MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec 22 2025 (IPS)** – Myanmar is heading for an election, beginning on 28 December, that’s ostensibly an exercise in democracy – but it has clearly been designed with the aim of conferring more legitimacy on its military junta.
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Credit: Issei Kato/Reuters via Gallo Images
Almost five years after its February 2021 coup, the regime continues to fight pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed organisations, barely controlling a fifth of Myanmar’s territory.
The junta hasacknowledgedthat voting won’t be possible in much of the country.
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.
Research underscores the meditation ability to reduce stress, improve focus and emotional balance, alleviating anxiety and depression, and enhance sleep quality. It also contributes to better physical health, including lowering blood pressure and managing pain.
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Meditation is an ancient practice that involves focusing one’s attention on the present moment. Rooted in religious, yogic, and secular traditions across cultures, meditation has been practiced for thousands of years.
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Today, it is embraced worldwide, transcending its spiritual origins to become a universal tool for personal well-being and mental health.
The findings are a stark warning that the Amazon’s crisis is not only about trees. It is about the air millions of people breathe, and the health of our shared planet.
New evidence shows rangelands are degrading faster than rainforests in some regions, despite bringing multiple benefits and sustaining two billion people
Bonn/Panama City– Stretching from the drylands of Latin America and Africa to the steppes of Central Asia, rangelands underpin food security, climate stability and centuries-old pastoral cultures.
These vast landscapes, covering half the planet, store significant carbon, buffer climate extremes, and regulate water in some of the world’s driest regions.
Yet, despite their immense value, rangelands remain one of the planet’s most overlooked ecosystems.
Oppressive heat. Species extinctions. Pollution-choked skies.
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Courtesy NASA
15 December 2025 —This is the future that awaits the world unless humanity takes dramatic steps to end a series of mushrooming environmental crises, finds a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The seventh edition of the Global Environment Outlook(GEO-7) offers a stark vision of the decades to come.
Explore UN Women’s FAQs on how gender affects migration experiences.
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. Photo: UN Women Cambodia/Women Migrant Workers participatory photography project
Learn about the unique challenges that migrant women and girls face and how these differ to those men experience, from limited access to information and services to risks like trafficking, exploitation and violence.
What is the difference between migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers?
(UN News)* — Food security in Gaza has improved since the ceasefire declared in October, pushing back famine conditions, but the situation remains critical with more than three-quarters of the population still facing acute hunger and malnutrition, a new UN-backed analysis has found.
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec 17 2025 (IPS)** –Machines with no conscience are making split-second decisions about who lives and who dies. This isn’t dystopian fiction; it’s today’s reality. In Gaza, algorithms have generated kill lists ofup to 37,000 targets.
Credit: Annegret Hilse/Reuters via Gallo Images
Autonomous weapons are also being deployed inUkraineand were on show at a recentmilitary paradein China. States are racing to integrate them in their arsenals, convinced they’ll maintain control. If they’re wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Unlike remotely piloted drones where a human operator pulls the trigger, autonomous weapons make lethal decisions.
. Photo: UN Women Cambodia/Women Migrant Workers participatory photography project
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 