Despite international progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), cities, particularly in the Global South, continue to grapple with poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation.

People in Lebanon continue to be killed, injured and displaced by airstrikes, hostilities and displacement orders, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said on Thursday.

An independent UN expert on Thursday called on the international community to fulfill its “urgent moral obligation” to support the Marshall Islands in addressing displacement challenges stemming from the impacts of historical nuclear testing and the growing threat of climate change.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday that Israeli legislation to shut down the main lifeline for Palestine refugees in Gaza “will be deadly” if fully implemented.

On Monday Israel’s parliament (the Knesset) voted in favour of legislation targeting the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which could effectively bring its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories to a halt. Here are five things to know about the bills, and the potential consequences, if they go into effect.

“Catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity” bordering on starvation are expected to impact hundreds of thousands of people in coming months, driven principally by violence and conflict. Five hunger hotspots are of particular concern: Haiti, Mali, the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), South Sudan and Sudan, UN agencies said on Thursday.

PORTLAND, USA, Oct 30 (IPS) - Alarmists, mainly politicians, economists and wealthy elites, are announcing that the world's demographic sky is collapsing. The world's demographic sky is not collapsing but simply changing.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 (IPS) - Although classified as a compact tropical cyclone and considered one of the smallest in the North Atlantic, Hurricane Oscar has caused considerable damage in eastern Cuba since it made landfall on October 20, 2024. Cuban authorities have confirmed that the death toll has risen to seven, in additional to the damage in infrastructure. Communications and relief efforts were greatly impeded by a nationwide power grid blackout, which continues on in much of Cuba at the time of publication.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 30 (IPS) - Some of the creeping impacts of this triple crisis are possibly the most debilitating: Africa is the most severely impacted region by desertification and land degradation, with approximately 45% of its land area affected. In the Horn of Africa and the Sahel alone, it imposes food shortages on more than 23 million people. Just last month, more than 700,000 people were affected by floods in Central and West Africa, and tens of millions in southern Africa are facing drought.

As tensions mount between Pristina and Belgrade, the UN’s top official in Kosovo called for “responsible leadership” from all parties to protect human rights and foster constructive political dialogue.