NICE, France, Jun 17 (IPS) - With less than six harvest seasons left to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the urgency to find transformative solutions to end hunger, protect the oceans, and build climate resilience dominated the ninth panel session at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France.

BOGOTA, Colombia, Jun 17 (IPS) - The services the ocean provides are the backbone of our collective health, wealth and food security, yet today just 2.7% of the ocean has been assessed and deemed to be effectively protected. In failing to establish adequate safeguards, not only are we condemning communities and ecosystems across the world to decline and collapse, we are also overlooking a significant economic opportunity.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 17 (IPS) - Wars, economic shocks, planetary heating and aid cuts have worsened food crises in recent years, with almost 300 million people now threatened by starvation.

Hate speech is a warning sign and a driver of violence, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said ahead of Wednesday’s International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

The ongoing crises in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Sudan are in the spotlight this week at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva.

At least 14 civilians were reportedly killed and more than 100 injured in Kyiv overnight into Tuesday, as Russian drone and missile strikes struck multiple Ukrainian cities in one of the heaviest nights of bombing in months.

A senior UN official has warned against the impact of regional escalation on Syria as the country continues on the path to political transition following the overthrow of the Assad regime last December and nearly 14 years of devastating civil war.

In the past decade, the UN has bemoaned the chronically low level of participation by Afghan women and girls in decision-making bodies and in secondary and higher education.

Gaza’s health system is at breaking point, overwhelmed time and again by scores of people killed or injured near aid distribution sites, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 16 (IPS) - Over the course of 2025, the food security situation in Sudan has taken a considerable turn for the worst. Compounded by the Sudanese Civil War, millions of civilians face alarming levels of food insecurity and are at risk of experiencing famine. Humanitarian experts have described the situation in Sudan as being the worst hunger crisis in the world today.