22 April 2025 — As Gaza enters the eighth week of an Israel-imposed siege, blocking aid, vital supplies and commercial goods, Oxfam staff are describing conditions as the “stuff of nightmares”, with Israel’s mass forced displacement orders spreading terror, Oxfam said.
Children and their families are returning to their homes or the remains of their homes to check the status of their homes. (Photo: Alef Multimedia Company/Oxfam)
(UN News)* —A lack of funding and dwindling supplies are forcing the UN World Food Programme to suspend lifesaving treatment for 650,000 malnourished women and children in Ethiopia by the end of the month. “We are at the breaking point,” the agency warned.
In total, 3.6 million of the “most vulnerable” people in Ethiopia stand to lose WFP food and nutrition assistance unless funding arrives urgently, warned Zlatan Milisic, the UN agency’s Country Director.
Cuts to global health funding are leading to a rise in outbreaks of diseases that vaccines had nearly wiped out, the UN health agency, WHO, is warning on Thursday .
(UN News)* —Amid sweltering heat, raw sewage and overflowing trash, displaced families in southern Gaza are facing an escalating public health crisis as aid remains blocked and medical supplies dwindle.
In the makeshift coastal encampments of Al Mawasi, families have no choice but to live in unsanitary conditions that are rapidly turning deadly, Louise Wateridge, Senior Emergency Officer at Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, told UN News.
(UN News)* — Families in Gaza were holding on to the slim chance of finding loved ones buried under the ruins of destroyed homes – but that hope is fading fast.
UN News | A bulldozer removes the rubble of a destroyed house in Gaza City, searching for people missing under the debris.
The destruction of key heavy machinery on Tuesday following reported Israeli airstrikes has brought rescue and recovery efforts to a standstill, making it even harder to reach the estimated 11,000 bodies still trapped under the debris.
Asia’s sprawling megacities – which are driving economic growth – face an uncertain future as rising temperatures, aging populations and unplanned urban development tests their resilience.
UN-Habitat/Julius Mwelu | Home to nearly 30 million people, Shanghai is one of the world’s largest cities.
Seven of the ten most populous cities in the world are in Asia, with Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai and Dhaka topping the list.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 22 2025 (IPS)* – Donald Trump’s top economic advisor claims the President has weaponised tariffs to ‘persuade’ other nations to pay the US to maintain its supposedly mutually beneficial global empire.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Geopolitical economist Ben Norton was among the first to highlight the significance of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman Stephen Miran’s briefing at the Hudson Institute.
The Institute is funded by financiers such as media czar Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other conservative media.
Miran made his case just after Trump’s electoral victory in A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System. Miran attempts to rationalise Trump’s economic policies, which are widely seen as at odds with conventional wisdom and reason.
(UN News)* —The United Nations on warned that escalating hostilities and access constraints in Gaza are exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis, displacing hundreds of thousands and depriving civilians of shelter, food and medicine.
More than 500,000 people are reported to have been newly displaced since 18 March 2025, many of them uprooted multiple times due to ongoing military operations across the Gaza Strip.
The war in the Gaza Strip has taken an unconscionable toll on children. At least 15,600 have been reported killed, with thousands more injured. Nearly every child in Gaza knows what it is to be displaced: Their families have been torn apart, their homes destroyed.