₦airaland Forum

Until 2025, the US was supporting South Africa's efforts to deal with the virus with an estimated $400m (£300m) a year through the President's Emergency Fund for Aids Relief (Pepfar).

The US government says it will stop funding programmes in South Africa intended to tackle the spread of HIV and Aids.

More than eight million South Africans are living with HIV – the highest number of any country in the world.

The US State Department appeared to link the decision to South Africa's alleged failure to protect the white-minority Afrikaner community - an allegation the South African government has repeatedly rejected.

South Africa's health ministry responded by saying that though it had not been informed of this decision, it had "long been working on a self-reliance plan".

Until 2025, the US was supporting South Africa's efforts to deal with the virus with an estimated $400m (£300m) a year through the President's Emergency Fund for Aids Relief (Pepfar).

But since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, relations between the two countries have increasingly soured.

Shortly after he came into office, Trump issued an executive order alleging that "countless" South African policies dismantled equal opportunities and fuelled violence "against racially disfavored landowners".

This is disputed by the South African government, which says its Black Economic Empowerment policy is needed to correct economic inequality dating from the apartheid era.

The executive order also highlighted South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and its links to Iran.

The White House said that given these "unjust and immoral practices", further aid to South Africa would not be provided.

Trump has also falsely alleged that there is a "white genocide" taking place in South Africa, which has led to the administration setting up a refugee programme for Afrikaners - descendants of western Europeans who settled in southern Africa in the 17th Century. They are now just about the only refugees being allowed into the US.

The genocide claim has been widely discredited.

Pepfar funding, which had been providing about a fifth of South Africa's total spending on HIV programmes, got a reprieve last October with what was called a "bridge plan".

But a US State Department official has confirmed that a "phased drawdown" of Pepfar funding would now start.

This was because of "South Africa's failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration", the official said.

The intention of the US government was to "foster self-reliance" and reduce dependency on American funding, they added, pointing out that "South Africa is a middle-income country and is more than capable of supporting its own health programs".

South Africa's health ministry has said that while Pepfar contributed to the country's HIV programme, the provision of life-saving antiretroviral drugs was funded entirely separately, with most coming from the government.

Attempts to mend US-South Africa relations have floundered. These include a high-profile White House meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa just over a year ago when the US president confronted his counterpart with his claims of white persecution.

The US also boycotted the G20 meeting, a gathering of the world's major economies, hosted by South Africa last November.

Ireland spends $853,000 to deport 42 South Africans as migration tensions rise across Africa’s largest economy

Olat4421:
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bewla:
most of. You celebrate him way back to remove Tinubu and encourage him to put sanctions on Nigeria


But God no go shame us

MIKOLOWISKA:
why did she been for pics

In an interview with Italy’s La7 TV, Trump claimed Meloni had “begged” him for a photo at the summit, and he obliged because he felt sorry for her,

US President Donald Trump’s comments to an Italian media outlet about the country’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have sparked a fresh diplomatic incident.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced Friday that he was canceling a planned trip to the United States, where he was slated to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in response to Trump’s reported remarks. Tajani called Trump’s claims “offensive,” while Meloni said they were “completely fabricated.”

It is the latest dip in the deteriorating relationship between the once-close leaders and a further fracture between the US and its European allies, coming after signs of repair at the G7 summit this week in France

In an interview with Italy’s La7 TV, Trump claimed Meloni had “begged” him for a photo at the summit, and he obliged because he felt sorry for her, according to a dubbed Italian translation posted by the outlet.

Meloni refuted the comments in a sharply worded video posted on Friday morning, saying they deserved “an immediate response.”

“Donald Trump’s statements are completely fabricated. I’m frankly shocked. I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way towards his own allies, and it’s not the first time it’s happened,” she said in the video posted on X.

“I can only say that it’s a shame he doesn’t have the same determination with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States, with leaderships with which he instead appears much more accommodating,” she continued.

“But you must remember one thing: Italy and I never beg,” Meloni said

Tajani was scheduled to come to the US early next week and attend the Italy-US Business, Investment, Science and Innovation Forum in Miami. According to a statement from the State Department, Rubio was slated to meet with his Italian counterpart “to advance U.S.-Italy bilateral cooperation on economic security and critical minerals.”

