News headlines in 2025, page 270

The UN Secretary-General has urged everyone to speak out against xenophobia and discrimination to combat a “disturbing rise” in anti-Muslim bigotry.

The Iranian Government has continued to ramp up efforts to restrict the rights of civilians including young children as part of a concerted effort to crush dissent, investigators mandated by the UN Human Rights Council said on Friday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, during his visit to the Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh vowed to do everything in his power to prevent further hardship as drastic aid cuts threaten food supplies and other critical relief efforts.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 13 (IPS) - Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan nearly four years ago, human rights have begun diminishing for over 14 million women. Heightened gender inequality has exacerbated the pre-existing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which has been marked by conflict, displacement, climate change, food insecurity, and economic instability. In 2025, widespread cuts in humanitarian funding look to further strain the crisis.

NAIROBI, Mar 13 (IPS) - After the controversial lifting of a six-year moratorium or temporary ban on logging activities in public and community forests by the Kenyan government in July 2023, trucks ferrying tree logs are frequently seen on major highways in total disregard of environmental concerns.

NEW YORK, Mar 13 (IPS) - 77 torturous years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, punctuated by intense violence and wars, successive Netanyahu-led governments have shattered Jewish values to the core—values that have sustained and preserved Jewish lives for centuries and provided the moral foundation on which Israel was built.

Governments everywhere are “letting children down instead of lifting them up” as conflict, hunger, poverty and climate change hold back child development, UN rights chief Volker Türk told Member States in Geneva on Thursday.

The Constitutional Declaration issued by Syria’s caretaker authorities marks a pivotal moment in the country’s turbulent transition, with UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen expressing cautious optimism about its potential to fill a legal vacuum and pave the way for a “credible and inclusive political transition”.

The UN Secretary-General warmly welcomed the presidential signing of the State Border Treaty by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on Thursday following decades-long negotiations.

Sudan is now the world’s largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis, the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Thursday. After two years of war, over 30 million people – more than half of them children – are living in the grip of mass atrocities, famine and deadly disease.