LONDON, Aug 4 2025 (IPS)** ––Rice queues – something once unthinkable – began appearing around May. As the country’s staple food hit record prices, frustrated shoppers found themselves breaking a cultural taboo by switching to rice from South Korea.
It was a symbol of how far Japan’s economic certainties had crumbled, creating fertile ground for a political shift.
Credit: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters via Gallo Images
That came on 20 July, when Japan joined the ranks of countries where far-right parties are gaining ground.
The Sanseitō party took 15.7 per cent of the vote in the election for parliament’s upper house, while the ruling two-party coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō lost its majority.
The result spells trouble for Japan’s civil society.
(Jerusalem) – Israeli forces at the sites of a new US-backed aid distribution system in Gaza have routinely opened fire on starving Palestinian civilians in acts that amount to serious violations of international law and war crimes, Human Rights Watch said on 1 August 2025.
Mass casualty incidents have taken place on a near-daily basis at or near the four sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which operates in coordination with the Israeli military.
30 July 2025 — After surviving 17 months of bombing and displacement in Gaza, Palestine, Emad, an MSF nurse supervisor, was medically evacuated with his family to France in March 2025.
In this short documentary, he recounts what they endured during the war — from the destruction of their home, and repeated displacement, to the limited access to healthcare for his daughter, Sila, who was born with a congenital heart condition.
Currently at least 12,000 patients, including thousands of children like Sila, need to be evacuated urgently from Gaza to access vital medical care.
NEW YORK, Jul 28 2025 (IPS)** ––The West, led by the Trump administration, has enabled the Netanyahu government to commit crimes against humanity and became complicit in the unfathomably horrific disaster that is being inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza.
An UNRWA school turned shelter in Al Bureij, Gaza, lies in ruins following a missile attack in May 2025. Credit: UNRWA
The war in Gaza has crossed many red lines, rendering Palestinian lives worthless, trivial, and of no consequence.
Much of the horrific crimes against humanity being committed against the Palestinians in Gaza by the Netanyahu government could have been prevented had it not been for the nearly unconditional and continuing political, economic, and military support of Western powers, led by the US.
The Trump administration proposed on July 29 to revoke the 2009 finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gases endanger public health, a move that would gut the government’s ability to regulate fossil fuels and reject decades of scientific evidence.
If you want to glimpse the strange, brutal logic that governs our world, don’t start with politicians or generals—start with the bank towers glittering above your city skyline and the endless parade of military hardware rolling across distant deserts.
These are the altars of the age: places where class warfare is waged relentlessly, not through open declarations but via the everyday rituals of finance and force.
And though the language of “class warfare” may evoke images of barricades and revolution, the reality today is far more insidious—a meticulously organized onslaught against the fabric of society itself, a crime against peace perpetrated not by outlaws, but by the very architects of our economic and military order.
Class warfare, in this sense, is neither forgotten rhetoric nor historical artifact.
(UN News)* — As Gaza faces famine-like conditions, large numbers of people reportedly continue to be killed and injured while searching for food, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday [].
The months-long deprivation of most life-sustaining basic goods has led to a deepening of the crisis. More than 100 people were killed, and hundreds of others injured, along food convoy routes and near Israeli-militarised distribution hubs in the past two days alone.
As one in three people currently going days without food, OCHA reiterated that no one should ever be forced to risk their life to get something to eat.
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 30 2025 (IPS)* — “The last thing she asked for was a sip of water,” recalled Najma Maheshwari, referring to 19-year-old Shanti, a newlywed who died last week after brutal sexual violence allegedly inflicted by her husband, who is now in custody.
“Then she closed her eyes and never opened them again,” she said quietly, her voice steeped in sadness.
From beautiful bride, to victim of marital rape, this is the story of Shanti, a 19-year-old whose husband has been charged under the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2013.
29 July 2025 – While summer rains typically offer some relief, this year’s cumulative rainfall is expected to drop by 40 per cent in some regions, leaving 15 million people who are water insecure in a precarious state without safe drinking water or reliable sanitation.
Mureshed, 75, surrounded by his grandchildren in Hajjibah camp, Yemen. Suleiman Al-Shara’abi/NRC
Low seasonal rainfall in Yemen has severely exacerbated an already dire situation, with Yemenis in both rural areas and cities struggling to access clean water, warns the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
“With every year that passes, Yemenis see their ability to access water shrink,” said Angelita Caredda, NRC’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director.
MOGADISHU, Somalia –“I didn’t know if she would make it.” When Faduma Mohamed gave birth to her daughter at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, the silence that followed was terrifying. Her premature daughter was tiny, underweight and barely breathing.
Just months earlier, she might not have; the hospital’s newborn intensive care unit was severely under-resourced, lacking essentials such as incubators and oxygen support machines.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 