'Unseen' News and Views
Up to 40% of all land area worldwide already considered degraded.
A young boy herds his families cattle in the dry and desolate lanscape of the city of Tawaila in Northern Darfur. UN Photo/Fred Noy.(UN Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA)* — North-east Nigeria is facing its worst malnutrition crisis in five years. More than 1 million children under age 5 across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are at risk of severe acute malnutrition – that’s twice as many children as last year and the highest number on record.
For families who already endured years of conflict and displacement, hunger is a new and urgent threat.
“We’ve been here since 2016,” said Falmata Idris, 53, who lives in a makeshift shelter in the Sangaya camp for internally displaced people in Dikwa, Borno State, with her 12-year-old granddaughter, Aisha.
– Wars, economic shocks, planetary heating and aid cuts have worsened food crises in recent years, with almost 300 million people now threatened by starvation.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Why hunger?
World food production has increased almost four fold since 1960.
FAO statistics indicate enough output to feed the world’s eight billion plus another three billion!
Clearly, inadequate food due to population growth cannot explain persistent hunger. Yet, the number of hungry people has been rising for more than a decade.
So, why are so many hungry if there is more than enough food for all?
The multi-stakeholder 2025 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) notes 2024 was the sixth consecutive year of high and growing acute food insecurity, with 295.3 million people starving!
In 2023, 733 million people experienced chronic hunger. Over a fifth (22.6%) of the 53 countries/territories assessed in this year’s GRFC were especially vulnerable.
Credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via Gallo Images
This agreement marked the evolution of Bukele’s authoritarian model from a domestic experiment to an exportable commodity for strongmen worldwide.
A woman collects WFP food assistance in Goma, where a precarious calm reigns after fighting earlier this year. Photo: WFP/Benjamin Anguandia
ROME, – A new joint UN report warns that people in five hunger hotspots around the world face extreme hunger and risk of starvation and death in the coming months unless there is urgent humanitarian action and a coordinated international effort to de-escalate conflict, stem displacement, and mount an urgent full-scale aid response.
Credit: United Nations The 51st G7 summit is scheduled to take place 15-17 June 2025 in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. The G7 consists of seven of the world’s largest developed economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States plus the European Union (EU), a non-enumerated member.
G7 countries are making deliberate and deadly choices by cutting life-saving aid, enabling atrocities, and reneging on their international commitments.
Famine is rare, predictable and – with the right resources, political will and action – preventable. Vulnerable population groups such as young children, pregnant and nursing women and displaced people are most at risk of hunger emergencies.
Once a famine is declared, many people have already died of starvation, and it’s hard to slow it down.
New body aims to limit pollution’s deadly toll
Dirty air alone is responsible for 6.7 million deaths globally every year, while one study suggests that in 2019 alone 5.5 million people perished from heart disease linked to lead exposure.
.
To stem this pollution crisis, countries agreed in 2022 to establish a new body that would provide policymakers with robust, independent information on chemicals, waste and pollution prevention.
Negotiators are finetuning the details of this new science-policy panel, with the latest round of discussions set for 15-18 June in Uruguay.
The scene of a destruction caused by the war in Ukraine. Credit: UNOCHA/Dmytro Filipskyy
A staggering 61 conflicts were recorded across 36 countries last year, according to PRIO’s Conflict Trends: A Global Overview report.
“This is not just a spike – it’s a structural shift. The world today is far more violent, and far more fragmented, than it was a decade ago,” warned Siri Aas Rustad, Research Director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and lead author of the report.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 