Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: United Nations (video statements)

UN Peacekeeping is one of the international community’s most effective tools to respond to conflict. But it is facing significant reductions in political support and resources.

Peace does not happen by accident. It requires political will, sustained investment and collective commitment.

Now is the time to invest in peace, not war.

#InvestInPeace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyokhrKJZz4

Source: United Nations (video statements)

In a special address at London Climate Action Week, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres draws on the latest scientific evidence to show how the worsening climate crisis and growing energy insecurity are rooted in continued fossil fuels dependence. He outlines a clear pathway to accelerate the transition to a more secure, resilient and sustainable energy future: one powered by renewable energy, strengthened international cooperation, and science-based action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et3HVYzyu3c

Source: United Nations (video statements)

Press Conference by Vanessa Frazier, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, on the Secretary-General’s Annual Report.

24,174 children were killed, maimed, recruited, raped or otherwise affected by grave violations in conflict zones last year, the United Nations said, calling the toll “many scars on our collective moral conscience.”

Frazier said her office verified 38,558 grave violations affecting 24,174 children in 2025, the highest number recorded since the Children and Armed Conflict mandate was established 30 years ago.

“Today’s findings are stark. They reflect the shocking reality faced by children in conflict zones around the world, a reality that concerns all of us,” Frazier told reporters in New York.

The violations tracked under the mandate include recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access to children, she noted.

For the first time since the mandate was created, government forces were responsible for the majority of grave violations, Frazier said, adding that state forces remained the principal perpetrators of killing and maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access. “These patterns reflect persistent and blatant disregard for international law, and for the rights and special protections owed to children,” she said.

Killing and maiming was the most prevalent violation, with 14,224 children verified as killed or maimed, Frazier continued. The number of children killed rose 35 percent compared with 2024, reaching 6,266, she said, followed by 8,322 incidents of denial of humanitarian access and 6,607 cases of recruitment and use of children in armed conflict.

Sexual violence against children, particularly girls, continues to be used as a tactic of war to humiliate, terrorize and displace entire communities, Frazier said, pointing to a rise in gang rape committed by parties to conflict as evidence of “a deliberate and organized use of sexual violence within the ranks.”

The countries with the highest levels of violations in 2025 were the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar and Somalia, she said.

Frazier closed her briefing with an appeal to translate the findings into action. “The lives of these 24,174 children are as many scars on our collective moral conscience. I hope we carry them with us so that we use their memory and their pain to act,” she said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0FmtnSQEo8

Source: United Nations (video statements)

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that acute food insecurity is expected to worsen further for millions of people across 13 countries deemed “hunger hotspots” between June and November 2026.

Briefing reporters in New York by video teleconference, the Director of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Service, Jean-Martin Bauer, said Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Palestine, Nigeria and Somalia are at the highest level of concern as “these are countries where populations are facing or at risk of facing high levels of acute food insecurity, including starvation and death.”

At a very high level of concern, Bauer continued, are Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti, while Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali and Myanmar are included as “countries that require close monitoring and urgent action as the situation could deteriorate.”

The WFP official said in many of these hotspots “overlapping conflict, climate and macroeconomic shocks – including the spillovers from the Middle East conflict,” added to the potential effects of the El Niño, “all amplify food insecurity.”

He stressed that “every hotspot of highest concern is a place affected by conflict and violence. And conflict destroys livelihoods. It forces people to leave. It disrupts markets, damages infrastructure and restricts humanitarian access.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Director at the Office of Emergencies and Resilience, Rein Paulsen, told reporters that “funding levels in 2025 dropped to a level that was last seen in the period 2016 and 2017. At the same time, during that same period from 2016 through 2025, the percentage and share of the population analysed as being in acute food insecurity, by acute food insecurity, has doubled during that same period.”

Paulsen said, “impossible choices within already hyper prioritised plans have to be made. And at the same time, we’re having to make, cuts to assessments, cuts to our monitoring and analytical capabilities, all of which are weakening the evidence base that’s needed precisely to be able to prioritise assistance and to guide decision making. And this is a major risk, without reliable data, vulnerable communities become invisible.”

He told reporters, “the worst outcomes that you see described in this report are not inevitable. They are foreseeable and therefore they are preventable. But the window to act is narrowing, which is why the issuance of this report and action in response to it is so important.”

The latest edition of the Hunger Hotspots report, released twice a year through the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC), identifies Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen and Palestine as the world’s most critical hunger hotspots in terms of severity and magnitude of hunger. Northeast Nigeria has been added to the list of highest concern, following projections indicating that populations in Borno State may face Catastrophe levels of acute food insecurity (defined as an extreme lack of food / other basic needs, with starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels evident) during the upcoming period covered by the report. Somalia has also been placed in this category with populations in the Bay region of Burhakaba District facing a risk of Famine.

Armed conflict and violence remain the primary drivers of acute food insecurity, affecting 12 of the 13 hotspots.

These pressures are compounded by economic shocks, severe funding shortfalls and growing risks linked to a forecast El Niño event, which is expected to bring uneven rainfall, droughts, and flooding across countries with already high vulnerability.

Funding for food assistance, emergency agricultural assistance and nutrition in food crises has declined by an estimated 59 percent between 2022 and 2025, returning to levels last seen nearly a decade ago. At the same time, the number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in these countries has risen to around 266 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yamoTt3foY