https://www.scmp.com/rss/523724/feed The latest news and top stories on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). A Washington, DC-based US government agency, USAID is dedicated to administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. Its main areas of focus include global health, education, economic development, environmental protection and humanitarian assistance. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Xinlu Liang Xinlu Liang The United States has appointed a new official to oversee its policy on Tibet, a move analysts say signals Washington’s interest in playing up the issue while dealing with Beijing. The appointment is set against US President Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid and global advocacy, as well as a strategic detente with Beijing. On February 17, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Riley Barnes, the assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labour, would assume the role of US... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3345029/us-names-official-tibet-policy-it-eyeing-china-its-minority-groups-or-trade?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3345029/us-names-official-tibet-policy-it-eyeing-china-its-minority-groups-or-trade?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 01 Mar 2026 11:01:42 +0000 Reuters Reuters US Agency for International Development staffers in early 2024 drafted a warning to senior officials in Joe Biden’s administration: Northern Gaza had turned into an “Apocalyptic Wasteland” with dire shortages of food and medical aid. Three months after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip, the internal message laid out in gruesome detail scenes observed by United Nations staff who visited the area on a two-part humanitarian fact-finding mission in January... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3341861/us-envoys-israel-blocked-apocalyptic-gaza-warning-2024-report?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3341861/us-envoys-israel-blocked-apocalyptic-gaza-warning-2024-report?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:43:37 +0000 Bloomberg Bloomberg One year after President Donald Trump ordered the US to withdraw from the World Health Organization, the process was formally completed on Thursday, though the nation is leaving behind unpaid debt of roughly US$260 million. All funding to the health agency has been terminated and people working with the WHO have been recalled from all offices and its headquarters, the Department of Health and Human Services said on Thursday. The US has also ended all participation in WHO-sponsored leadership... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3340913/us-walks-away-who-leaving-unpaid-tab-us260-million?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3340913/us-walks-away-who-leaving-unpaid-tab-us260-million?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Jan 2026 23:26:21 +0000 Maria Siow Maria Siow At a high-level conference in Washington last month, the US State Department unveiled an “America first” aid strategy that ties development dollars directly to the commercial and security goals of the world’s largest economy. This shift away from decades of framing the United States’ foreign assistance as a moral undertaking is a reflection, analysts say, of the Trump administration’s view that foreign assistance should advance America’s national interest above all else. Officials at the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3339382/us-strips-moral-framing-foreign-aid-america-first-pivot?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3339382/us-strips-moral-framing-foreign-aid-america-first-pivot?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Jan 2026 08:00:19 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organisations, including the UN’s population agency and the UN treaty that establishes international climate negotiations, as the US further retreats from global cooperation. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order suspending US support for 66 organisations, agencies and commissions following his instructions for his administration to review participation in and funding for all international... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3339107/trump-pulls-us-out-dozens-international-organisations-including-un-linked-agencies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3339107/trump-pulls-us-out-dozens-international-organisations-including-un-linked-agencies?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 07 Jan 2026 23:25:05 +0000 Ushar Daniele Ushar Daniele Rashid arrived on the Malaysian island of Langkawi as a young child after spending weeks at sea in a fishing boat crammed with Myanmar’s unwanted: Rohingya Muslims driven out by soldiers and ethnic Buddhist militias who had razed their villages. A decade on, the now 14-year-old has witnessed countless boats arrive on the island over the years, as his stateless community continues to flee persecution. “We did not choose Malaysia because we thought it was a good or nice country,” he told This Week... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3337690/rohingya-crisis-deepens-myanmar-election-offers-no-hope-return?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3337690/rohingya-crisis-deepens-myanmar-election-offers-no-hope-return?