(UN News)* —Brutal slashes to aid budgets are hampering efforts to assist millions of people in Somalia affected by drought, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on
More than 4.6 million people across the country, roughly a quarter of the population, are impacted, according to local authorities.
“Partners indicate that at least 120,000 people were displaced between September and December, as water prices soar, food becomes increasingly scarce, livestock die and livelihoods collapse,”OCHA said in an update.
Additionally, more than 75,000 students nationwide have been forced to drop out of school.
22 December 2025 — When the seventh edition of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) – a sprawling report on the state of the natural world – came out earlier this month its warnings were stark.
UNEP
Humanity is pushing the Earth to its environmental breaking point, the report’s authors warned, with potentially dire consequences for everything from human health to the global economy.
But GEO-7, produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), says it is not too late for humanity to change course.
Within its pages is a recipe for a healthier planet that focuses on transforming five key systems: economic and financial; materials and waste; energy; food; and the environment.
(UN News)* — With rising effects of climate change across the globe, the world has started recognising that climate change is not just an ecological collapse, but also a human rights crisis.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk echoed this message in Geneva earlier this year and posed a question before the Human Rights Council:
“Are we taking the steps needed to protect people from climate chaos, safeguard their futures and manage natural resources in ways that respect human rights and the environment?”
His answer was very simple: we are not doing nearly enough.
Dec 23 2025 (IPS)** – CIVICUS discusses migrants’ rights in Libya with Sarra Zidi, political scientist and researcher for HuMENA, an international civil society organisation (CSO) that advances democracy, human rights and social justice across the Middle East and North Africa.
Sarra Zidi
Libya has fragmented into rival power centres, with large areas controlled by armed groups.
As state institutions have collapsed, there’s no functioning system to protect the rights and safety of migrants and refugees.
Instead, state-linked bodies such as the Directorate for Combating Illegal Immigration (DCIM) and the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) often work with militias, smugglers and traffickers, with near-total impunity.
In this lawless environment, Sub-Saharan migrants face systematic abuses that the International Criminal Court (ICC) and United Nations bodies warnmay amount to crimes against humanity.
Despite this, the European Union (EU) continues to classify Libya as a ‘safe country of return’ and work with it to externalise its migration control.
(UN News)* —The war in Sudan is entering a deadlier phase, the United Nations has warned, as intensified fighting in the Kordofan region, mounting civilian casualties from drone strikes and growing risks of regional spillover push the conflict toward the 1,000-day mark.
Briefing the Security Council on Monday [], senior UN political and humanitarian officials described a sharply deteriorating security and humanitarian situation marked by indiscriminate attacks, expanding territorial gains by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and escalating dangers for civilians, aid workers and peacekeepers.
(UN News)* — An estimated 500,000 people have been forced from their homes since fighting erupted in South Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), at the beginning of December.
That’s according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
“This hunger crisis risks spiraling without urgent action,” said Cynthia Jones, WFP Country Director for the DRC.
She added that even the families who have provided shelter to those forced to flee are already living at emergency levels of food insecurity, “sharing their last food with displaced neighbors—pushing all of them closer to utter desperation.”
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 23 2025 (IPS)* – Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, once made a highly debatable distinction between “friendly” right-wing “authoritarian” regimes (which were mostly U.S. and Western allies) and “unfriendly” left-wing “totalitarian” dictatorships (which the U.S. abhorred).
Tercer Piso. Source Amnesty International
Around the same time, successive U.S. administrations were cozying up to a rash of authoritarian regimes, mostly in the Middle East, widely accused of instituting emergency laws, detaining dissidents, cracking down on the press, torturing political prisoners and rigorously imposing death penalties.
Navdanya International has released the report Seeds of Resistance, which documents the global spread of both old and new GMOs and the dismantling of biosafety regulations across continents.
Photo: Manlio Masucci
On November 22, Navdanya International presented this new report for the first time at the international meeting Semillas en Resistencia Global, held at the National Museum of Popular Cultures in Mexico City, together with peasants, Indigenous communities, researchers and activists from Latin America, Africa and Europe.
Some 600 glaciers have already disappeared and many more will vanish if temperatures continue to rise.
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PHOTO:Mark/Adobe Stock
Glaciers, an essential source of life around our mountains
Glaciers, vast reserves of ice and snow found across the planet, are far more than frozen landscapes – they are lifelines for ecosystems and communities, holding around 70 percent of the world’s freshwater.
Their accelerated melting represents not only an environmental crisis but also a humanitarian one, threatening agriculture, clean energy, water security and billions of peoples’ lives.
Their retreat, driven by rising global temperatures, is a stark indicator of the climate crisis.
18 December 2025 — Record heat, record low sea ice, shrinking glaciers, continued warming of the ocean and unprecedented extreme weather events are just some of the disruptive changes reported that are transforming this once reliably frozen region into a warmer, wetter, and unpredictable world.
WMO 2021 Calendar Competition – Henrique Pacini
These are the key findings of the Arctic Report Card 2025, authored by 112 scientists from 13 countries. Now in its 20th year, the report documents ongoing trends, record-setting events, and emerging challenges in a region warming far faster than the rest of the planet.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 