SANTIAGO, Oct 22 2025 (IPS)* –Desalination projects are booming in Chile, with 51 plants planned to process seawater and a combined investment of US$ 24.455 billion. However, these initiatives hardly benefit small-scale farmers, who are threatened by the prolonged drought, and cause environmental concerns.
View of a plant owned by Aguas Antofagasta, a company created 20 years ago that now has three desalination plants to supply drinking water to 184,000 families in that desert city in northern Chile. Credit: Courtesy of Acades
As humanitarian aid dries up, these countries are especially vulnerable
Afghanistan
People lining up for WFP assistance in earthquake-hit eastern Afghanistan. The country faces soaring needs – even as WFP assistance is being deeply cut. Photo: WFP/Arete/Muktar Nikrawa
There are 9.5 million food-insecure people in Afghanistan – a number that WFP fears will rise. WFP has a US$622 million funding shortfall over the next six months.
(UN News)* —Holding the line on the existing rules-based international trading system remains an essential challenge if the world is the keep a damaging tariff war at bay, a top UN trade official said on Monday [].
Addressing the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD)’s 195 Member States in Geneva, Rebeca Grynspan said that 72 per cent of global trade “still moves under WTO rules” – a reference to the World Trade Organization, whose agreements are negotiated and signed by trading nations.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 2025 (IPS)* –The US hostility towards the UN is threatening to escalate, as a cash-starved world body is struggling for economic survival.
Addressing the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee last week. Ambassador Jeff Bartos, U.S. Representative for U.N. Management and Reform said: “President Trump is absolutely right – the United Nations can be an important institution for solving international challenges, but it has strayed far from its original purpose”.
“Over 80 years, the UN has grown bloated, unfocused, too often ineffective, and sometimes even part of the problem. The UN’s failure to deliver on its core mandates is alarming and undeniable.“
(UN News)* — The United Nations faces a “race to bankruptcy” unless Member States pay their dues in full and on time, Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Friday [], presenting a sharply reduced $3.238 billion regular budget for 2026.
UN News/Vibhu Mishra | The Secretariat building with flags of Member States in the foreground, at UN Headquarters, in New York.
15 October 2025 —Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere soared by a record amount to new highs in 2024, committing the planet to more long-term temperature increase, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
(UN News)* —More than eight per cent of the world population or around 673 million people are not getting enough to eat and going hungry, according to the UN.
Conflict, climate change and inequality are all playing a role, but there are other reasons for what is known rather dryly as “food insecurity.”
Ahead of World Food Day on 16 October, here are five things you need to know about why even though there’s enough food to feed the global population of over eight billion – people still go hungry.
Armed conflicts, such as those in Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza, disrupt food production, supply chains, and access to markets. This leads to the displacement of people, creating acute food insecurity for millions.
Rivers cut by dams, farmland expansion and urban growth are putting food, water, biodiversity and livelihoods at risk unless urgent action is taken.
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Bonn/Abu Dhabi, 11 October 2025 – Nearly one-third of the Earth’s land surface has already been profoundly transformed by human activity, leaving ecosystems degraded and fragmented, according to the Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Ecological Connectivity and Land Restoration, launched on 11 October 202 at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi.
Nearly two-thirds of climate finance was made as loans, often at standard rates of interest without concessions, research by Oxfam and CARE Climate Justice Centre has found.
Oxfam and CARE Climate Justice Centre argue that wealthy nations are profiteering through climate finance loans. Credit: CARE Climate Justice Center
THE HAGUE, Netherlands , Oct 8 2025 (IPS)* – New research by Oxfam and the CARE Climate Justice Centre finds developing countries are now paying more back to wealthy nations for climate finance loans than they receive—for every USD 5 they receive, they are paying USD 7 back, and 65 percent of funding is delivered in the form of loans.
This form of crisis profiteering by rich countries is worsening debt burdens and hindering climate action.
(UN News)* —The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday [] that millions in Somalia are at risk of worsening hunger and malnutrition as critical funding shortfalls force the agency to cut back on life-saving emergency food assistance.
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WFP/Geneva Costopulos | Children at an IDP camp in Somalia.
“We are seeing a dangerous rise in emergency levels of hunger, and our ability to respond is shrinking by the day,” said Ross Smith,WFPdirector of emergencies.
“Without urgent funding,families already pushed to the edge will be left with nothing at a time when they need it most.”
A striking 4.4 million Somalis are facing crisis level of food insecurity or worse, the latest internationally backed IPC index reported, a global standard for measuring hunger and malnutrition.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 