Senior human rights investigators reporting to the UN Human Rights Council alleged on Thursday that sexual and gender-based violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinians – including children - have been increasingly used “as a method of war” following the 7 October 2023 attacks that sparked the Gaza war.
Measles cases in Europe have doubled in just a year, with the highest number reported since 1997, UN agencies announced on Thursday.

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.
The UN Secretary-General warmly welcomed the presidential signing of the State Border Treaty by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on Thursday following decades-long negotiations.
Read the full story, “UN chief hails Kyrgyz-Tajik border treaty breakthrough”, on globalissues.org →
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”.
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.
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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.