Category World News

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to withdraw the US from 66 United Nations and international organisations, including major forums for cooperation on climate change, peace and democracy.

In a presidential memorandum shared by the White House on Wednesday evening, Trump said that the decision came after a review of which “organizations, conventions, and treaties are contrary to the interests of the United States”.

The changes would see the US cease participation and also cut all funding to the affected entities, Trump added.

The list shared by the White House included 35 non-UN organisations, including notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Although the IPCC was included in the list of non-UN bodies by the White House, it is a UN organisation that brings together top scientists to assess the evidence related to climate change and provide periodic scientific assessments to help inform political leaders.

In addition, the White House said it was withdrawing from 31 UN entities, including the UN’s top climate change treaty body, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Democracy Fund and the top UN entity working on maternal and child health, the UNFPA.

Several of the UN entities targeted also focused on protecting at-risk groups from violence during wars, including the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict.

In a note to correspondents on Wednesday evening, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that the UN expected to respond to the announcement by Thursday morning.

Despite publicly claiming he wants the US to have less involvement in UN forums, Trump has not held back from influencing decision-making at the international level.

In October last year, Trump threatened to impose sanctions on diplomats who formally adopted a levy on polluting shipping fuels that had already been agreed to at an earlier meeting, effectively sinking the deal for 12 months.

The Trump administration also imposed sanctions on UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, after she published a report documenting the role of international and US companies in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

In 2017, Trump also threatened to cut aid from countries that voted in support of a draft UN resolution condemning the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US also holds considerable power at the United Nations, as one of only five countries able to veto measures it doesn’t like, a power the US repeatedly used to block efforts to end Israel’s war on Gaza before mediating a ceasefire late last year.

Since beginning his second term in January last year, Trump has already withdrawn the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Paris climate agreement and the UN human rights council.

Trump also quit these three organisations during his first administration, but the withdrawals were all later reversed by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

The US withdrawal from the WHO is set to come into effect on January 22, 2026, one year after it was ordered by the White House.

Between 2024 and 2025, the US contributed $261m in funding to the WHO, amounting to about 18 percent of the funding the organisation receives for its work encouraging global cooperation on a wide range of pressing health issues, including tuberculosis and pandemics, like COVID-19.

Here is where things stand on Thursday, January 8:

Fighting

• One person was killed and five people were injured in a Russian attack on two ports in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said in a post on Facebook. “The attack damaged port facilities, administrative buildings, and oil containers,” Kuleba said.
• A Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih, in Ukraine’s Dnipro region, injured eight people, including two seriously, the head of the Kryvyi Rih defence council, Oleksandr Vilkul, wrote on Telegram.
• Firefighters put out a blaze that broke out at an oil depot in Russia’s southern Belgorod region following an overnight Ukrainian drone attack, the Vesti state TV channel reported on Wednesday, citing the regional governor.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on WhatsApp that he hopes to meet with United States President Donald Trump soon to gauge his openness to a Ukrainian proposal that Washington ensure security for Kyiv for more than 15 years in the event of a ceasefire, according to the Reuters news agency. “The Americans, in my view, are being productive right now; we have good results … They need to put pressure on Russia. They have the tools, and they know how to use them,” Zelenskyy said.
• Zelenskyy also said during a visit to Cyprus on Wednesday that Ukraine is “doing everything required on our side in the negotiation process. And we expect that no additional or excessive demands will be placed on Ukraine.”
• Zelenskyy was in Cyprus as it assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union, as he continued a push for his country to join the bloc. “We are working to make as much progress as possible during this period on opening negotiating clusters and on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union,” Zelenskyy said after a meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in Nicosia, in a statement posted on X.
• Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Wednesday that negotiations are still “far from a peace plan” for Ukraine. “There is an outline of ideas,” Albares said, according to Reuters.

Sanctions

• The US seized two Venezuela-linked oil tankers in the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday, including the Marinera crude oil tanker sailing under Russia’s flag.
• US Vice President JD Vance said that the tanker “was a fake Russian oil tanker,” in an interview set to air on Fox News, excerpts of which were provided in advance. “They basically tried to pretend to be a Russian oil tanker in an effort to avoid the sanctions regime,” Vance said, referring to sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Venezuelan oil. The Trump administration has separately imposed sanctions on some Russian oil companies.
• Russia’s Ministry of Transport protested the seizure, saying in a statement that “in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation applies in the high seas, and no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered in the jurisdictions of other states”.

