It was nearly 30 years ago when Rosember Lopez received a life-altering diagnosis: He was HIV positive.

With scant government resources for HIV support at the time in Mexico, Lopez joined advocacy groups to secure the funding he needed for medication to help him survive.

The experience inspired him to start his own organization in Tapachula, in southern Mexico, to help destigmatize HIV with the help of funding from the United States.

Today, his is one of dozens of aid groups across Latin America in jeopardy due to the Trump administration’s freeze on almost all international aid and the gutting of the US’ global development network.

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a George W. Bush-era program that has enjoyed bipartisan support, was among those hit by US President Donald Trump’s actions. Relief groups have warned that halting programs such as PEPFAR could pose a risk to the lives of millions of people who will have to stop their HIV treatment, potentially opening the door to a HIV resurgence.

Organizations like Lopez’s help those with the disease access antiretroviral medications needed to reduce the risk of transmission, and give them a chance at a long, healthy life.

After hearing about the aid freeze in late January, Lopez began to worry not only about the future of his organization, A Helping Hand in the Fight Against AIDS (UMALCS), but also the deaths that could result from the lack of HIV care.

“It took me back to the times when there was no support and I said, ‘Well, now what is going to happen if we are no longer going to have the support of antiretroviral treatments?’” he said.

‘Shooting ourselves in the face’

PEPFAR has been a lifeline for those living with HIV and AIDS, saving tens of millions of people across the world since its inception, say advocates.

Without consistent treatment, Spencer warned that in a span of weeks or months, “We’re going to have people who had their HIV well controlled, who will be uncontrolled. You will have people that could not have transmitted who will be able to transmit now.”

If PEPFAR is not reauthorized for the next four years, and without other resources for the HIV response, there would be 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths in the near future, a 400% increase, Christine Stegling, the deputy executive director of the United Nations agency tasked with tackling HIV and AIDS, UNAIDS.

Not ‘enough money for everyone’

The lack of US funding is already impacting organizations in Colombia.

Some organizations, like Red Somos, which provides HIV care to Venezuelan migrants, have been forced to drastically scale back their operations.

“This could be dangerous for their life,” Marquez said, adding that the organization is looking to other sources of funding.

Without explicit permission from the US to resume work, Red Somos has more than 170 antiretroviral drugs that are nearing their expiration date. The group also had to suspend its educational, social protection and mental health services since January.

Miguel Lopez, who was diagnosed with HIV 10 years ago, founded Más Que Tres Letras — which translates to “More Than Three Letters” — to normalize public discourse in Colombia about HIV and where to seek help.

While Lopez’s group relies on other donors, he still anticipates fallout from the latest US policy. Lopez and his team worry there might not be enough money to go around as organizations that once relied on US funding are now scrambling to find other donors.

“There is not going to be enough money for everyone,” Lopez said.

Reduced activities

In Haiti, Dr. Alain Casseus and his colleagues at healthcare organization Zanmi Lasante have been severely impacted by the aid freeze.

Some approved services can’t immediately resume for aid groups that have already cut down on staff and are operating at reduced capacity.

There are parts of Haiti that rely almost solely on American funding for their healthcare needs, the USAID employee said. “If these health facilities were not there, people would receive no medications, no healthcare, nothing.”

“We urgently need international support to sustain our work.”

Pro-Palestinian NGO the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, seeking a warrant for his arrest, the group said on Sunday.

In a statement, HRF called for an arrest warrant for Sa’ar for “war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023.”

The complaint comes ahead of the foreign minister’s expected trip to Brussels next week.

While neither Israel nor the United States is party to the ICC, Belgium is.

“As Belgium is a signatory to the Rome Statute, it has a legal obligation to cooperate with the ICC and take action against individuals accused of serious international crimes,” HRF said. “The Hind Rajab Foundation calls on Belgian authorities to ensure that Sa’ar does not evade justice while on European soil.”

“Allowing a suspected war criminal to visit Brussels unchallenged would be a betrayal of international legal commitments and the fundamental principles of justice,” the group added.

An undated photo of Hind Rajab.

The HRF is a pro-Palestinian NGO that says it is dedicated “to breaking the cycle of Israeli impunity and honoring the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who have perished in the Gaza genocide.”

Rajab was a 5-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli tank fire while in her family’s car in Gaza.

The group said Sa’ar played a “central role” in making and implementing policies that have led to “mass displacement, collective punishment, and systematic attacks on Palestinian civilians.”

“His public statements and policy endorsements indicate direct and indirect participation in these crimes, as well as incitement to violence and obstruction of international justice mechanisms,” the group said.

HRF said Sa’ar publicly advocated for “reducing Gaza’s territory” and endorsed Israel’s “total blockade on Gaza, which has restricted food, water, and medical supplies.” HRF’s complaint also pointed toward “co-perpetration” with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant, alongside former defense minister Yoav Gallant, in November last year.

The group has previously brought a lawsuit against a former Israeli soldier who was on vacation in Brazil, alleging he was responsible for war crimes while serving in Gaza. A Brazilian judge ordered police to investigate the soldier based on HRF’s complaint but he left the country.

That lawsuit was one of a series by the group, which has tracked the activities of hundreds of Israeli soldiers serving in Gaza.

The Israeli foreign ministry has since cautioned Israelis about social media posts related to their military service, saying “anti-Israeli elements may exploit these posts to initiate baseless legal proceedings against them.”

