KYIV (Reuters) -A United Nations humanitarian convoy was hit by Russian drones while delivering aid to a front-line area in southern Ukraine, The U.N.’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ukraine said on social media.
OCHA’s humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Matthias Schmale, condemned the attack, saying that two World Food Programme trucks were hit and damaged by drones, but that nobody was injured.
Schmale said such strikes were a severe breach of international humanitarian law and could be a war crime.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Max Hunder; editing by Mark Heinrich)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Countries around the world lack the regulatory and ethical foundation to deal with the rapid advent of artificial intelligence, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said on Monday, urging civil society groups to “ring the alarm bells.”
Georgieva said the rapidly advancing technological revolution unleashed by AI was dominated by advanced economies, with the U.S. having the lion’s share. Some emerging markets also had capability in the sector, including China, but developing countries were lagging far behind and less able to tap into the potential of the technological revolution.
Speaking with civil society groups on the first day of the annual IMF and World Bank meetings, Georgieva said the IMF was “quite worried” that the gap between advanced economies and low-income countries on readiness for AI was growing and making it harder and harder for developing countries to catch up.
Georgieva’s comments came days after she warned that financial market valuations were heading toward levels last seen during the internet-related bullishness 25 years ago, based on AI hopes, but an abrupt shift in sentiment could drag down world growth, making life especially tough for developing countries.
She said the IMF was urging developing countries and emerging markets to focus on the first prerequisite for success, which was expanding digital infrastructure and skills.
She said the IMF had developed an AI preparedness index that assessed countries’ readiness for the new technology in four areas – infrastructure, labor and skills, innovation, and regulation and ethics.
“Where the world is falling shortest is on regulation and ethics,” she said. “The regulatory ethical foundation for AI for our future is still to come into place.”
She urged civil society groups to “ring the alarm bells in your countries that staying still is falling behind.”
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Mark Porter and Andrea Ricci)
Coral reefs around the globe have for years suffered publicly in warming oceans, periodically making headlines when iconic underwater landscapes lose their colors and wither during repeated mass bleaching events caused by climate change. Now, reefs are the first environmental system on Earth to pass a climate “tipping point,” according to a new report by climate scientists who call the situation an “unprecedented crisis.”
Researchers at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute in England have released their second Global Tipping Points report, which examines some of the fundamental processes that support life on this planet in terms of their proximity to benchmarks that may signal permanent damage.
“Tipping points represent critical thresholds in Earth’s climate system where small changes can lead to significant, often irreversible consequences,” the authors said in their report. Steve Smith, a research fellow at the Global Systems Institute and one of the report’s co-authors, told CBS News that tipping points are “all about that point at which change becomes self-propelling, kind of a self-accelerating change.”
Bleached coral is seen at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico on Sept. 17, 2023.
LM Otero / AP
The report, published Sunday, comes three years after the institute released its first iteration in 2022 and about a month before the United Nations hosts COP30, an annual climate change conference, in Belém, Brazil, a city in the Amazon rainforest that is itself an example of a major global ecosystem on the brink of a climate emergency. Tim Lenton, the director of the Global Systems Institute and lead author of the report, said in a statement that he hopes his team’s findings make it onto the agenda.
“We are rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world, with devastating consequences for people and nature,” his statement said. “This demands immediate, unprecedented action from leaders at COP30 and policymakers worldwide.”
The 2015 Paris Agreement set upper limits for global warming at 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius — between 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — above average levels in preindustrial times. But leaders have repeatedly warned in the years since that countries are falling short of the emissions targets necessary to meet those temperature goals, with the U.N. declaring greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere reached all-time highs in 2023. By 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported temperatures had risen to about 1.4 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average.
“A new reality”
Higher ocean temperatures have already degraded coral reefs, which are crucial for marine life and provide habitats for roughly one-fourth of all underwater species. The new report points out that reefs also support the livelihoods of about a billion people, so their deterioration is as much an economic threat as an environmental one.
Scientists have determined that the “tipping point” for coral reefs begins when global warming reaches about 1.2 degrees Celsius, with somewhere between 70 and 90% of coral dying when that number climbs to 1.5 degrees.
“We’re very confident that, unfortunately, we’re in the middle of the coral reef dieback,” Smith said, which, he explained, essentially means “the collapse of coral reefs worldwide.”
