(UN News)* — Amid reports of escalating settler violence in the West Bank, the UN rights office, OHCHR, briefed the Palestinian rights committee at UN Headquarters in New York, which also featured a screening of the Oscar winning documentary No Other Land.
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | Basel Adra (left), Palestinian film director, delivers testimony during a meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.\
Ambassador Riyad Mansour of the Observer State of Palestine and Israeli Human Rights lawyer Netta Amar Schiff – who joined via videolink – also took part.
(UN News)* —Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on course to become a $4.8 trillion global market by 2033 – roughly the size of Germany’s economy – but unless urgent action is taken, its benefits may remain in the hands of a privileged few, a new UN report warns.
Public Domain | Visualization of Artificial Intelligence combining a human brain schematic with a circuit board.
The Technology and Innovation Report 2025, released on Thursday by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), sounds the alarm on growing inequality in the AI landscape and lays out a roadmap for countries to harness AI’s potential.
The report shows that just 100 companies, mostly in the United States and China, are behind 40 per cent of the world’s private investment in research and development, highlighting a sharp concentration of power.
(UN News)* —The recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers in Gaza raise further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights told the Security Council on Thursday .
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, briefs the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
Ambassadors met for an emergency session to discuss the escalation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Rights chief Volker Türk said he was pained to brief the Council once again on the “catastrophic suffering of people in Gaza,” noting that “the temporary relief of the ceasefire, which gave Palestinians a moment to breathe, has been shattered.”
As new findings show record-high hunger in Africa’s second-largest country, a severe funding crunch and insecurity hamper WFP’s efforts to reach tens of thousands of desperate people in the northeast.
Linda collects WFP food assistance in Bweremana, in northeastern DRC. She hopes it will tide her family by until harvest time. WFP/Benjamin Anguandia
— Linda L. is back home again. Back to a field full of weeds and a roof full of holes. Back to find once-precious livestock and other belongings long looted. Back to an uncertain future, as fierce fighting rages across northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo where she lives.
(UN News)* — Amid alarming reports of sexual violence being used as a weapon of terror across Sudan, UN reproductive health agency, UNFPA, is warning that over 12 million women and girls – and increasingly men and boys – are estimated to be at risk.
It is nearly two years since the brutal war between the forces of the military government in Khartoum and the Rapid Support Forces militia erupted, sparking one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Human rights abuses have been committed on both sides and more than 30.4 million Sudanese require urgent assistance, with millions displaced, and tens of thousands killed.
IOM is urgently appealing for USD 17.3 million to assist communities devastated by Myanmar’s strongest earthquake in over a century. Credit: M-DoS Field Team 19
Bangkok, 3 April 2025 – The International Organization for Migration(IOM)* is appealing for USD 17.3 million to respond to the devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar on 28 March, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in critical need of humanitarian assistance.
(UN News)* —UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed grave concern on Wednesday over the human toll resulting from the intensified hostilities in Gaza.
He condemned the reported killing of more than a thousand people, including women and children, since the collapse of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on 18 March.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Mar 25 2025 (IPS)* –The United Nations Refugee Agency faces devastating cuts that may eliminate 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, with potentially catastrophic consequences for millions of people fleeing war, repression, hunger and climate disasters.
Credit: Pietro Bertora/SOS Humanity
This 75-year-old institution, established to help Europeans displaced by the Second World War, now confronts an unprecedented financial crisis, primarily due to the US foreign aid freeze – and the timing couldn’t be worse.
(UN News)* — The word “tariff” has been catapulted from the business pages to the headlines over the last few months, as major economies impose or threaten them on other nations. But tariffs are not just a blunt weapon to be used in geopolitical brinkmanship: they can, if used effectively, help poorer countries develop their economies.
Every month, the UN trade and development agency (UNCTAD) provides an update on what’s happening in the world of global trade.
In March, the focus was on tariffs, and the report revealed that, whilst global trade reached a record $33 trillion last year, the outlook for 2025 remains uncertain, with mounting tensions, protectionist policies and trade disputes signalling likely disruption in the coming months.
27 March 2025 — United States President Donald J. Trump’s barrage of anti-immigrant policies has garnered worldwide attention, but Canada is taking a dark turn of its own.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 