all strategic aviation airfields, to push back strategic aviation capable of launching missiles,” the developer said.

It’s not just airfields and aviation, but also warships at sea. A new generation of maritime drones burst onto the scene with two recent attacks.

A Russian warship was struck inside its own territorial waters in July with a drone carrying almost 1,000 pounds of explosives. The following day, there was a strike on an oil tanker supplying Russian troops.

Ukraine did not admit to carrying out these particular strikes, but intelligence officials now tell ABC News that drones are being used to target Russia in the Black Sea.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.