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)* — Up to 500,000 illegal weapons ranging from handguns to battlefield-grade semi-automatic rifles are thought to be in the hands of gangs in Haiti, even though the Caribbean country has been under a UN arms embargo for the last three years.
Giles Clarke | Gang members brandish their weapons in the Delmas 3 neighbourhood of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
Haiti is facing an acute security crisis as rival gangs fight for control of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding areas while terrorizing local communities through extortion, sexual violence, kidnap for ransom and murder.
(UN News)* — Millions of Haitians are facing food insecurity as armed groups continue to expand their territorial control around the country, the latest internationally-recognised IPC hunger report found.
In its recent analysis, the IPC, a UN-backed index measuring hunger and malnutrition in global hotspots, found that 5.7 million Haitians are facing a deteriorating food security situation.
The study provides an analysis for the period of September 2025 until February 2026 and a projection for March until June of next year.
(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.
In less than nine months, Israel has demolished more Palestinian homes and structures in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, over building permits than in the whole of last year, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on 1 October 2025 said.
Caption: Eighty-six Palestinian structures have already been demolished this year in Khallet Athaba, Masafer Yatta, under Israel’s permit regime. Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/NRC
By 30 September, Israeli authorities had demolished 1,288 structures over building permits, nearly five a day, including 138 funded by international aid.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on warned that rising violence by armed groups in Haiti’s capital is restricting humanitarian access and pushing families deeper into hunger as extreme funding shortfalls force WFP to slash rations and suspend programmes.
Photo from WFP
Reports indicate that armed groups now control nearly 90 percent of Port-au-Prince. As a result, more farmers are cut off from markets, further straining already fragile food systems and pushing food prices even higher with devastating consequences for food insecure families.
A staggering 1.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes in search of food and shelter.
24 September 2025 — Climate experts have found that countries are planning twice as much fossil fuel production as is compatible with global climate commitments.
The 2025 Production Gap Report, co-authored by the Stockholm Environment Institute, Climate Analytics, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, found that these plans put at risk the goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The experts analyzed 20 major fossil fuel-producing countries that together account for over 80 percent of global fossil fuel production.
(UN News)* —Artificial intelligence holds vast potential but poses grave risks if left unregulated, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday [24 September 2025].
Unsplash/Chris Yang | AI can help prevent crises and drive progress – but without guardrails, it risks fueling conflict, disinformation and instability.
“AI is no longer a distant horizon – it is here, , transforming daily life, the information space, and the global economy at breathtaking speed,” Mr. Guterres said at the Council’s high-level debate on the technology’s security implications for transforming warfare
“The question is not whether AI will influence international peace and security, but how we will shape that influence.”
(UN News)* — The explosive growth of AI tools around the world has yet to be matched by effective, internationally agreed rules on how this powerful technology is governed.
AUDIO AND SUBSCRIPTION
UN News/Anton Uspensky | AI for Good Summit 2024, Geneva
A high-profile event at UN Headquarters on Thursday [] is designed to bring effective global AI governance a step closer to reality.
Investment, optimism and anxiety: these are three of the big drivers of interest in artificial intelligence and its implications.
Because the challenges and opportunities are global, the responses also need to be far more comprehensive than the fragmented and siloed solutions that have been enacted thus far:
“If anyone hears my voice, I say: enough. We have seen death a million times. We have been displaced, killed, lost everything, lost our loved ones. No human can take this. Your child tells you they are hungry, and you cannot give them anything.”
Photo: NRC
These words belong to Eman Muqbel, site management coordinator for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Gaza. She and her family are among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living under bombardment in Gaza City and being forced to flee their homes.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 