'Unseen' News and Views
3 July 2025 — US headlines have been dominated by coverage of the many ways President Trump’s budget bill will gut healthcare programs and deepen economic inequality in the United States if it is passed into law.
Somewhat lost amidst all that noise is the story of how the Trump administration also weaponized the bill to benefit the wealthiest US corporations by undermining global efforts to tax businesses fairly.
In Nairobi’s Kibera, the largest urban informal settlement in Africa, girls and women wait their turn for the scarce water supply. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS
Inter-community conflict, extremist violence, and violence and injustice against vulnerable girls and women happen at the intersection of climate-induced droughts and drought-impoverished communities.
Five consecutive years of failed rain in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya brought the worst drought in seventy years to the Horn of Africa by 2023.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, 27 June 2025 – “I gave birth on the ground at the camp with the help of a woman. She is still asking me for money because I couldn’t pay her,” 18-year-old Jeanette* told UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.
Credit: World Food Programme (WFP)
The World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night while the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared — from 135 million to 345 million — since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.
But in what seems like a cruel paradox the US Department of Agriculture estimates that a staggering $161 billion worth of food is dumped yearly into landfills in the United States.
The world’s richest 1% increased their wealth by more than $33.9 trillion in real terms since 2015, reveals new Oxfam analysis ahead of the world’s largest development financing talks in a decade, in Seville, Spain.
Almost a billion of us go to bed hungry every night. Not because there isn’t enough food for everyone, but because of the deep injustice in the way food is produced and accessed. | OXFAM.
This is more than enough to eliminate annual poverty 22 times over at the World Bank’s highest poverty line of $8.30 a day.
The wealth of just 3,000 billionaires has surged $6.5 trillion in real terms since 2015, and now comprises the equivalent of 14.6% of global GDP.
New UN report charts path out of debt crisis threatening global development
A new era of global instability has intensified challenges in addressing the world drug problem, empowering organized crime groups and pushing drug use to historically high levels, says the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in the World Drug Report 2025 launched on 26 June 2025.
“This edition of the World Drug Report shows that organized drug trafficking groups continue to adapt, exploit global crises, and target vulnerable populations,” said Ghada Waly, Executive Director of UNODC.
— Helping those with less isn’t charity – it’s a shared investment in a better future. Yet global development financing is under strain. An upcoming UN conference in Sevilla, Spain, aims to change that by mobilizing large-scale investment for a more just and sustainable world.
© UNICEF/Roger Yebuah | Girls give the thumbs-up at a school in Ghana.
Every dollar invested in girls’ education yields an average return of $2.80 – translating into billions in additional GDP.
Similarly, each dollar spent on water and sanitation saves $4.30 in healthcare costs.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 