Welcome again to the penultimate 2025 version of International Coverage’s Scenario Report, as we method the vacation break and begin looking forward to a possible even busier 2026.
Right here’s what’s on faucet for the day: Humanitarian help staff are struggling to do their jobs, U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintain a telephone name, and European leaders weigh in on Ukraine peace negotiations.
Assist businesses and humanitarian staff working in battle zones are going through historic challenges which might be making it tougher to soundly and adequately present help to a number of the world’s most weak folks.
Working within the humanitarian sector has develop into more and more harmful lately—2024 was the deadliest 12 months on document for help staff, with 383 killed, and 2025 could also be worse. With a couple of weeks left within the 12 months, there have already been 326 help staff killed, in response to the Assist Employee Safety Database.
The hazards are notably pronounced in Gaza. Almost half of the help staff killed in 2024 had been within the coastal enclave, and this pattern has continued into 2025. In only one incident again in March, 15 emergency staff had been killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza.
“I actually fear quite a bit in regards to the security and safety of my groups,” Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the CEO of Mercy Corps who leads a group of greater than 4,300 humanitarian staff, mentioned throughout an interview on the Doha Discussion board.
McKenna expressed concern in regards to the “demonization of help,” saying there’s been an evident erosion of area and respect for “humanitarian regulation and norms” throughout the globe in addition to “much more open, flagrant atrocities” dedicated by a wide range of gamers in battle zones worldwide.
Hostile governments. From Gaza to Sudan and past, limitations to the motion of each personnel and help additionally proceed to make delivering help tough. Although a cease-fire has been declared in Gaza, help businesses working there are nonetheless struggling to do their jobs. “The humanitarian state of affairs in Gaza stays dire on account of the 2 years battle, the restrictions on the help entry, the entry of meals, [and] the famine that was declared,” Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of communications, mentioned throughout an interview on the Doha Discussion board.
“The cease-fire comes with a situation for round 600 vehicles of meals and different provides per day. We’re very far-off from that determine for a wide range of causes. Whereas the amount and the standard of what’s going into the strip have elevated and improved, they’re nonetheless very far-off from the minimal requirement,” Alrifai added.
UNRWA, which has been banned in Israel and just lately had its East Jerusalem headquarters raided by Israeli authorities, continues to function in Gaza, the occupied West Financial institution, and different locations within the Center East, offering help, education, well being care, and different providers to tens of millions of Palestinians. Israel has accused the United Nations company of being “infiltrated by Hamas,” a declare that UNRWA rejects. The Trump administration can be now reportedly contemplating placing terrorism-related sanctions on the company.
The “yellow line” that Israeli forces pulled again to in Gaza, dividing the territory, as a part of the cease-fire provides yet one more complication to doing humanitarian work there. “UNRWA is working within the pink zone whereas acknowledging that the state of affairs may be very fluid, and the strains maintain shifting daily,” Alrifai mentioned.
Trump’s help cuts. Assist organizations are additionally going through severe challenges introduced on by main cuts to U.S. international help underneath Trump.
Because of these cuts, in addition to diminished help from Europe, the U.N., which closely depends on donations from member states to fund humanitarian help, has minimize its fundraising objective for 2026 in half. “We’re overstretched, underfunded, and underneath assault,” Tom Fletcher, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, mentioned in a press briefing on Dec. 3.
It’s estimated that tens of millions might die on account of the U.S. international help cuts. The Trump administration’s dismantling of United States Company for Worldwide Improvement has already resulted in lots of of 1000’s of deaths, in response to one estimate.
The issues tied to U.S. funding cuts are particularly obvious in Sudan, help teams say, the place a civil warfare has fomented one of many world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Mercy Corps has “at all times been underfunded” for the response in Sudan, McKenna mentioned, however help is required there now greater than ever. “Individuals want the funding. They want to have the ability to purchase meals, and medication, and provides for his or her households,” McKenna mentioned. “The worldwide funding state of affairs simply continues to be a pressure on that.”
