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Trump, EU Leaders Air Competing Visions in Brussels Meeting Wall Street Journal (subscription) BRUSSELSU.S. President Donald Trump held his first meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and senior European Union leaders on Thursday here, the capital of a bloc whose future he has questioned and whose opponents he has feted.

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Trump, EU Leaders Air Competing Visions in Brussels Meeting - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

JUBA The European Commission has reaffirmed its commitment to saving the lives of conflict-affected people in South Sudan with a US$ 12.9 (11.9) million contribution to the emergency operation of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). This is in addition to the US$ 32 (30.4) million contribution that was already confirmed for 2017

The contribution from the European Commissions Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) for WFP South Sudan will provide emergency food and nutrition assistance to about 890,000 people facing hunger as a result of conflict and seasonal food insecurity, including an estimated 165,000 children under the age of five and pregnant and breastfeeding women. WFP is purchasing about 4,000 metric tons of cereals, 500 metric tons of beans, 800 metric tons of oil and 1,000 metric tons of the specialized nutritious food (CSB++) using this donation.

An additional US$ 5.4 million is being provided by the European Commission to support the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) and Logistics Cluster, which are managed by WFP on behalf of the humanitarian community to facilitate access to affected people.

This support is vital to our ongoing efforts to respond to the unprecedented levels of hunger in South Sudan this year, said Joyce Luma, WFP Representative and Country Director in South Sudan. The country needs continued international support which, combined with unimpeded access to the affected population, will help prevent the unfolding catastrophe from expanding further.

South Sudan is experiencing the worst levels of food insecurity since independence with up to 5.5 million people facing severe hunger. In February 2017, famine was declared in parts of former Unity State, in Leer and Mayendit counties, affecting about 100,000 people. However, the timely and adequate provision of humanitarian assistance in recent months has had a positive impact and the food security situation in these areas appears to have improved. The food security situation in the rest of the country, however, has deteriorated further, particularly in parts of Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Jonglei States, due to continued displacement. Acute malnutrition rates have already reached alarming levels in some areas. This situation will be compounded further during the lean season as families will have run out of their food reserves from the last harvest.

We are extremely grateful for the generous contribution from the European Commission, which has been consistent in responding to the needs of the most vulnerable people in South Sudan, Luma added.

In 2016, the European Commission made a contribution of US$ 22.6 million which enabled WFP to provide food assistance to 300,000 internally displaced people hosted in UN Protection of Civilians (PoC) sites and other locations in conflicted-affected areas as well as local people affected by three years of conflict and prolonged food shortages in South Sudan. Besides this, 84,000 young children and 35,000 pregnant and nursing mothers received specialized nutritious food. Furthermore, another US$ 5 million contribution by the European Commission was focused on the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) and Logistics Cluster.

Since the start of this year, WFP has provided food and nutrition assistance to 2.8 million people across South Sudan and expects to reach 4.1 million people by the end of the year.

Support from donors including the European Commission, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, as well as private donors, has been vital for the response so far. However, WFP urgently needs US$ 139 million to cover its operations for the next six months.

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European Union Contributes To WFP's Life-Saving Work In South Sudan - ReliefWeb

By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) Top European Union officials meeting Donald Trump for the first time on Thursday will push cooperation on global trade and fighting climate change as they try to show that the bloc should matter to the United States. But Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, who run the EUs main political institutions in Brussels, expect a less fraught encounter than they might have done a few months ago when Trump was praising Britain for its shock decision to quit the EU and forecasting other countries would follow suit. Not only do EU officials believe Trump has heard other, more positive assessments of the EUs value to Washington since he took office in January, but the failure of anti-EU nationalists in recent Dutch and French elections had bolstered the bloc. Since the first contacts much has changed in the EU, a senior EU official said on Wednesday, referring to unpromising and brief discussions with Trump early in the year. After the Dutch and the French elections we are in a completely different place in the EU and I think this is the starting point of this discussion. In January, Tusk referred to Trump as a threat to the world order alongside Russia, China and radical Islam. The EU will again press the new president, on his first trip abroad, not to roll back on transatlantic efforts to promote free trade or on U.S. commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

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European Union chiefs to press Trump on trade, climate | Euronews - euronews

Deutsche Welle

Afghanistan: talent show stars in danger Deutsche Welle The reality TV competition "Afghan Star" is Afghanistan's most popular television show. The first female finalist so far was a young woman from a Taliban stronghold. Her success has put her life in danger. Four Ways Forward in AfghanistanForeign Affairs (subscription) Deadly Taliban raid hits Kandahar's Shah Wali KotAljazeera.com More troops reportedly called to AfghanistanSky News Australia The Hill (blog) -The Australian all 124 news articles »

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Afghanistan: talent show stars in danger - Deutsche Welle

The number of weapons released by U.S. and allied aircraft in Afghanistan sharply spiked in April, hitting the highest point in nearly five years.

According to an airpower summary posted online this week by U.S. Air Forces Central Command, coalition aircraft released 460 weapons last month, more than double the 203 weapons released in March. It was the most in a single month since August 2012, when 589 weapons were released. The only months that came close in recent years were August and September 2014, when 437 and 441 weapons were released, respectively. But most other months saw fewer than 200 weapons released.

In a statement Friday, Navy Capt. Bill Salvin, the public affairs director for the Resolute Support mission, said that the renewed focus on eliminating an Islamic State subsidiary called ISIS-Khorasan is leading the coalition to conduct more offensive operations, which is contributing to the increase in weapons released. Also, Salvin said, this is the first spring fighting season since former President Obama expanded the military's authority to attack Taliban forces last June.

April was also the month when the Air Force dropped a massive GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb on a network of ISIS-Khorasan tunnels in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.

AFCENT spokeswoman Capt. Kathleen Atanasoff said Friday that the complex nature of the fight against ISIS, and the need to prevent civilian casualties, is why coalition aircraft have eased off slightly on its weapons released.

"In general, the coalition moves at the speed of our partner forces on the ground," Atanasoff said. "Right now, the preponderance of our effort is around Mosul [in Iraq] and Raqqah [in Syria], which are both very dense, difficult battlespaces in which to maneuver. Given that protection of civilians is crucial to the success of this campaign, the coalition is being very deliberate and careful in applying airpower effects in urban battlefields."

Syria, with the Russian military also operating in the area,is a particularly complicated situation, also leading the coalition to exercise caution.

"Following the [Tomahawk missile] strike in early April, we were extremely diligent and methodical in regards to where and when we flew in Syria to mitigate any strategic miscalculations," Atanasoff said.

However, these statistics do not account for all coalition weapons released. AFCENT has previously said that its statistics account for weapons released by aircraft under Combined Forces Air Component Commander, or CFACC, control, which includes aircraft from all U.S. military branches and coalition aircraft. But not all aircraft flying in the area fall under CFACC control.

Military Times also found that potentially thousands of airstrikes, such as strikes conducted over the years by attack helicopters and armed drones operated by the Army, were not included in AFCENT's statistics. This means that the number of weapons released so far this year is likely higher than the statistics show.

The same pattern held for Operation Inherent Resolve, though less dramatically. Sorties with weapons released increased from 3,705 in the first third of 2016 to 4,063 in the first four months of 2017, while the number of overall sorties over those periods dropped from 7,943 to 6,415.

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US, coalition strikes in Afghanistan spike, hit highest number in five years - AirForceTimes.com