Reef death is often catalyzed by bleaching, when heat stress causes coral to purge the colorful algae that sustains it and, in turn, become pale and weak. If the stress persists and bleaching is severe or prolonged, the coral can completely break down.
In this image provide by NOAA, a fish swims near coral showing signs of bleaching off the coast of Islamorada, Florida, on July 23, 2023.
Andrew Ibarra / National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via AP
The International Coral Reef Initiative announced in April that an estimated 84% of the world’s coral reefs were under heat stress. As the new report notes, this is “the most extensive and intense” mass bleaching event ever recorded.
Small pockets of coral are expected to survive, Smith said, and preserving them while minimizing the progression of warming temperatures should be everyone’s top priority.
“We’re in a new reality whereby we can now say that we’ve passed the first major climate tipping point, which is the coral reefs,” he said. “And obviously we’ll have to, as we say, try to reduce the damage. The quicker that we can decarbonize and take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, the better.”
Ice sheets, ocean currents and the Amazon rainforest
Other environmental systems are on the verge of passing their tipping points, too, according to the report. In addition to coral reefs, it cited the potentially catastrophic effects of a warming world on the Amazon rainforest, ocean currents that influence weather patterns, and glaciers like the Greenland ice sheet, which is currently melting and shedding the equivalent of three Niagara Falls’ worth of freshwater into the North Atlantic every hour.
“It’s a race against time, really,” said Smith. “We have to transform the whole energetic basis of society within a generation, away from fossil fuels and toward this cleaner, safer future to avoid these further tipping points beyond coral reefs and the devastating consequences that they would bring.”
The report acknowledged meaningful headway has been made in the shift toward renewable energy, highlighting “positive tipping points” that have been crossed as the use of electric vehicles, solar power and wind power becomes more widespread. The rise of solar power, in particular, is one positive transition that Smith singled out as especially “remarkable” — although he emphasized that more still needs to be done, urgently, to bring the Earth back on track.
“Getting that into the heads of our senior decision-makers is going to be important,” said Smith, “because what is traditionally thought of as high impact, low likelihood events, they’re actually becoming high impact, high likelihood, if we don’t do something now.”
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain will provide a 20 million pound ($27 million) aid package to deliver water, sanitation and hygiene services in Gaza, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Sunday, as he arrived in Egypt for a world leaders’ summit on ending the conflict.
Britain said the funding would be delivered through UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the Norwegian Refugee Council and was designed to reach those facing famine, malnutrition and disease.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held in Gaza for a third day on Sunday – part of the first phase of an agreement to end the war after two years.
Britain said it would also host a three-day summit on the reconstruction of Gaza that would include international government representatives, private sector and development finance representatives, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank.
Britain said this financial year it had given 74 million pounds in humanitarian support to Palestine, which it formally recognised as a state last month.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Costa Rica put forward Wednesday long-time diplomat and former Vice President Rebeca Grynspan as a candidate to be the next secretary-general of the United Nations.
The economist is currently the secretary-general of U.N. Trade and Development in Geneva.
She was a major player in the U.N. effort to ship Ukrainian and Russian grains to global markets at the start of the war in Ukraine and outgoing Secretary-General Antonio Guterres designated her as the senior U.N. official to deal with the Russians.
“This candidacy will be formally registered at the United Nations in the coming weeks,” Costa Rica President Rodrigo Chaves said in a video message Wednesday. “We trust that the career and commitment of Rebeca Grynspan, who has very broad experience in issues of development, international cooperation and regional leadership, will significantly contribute to strengthening multilateralism.”
Speaking at a news conference in San Jose on Wednesday, Grynspan said she would campaign for the position, capitalizing on being well known in diplomatic circles. She also acknowledged that there would be competition for the position, including from within Latin America.
“I know the United Nations well, I know it well enough to reform it and well enough to defend it,” Grynspan said. “The United Nations requires both things. Right now, being a multilateralist means being a reformer.”
Grynspan served as Costa Rica’s vice president in the administration of ex-President José María Figueres (1994-1998) and later worked in various multilateral organizations.
Jerusalem — Indirect peace talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at ending the war in Gaza and freeing the remaining Israeli hostages resumed Wednesday in Egypt. President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to arrive in Egypt on Wednesday to join the conversations, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The war was sparked by the Hamas-led, Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken as hostages. Israeli officials believe 48 of those people remain captive, though only 20 are believed to still be alive.