CNN has reached out to the White House and US State Department for comment.

It is not the first spat between Trump and Meloni. Earlier this year, the right-wing Italian leader called Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo XIV over his opposition to the war against Iran “unacceptable.” Trump then criticized Meloni and Italy more broadly for what he said was a failure to sufficiently help the US in the conflict.

Meloni has widely been regarded as Trump’s staunchest western European ally, although this relationship has been strained by her refusal to participate in the war with Iran.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, populist and conservative Meloni captured the attention of Trump and his advisers and she was the only European leader to attend his second inauguration.

The two have overlapped on issues such as strict immigration policies and national sovereignty.

Trump has been known in the past to shower Meloni with strong personal praise, contrasting with his hostile approach to other European leaders.

iamfraud:
That’s a good decision
Kanu is a prisoner and can’t lead us again

saintkel:
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The presidents of the US and Iran have signed an initial peace deal aiming to end the war, allowing it to immediately take effect.

The agreement includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a $300bn (£224bn) plan for Iran's "reconstruction", and the US terminating "all types of sanctions" on Iran.

But the issue of Iran's nuclear programme, the main reason stated by the US for the conflict, is still to be negotiated over an extendable 60-day period.

US President Donald Trump, who signed the deal in France during the G7 summit, defended the proposal, saying it would stave off an "economic catastrophe". He warned, though, that the US would "bomb the hell" out of Iran if no final deal emerged.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also signed the document on Wednesday, Tehran confirmed.

Iran's parliamentary speaker and key negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told state media his distrust of the US remained, and Iran's "finger is on the trigger".

"If the enemy does not understand the language of logic, we will enter again with the language of power," he said.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran on 28 February, assassinating Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top military officials on the first day

But since that time the conflict has spiralled, driving up energy prices and renewing inflationary pressures as Iran imposed a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade waterway through which around 20% of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) usually passes.

Trump told reporters in France at the lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains, where the G7 summit took place, that the plan would avert "worldwide depression".

"I didn't want to see economic catastrophe," Trump told reporters. "If you kept this going, that could have happened.

"All I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship," he added.

Every time we said something negative, like, guess what, we're not going to be able to settle, it would go down very big."

Oil prices dipped after the agreement was announced.

In early Asia trading on Thursday, Brent crude was around 1% lower at $78.79 (£59.21) a barrel, but it remained about $8 higher than before the conflict started

Trump signed a hard copy of the initial deal, called a memorandum of understanding, during a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles.

The text says the US and Iran will "commit to negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days, extendable with mutual consent".

The agreement says "Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons", which was Trump's number one condition since the start of the war.

The memo also says that Iran's enriched uranium will be "down-blended" – meaning diluted – on site, under the auspices of the IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog.

Originally, the US had demanded that the nuclear material be removed from the country entirely.

As for the Strait of Hormuz, there will be no charges for ships going through the critical waterway for 60 days, according to the agreement.

But the memo leaves open the possibility of future charges. There were none before the conflict.

Iran's parliamentary speaker, Ghalibaf, said in an interview aired on state TV that the Strait of Hormuz "will not return to pre-war conditions".

He suggested the country would charge ships crossing the key passage after the 60-day period in the agreement had lapsed.

While Trump has previously ‌vowed to obliterate Iran's ballistic missiles, he said at the G7 that it would be "OK" for Tehran to have such weapons "if other countries have them".

The first point of the agreement declares the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon".

But Israel has said it had no plans to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and it launched attacks on Hezbollah on Wednesday.

Trump has been growing concerned that Israeli military operations against Hezbollah could upend a deal with Iran. He admonished Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the G7 on Wednesday.

The US president said that Netanyahu was a "good man", but he could do with "a little softer touch".

"You don't have to knock down a building every time someone walks into it that's from Hezbollah," Trump said.

After dinner at Versailles, Trump began his journey back to Washington, where the peace plan with Iran has unsettled lawmakers on both sides of the aisle - including members of his own political party.

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HamedAmed:
Tinubu will not get 5% in Ebonyi state in 2027 presidential election.

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DMCA:
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