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Putin, Raisi Discuss Tehran Joining BRICS

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi during the signing ceremony of an agreement to build a railway last May (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi during the signing ceremony of an agreement to build a railway last May (Reuters)
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Putin, Raisi Discuss Tehran Joining BRICS

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi during the signing ceremony of an agreement to build a railway last May (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi during the signing ceremony of an agreement to build a railway last May (Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi discussed Iran's possible membership of the BRICS.

"The parties discussed issues related to cooperation in international and regional affairs, particularly taking into account Iran's full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its interest in joining the BRICS group," the Kremlin press service said.

In an attempt to break its international isolation, Iran launched a campaign months ago for its accession to the BRICS group.

The BRICS grouping of emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - will discuss its possible expansion at a summit in South Africa next month.

TASS news agency added that Putin and Raisi reaffirmed their support for further developing bilateral trade, transport, and logistics relations.

The two sides expressed their satisfaction with the current high level of Russian-Iranian relations.

Earlier this month, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov visited Tehran, discussing Iran's aspirations to join BRICS with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Bagheri Kani.

Ryabkov told reporters his country will support Tehran's request, but joining BRICS takes time.

Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Pretoria and discussed with his South African counterpart the path of Iran's accession to the BRICS group.

Raisi will travel to Johannesburg to participate in the BRICS summit to push his country's efforts. It is still being determined whether the Russian president will participate in the summit.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.