LONDON, Aug 4 2025 (IPS)** ––Rice queues – something once unthinkable – began appearing around May. As the country’s staple food hit record prices, frustrated shoppers found themselves breaking a cultural taboo by switching to rice from South Korea.
It was a symbol of how far Japan’s economic certainties had crumbled, creating fertile ground for a political shift.
Credit: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters via Gallo Images
That came on 20 July, when Japan joined the ranks of countries where far-right parties are gaining ground.
The Sanseitō party took 15.7 per cent of the vote in the election for parliament’s upper house, while the ruling two-party coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō lost its majority.
The result spells trouble for Japan’s civil society.
The Trump administration proposed on July 29 to revoke the 2009 finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gases endanger public health, a move that would gut the government’s ability to regulate fossil fuels and reject decades of scientific evidence.
29 July 2025 – While summer rains typically offer some relief, this year’s cumulative rainfall is expected to drop by 40 per cent in some regions, leaving 15 million people who are water insecure in a precarious state without safe drinking water or reliable sanitation.
Mureshed, 75, surrounded by his grandchildren in Hajjibah camp, Yemen. Suleiman Al-Shara’abi/NRC
Low seasonal rainfall in Yemen has severely exacerbated an already dire situation, with Yemenis in both rural areas and cities struggling to access clean water, warns the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
“With every year that passes, Yemenis see their ability to access water shrink,” said Angelita Caredda, NRC’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director.
MOGADISHU, Somalia –“I didn’t know if she would make it.” When Faduma Mohamed gave birth to her daughter at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, the silence that followed was terrifying. Her premature daughter was tiny, underweight and barely breathing.
Just months earlier, she might not have; the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit was severely under-resourced, lacking essentials such as incubators and oxygen support machines.
SRINAGAR, India & KINSHASA, DRC, Jul 29 2025 (IPS)* —The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) stands on the precipice of a profound environmental and social crisis, as the government prepares to auction 55 new oil blocks that cover more than half the country’s landmass.
Activists march in the street of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo to demand climate justice and an end to oil exploration in the Virunga National Park. Credit: MNKF Creatives
Touted as a pathway to economic growth, the move has triggered fierce backlash from scientists, civil society groups, Indigenous leaders, and international conservationists, who warn that the proposed fossil fuel expansion threatens some of the most ecologically and culturally significant landscapes on Earth.
Aid cuts and humanitarian deadlock are fuelling a full-blown public health disaster.
In Sake and Minova, 500 people are sharing a single water tap.
Francoise lost six children in the conflict in DRC. She has been displaced to a camp in Bunia with her five remaining children after their village was attacked. Photo: John Wessels/Oxfam
Six months since the renewed war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a full-blown public health emergency is accelerating, Oxfam warned on 24 July 2025
Since January, more than 35,000 suspected cholera cases and at least 852 related deaths have been reported – an average of more than four deaths every day and a 62 percent increase compared to 2024.
(UN News)* — Some 80,000 children are estimated to be at high risk of cholera in West and Central Africa as the rainy season begins across the region, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday [].
“The heavy rains, widespread flooding and the high level of displacement are all fuelling the risk of cholera transmission and putting the lives of children at risk,” saidUNICEF regional director for West and Central Africa Gilles Fagninou.
Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by consuming food or water contaminated with bacteria. The disease can be treated with oral rehydration solution and antibiotics but can be fatal within hours if untreated.
(UN News)* —People in Haiti have expressed “despair” following the “abrupt suspension” of a wide range of humanitarian services, according to the UN aid coordinationoffice, OCHA, in the Caribbean country.
The cancellation of most US funding in January means many services to the most vulnerable people have been cut or put on hold.
Multiple political, security and socioeconomic crises have led to 5.7 million people suffering from a lack of food and have forced 1.3 million people to flee their homes.
With a dramatic reduction in funding, Haiti faces a crucial “turning point”.
ATLANTA, USA, Jul 30 2025 (IPS)* –– Why is a grinning Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, wildly cheered by both Democrats and Republicans whenever he addresses the US Congress, while at the same time in Gaza countless innocent civilians are being killed by American bombs and bullets—and now babies are starving?
Rescue workers line up body bags in Tal Al Sultan, in Rafah, in southern Gaza. Credit: UNOCHA
Shamefully, Israel’s leader, a certified genocidaire, is one of the few global leaders to have ever been granted the privilege of speaking to Congress, which he has done frequently.
But the world sees and will remember his Big Lie that “There is no starvation in Gaza.”
The mantle of righteousness that once adorned the American flag after WW II is shredded, perhaps beyond repair.
(UN News)* — The promise seemed simple: a job, a fresh start, a way out. Instead, Maria* stepped off a boat onto a picture-perfect Trinidadian beach with hope in her heart and into a nightmare that would shadow her for years.
.On the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, observed on 30 July, follow the journey of a woman who escaped..Eight years ago, Maria left Caracas, Venezuela, driven by dwindling opportunities and the hope of completing her veterinary studies..At just 21, she accepted an offer from an acquaintance who promised work in Trinidad and Tobago, cleaning homes, waiting tables. It seemed like a lifeline, a way to support herself and her family back home..She didn’t know then that she was stepping into a well-laid trap.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 