UNITED NATIONS, November 12 (IPS) - The US took another step backward – to break ranks with the United Nations – when it voted against a draft resolution calling for the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The negative vote followed an announcement by President Trump last month that the US plans to resume nuclear testing after a 33-year hiatus. The US stood alone on the UN vote, which was supported by almost all member States in the General Assembly’s First Committee.

WASHINGTON DC, November 12 (IPS) - The climate crisis is getting worse and requires fundamental changes to societies, economies, and our global financial architecture in response. While extreme economic inequality is on the rise – the world’s billionaires now hold more wealth in the world than every country except the U.S. and China – the impacts of climate change are also unequally felt, with the poor in the Global South and North most at risk.

Negotiators in Belém, Brazil, opened COP30 with a stark warning: the race to avert catastrophic global heating is being sabotaged by a surge of climate disinformation. The falsehoods, spreading faster than ever online, threaten to derail fragile progress on climate action.

The UN Secretary-General called on Wednesday for action to prioritize Africa, urging the world not to turn its back on the continent.

Tuberculosis, or TB, remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious killers, claiming over 1.2 million lives and affecting an estimated 10.7 million people last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Some 90,000 people have been displaced following the fall of El Fasher in Sudan’s North Darfur - with another 50,000 fleeing violence in the Kordofans, according to the UN migration chief.

Renewed efforts to protect the world’s most exotic and endangered animals and plants from illegal traders, overexploitation and extinction are set to begin at UN-partnered biodiversity talks in Uzbekistan at the end of the month.

At least 600,000 litres of desperately needed diesel fuel has managed to enter the Gaza Strip in less than a week, UN aid coordinators OCHA said in an update.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine were 27 per cent higher from January to October 2025, compared to the same period last year, according to the latest UN human rights report on the situation in the eastern European country.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) warn of a major hunger emergency, with acute food insecurity set to worsen in 16 countries and territories between now and May 2026, putting millions of lives at risk.