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the USA and its prime bilateral commerce negotiator, introduced this week that she might be stepping down in 2026 after greater than eight years in Washington. “It has been the best privilege of my skilled life to have served and represented Canada and Canadians throughout this important interval in Canada-U.S. relations,” she wrote in a letter saying her choice.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna hosted Alexander Darchiev, the Russian ambassador to Washington, at her Christmas reception on Capitol Hill. “Proceed working to make Russian-American relations nice once more!” the Russian embassy posted on X with a photograph of Luna and Darchiev collectively.
The Trump administration plans to nominate a U.S. two-star normal to command the worldwide stabilization pressure devoted to peacekeeping in Gaza, Axios reported.
What must be excessive in your radar, if it isn’t already.
Trump-Modi name. The gradual thaw between Washington and New Delhi seems to be regularly progressing, with Modi talking with Trump on the telephone Thursday. Modi described the dialog as “heat and fascinating” in a submit on X, including that the 2 nations would “proceed to work collectively for world peace, stability and prosperity.” Trump, as of this writing, has not publicly acknowledged the decision.
It stays to be seen whether or not the dialog might be sufficient to clinch an India-U.S. commerce deal that has remained out of attain, with Indian exports to the USA nonetheless topic to the 50 p.c tariffs that Trump imposed over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. A U.S. State Division group, led by Undersecretary of State Allison Hooker, visited New Delhi earlier this week to debate “key bilateral points,” together with commerce, protection, and vitality cooperation, the Indian Embassy in Washington mentioned in an announcement.
Trump takes a tanker. America on Wednesday seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude certain for Cuba, opening up a brand new entrance within the Trump administration’s escalating marketing campaign in opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. Legal professional Common Pam Bondi mentioned in a submit that the tanker has been topic to U.S. sanctions for a number of years for its function in transporting “sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.”
The tanker seizure follows months of U.S. army strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats off the coast of Venezuela and the specter of further land strikes within the nation. When requested what the USA plans to do with the oil from the tanker, Trump mentioned, “We maintain it, I assume.”
Tens of 1000’s of protesters display in opposition to the federal government in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Dec. 10. The anti-corruption protests resulted within the resignation of Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov and his cupboard.Dobrin Kashavelov/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Because the Trump administration continues to push for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, SitRep spoke to present and former European officers on the sidelines of occasions in Doha, Qatar, and Washington to get their tackle the efforts.
“There aren’t any peace talks” in the mean time, Norwegian International Minister Espen Barth Eide mentioned bluntly on the Doha Discussion board. “There are talks between the U.S., Ukraine, and Europe, however they aren’t at warfare.” These talks, whereas helpful, are “only a platform,” Barth Eide added, “after which the peace talks will begin—as a result of the peace talks, on the finish of the day, must be between those that are at warfare, and that’s Russia and Ukraine.”
Former Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid expressed issues about Ukraine being compelled into an unfavorable deal. “Ukrainians should have a say, and so they should make the choice. Our job is to create circumstances for them to be free in making that call,” she mentioned on the Aspen Safety Discussion board in Washington. “If the Ukrainian individuals are upset with any peace association, Russia can have that nation for breakfast just by messing with its democratic course of, which might be tough sufficient after this type of cease-fire,” she added.
Monday, Dec. 15 The European Union’s international affairs council meets.
Qatar hosts a U.N. anti-corruption convention.
China holds a month-to-month press convention on its financial information.
Tuesday, Dec. 16 Argentina releases GDP figures for the third quarter of the 12 months.
Thursday, Dec. 18 The European Council leaders’ summit convenes.
Central banks within the European Union and United Kingdom launch rate of interest choices.
$10.5 billion—the shortfall in army help that Ukraine is ready to face in 2025 in comparison with the annual common help since Russia invaded in 2022, in response to a brand new report by the Kiel Institute, a German suppose tank. That scarcity is essentially as a result of Trump administration’s halt of U.S. help to Ukraine. Though European nations have stepped up with $38 billion in help up to now this 12 months, it hasn’t been sufficient to offset the U.S. pullback.—Sam Skove
“I perceive why China [would] do that. I don’t perceive why the U.S. is attempting to do that.”
—Yehor Cherniev, head of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO parliamentary meeting, talking at an occasion in Washington, referring to efforts to “rebalance” the post-World Struggle II liberal order that the USA helped create.
