CIVICUS discusses environmental accountability in Zambia with Christian-Geraud Neema, Africa editor at the China Global South Project, an independent journalism initiative that covers and follows China’s activities in global south countries.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, December 27 (IPS) - Hours before world leaders gathered in Johannesburg for the 2025 G20 summit in November, hundreds of South African women wearing black lay down in a city park for 15 minutes — one for each woman who loses her life every day to gender-based violence in the country. The striking visual protest was organised by a civil society organisation, Women for Change, which also gathered over a million signatures demanding the government declare gender-based violence (GBV) a national disaster. Hours later, the government acquiesced.

CIVICUS discusses Generation Z-led protests in Bulgaria with Zahari Iankov, senior legal expert at the Bulgarian Centre for Not-for-Profit Law, a civil society organisation that advocates for participation and human rights.

One United Nations peacekeeper was injured on Friday after heavy machine gunfire from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions south of the Blue Line, following a nearby grenade explosion, impacted close to a UN patrol in southern Lebanon.

The UN has urged Sudan’s warring parties to pursue compromise and an immediate ceasefire, even as drone attacks, displacement and the killing of peacekeepers underscore the growing risks to civilians and humanitarians.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres “unequivocally condemns” the deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in Homs, Syria during Friday prayers, his spokesperson said in a statement

The war in Sudan has been tearing the country apart for almost 1,000 days, putting the country’s health system under intolerable pressure. The World Health Organization (WHO) is reporting widespread disease outbreaks, severe shortages, malnutrition and rising deaths.

Nearly a month after Cyclone Ditwah tore across Sri Lanka, more than a million people – including over half a million children – remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, as floods, landslides and renewed rainfall continue to compound one of the country’s worst disasters in decades.

Better access to education, the protection of the environment and good governance are some of the areas in which the United Nations helps countries improve.

With rising effects of climate change across the globe, the world has started recognising that climate change is not just an ecological collapse, but also a human rights crisis.