'Unseen' News and Views
GENEVA – Following major cuts to humanitarian budgets, up to 11.6 million refugees and others forced to flee risk losing access this year to direct humanitarian assistance from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, according to a report published on 18 July 2025.
Caption: Families who fled the conflict in Sudan wait to be relocated from the overcrowded Renk border point in South Sudan. © UNHCR/Reason Moses Runyanga
(UN News)* — Mohammed Saad sits with others inside a homemade cart pulled by a car carrying several passengers, waiting to travel to Gaza City in one of the “uncomfortable and extremely expensive” means of transportation used to get around the Strip.
15 July 2025 — In response to the EU’s foreign affairs ministers meeting to discuss the list of options for political action against Israel, Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s Policy Lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Gaza, said:
A father plays with his 3-year-daughter in the middle of his tent in Rafah which he took refuge after losing his house and factory. (Photo: Alef Multimedia/Oxfam)
“Every day that passes without real action means more death and destruction. Yet, once again, Europe is kicking the can down the road.
“The recent aid deal may have been a step, but, in reality, it is mere breadcrumbs. Aid alone cannot stop this catastrophe.
– Trump’s billionaire cronies want more monopoly profits, not competition. With more policies crafted for them, wealth concentration is set to become greater than ever.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Neoliberalism?
There is no clear consensus on what neoliberal economics stands for now. Many who claim to be liberal economists have different, even contradictory views.
Some demand market competition and oppose monopolies and oligopolies. For others, property rights are crucial, typically strengthening monopoly rights.
Many avowed neoliberals deemphasise competition and hesitate to insist on antitrust action or opposition to abuses of market power.
Property rights confer monopoly or exclusive ownership rights to an asset, typically denying access to others except for payment. Many such rights are recent.
“These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing,” said the project’s director.
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8 Jul 2025 – Less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a budget package that pushes annual military spending past $1 trillion, researchers today published a report detailing how much major Pentagon contractors have raked in since 2020.
(UN News)* — In Gaza, illness, poverty, mass displacement and depleted services are leading to soaring stress levels and causing an increase in domestic violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, according to the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA).
(UN News)* — Conditions in Gaza have reached an unspeakable level of devastation with children paying the highest price, top UN officials told the Security Council on Wednesday [], warning of soaring child deaths, starvation and a shattered health system amid continuing bombardment and displacement.
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In recent weeks, UN agencies have recorded nearly 900 deaths of desperate and hungry Gazans as they try to collect food – with most linked to private aid hubs run by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
World’s nuclear arsenals being enlarged and upgraded
(Stockholm) The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on 16 June 2025 launched its annual assessment of the state of armaments, disarmament and international security.
Key findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2025 are that a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened.
Nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel—continued intensive nuclear modernization programmes in 2024, upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 
In January this year, a nuclear trafficking case made the international news headlines. The United States Department of Justice announced that Takeshi Ebisawa, an alleged Japanese gangster, had pleaded guilty to charges of major narcotics trafficking as well as conspiring to traffic nuclear materials.