Since that day, the Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health says Israel’s retaliatory war has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians. Israel disputes that figure but provides no estimate of its own, and the United Nations considers the health ministry’s count the most reliable information available, as Israel has barred foreign journalists from operating independently in Gaza.
Ricardo Pires, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF, said this week that what he calls Israel’s “disproportionate response” in Gaza has killed or maimed at least 61,000 children since the war started.
UNICEF and the global charity Save the Children, which cited data compiled by the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office, say that on average, a child dies every hour in Gaza — or “a classroom of children” per day, as UNICEF put it.
The body of a Palestinian killed in an Israeli army attack on the Yafa School, where displaced people had taken shelter, is brought to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, in an April 23, 2025 file photo.
Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea/Anadolu/Getty
Since the war started, Save the Children says at least 20,000 kids have been killed in total – amounting to nearly a third of all Palestinians believed to have died in the war.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder, told CBS News that when he visited one of Gaza’s beleaguered hospitals this week, “the first thing I saw was four children who had all been shot by quadcopters [military drones], then I went into a hallway and it was wall-to-wall children across all the corridors.”
“There was a boy bleeding out on the floor who had apparently been there for five hours, then he was put on a stretcher only for another child to be put in his place,” Elder told CBS News. “Then I watched a little girl die. That’s half an hour here in Gaza.”
The staggering death toll does not reflect the thousands more children who have been maimed and injured, or those who have lost one or both parents during the war.
At a makeshift camp for Palestinian orphans in the southern city of Khan Younis, CBS News’ team in Gaza saw some of the young faces behind the grim statistics.
Deena Al-Za’arab holds her younger sister at a makeshift camp for Palestinians orphaned by the Israel-Hamas war, in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Oct. 7, 2025.
CBS News
“I wish the war were just a dream I’d wake up from and see my parents next to me,” said 14-year-old Deena Al-Za’arab, who lost both of her parents.
“I have to keep it together for the sake of my siblings,” she added, “because now I must raise them.”
Many of the children at the camp now spend their days doing the work of adults.
Arat Awqal, who is just 10, promised her father she’d be a doctor before he died, but she now focuses on taking care of her younger sister.
“I just want to go back to how it used to be,” she told CBS News. “Whenever we heard the sound of missiles my father would hold us, but now he’s gone, and we are always scared.”
Arat Awqal, 10, is seen caring for her younger sister at a makeshift camp for Palestinians orphaned by the Israel-Hamas war, in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Oct. 7, 2025.
CBS News
UNICEF says one in five children in Gaza is acutely malnourished, and Elder stressed that the trauma being inflicted on the youngest is not just physical.
“The kids not only lost loved ones — it’s not just about just having your mother killed, it’s about watching your mother die, then add that level of trauma to being displaced — and we talk of displacement, it sounds like a neutral or abstract term. It’s not. It’s violent. It’s repetitious, and it also increases trauma.”
The U.N. estimates that about 90% of Gaza’s population, some 1.9 million people, have been forcibly displaced during the war, many of them multiple times as the focus of Israel’s military operations has shifted. Most recently, the Israel Defense Forces ordered everyone to leave Gaza City, the enclave’s biggest population center, and to move further south, to areas such as Khan Younis.
It’s led to another mass exodus, which aid workers say has increased the suffering in the region and made it harder to help those showing up, often with nothing.
“There have been several hundred thousands of people who have moved from the north recently, in the last few weeks,” Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told CBS News’ Haley Ott on Wednesday.
“The situation was already very crowded,” she said, speaking on the phone from central Gaza. “They are now even more so. You can see a lot of people living on the side of the road, pitching tents on the sides of the roads … There are many people who fled on foot and, of course, were not able to bring anything with them, and this creates extremely difficult conditions in terms of hygiene, sanitation and these kinds of things.”
Gazal Basam, 12, holds a photo of her father in a makeshift camp for Palestinians orphaned by the Israel-Hamas war, in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Oct. 7, 2025.
CBS News
At the camp for the orphans — all of them among the displaced — 12-year-old Gazal Basam told CBS News she felt “such pain in my heart after losing my dad.”
“I want to live like I did before the war,” she said. “But I know life will never be the same again.”.
“I feel such pain in my heart after losing my dad,” said 12-year-old Gazal Basam at the camp for orphans. “I want to live like I did before the war, but I know life will never be the same again.”
Debora Patta is a CBS News senior foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg. Since joining CBS News in 2013, she has reported on major stories across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Edward R. Murrow and Scripps Howard awards are among the many accolades Patta has received for her work.
