(UN News)* —The implementation of new Israeli laws banning the UN Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA – set to take effect on Thursday – will heighten instability and deepen despair in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Security Council has heard.
Briefing ambassadors in New York on Tuesday [], UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warned that the laws passed in October last year in the Knesset jeopardize the lives of millions of Palestinians and risks undermining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
ABUJA, Jan 29 2025 (IPS)* –In June 2024, 26-year-old Zainab Abdul noticed her two-year-old daughter growing pale, losing weight, and battling diarrhea. She wasn’t surprised.
Children beg for food in Gusau, the capital of Zamfara, Nigeria. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS
Since jihadist-linked bandits had forced them out of their village in Kadadaba, Zamfara State, in northwestern Nigeria, her family had been living in a refugee camp with limited access to food.
(Jerusalem, January 28, 2025) – The Israeli government’s blockade of Gaza and attacks on healthcare facilities have created serious and sometimes life-threatening danger for women and girls during and after pregnancy and delivery since hostilities began in October 2023, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on 28 January 2025.
(UN News)* — At least one girl and three boys were killed, and three boys injured, during an attack on the Saudi Hospital in the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher, North Darfur, on Friday.
The children were among the patients being treated in the hospital’s emergency ward for injuries from previous bombings in the area, said the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
“This heinous attack is a blatant violation of children’s rights. Children are being killed and injured in the very places where they should be safest from harm,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21 2025 (IPS)* – Perhaps one of the UN’s most ambitious and longstanding projects – the launching of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– is aimed, among other things, at helping developing nations eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. But that elusive goal has made little or no significant progress.
.
Credit: UN Women
And now comes a new report from Oxfam, “Takers Not Makers” which finds that in 2024 alone, billionaires amassed $2 trillion in wealth, and nearly four new billionaires were minted every week.
Education in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Pakistan and the Philippines most severely affected by heatwaves, cyclones, floods and storms
UNICEF/UNI636920/Himu
NEW YORK (UNICEF)* –At least 242 million students in 85 countries had their schooling disrupted by extreme climate events in 2024, including heatwaves, tropical cyclones, storms, floods, and droughts, exacerbating an existing learning crisis, according to a new UNICEF analysis released on 24 January 2025.
(UN News)* — The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday [] expressed grave concerns over escalating violence in the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank, condemning the use of “unlawful lethal force” by Israeli security forces.
OHCHR spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan added that the Israeli military operation in and around the Jenin refugee camp had involved “disproportionate” use of force, including airstrikes and shootings that reportedly targeted unarmed residents.
(UN News)* — In a rare moment of cautious optimism, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher addressed the Security Council on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza on Thursday [], emphasizing the plight of children who have borne the brunt of the conflict.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 21 2025 (IPS)* –Corporate-dominated food systems are responsible for widespread but still spreading malnutrition and ill health. Poor diets worsen non-communicable diseases (NCDs), now costing over eight trillion dollars yearly!
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Unhealthy food systems A recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study of 156 countries found that such food systems account for unsafe food and diet-related NCDs.
FAO estimates related ‘hidden costs’ at about $12 trillion annually, with 70% ($8.1 trillion) due to NCDs such as heart disease, strokes and diabetes. Such costs significantly exceed these food systems’ environmental and social costs.
FAO’s annual State of Food and Agriculture 2024 (SOFA) investigated hidden costs worldwide. These were primarily health-related, followed by environmental degradation, mainly in more ‘industrialised’ agri-food systems in upper-middle and high-income countries.
United States President Donald Trump, on his first day in office on January 20, 2025, issued numerous executive orders that threaten to undermine respect for international human rights both in the US and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today [22 January 2025].
A Palestinian woman pregnant with triplets, suffers from malnutrition and extreme anemia due to food shortages, at a displaced persons camp in Rafah, Gaza, February 14, 2024. © 2024 Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 