An estimated 476 million Indigenous Peoples live across 90 countries, representing 5,000 different cultures.
Without proper safeguards, AI risks harming Indigenous rights through inequitable distribution of the groundbreaking technology, environmental damage and the reinforcement of damaging colonial legacies.
The growing amount of electricity generation needed for AI data centres and other infrastructure is also intensifying climate change pressures, according to the UN.
Sana’a, Yemen — Fourteen men and four women set off from the Horn of Africa, drifting into the unknown across the sea.
After surviving the journey to Yemen, Sennait gave birth at a migrant centre and now hopes to rebuild her life with her baby. Photo: AI-generated image
.
Among them was Sennait*, a 20-year-old Ethiopian woman carrying the weight of her father’s recent death and the scars of a harrowing trek from her village to the coastal town of Bossaso.
.
Her life had once been simple. She went to school, laughed with friends, and helped her father tend their small farm.
(UN News)* — UN Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed grave concern over Israel’s decision to “take control of Gaza City”, his Spokesperson said in a statement on Friday [].
The announcement following an Israeli cabinet meeting “marks a dangerous escalation and risks deepening the already catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians, and could further endanger more lives, including of the remaining hostages,” it said.
The statement noted that Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure a humanitarian catastrophe of horrific proportions.
JERUSALEM, 7 August 2025–An analysis of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical data, patients’ testimonies, and first-hand medical witnessing at two MSF clinics in Gaza, Palestine, point to both targeted and indiscriminate violence by Israeli forces and private American contractors against starved Palestinians at food distribution sites run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The GHF-run food distributions in Gaza, Palestine, have become sites of “orchestrated killing and dehumanisation”, not humanitarian aid.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Aug 7 2025 (IPS)* –– On August the first, the Italian daily La Repubblica published an interview with David Grossman, Israel’s most renown author and supporter of a “two-state solution”, as well as an outspoken critic of Israel’s violence against Palestinian civilians.
Grossman’s interview received international attention and was quoted by respected newspapers like The Guardian, Le Figaro and Haaretz.
Israeli presence on the West Bank. The orange and red patches are what remains of Palestinian controlled areas.
(UN News)* —Extreme heat is breaking records around the world, with wildfires and poor air quality compounding the crisis, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released Thursday [].
Extreme temperatures caused approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2019, with 36 per cent occurring in Europe and 45 per cent in Asia.
The health impacts of heat are especially severe in cities due to the so-called ‘urban heat island effect’ – the over-heating of dense city areas compared with their rural surroundings – which is magnifying problems as urbanisation continues.
Amid rising 21st-century temperatures, the WMO underscored that July 2025 was the third-warmest July ever recorded, behind those in 2023 and 2024.
An invitation for the reader to analyze and decide which countries, peoples, and/or cultures can be considered civilized in the 21st century—more specifically, in 2025.
A civilization or culture is defined as a set of customs, traditions, ethics, values, language, music, dance, gastronomy, clothing, religion, and social and political organization of a people, ethnic group, tribe, or nation.
British scholars of the 19th century classified the peoples and races as Civilized, Barbarians and Savages, based on their respective “evolutions.” Such classification was based primarily on three factors:
Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution;
the Industrial Revolution in the beginning of industrial capitalism; and
the Reformation of the Catholic Church, the schism from which Protestantism arose.
(UN News)* —UN data published on Wednesday [] underscores the tiny amount of cultivable land that remains in the Gaza Strip, contributing to the famine-like conditions now being endured by more than two million people there.
A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) reveals that just 8.6 percent of cropland in Gaza is still accessible, while only 1.5 per cent of cropland is both accessible and undamaged, as of 28 July.
.
More than 86 per cent of cropland is damaged, while 12.4 per cent is undamaged but out of reach, as fighting between Israeli forces and militants from Hamas and other armed groups continues.
.
This report comes as Israel’s offensive inside Gaza continues to restrict aid distribution – and starvation-related deaths rise.
By Nargiz Shekinskaya in Awaza and Vibhu Mishra in New York.
(UN News)* — Trapped by geography and squeezed by global market forces, the world’s 32 landlocked developing countries remain among the poorest – and most overlooked.
IFAD/Sanjit Das | In landlocked developing countries like Nepal (pictured), a lack of diversified industries and accessible markets limits local livelihoods – driving a growing exodus of young people seeking work abroad and often leaving older generations behind.
At a major UN conference underway this week in Awaza, Turkmenistan, calls are growing to tackle the high trade costs, investment gaps and growing digital divide that continue to hold these countries back.
Despite progress in some areas, landlocked nations – from Bolivia to Bhutan and Burkina Faso – account for just1.2 per cent of global exports, even though they represent over seven per cent of the world’s countries.
AWAZA, Turkmenistan, Aug 6 2025 (IPS)* ––Agriculture is a critical sector in landlocked developing countries, as more than half (55 percent) of the population is employed in the agriculture sector – significantly higher than the global average of 25 per cent.
As such, the deterioration of food security in landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) is an unfolding catastrophe.
A high-level event focused on agriculture at the ongoing Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
There are 32 LLDCs, with a combined population of nearly 600 million people.
The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity rose from an estimated 43 percent in 2015 to 51 percent in 2023, and the rate of undernourishment from approximately 15 percent to 19 percent in the same period.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 