News headlines in 2025, page 281

Some 640,000 women and girls in Ukraine will be affected by cuts to psychosocial support, gender-based violence services, safe spaces, and economic empowerment programs following the confirmation from US authorities to end practically all financial contributions to the UN reproductive and sexual health agency (UNFPA).

Communities on the frontline of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine are being killed, injured and displaced on a daily basis, as the war grinds on.

As the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal concludes, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is closely following developments in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

At night he sleeps under a tarpaulin sheet on the ruins of his family home. Like others returning to northern Gaza after months of being displaced by war, Sufian Al-Majdalawi clings to whatever he can find.

Bahrain, with its shallow waters and rich oyster beds, has long been synonymous with pearls, which formed the backbone of the island nation’s economy for thousands of years. Diving for pearls, otherwise known as pearling, remains part of the country’s cultural DNA.

MEXICO CITY, Feb 28 (IPS) - In 2020, a historic announcement emerged from the Global Trafficking in Persons Report, an annual assessment that evaluates human exploitation in 129 countries. For the first time, the world witnessed a 13% decrease in the number of victims. For those of us who fight against this heinous crime, it felt as if a door to paradise had opened—an Eden where no human being is for sale.

SEATTLE, USA, Feb 28 (IPS) - Like any self-respecting don of a powerful crime family, Donald Trump - AKA “Don the Con” - always gets a taste of any action going down on his territory. And that territory, as recent events have made clear, knows no borders. (I mean, except for the southwest one.)

HAVANA, Feb 28 (IPS) - Problems such as hydraulic network breakdowns, water lost through leaks, power outages, and even fuel shortages are making access to water supply services difficult for the population in Cuba

BLOOMINGTON, U.S.A & ROME, Feb 28 (IPS) - The second round of the UN Biodiversity Conference, COP16, concluded in the early hours of Friday, February 28 in Rome, with an agreement to raise the funds needed to protect biodiversity.

LONDON, Feb 28 (IPS) - Who bears the brunt in trade wars? The answer is absolutely everyone. Not just the countries enacting or retaliating with tariffs and export bans, and not just the citizens of those countries. It’s everyone.