UNITED NATIONS, Dec 5 2025 (IPS)* –– President Donald Trump’s recent announcement to resume nuclear testing rekindles nightmares of a bygone era where military personnel and civilians were exposed to devastating radioactive fallouts.
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A nuclear test is carried out on an island in French Polynesia in 1971. Credit: CTBTO
In the five decades between 1945 and the opening for the signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out all over the world. The United States conducted 1,032 tests between 1945 and 1992.
(UN News)* — The Arab region is heating at nearly twice the global average, UN weather experts warned on , after 2024 saw unprecedented heat, destructive storms and worsening water scarcity impact some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
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Unsplash/Ali Guddam | People across the Arab region including in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, face increasing pressure from climate extremes.
The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) first State of the Climate in the Arab Region reportpaints a stark picture of a region under constant pressure from rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather.
Tens of thousands of children displaced as families forced to flee in wake of attacks by armed non-state actors
UNICEF
NEW YORK/MAPUTO, 5 December 2025 (UNICEF)* – Over 100,000 people, around two thirds of them children, have been displaced in northern Mozambique during the month of November, following attacks against civilians.
The latest wave of displacement follows months of continued and expanding attacks by armed non-state actors in the north of the country, triggering repeated population movements in Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces.
The report shows that shifts in financial markets move global trade almost as strongly as real economic activity, influencing development prospects worldwide.
(UN News)* —Across southeast Asia, record-breaking rains and flooding caused by back-to-back tropical storms have claimed hundreds of lives and brought devastation and displacement upon entire communities, UN agencies said on Tuesday [].
WMO/Daniel Pavlinovic | Across the world, more incidents of extreme weather events are being recorded.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) spokesperson Clare Nullis told reporters in Geneva that Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam are among the countries most affected by what she described as “a combination of monsoon-related rainfall and tropical cyclone activity”.
(UN News)* — With nearly $1.6 billion in unpaid dues, the UN Secretary-General warned on Monday [] that chronic late payments are hampering the world body’s ability to function, even as sweeping cuts move forward through the General Assembly’s main budget committee.
António Guterres told the Fifth Committee the UN is facing its most fragile cash position in years, despite sharp reductions already built into next year’s budget plans.
UN News/Vibhu Mishra | The United Nations Headquarters as seen from First Avenue in New York City.
MANILA, Philippines, Nov 11 2025 (IPS)* –US President Trump’s economic strategy for his second term aims to get the rest of the world, especially its wealthy allies with greater means, to pay more to help strengthen the US economy.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Recent US initiatives have undoubtedly accelerated de-dollarisation but these have largely been unavoidable consequences of its own actions rather than due to any conspiracy by others to that end.
De-dollarisation distraction
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff recently observed, “We are absolutely at the biggest inflection point in the global currency system since the Nixon shock to end the last vestige of the gold standard.”
After the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the gold price was set at $35 per ounce. In August 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended this gold-dollar parity.
BRATISLAVA, Dec 1 2025 (IPS)* – “It’s like adding fuel to an already burning fire,” says Aditia Taslim.
UNAIDS campaigns have dominated the global effort to end HIV/Aids as a public threat since 1999. Credit: UNAIDS
“We have not recovered from the impact of the US funding cuts earlier this year, and closing down UNAIDS prematurely will only make things worse, especially for key populations and other criminalized groups, including people who use drugs,” Taslim, who is Advocacy Lead at the International Network of People Who Use Drugs (INPUD), tells IPS.
NEW YORK, 28 November 2025 (UNICEF)* –Children and adolescents living with HIV continue to be left behind in access to early diagnosis, life-saving treatment, and care, as shrinking funding threatens to increase their risks and reverse decades of progress, UNICEF on 28 November 2025 warned ahead of World AIDS Day(1 December 2025).
(UN News)*– The humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s El Fasher remains dire as mass displacement accelerates and aid access stays restricted, amid warnings of widespread trafficking, sexual violence and the recruitment of children.
UN agencies say conditions are deteriorating further across North Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan, while independent human rights experts on Thursday warned that the collapse of protection following the city’s fall has sharply increased the risks facing women and children.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 