(United Nations)* —Some of the most intimidating sights in nature are rolling dark clouds of sand and dust that engulf everything in their path, a phenomenon that turns day into night and wreaks havoc everywhere from Northern China to sub-Saharan Africa.
The southern part of South America is counting the societal and economic cost of an extreme cold spell which brought frost and freezing morning temperatures intensified from Patagonia to central regions of Chile and Argentina.
Date: 01/07/2025 Location: Atacama Desert
European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery
On 30 June, both Chile and Argentina ranked among the coldest places on Earth, excluding the polar regions.
It was due to the persistence of a powerful polar-origin anticyclone which extended into parts of Paraguay and Uruguay, causing unusually low temperatures for the season.
The World Meteorological Organization, its members and partners are ramping up action against extreme heat to protect lives from what is widely described as a silent killer.
July is typically the warmest month of the year in the Northern hemisphere.
Western Europe is currently under influence of a strong high-pressure system, trapping dry air from northern Africa over the region and leading to extreme heat which is having a major impact on all aspects of daily life, leading to spikes in air pollution and a big risk of wildfires.
This is coupled with a severe drought in some European countries.
GENEVA (United Nations Human Rights)* – Israel’s genocide against Palestinians is being sustained by a system of exploitative occupation and profit, a UN expert on 3 July 2025 warned in a new report to the Human Rights Council that reveals how corporate profiteering and monetary gain has enabled and legitimised Israel’s illegal presence and actions.
Photo: UNICEF.
“In the past 21 months, while Israel’s genocide has devastated Palestinian lives and landscapes, the Tel Aviv stock exchange soared by 213 percent (USD), amassing $225.7 billion in market gains—including $67.8 billion in the past month alone…
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.
30 Jun 2025 — The question that nobody wants to talk about – not even Congressional opponents of Trump’s potential war against Iran – is why the Iranians can’t have a nuclear weapon if they want one.
This is not discussed because US citizens have been taught to believe that there are good and evil nations and regimes, and that Iran is an evil, “rogue” state that only wants nukes so that the Ayatollahs can use them to destroy Israel.
What a crock!
Iran is a state like most others, vesting the power of an elite while calling itself a republic. They have their Ayatollahs and we have our Oligarchs.
The actual reason Iran wants nuclear weapons (or at least the right to threaten to develop them) is so that their country – an industrialized, middle-income nation of more than 90 million people – can hold its own with Israel and avoid becoming another dependent subject of the US Empire.
(UN News)* —The blistering early-summer heatwave that’s brought life-threatening temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere is a worrying sign of things to come, UN weather experts said on Tuesday .
Three days after Spain’s national weather service confirmed a record 46°C reading in the southern town of El Granado, there’s been little let-up in stifling day and night temperatures across the continent and beyond.
SEVILLE & BHUBANESWAR, Jul 2 2025 (IPS)* –While droughts creep in stealthily, their impacts are often more devastating and far-reaching than any other disaster.
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.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2025 (IPS)* –The demand for cobalt and other minerals is fueling a decades-long humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Living in Camp Roe in the Democratic Republic of Congo Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
In pursuit of money to support their families, Congolese laborers face abuse and life-threatening conditions working in unregulated mines.
(UN News)* —Conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa in the last two years reportedly killed, maimed, or displaced over 12 million children across the region, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Alarmingly, 110 million children in the region live in countries affected by war, with homes, schools and health facilities damaged or destroyed in fighting.