31 August 2025 — Hundreds of media outlets, brought together by the campaigning platform Avaaz and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), are waging a campaign calling for the protection of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the emergency evacuation of reporters seeking to leave the Strip, an end to impunity for Israeli crimes against Gaza’s reporters and that foreign press be granted independent access to the territory.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 27 2025 (IPS)* ––Brazil, which stands out for exporting basic products such as iron ore, oil, coffee, and soybeans, rather than industrialized goods with higher added value, now intends to make a shift regarding rare earths, a key component in new technologies that it has in abundance.| En español
The turbines in a wind farm, like this one in the Northeast region of Brazil, contain magnets made from rare earths in their generators. This makes rare earths, which Brazil has in abundance, indispensable for both decarbonized electricity generation and the development of electric motors in the automotive sector and others. Credit: Fotos Públicas
Brazil is the second country in reserves of this natural resource, estimated at 21 million tons, surpassed only by China, with 44 million tons, explained Julio Nery, director of Mining Affairs at theBrazilian Mining Institute (Ibram).
Together, the two countries account for about two-thirds of the total.
(UN News)* — Humanitarians continue to push for more support for Sudan amid ongoing conflict, rising malnutrition and a cholera outbreak, a senior UN aid coordination official said on Thursday [] in New York.
Edem Wosornu, Director of Operations and Advocacy for the humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefed journalists on her recent visit to Sudan and neighbouring Chad – a critical entry point for aid and a haven for some 850,000 people who have fled fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia.
The war erupted in April 2023 and she said it has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with some 30 million people needing assistance.
(UN News)* — State authority is crumbling across Haiti while gang violence engulfs the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, “paralysing daily life and forcing families to flee,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Thursday [].
Six million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, while 1.3 million people – half of them children – having been forced to flee their homes, he added.
‘Shamefully overlooked’
Haiti now ranks among the five hunger hotspots worldwide that are of “highest concern,” said the UN chief.
Yet it remains the world’s least funded humanitarian appeal. Less than 10 per cent of the $908 million needed has been received.
IOM Calls for International Support as Yemen Faces Deadly Flooding.
IOM supports communities in Yemen with relief, shelter, and essential services during emergencies. Photo: IOM/Haithm Abdulbaqi
Aden, 28 August 2025 (IOM)* –Since early August, torrential rains and violent windstorms have devastated communities across Yemen, destroying homes, sweeping away livelihoods, and displacing thousands of families already living in precarious conditions.
(UN News)* — In the occupied West Bank village of Kufr Qaddum, *Yousef stands behind a sealed iron gate, cut off from the olive trees that have sustained his family for generations.
Like thousands of Palestinian farmers, he faces growing restrictions from Israeli forces and settlers, who have made the olive harvest season – running from September to November – a time of uncertainty and struggle.
(UN News)* — Amid reports of increased Israeli military operations across Gaza City on Friday [], UN aid agencies repeated urgent warnings of ongoing famine and a likely rise in preventable disease, linked to the dire living conditions in the war-shattered enclave.
“We are on a descent into a massive famine,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, “and we need massive amounts of food getting into the Strip and safely distribute it across the Gaza Strip”.
(UN News)* — Climate change could push at least 5.9 million more children and young people in Latin America and the Caribbean into poverty by 2030 unless governments act now.
United Nations/Rodolpho Valente | Children play on the banks of the River Negro, a tributary of the Amazon River in northwestern Brazil.
Even worse, the number could triple if countries do not meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to ensure that climate financing prioritises social and climate resilience services for children.
The finding comes in a report by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), published on Thursday [28 August 2025] in Panama.
A report ‘Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future, warns oil and gas projects threaten over 483,000 km² of Colombian Amazon forest, home to more than 70 indigenous groups, and risk becoming stranded assets as global fossil fuel demand declines.
BOGOTÁ and SRINAGAR, India, Aug 27 2025 (IPS)* –– A report has warned about the risks of expanding oil and gas exploration in the Colombian Amazon, which may undermine environmental goals, Indigenous rights, and long-term economic stability, unless the government pivots toward sustainable development pathways.
GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestinian Territory, 25 August 2025 –“Where is the world watching what’s happening to us, and to our children? All families in the world have children,” said Inas, who lives in a displacement camp with her three children in Gaza city – where famine has been confirmed for the first time.
“Would they accept their children waking up hungry?”