CAIRO/GENEVA (Reuters) -Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s two-year-old ground and air campaign against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 67,000 people, with nearly a third of the dead under the age of 18.
The war, triggered by the deadly October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, has focused on Gaza City since last month and the offensive has continued despite talks on U.S. President Donald Trump’s new, 20-point plan for ending the conflict.
HOW DO GAZA HEALTH AUTHORITIES CALCULATE THE DEATH TOLL?
The latest detailed breakdown released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health on October 7 showed 67,173 killed, including 20,179 children, accounting for 30% of the total.
The official ministry death toll dwarfs those killed in all previous bouts of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza since 2005, according to data from Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.
In the first months of the war, death tolls were calculated simply by counting bodies that arrived in hospitals, and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed.
In May 2024, the health ministry included unidentified bodies, which accounted for nearly a third of the overall toll. However, since October 2024, it has only encompassed identified bodies.
A Reuters examination in March of an earlier Gaza Health Ministry list of those killed showed that more than 1,200 families were completely wiped out, including one family of 14 people.
IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL COMPREHENSIVE?
The numbers do not necessarily reflect all victims, as the Palestinian Health Ministry estimates several thousand bodies are under rubble and it does not count the 460 malnutrition-related deaths it has recorded amid a famine in North Gaza.
Official Palestinian tallies of direct deaths likely undercounted the number of casualties by around 40% in the first nine months of the war as Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure disintegrated, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet journal in January.
The U.N. human rights office also says the Palestinian authorities’ figure is probably an undercount.
The conflict deaths it has verified using its own methodology up to July 20 show that 40% were children and 22% were women.
A U.N. inquiry assessed last month that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza – citing the scale of the killings as one of the acts backing up its finding. Israel called the finding biased and “scandalous.”
HOW CREDIBLE IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL?
Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters.
The U.N. often cites the health ministry’s death figures and says they are credible.
DOES HAMAS CONTROL THE FIGURES?
While Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, the enclave’s Health Ministry also answers to the overall Palestinian Authority ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank.
Gaza’s Hamas-run government has paid the salaries of all those hired in public departments since 2007, including in the Health Ministry. The Palestinian Authority pays the salaries of those hired before then.
Israeli officials have said previously that the death toll figures are suspect because of Hamas’ control over government in Gaza, and that they are manipulated.
The Israeli military says 466 of its soldiers were killed in combat, and 2,951 others wounded since its Gaza ground operation began on October 27, 2023.
It also says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. It says Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields by operating within densely populated areas, humanitarian zones, schools and hospitals, a repeated accusation that Hamas denies.
The conflict began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people into captivity in Gaza, of whom some 20 are thought to be still alive there.
HOW MANY OF THE DEAD ARE FIGHTERS?
The Palestinian Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear formal uniform or carry separate identification.
The Israeli military said in January 2025 it had killed nearly 20,000 Hamas fighters. It has not provided an update since. Such estimates are reached through a combination of counting bodies on the battlefield, intercepts of Hamas communications and intelligence assessments of personnel in targets that were destroyed.
Hamas has said Israeli estimates of its losses are exaggerated, without saying how many of its fighters have been killed.
(Compiled by Emma Farge, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawafta, James MacKenzie and Angus McDowall; editing by William Maclean, Peter Graff, Alexandra Hudson, Mark Heinrich and Deepa Babington)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Twenty-five years after a landmark U.N. resolution demanded equal participation for women in all efforts to promote peace, the United Nations chief said Tuesday that far too often women remain absent.
At the same time, sexual violence against women and girls is on the rise and 676 million women live within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of deadly conflicts, which the head of the U.N. women’s agency says is the highest number since the 1990s.
“Around the globe, we see troubling trends in military spending, more armed conflicts, and more shocking brutality against women and girls,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a U.N. Security Council meeting marking the anniversary.
Since the resolution’s adoption on Oct. 31, 2000, there has been some progress, he said. The number of women in uniform as U.N. peacekeepers has doubled, women have led local mediation, advanced justice for survivors of gender-based violence, and women’s organizations have been instrumental in promoting recovery from conflicts and reconciliation.
“But gains are fragile and – very worryingly – going in reverse,” Guterres said.
