Why does the global fund stop supporting any new programmes?

The global fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria has decided not to fund any new programmes as a result of cuts in its resources from donor nations. The fund says it will continue to support only essential services in existing programmes after a shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. A spokesman for the fund told the BBC the cuts put the progress in combating disease at risk and threatened the lives of people in the developing world.

Ukraine has been hardest hit with temperatures falling to -33t. The government there said that more than 130 people had died, and many of them homeless. In Bosnia, helicopters have been ferrying food to isolated villages and also moving sick people in the capital Sarajevo, where the transport system has literally frozen to a standstill. In neighboring Serbia, officials said that 70,000 people remain cut off. Even in Rome, there’s been snow, the heaviest fall in more than a quarter of a century.