The United States says that it has suspended all assistance to the government of Somalia, alleging that officials destroyed a World Food Programme warehouse filled with food aid it funded.

In a social media post on Wednesday, the administration of US President Donald Trump alleged that Somali officials had seized 76 metric tonnes of donor-funded food aid that had been intended for Somalis in need.

“The US is deeply concerned by reports that Federal Government of Somalia officials have destroyed a US-funded World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse and illegally seized 76 metric tons of donor-funded food aid for vulnerable Somalis,” the post said.

“The Trump Administration has a zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft, and diversion of life-saving assistance.”

The announcement was made on the social media platform representing the US State Department’s Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom.

Somali officials have not yet responded to the allegations of aid theft.

Still, the stark measure continues a recent trend under the Trump administration. In recent months, President Trump has leaned into criticism of Somalis living in the United States and placed restrictions on Somalis seeking to enter the US.

His administration has also stepped up air strikes targeting armed groups in Somalia itself.

Notably, in a December cabinet meeting, Trump personally levelled racist attacks against the Somali community in the US, saying they are “destroying America”. He also attacked Ilhan Omar, a Democratic representative from Somalia who arrived in the US as a child refugee.

“We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said at the December 2 meeting.

“Ilhan Omar is garbage, just garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren’t people that work. These aren’t people that say, ‘Let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great.’ These are people that do nothing but complain.”

As part of his tirade, Trump cited a fraud scandal in the midwestern state of Minnesota, which has seen some members of the large Somali community there charged with wrongdoing.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has since indicated that Trump could use denaturalisation – the revocation of US citizenship – as “a tool” to penalise Somali Americans involved in the fraud scheme.

The Trump administration has also ramped up immigration enforcement raids in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city with the largest Somali community in the US.

The Trump administration has dramatically scaled back US humanitarian assistance since returning to the White House in 2025, and it is not clear how much aid will be affected by the suspension of assistance.

Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden had provided about $770m in assistance for projects in Somalia, but only a small portion went towards the Somali government.

In announcing Wednesday’s aid freeze, the US State Department signalled that assistance could resume – but only with an acknowledgement of responsibility from the Somali government.

The high-profile lawyer representing Nick Reiner, who allegedly killed his father, director Rob Reiner, and mother Michele Singer Reiner in December, has resigned.

The announcement that lawyer Alan Jackson would step down from the case means that the younger Reiner will, at least for the time being, be represented by a public defender provided by the state.

During a news conference on Wednesday, Jackson did not provide a reason for his departure, instead citing the legal and ethical reasons he could not provide more details.

“Circumstances beyond our control and, more importantly, circumstances beyond Nick’s control have dictated that, sadly, it’s made it impossible to continue our representation of Nick,” Jackson said.

He added that, after weeks of investigation, “what we’ve learned, and you can take this to the bank, is that pursuant to the laws of this state, pursuant to the law of California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder. Print that.”

Jackson did not elaborate.

The lawyer had first appeared in court to represent the 32-year-old suspect just days after Rob Reiner and his wife were found dead on December 14 in their home in the upscale Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California.

The cause of death was determined to be “multiple sharp force injuries”, another term for stab wounds.

Jackson, whose past clients include producer Harvey Weinstein and actor Kevin Spacey, did not explain how he was hired or who hired him after Nick Reiner was arrested for the killings.

On Wednesday, Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene took over Nick Reiner’s defence in the case.

That came as the defendant, standing behind glass in a custody area of the courtroom and wearing brown jail garb and with his hair shaved, briefly appeared in a Los Angeles court, where he was meant to be arraigned and enter a plea to two charges of first-degree murder.

Instead, the arraignment was postponed to February 23.

“The Public Defender’s Office recognises what an unimaginable tragedy this is for the Reiner family and the Los Angeles community,” Deputy Los Angeles Public Defender Ricardo Garcia said in a statement following the hearing.

“Our hearts go out to the Reiner family as they navigate this difficult time. We ask for your patience and compassion as the case moves through the legal process.”

Rob Reiner’s killing resonated across the world, reflecting the global impact of his films, which included the coming-of-age drama Stand By Me, the courtroom thriller A Few Good Men and the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.