In no-nonsense language, Guterres said too often nations gather in rooms like the Security Council chamber “full of conviction and commitment,” but fall far short of the resolution’s demand for equal participation of women in peace negotiations — and protection of women and girls from rape and sexual abuse in conflicts.
Despite the horrors of war, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous also pointed to some progress. She said women have reduced community violence in the disputed Abyei region between Sudan and South Sudan and in the Central African Republic.
In Haiti, women have achieved near parity in the new provisional electoral council, and women’s representation in Chad’s National Assembly has doubled, she said. Syria’s interim constitution guarantees rights and protections for women, and in war-torn Ukraine women have succeeded in getting national relief efforts helping women codified into law.
But Bahous also said it’s lamentable that the world today is witnessing “renewed pushback against gender equality and multilateralism.” She said the situation is being exacerbated by what she called short-sighted funding cuts.
These cuts are undermining education opportunities for Afghan girls, curtailing life-saving medical care for tens of thousands of sexual violence survivors in Sudan, Haiti and beyond, and limiting access to food for malnourished women and children in Gaza, Mali, Somalia and elsewhere, Bahous said.
She stressed that change is possible.
“It is understandable that some might conclude that the rise and normalization of misogyny currently poisoning our politics and fueling conflict is unstoppable,” Bahous said. “It is not. Those who oppose equality do not own the future, we do.”
Guterres urged the U.N.’s 193 member nations to increase their commitment to women caught in conflict with new funding and by ensuring their participation in peace negotiations, accountability for sexual violence and their protection and economic security.
GENEVA (Reuters) -Bowing to pressure to reform the refugee convention and asylum system would be a “catastrophic error”, the head of the UN agency for refugees said on Monday.
“Putting the Refugee Convention and the principle of asylum on the table would be a catastrophic error,” the High Commissioner of the UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, told member states during its annual meeting of the agency in Geneva on Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration plans to call for sharply narrowing the right to asylum at the United Nations later this month, documents show, as it seeks to undo the post-World War Two framework around humanitarian protection.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Miranda Murray)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United States cannot ignore the impact the war in Gaza has had on Israel’s global standing, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday, as Israel’s diplomatic isolation mounts despite Washington’s attempts to shield its ally.
“Whether you believe it was justified or not, right or not, you cannot ignore the impact that this has had on Israel’s global standing,” Rubio told CBS News’ ‘Face The Nation’.
He was responding to a question about remarks by President Donald Trump to Israel’s Channel 12 in an interview published on Saturday: “Bibi (Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) has gone too far in Gaza and Israel has lost a lot of support in the world. Now I will return all that support.”
The United States has for decades diplomatically shielded its ally Israel at the U.N. Here’s how that has played out during the Gaza war:
HAS THE U.S. USED ITS U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL VETO ON GAZA?
The United States has cast six vetoes to shield Israel in the U.N. Security Council over the past two years on draft resolutions related to the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
The most recent veto by Washington was last month on a draft Security Council resolution that would have demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and that Israel lift all restrictions on aid deliveries to the Palestinian enclave. The remaining 14 council members voted in favor, isolating the United States.
The U.S. did agree last month to a Security Council statement condemning recent strikes by Israel on Qatar’s capital Doha, but the text did not mention Israel by name.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY?
The 193-member General Assembly has adopted several resolutions on Gaza, largely after the Security Council was blocked from taking action by the United States. The General Assembly votes have seen Israel and the U.S. overwhelmingly isolated.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry weight as a reflection of the global view on the war. Unlike the U.N. Security Council, no country has a veto in the General Assembly.
Most recently the General Assembly demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza and aid access. The resolution garnered 149 votes in favor, while 19 countries abstained and the U.S., Israel and 10 others voted against.
In October 2023, the General Assembly called for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza with 120 votes in favor. In December 2023, 153 countries voted to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Then in December 2024, it demanded – with 158 votes in favor – an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
WHAT ACTION HAS THERE BEEN ON A TWO-STATE SOLUTION?
Rubio noted on Sunday that “because of the length of this war and how it’s gone” some key Western powers – France, Britain, Australia and Canada – had decided to recognize a Palestinian state.
France and Saudi Arabia convened an international summit at the U.N. in July, which was followed up by a summit at the U.N. last month, in a bid to outline steps toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
The U.N. General Assembly last month overwhelmingly voted to endorse a declaration from the July conference that outlined “tangible, timebound, and irreversible steps” towards a two-state solution. A resolution endorsing the declaration received 142 votes in favor and 10 against, while 12 countries abstained.
