KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 29 2025 (IPS)* – US President Trump has successfully used tariff threats to achieve economic, political and even personal goals. These threats, reminiscent of colonialism, have secured submission and concessions.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
After hearing the 2024 US elections, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto respectfully stood up in his Jakarta office to call to congratulate the winner.
Trump bragged about his tariff offer to Indonesia in mid-July 2025, flattering its president profusely. After hesitating initially, former General Prabowo had agreed to join BRICS, despite Trump’s clear disapproval.
“I spoke to their really great president, very popular, very strong, smart. And we made the deal. We will pay no tariffs…they are giving us access to Indonesia … the other part is they are going to pay 19% and we are going to pay nothing.”
(UN News)* —As starvation worsens in war-torn Gaza, UN agencies repeated warnings on Monday [] that Israel’s decision to support a “one-week scale-up” of aid is far from enough to reverse deadly malnutrition rates in the enclave.
(UN News)* — Nations are pursuing underwater exploration for highly sought-after rare earth minerals, but the head of the UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA) said the deep-sea belongs to no single country or corporation as efforts are underway to ensure this rich resource will not become “the Wild West” of exploitation.
New York – The sustained increase in global food prices has had a profound impact on food security and nutrition, particularly in low-income countries where households spend a larger share of their income on food.
(UN News)* —At a time of escalating violence and record levels of hunger in Nigeria, critical funding shortfalls are forcing the UN World Food Program (WFP) to suspend all emergency food and nutrition aid for 1.3 million people in the northeast of the country.
While WFP has been able to hold hunger at bay across northern Nigeria in the first half of 2025, funding shortfalls are jeopardising such efforts, with lifesaving programmes set to grind to a halt by the end of July.
NEW YORK, Jul 18 2025 (IPS)* –“The power of AI carries immense responsibilities. Today, that power sits in the hands of a few,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the 2025 AI Action Summit, reflecting on a deepening reality as we inch closer to a world in complete digital domination.
Microsoft offices in Vancouver, Canada. Credit Unsplash/Matthew Manuel
Today, seven of the world’s top ten most valuable companies are digital giants, focusing primarily on the output of communication, digital manufacturing, artificial intelligence and digital commerce, which is paving the way for a fully digitized life for all.
The top 10 companies include some of the biggest names in information technology and digital commerce:
14 Jul 2025 – At a pivotal moment in history, a groundbreaking legal complaint has been filed with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), accusing prominent Belgian and European institutions of complicity in what is described as “systemic ecocide and genocide.”
Koenraad Priels
This submission, spearheaded by Belgian researcher Koenraad Priels, is not merely a call for justice—it is an urgent demand for transformative change in the face of a planetary polycrisis that threatens both human civilization and the biosphere.
The Core of the Complaint
The legal action is rooted in extensive empirical, mathematical, and legal evidence demonstrating that the current global financial architecture—anchored in debt-driven, interest-bearing banking and rentier capitalism—systematically generates large-scale harm.
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 21 2025 (IPS)* –Electric vehicles contribute to an ongoing environmental and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Mining operations cause deforestation, pollution, food insecurity and exploitative labor practices.
A young girl washes her hands in a puddle near a UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC. Photo Credit: UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti
Advertisers paint electric vehicles as an environmentally friendly option to help save the planet. In the West, American states like California and New York incentivize citizens to go green and help their cities by ditching gas-powered vehicles.
UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, has learned that the United States Government will deny future funding to the organization, cutting essential support for millions of people living in humanitarian crises and for midwives preventing mothers from dying in childbirth.
The amendment states that no US funds may be made available to any organization that supports or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.
Multiple evaluations by the US Government itself and others have found no evidence that UNFPA engages in coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China.
The US had become one of UNFPA’s most critical partners, providing $180 million in funding on average a year.
(UN News)* — Major cuts to aid budgets have already left people fleeing wars in Sudan and beyond without the assistance and protection they need, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on .
Globally, $1.4 billion of the agency’s programmes are being shuttered or put on hold, UNHCR said in a new report.
“We can’t stop water, you can’t stop sanitation, but we’re having to take decisions when it comes, for example, to shelter,” said UNHCR Director of External Relations Dominique Hyde.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 