Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Both in the scale of the devastation they cause, and in their uniquely persistent, spreading, genetically damaging radioactive fallout, they are unlike any other weapons.
A mushroom cloud after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killing over 73,000 people. Keystone / Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
A single nuclear bomb detonated over a large city could kill millions of people. The use of tens or hundreds of nuclear bombs would disrupt the global climate, causing widespread famine.
(Stockholm) Revenues from sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest arms-producing companies rose by 5.9 per cent in 2024, reaching a record $679 billion, according to new data released on 1 December 2025 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), available at www.sipri.org.
The Lockheed Martin and Rheinmetall partnered Global Mobile Artillery Rocket System (GMARS) live fired for the first time at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, August 2025. Photo: US Army
Global arms revenues rose sharply in 2024, as demand was boosted by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, global and regional geopolitical tensions, and ever-higher military expenditure.
For the first time since 2018, all of the five largest arms companies increased their arms revenues.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 5 2025 (IPS)* –– President Donald Trump’s recent announcement to resume nuclear testing rekindles nightmares of a bygone era where military personnel and civilians were exposed to devastating radioactive fallouts.
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A nuclear test is carried out on an island in French Polynesia in 1971. Credit: CTBTO
In the five decades between 1945 and the opening for the signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out all over the world. The United States conducted 1,032 tests between 1945 and 1992.
(UN News)* — The Arab region is heating at nearly twice the global average, UN weather experts warned on , after 2024 saw unprecedented heat, destructive storms and worsening water scarcity impact some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
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Unsplash/Ali Guddam | People across the Arab region including in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, face increasing pressure from climate extremes.
The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) first State of the Climate in the Arab Region reportpaints a stark picture of a region under constant pressure from rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather.
(UN News)* — From Sri Lanka’s central highlands to Indonesia’s flood-swollen river basins, a wave of climate-fuelled cyclones and monsoon rains has unleashed one of the deadliest weather patterns south and southeast Asia has seen in years, killing more than 1,600 people, displacing hundreds of thousands and affecting millions.
Since mid-November, overlapping tropical storms and intensified monsoon systems have triggered catastrophic flooding and landslides across Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Viet Nam.
Annalena Baerbock In her address as President of the UN General Assembly
Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe September 2025
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 2025 (IPS)* – For seventy-eight years, the question of Palestine has been on the agenda of this General Assembly, almost as long as the institution itself.
Resolution 181 (II) was adopted by the General Assembly on November 29 1947 – laying the foundation for the Two State Solution and calling for the establishment of both an Arab State and a Jewish State in Palestine.
But while the Jewish State, the State of Israel, is a recognized Member State of the United Nations, the Arab State, the State of Palestine, is not.
Seventy-eight years later, Palestine has still not been admitted to the UN as a full Member.
(UN News)* — The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has condemned an Israeli raid on the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the occupied West Bank, warning that pressure on Palestinian civil society has reached alarming levels.
Olive harvest season in the Occupied West Bank in Palestine, October 2025.
Israeli security forces raided the organisation’s offices in Ramallah and Hebron on 1 December, vandalising property and detaining staff.
According to OHCHR, people present in the buildings were blindfolded, handcuffed and made to kneel or lie on the floor for several hours. Eight men were detained.
The report shows that shifts in financial markets move global trade almost as strongly as real economic activity, influencing development prospects worldwide.
(UN News)* —Across southeast Asia, record-breaking rains and flooding caused by back-to-back tropical storms have claimed hundreds of lives and brought devastation and displacement upon entire communities, UN agencies said on Tuesday [].
WMO/Daniel Pavlinovic | Across the world, more incidents of extreme weather events are being recorded.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) spokesperson Clare Nullis told reporters in Geneva that Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam are among the countries most affected by what she described as “a combination of monsoon-related rainfall and tropical cyclone activity”.
(UN News)* —The UN says humanitarian partners in Gaza are scaling up winterisation efforts as cold weather and heavy rain continue to impact displaced Palestinians.
More than 230,000 families – that’s around 1.15 million people – received monthly food parcels between 1 and 27 November, through 59 distribution points, including 21 in northern Gaza.
A mushroom cloud after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, killing over 73,000 people. Keystone / Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 