News headlines in 2025, page 265

Israel’s renewed bombing campaign and intensifying ground operation in Gaza are reversing gains achieved during the brief ceasefire, UN humanitarians inside the devastated enclave said on Friday.

Melting glaciers, climate crises and access to clean water are some of the messages emerging ahead of World Water Day and the first ever World Day for Glaciers. Join us for live coverage of events at UN Headquarters in New York, Paris and around the world on the 2025 theme of preserving glaciers. UN News app users can follow here.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay / LONDON, Mar 20 (IPS) - In a world of overlapping crises, from brutal conflicts and democratic regression to climate breakdown and astronomic levels of economic inequality, one vital force stands as a shield and solution: civil society. This is the sobering but ultimately hopeful message of CIVICUS’s 14th annual State of Civil Society Report, which provides a wide-ranging civil society perspective on the state of the world as it stands in early 2025.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 (IPS) - On March 18, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an attack on the Gaza Strip, effectively terminating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement. This comes after a pause in ceasefire operations when Israel continued its blockade on humanitarian aid in the enclave and demanded the release of additional hostages.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Mar 20 (IPS) - Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza comes several months after both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports concluding without equivocation that Israel was engaged in genocide. But very few members of Congress dare to acknowledge that reality, while their silence and denials scream out complicity.

SRINAGAR, Mar 20 (IPS) - The Forest Declaration Assessment Partners have called for urgent reforms to the international financial system to halt deforestation and protect biodiversity. It has also pitched for redirecting the public subsidies to mitigate the direct and indirect environmental risks from both public and private finance.

Respect for human rights is not only a moral obligation but a necessity for economic stability, the UN’s top human rights official said on Thursday, during a visit to the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan.

The legacy of the Syrian conflict, which saw the overthrow of the Assad regime in December last year, is that 16.5 million people are in dire need of assistance, making it one of the largest humanitarian crises globally, a senior UN humanitarian said on Thursday.

Silence is not an option in the fight for human rights – that was the message on Thursday at an event honouring the legacy of the women who have shaped the United Nations’ commitment to gender equality.

Three cities that share a healthy vision for their residents won UN World Health Organization awards on Thursday for their smoke-free parks, clean air initiatives and obesity-busting school lunch initiatives.