The future of Ukraine will be discussed this week in Riyadh between Americans and Russians, with neither Europeans, nor, at the time of writing, Ukrainians themselves at the table. The question for European leaders now is: what can any of them do about it?

A hastily organized meeting in Paris, for now short on details in terms of attendance, is a measure of their concern as they wake up to the reality of Trump 2.0: that their long-standing American ally is no longer much of an ally and may in fact be far more dangerous to them existentially than they had imagined possible only a week ago.

There was, of course, US Vice President JD Vance’s startling speech in Munich on Friday, a rallying cry to the European far right that was quickly seized upon by their news outlets, in which he accused a stone-faced crowd of democratically elected European leaders on their own continent of selling out.

In a remarkable and disingenuous twisting of recent European history, Vance accused his audience of having betrayed the very ideals that allies had fought for during World War II. The danger, he said, warming to a theme he had touched upon in Paris just a few days before at French President Emmanuel Macron’s AI summit, was in Europe’s stifling of free speech, warning his audience that they should fear neither Moscow nor Beijing but European leadership itself.

It was a speech that went so much further than anyone had anticipated by questioning the moral underpinnings of the NATO alliance itself, rather than simply the operational question of budgetary contributions that had so far been President Donald Trump’s principal gripe.

Yet the vice president’s words, as surprising as they were, were not the only ones to set European alarm bells ringing.

Another senior American official to speak in Munich was the special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who sought to reassure the conference with tough words about his plan for extracting concessions from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The American position, he said, was to be tough on Moscow, to demand territory from Russia and security guarantees for Europe. Yet his comments came only days after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his NATO counterparts in Brussels that he couldn’t see Ukraine joining the alliance at all, sweeping aside in one fell swoop not just the American position thus far but also what many had considered a key piece of leverage as negotiations with Moscow began.

The fear for Europeans is not now simply that Americans are preparing to negotiate without them but that they are preparing to negotiate badly without them. And while an invitation to Ukrainian leaders to join the discussions in Saudi Arabia may be in the post, for now the prospect is of American and Russian negotiators gathering around a table to discuss not just the future of the 6 million Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation but also that of a European security architecture that impacts most closely the people living in Kyiv and Paris and every city in between.

The fact is that European countries, like their American ally thus far, spent nearly three years depleting their own arsenals and treasuries in the name of a fight for freedom and democracy that had felt to them existential as the Russian invasion began. That now appears to have been entirely brushed aside in the name of political expediency and the search for peace.

And, while peace is also what Europeans aspire to, their worry is now how costly it may be, given the price Washington seems prepared to pay, and how short lived, given Putin’s record.

Hence the meeting in Paris. European leaders may not be able to weigh in on the terms of a future peace deal but they do hope to find ways of giving security guarantees to Kyiv. Yet the danger facing them as they head to the French capital is that that just as the fight for Ukraine united them three years ago, so too might the specter of peace on their Eastern flank divide them once more. Particularly at a time when several of them are facing an increasingly emboldened and electorally successful European far right that is far more closely aligned with Washington’s new leaders than they are.

But European leaders are also keen not to appear rattled. The French foreign minister explained on French radio on Sunday that these sorts of meetings happened all the time. And Macron himself billed Monday’s talks as “an informal meeting” for those interested “in peace and security in Europe.”

For now, we expect not only the presidents of the EU council and Commission to attend, but also the NATO secretary general and the leaders of Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Denmark. The British prime minister has also confirmed his presence, with Downing Street calling it a “once in a generation moment” for national security.

Few of those heading to Paris had doubted that Trump meant what he said the first time round, it’s more that now he appears to have surrounded himself with people who know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to undermining Europe and dismantling NATO. And they are, it seems, done with doing Europe’s bidding. This will make Monday’s meeting not just about how to help Ukraine, but, at its heart, about how to save Europe itself.

Pope Francis is in a “stable” clinical condition and rested well overnight as he continues receiving treatment for bronchitis at a hospital in Rome, the Vatican’s press office said Sunday.

“This morning he received the Eucharist and followed the Holy Mass on television. In the afternoon he alternated reading with rest,” the Vatican added.

Earlier, the Pope thanked the healthcare workers at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital in his Angelus prayer.

“I would like to thank the doctors and healthcare workers in this hospital for their care: they do such a valuable and tiring job,” Pope Francis said in a written text of his Angelus prayer Sunday.

The Pope also thanked the public for the “affection, prayer and closeness with which you are accompanying me in these days.”

The Vatican said Saturday the pontiff would not lead the Angelus prayer as normal, as medical staff had prescribed him “absolute rest” to recover from his respiratory tract infection.

A spokesperson for the Vatican said Pope Francis had a peaceful second night in hospital.

“Pope Francis had a quiet night, slept well, ate breakfast and read some newspapers as he usually does. He continues the therapy,” the Vatican spokesperson said Sunday.

The pontiff was admitted to the hospital in Rome on Friday for treatment for bronchitis and medical examinations, the Vatican said, the latest in a string of ailments that have raised concerns about the 88-year-old pontiff’s health.

Francis has made a number of visits to the hospital in recent years, and received abdominal surgery in 2023. He has been struggling with bronchitis in recent weeks and has asked aides to read speeches and addresses.