'Unseen' News and Views
(UN News)* — Humanitarian assistance in Gaza is being delayed because aid cargo is routinely deprioritised in favour of commercial goods, the UN’s aid coordination office (OCHA) warned on Monday [], as winter storms continue to worsen already dire living conditions for displaced families.
More than half the world’s population still lacks access to essential health services..And a quarter of them face financial hardship when paying for health care out of their own pockets, often at the expense of food, education or housing..
The Security Council in session. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
“I don’t think”, he declared, “anyone in his right mind will ever want that job”.
Fast forward to 2026.
As a financially stricken UN is looking for a new Secretary-General, who will take office beginning January 2027, the USG’s remark in a bygone era was a reflection of a disaster waiting to happen.
Statement by Maureen Magee, Global Director of Field Operations, at the Norwegian Refugee Council, commenting on the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) for 2026:
“2026 is set to stretch humanitarian responses to their limit as they seek to support people with the most severe needs around the world.
“Next year, 239 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Humanitarians are aiming to reach just over half of them.
10 December 2025 (OHCHR)* — Human rights are underfunded, undermined and under attack. And yet. Powerful. Undeterred. Mobilizing.
UN Photo/Mark Garten | Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in an interview with UN News.
This year no doubt has been a difficult one. And one full of dangerous contradictions. Funding for human rights has been slashed, while anti-rights movements are increasingly well-funded.
Profits for the arms industry are soaring, while funding for humanitarian aid and grassroots civil society plummets.
Those defending rights and justice are attacked, sanctioned and hauled before courts, even as those ordering the commission of atrocity crimes continue to enjoy impunity.
New report finds that current international financial flows remain billions of dollars short of what is required to protect and conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. Photo: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
Ministers Endorse Rights-Violating Deportation Measures
12 December 2025 — Following a gathering of Council of Europe states on International Human Rights Day, 27 countries called for “migration reform”, attacking the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights for their role in upholding the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.
This latest anti-migrant rhetoric comes at the same time as the EU’s wave of regressive and cruel measures.
(UN News)* — The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has expressed alarm at reports of a so-called “settler road” being built in the occupied West Bank.
(UN News)* — Gaza’s health system for mothers and newborns has been “decimated”, the UN said on Thursday [], with Israeli attacks destroying almost all hospitals, cutting off medical supplies and driving sharp rises in maternal deaths, miscarriages and newborn fatalities amid mass displacement and hunger.
Geneva, 12 December 2025 – Storm Byron, a severe storm system that triggered flooding in Greece and Cyprus before reaching Gaza earlier this week, has now made landfall, bringing heavy rainfall that has already flooded multiple displacement sites and placed nearly 795,000* displaced Palestinians at heightened risk.
Rainfall is expected to continue in the hours ahead, further straining conditions for families already living in unsafe shelters.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 