UNITED NATIONS, Dec 11 2025 (IPS)* –When there was widespread speculation that a UN Under-Secretary-General (USG), a product of two prestigious universities—Oxford and Cambridge—was planning to run for the post of Secretary-General back in the 1980s, I pointedly asked him to confirm or deny the rumor during an interview in the UN delegate’s lounge.
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The Security Council in session. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
“I don’t think”, he declared, “anyone in his right mind will ever want that job”.
Fast forward to 2026.
As a financially stricken UN is looking for a new Secretary-General, who will take office beginning January 2027, the USG’s remark in a bygone era was a reflection of a disaster waiting to happen.
Statement by Maureen Magee, Global Director of Field Operations, at the Norwegian Refugee Council, commenting on the Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) for 2026:
Halima Omar, a displaced mother of seven lives in a camp in Baidoa, Somalia. Halima has been directly impacted by aid cuts: “We had access to water and latrines, but those services are no longer available. The organisations that used to support us have stopped their programmes.” Photo: Abdulkadir Mohamed/NRC
“2026 is set to stretch humanitarian responses to their limit as they seek to support people with the most severe needs around the world.
“Next year, 239 million people will be in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. Humanitarians are aiming to reach just over half of them.
By Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights*
10 December 2025 (OHCHR)* — Human rights are underfunded, undermined and under attack. And yet. Powerful. Undeterred. Mobilizing.
UN Photo/Mark Garten | Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in an interview with UN News.
This year no doubt has been a difficult one. And one full of dangerous contradictions. Funding for human rights has been slashed, while anti-rights movements are increasingly well-funded.
Profits for the arms industry are soaring, while funding for humanitarian aid and grassroots civil society plummets.
Those defending rights and justice are attacked, sanctioned and hauled before courts, even as those ordering the commission of atrocity crimes continue to enjoy impunity.Continue reading →
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 11 2025 (IPS)*– Over the course of 2025, global civic space conditions have deteriorated sharply, with most countries experiencing some degree of obstructed civil liberties.
The panelists at the CIVICUS press briefing on the 2025 People Power Under Attack Report. Credit: Oritro Karim/IPS
As authoritarian governments strengthen their hold and have even escalated the use of military force to suppress public dissent, civilians report facing increasing limitations of freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, petition and religion, as well as notable crackdowns on press freedoms. Continue reading →
NAIROBI, Dec 10 2025 (IPS)* –– A new study and interactive dashboard released today in Nairobi at the seventh session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) finds that current international financial flows remain billions of dollars short of what is required to achieve the global biodiversity target of protecting and conserving at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 (30×30).
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New report finds that current international financial flows remain billions of dollars short of what is required to protect and conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. Photo: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
Around 100 hectares of Palestinian land have been reportedly confiscated to make way for the new route.
This would mark another step towards the progressive fragmentation of the West Bank, warned the head of the OHCHR’s Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ajith Sunghay.
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“We are alarmed to hear that Israel has actually started building a new barrier and a road in the heart of the Jordan Valley,” he said on Friday [].
(UN News)* — Gaza’s health system for mothers and newborns has been “decimated”, the UN said on Thursday [], with Israeli attacks destroying almost all hospitals, cutting off medical supplies and driving sharp rises in maternal deaths, miscarriages and newborn fatalities amid mass displacement and hunger.
United Nations | Medical equipment destroyed in an attack on a hospital in Gaza.
According to the UN human rights office (OHCHR), more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October 2023, when Palestinian armed groups attacked communities in southern Israel, triggering Israel’s full-scale military assault on the enclave.
OHCHR said 94 per cent of Gaza’s hospitals have been damaged or destroyed, leaving pregnant women and newborns without essential care.
Geneva, 12 December 2025 – Storm Byron, a severe storm system that triggered flooding in Greece and Cyprus before reaching Gaza earlier this week, has now made landfall, bringing heavy rainfall that has already flooded multiple displacement sites and placed nearly 795,000* displaced Palestinians at heightened risk.
Flooding in Gaza has damaged shelters and left families exposed to rising risks. Photo: IOM 2025
Rainfall is expected to continue in the hours ahead, further straining conditions for families already living in unsafe shelters.
(UN News)* —The vast majority of World Health Organization (WHO) member States say 40 to 90 per cent of their populations now use traditional medicine.
That’s according to Shyama Kuruvilla, director of WHO’s Global Traditional Medicine Centre, established in 2022 to tap into the potential of these systems for healthcare and well-being.
“With half the world’s population lacking access to essential health services, traditional medicine is often the closest or only care available for many people,” Ms. Kuruvilla told a virtual media briefing on , ahead of this month’s WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine.
UN Photo/Mark Garten | Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in an interview with UN News.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 