(UN News)* — Families in Gaza were holding on to the slim chance of finding loved ones buried under the ruins of destroyed homes – but that hope is fading fast.
UN News | A bulldozer removes the rubble of a destroyed house in Gaza City, searching for people missing under the debris.
The destruction of key heavy machinery on Tuesday following reported Israeli airstrikes has brought rescue and recovery efforts to a standstill, making it even harder to reach the estimated 11,000 bodies still trapped under the debris.
(UN News)* — A Thai woman working in the United States has told UN News how she fell for a scam orchestrated by a criminal network in Asia – and lost $300,000.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson | Many scams originate in operations like this one in the Philippines that are run by international criminal gangs.
Wannapa Suprasert received a call from scammers who drew her into an elaborate false narrative involving identity theft, an international police investigation and the threat of a criminal trial.
Asia’s sprawling megacities – which are driving economic growth – face an uncertain future as rising temperatures, aging populations and unplanned urban development tests their resilience.
UN-Habitat/Julius Mwelu | Home to nearly 30 million people, Shanghai is one of the world’s largest cities.
Seven of the ten most populous cities in the world are in Asia, with Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai and Dhaka topping the list.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 22 2025 (IPS)* – Donald Trump’s top economic advisor claims the President has weaponised tariffs to ‘persuade’ other nations to pay the US to maintain its supposedly mutually beneficial global empire.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Geopolitical economist Ben Norton was among the first to highlight the significance of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman Stephen Miran’s briefing at the Hudson Institute.
The Institute is funded by financiers such as media czar Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other conservative media.
Miran made his case just after Trump’s electoral victory in A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System. Miran attempts to rationalise Trump’s economic policies, which are widely seen as at odds with conventional wisdom and reason.
(UN News)* —The United Nations on warned that escalating hostilities and access constraints in Gaza are exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis, displacing hundreds of thousands and depriving civilians of shelter, food and medicine.
More than 500,000 people are reported to have been newly displaced since 18 March 2025, many of them uprooted multiple times due to ongoing military operations across the Gaza Strip.
The war in the Gaza Strip has taken an unconscionable toll on children. At least 15,600 have been reported killed, with thousands more injured. Nearly every child in Gaza knows what it is to be displaced: Their families have been torn apart, their homes destroyed.
()* —Haiti is on the verge of “total chaos” as coordinated gang violence continues to escalate, threatening the State’s ability to maintain public order, the UN’s top envoy for the country warned on Monday .
Special Representative María Isabel Salvador told ambassadors in the Security Council that a “deliberate and coordinated” campaign is being waged by organized crime groups to expand territorial control and paralyse the capital, Port-au-Prince.
(UN News)* —Two centuries to the day after France imposed a crippling debt on Haiti in exchange for its independence, a UN forum has heard calls for the restitution of what has long been described as a “ransom” extorted under the threat of force from the Caribbean nation that still bears the scars of colonialism and slavery.
UN Photo/Mark Garten | Shackles used to bind slaves on display at the Transatlantic Slave Trade exhibition at UN Headquarters in New York. (file)
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The first country ever to free itself from slavery through a successful uprising, Haiti gained independence from France in 1804. But the price for defying the colonial order was steep.
On April 17, 1825, besieged by French warships, Haiti agreed to pay an indemnity of 150 million gold francs to the European power.
New UNDP remote sensing analysis shows massive, immediate reconstruction is vital in Myanmar due to widespread damage to homes, hospitals, and critical infrastructure.
UNDP Myanmar
New York/Yangon, 14 April 2025 –At least two and half million tonnes of debris, roughly 125,000 truckloads – must be removed in Myanmar.
“The children are the breadwinners of the family, and we have no other source of income.”
18 April 2025 — In a makeshift settlement on the outskirts of Herat City, we meet 75-year-old Bibi Gul. Each day, her four grandchildren roam the streets in search of plastic to sell for recycling, to help the family survive.
They were forced to flee their home due to drought and conflict.
Now, with aid drying up, they’re left with nothing.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 