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Dec 2025 03:00:09 +0000 David Dodwell David Dodwell This week, exactly six years ago, as we were gliding cheerfully into the 2019 festive Christmas season, the Covid-19 virus was spreading in Wuhan, China. I was preparing for an important Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Australia in February (the last overseas trip I would make for three years), oblivious to the looming pandemic. The world in general had no inkling of the terrible three years that would follow, with death estimates ranging from 7 million to 36 million, over 700... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3336967/six-years-are-we-better-prepared-next-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/world-opinion/article/3336967/six-years-are-we-better-prepared-next-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Dec 2025 08:31:28 +0000 Alex Lo Alex Lo So this is how the Chinese commit genocide and crimes against humanity, according to much of the Anglo-American media and academia, which have valiantly resisted Beijing’s attempt to censor them in their home countries. According to a new BBC report, tourism is booming in Xinjiang. The ground zero of alleged Chinese genocide last year welcomed 300 million visitors, more than double the number in 2018. “Beijing has pumped in billions of dollars to develop infrastructure, help produce TV dramas... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/article/3332121/china-committing-genocide-promoting-tourism-and-development?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/article/3332121/china-committing-genocide-promoting-tourism-and-development?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Nov 2025 16:47:11 +0000 Reuters Reuters In some neighbourhoods of heavily Democratic Washington, Halloween displays with a decidedly political tone have long been a tradition. Nine months into Republican US President Donald Trump’s second term, some residents are staging anti-Trump yard displays prompted in part by his administration’s budget cuts, job lay-offs and norm-breaking policies. This Halloween also coincides with one of the longest government shutdowns in US history. In a front yard close to the US Capitol, Donna Breslin,... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3330976/washington-halloween-displays-show-scariest-thing-democrats-trump?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3330976/washington-halloween-displays-show-scariest-thing-democrats-trump?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Oct 2025 23:28:37 +0000 Reuters Reuters Colombia said on Monday it has recalled its ambassador from Washington after US President Donald Trump said he would raise tariffs on the South American nation and stop all payments to it, intensifying a feud stemming from US military strikes on vessels allegedly transporting drugs. Trump also called Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday, which Petro’s government described as offensive. Colombia’s currency fell 1.4 per cent to 3,889 pesos per US dollar in... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3329709/colombia-recalls-ambassador-us-trump-petro-feud-over-tariffs-drugs-intensifies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3329709/colombia-recalls-ambassador-us-trump-petro-feud-over-tariffs-drugs-intensifies?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:47:15 +0000 Bloomberg Bloomberg A fresh threat from US President Donald Trump’s budget office of mass firings of federal workers if the government shuts down October 1 incensed Democratic leaders and ramped up the political and economic stakes if lawmakers and the White House cannot reach a deal. A memo sent Wednesday night from the White House Office of Management and Budget directs agencies to plan to permanently lay off federal workers in programmes that do not align with Trump’s priorities if the deadline to pass funding... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3326896/trump-threatens-mass-firings-shutdown-clash-democrats-mafia-style-blackmail?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3326896/trump-threatens-mass-firings-shutdown-clash-democrats-mafia-style-blackmail?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Sep 2025 17:43:30 +0000 Kandy Wong Kandy Wong As America retreats from clean energy investment around the world, with US President Donald Trump labelling wind and solar power “the scam of the century” on Wednesday, Chinese “cleantech” firms have been striding into emerging markets in Southeast and Central Asia and Latin America. Mabill Technologies, a Malaysian cleantech start-up developing a predictive AI algorithm that will connect energy efficiency analytics and sustainable cooling solutions, said Chinese investors had been showing... https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3322824/us-retreats-clean-energy-race-chinese-firms-push-emerging-markets?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3322824/us-retreats-clean-energy-race-chinese-firms-push-emerging-markets?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Aug 2025 12:30:12 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press Former US presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered rare open criticism of the Trump administration - and singer Bono held back tears as he recited a poem - in an emotional video farewell on Monday with staff of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organisation, created by former president John F. Kennedy as a peaceful way of promoting US national security by... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3316442/obama-bush-and-tearful-bono-fault-trumps-gutting-usaid-agencys-last-day?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3316442/obama-bush-and-tearful-bono-fault-trumps-gutting-usaid-agencys-last-day?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Jun 2025 20:17:20 +0000