The U.N. has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The U.S. says a two-state solution can only come from negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu has bluntly said he would never allow a Palestinian state, though he has given his approval to Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war, which offers a possible pathway, albeit a highly conditional one, to a Palestinian state.
An October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza. Hamas killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and about 251 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 67,000 people, also mostly civilians, have since been killed during the war in Gaza, according to local health authorities.
Just weeks after the war started U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Reuters NEXT conference that the number of civilians killed at that point showed that there was something “clearly wrong” with Israel’s military operations.
“It is also important to make Israel understand that it is against the interests of Israel to see every day the terrible image of the dramatic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said. “That doesn’t help Israel in relation to the global public opinion.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration is mobilizing U.S. diplomats to lobby against a U.N. resolution calling on Washington to lift its decades-long embargo on Cuba, in part by sharing details of Cuba’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters.
As part of the administration’s campaign, U.S. diplomats will tell countries that the Cuban government is actively supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with up to 5,000 Cubans fighting alongside Moscow’s forces.
The October 2-dated unclassified cable sent to dozens of U.S. missions directed American diplomats to urge the governments to oppose the non-binding resolution, which has passed in the U.N. General Assembly by wide margins year after year since 1992.
Officials at the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Last year, the General Assembly adopted the resolution with 187 countries voting in favor. The United States and Israel were the only countries that voted against it, while Moldova abstained.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has doubled down on sanctions, returning Cuba to a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, tightening financial and travel restrictions and sanctioning third-country nationals who host Cuban doctors.
Trump has also recently toughened his stance towards Moscow, threatening financial penalties against buyers of Russian oil and allowing U.S. intelligence agencies to share information with Ukraine to help its attacks on energy assets inside Russia.
The cable said that the U.N. resolution was “incorrectly” blaming the United States for Cuba’s problems which it said were caused by Cuba’s “own corruption and incompetence.” It added that the objective of this push was to demonstrate the administration’s opposition, significantly reducing the number of “yes” votes.
“”No” votes are preferred but abstentions or absent/not voting are also useful,” the cable said, adding that Washington needed “allies and like-minded partners” in this push.
The United States has piled dozens of new sanctions on the Communist-run Caribbean island since a trade embargo was put in place following Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
The U.N. vote can carry political weight, but only the U.S. Congress can lift the Cold War-era embargo.
The Cuban government blames U.S. sanctions for the grueling crisis the country is mired in, the worst economic downturn in decades characterized by shortages of basic goods, collapsing infrastructure and runaway inflation.
The State Department said Cuba was using the annual U.N. resolution as a mechanism to victimize itself and that it did not deserve the support from America’s democratic allies.
“The Trump Administration will not remain on the sidelines or support an illegitimate regime that undermines our national security interests in our region,” a State Department spokesperson said in emailed comments on Saturday.
CUBAN MERCENARIES IN UKRAINE
For years, U.S. tactics to weaken support for the non-binding U.N. resolution have focused on the legality of the embargo, how the U.S. provided exceptions for food and medicine and highlighted Cuba’s human rights, the cable said.
All of these approaches have failed to influence the vote, it added. The cable provided nearly two dozen talking points, many of which accused Cuba of squandering its limited resources, denying its people basic human rights and being a threat to international peace.
Cuba and its President Miguel Diaz-Canel were actively supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, one of the talking points said.
“After North Korea, Cuba is the largest contributor of foreign troops to Russia’s aggression, with an estimated 1000-5000 Cubans fighting in Ukraine,” the cable said.
The State Department spokesperson declined to provide further details on the Cuban fighters but said Washington was aware of the reports that they were fighting alongside Russian troops in Ukraine.
“The Cuban regime has failed to protect its citizens from being used as pawns in the Russia-Ukraine war,” the spokesperson said.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials warned U.S. lawmakers about the growing scale of recruitment of Cuban mercenaries by Russia to fight in Ukraine.
The cable also accused the Cuban government of undermining democracies in the Western Hemisphere, as tensions have been mounting between Washington and Venezuela, Cuba’s most important political and economic ally. The U.S. military has carried out strikes in the Caribbean on boats out of Venezuela that it claimed were carrying drugs. The latest U.S. attack took place on Friday.
On Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called for the United Nations to stop the United States from starting a war in the region. He said fighting drug trafficking in the name of U.S. national security was a “crude and ridiculous pretext” for aggression.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk Editing by Don Durfee and Diane Craft)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Dozens of countries have yet to secure accommodation at next month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil and some delegates are considering staying away as a shortage of hotels has driven prices to hundreds of dollars per night.
Small island states on the frontline of rising sea levels are confronted with having to consider reducing the size of delegations they send to Belem, while two European nations said they were considering not attending at all.
COP30 organisers are racing to convert love motels, cruise ships and churches into lodgings for an anticipated 45,000 delegates.
Brazil chose to hold the climate talks at Belem, which typically has 18,000 hotel beds available, in the hope its location on the edge of the Amazon rainforest would focus attention on the threat climate change poses to this ecosystem, and its role in absorbing climate-warming emissions.
LATVIA SAYS ROOMS ARE TOO EXPENSIVE
Latvia’s climate minister told Reuters the country has asked if its negotiators could dial in by video call.
“We already basically have a decision that it’s too expensive for us,” Melnis said. “It’s the first time it’s so expensive. We have a responsibility to our country’s budget.”
A second eastern European country, Lithuania, also said it may stay away after being quoted prices for accommodation exceeding $500 per person per night.
A spokesperson for Lithuania’s energy ministry, which covers climate affairs, said the legitimacy and quality of negotiations would suffer if governments could not attend because of the costs.
A spokesperson for Brazil’s COP30 presidency said the decision was up to each government.
COP30 HOTEL PRICES LEAVE DELEGATIONS OUT OF POCKET
Days after Brazil opened a booking platform in early August, the website showed rates from $360 to $4,400 a night. Prices this week started at $150 per night, the platform showed.
The host country has dismissed calls to relocate the summit and said it would provide 15 rooms priced below $220 per day for each developing country delegation, and below $600 for each wealthy nation delegation. The United Nations has also increased its subsidy to help low-income countries attend.
Less than six weeks out from COP30, 81 countries remain in negotiations over hotel rooms while 87 countries have reserved accommodation, according to Brazil’s COP30 Presidency.
Evans Njewa, chair of the Least Developed Countries group that represents the world’s poorest nations in U.N. climate talks, said it was still assessing countries’ attendance plans.
“We’re receiving a high volume of concerns … and numerous requests for support,” Njewa told Reuters. “Regrettably, our capacity is limited, which may affect the size of delegations.”
CLIMATE ACTION UNDER THREAT
This year’s COP summit takes place after U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to lead a shift away from climate action and Europe’s priorities change as economies struggle.
Ilana Seid, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said the lack of affordable accommodation placed its members at a “severe disadvantage”. Small island countries have used previous COPs to secure more funding to adapt to climate change.
Smaller delegations would leave island nations “lacking expertise needed to effectively participate in the negotiations which decide our future,” Seid said.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett in Brussels; Additional reporting by Jason Hovet, Luiza Ilie, Manuela Andreoni; Editing by Richard Lough and Barbara Lewis)
(Reuters) -Hunger is rising in Myanmar, the impoverished Southeast Asian country that has been ravaged by conflict since a 2021 military coup ousted an elected civilian government.
Some 3.6 million people are displaced across the war-torn nation, according to the United Nations, and a lack of funding has left millions of vulnerable people without life-saving humanitarian support.
Myanmar is one of the world’s most underfunded aid operations, with only 12% of required funds received, the U.N. says.
WHAT IS THE HUNGER SITUATION NATIONWIDE?
More than 16 million people across Myanmar, about a third of the population, are acutely food insecure, meaning that their lack of food threatens lives and livelihoods, according to the World Food Programme.
They are the fifth-largest group needing aid anywhere in the world, making Myanmar “a hunger hotspot of very high concern,” the agency said.
More than 540,000 children across the country are expected to suffer this year from acute malnutrition – life-threatening wasting that can have severe and lifelong effects – a 26% increase from last year, WFP said.
One in three children under the age of five is already suffering from stunted growth, according to WFP.
HOW BAD IS IT IN RAKHINE?
The western coastal state of Rakhine, where conflict is raging, has been hit particularly hard by the food crisis, with restrictions on aid delivery and the movement of people.
In central Rakhine, the WFP estimates that 57% of families cannot afford basic food, up from 33% in December 2024, while the situation in the hard-to-reach north is probably even worse, it says.
Food prices are as much as four times higher than before the conflict, while many markets are empty and people are unable to travel freely or find jobs to support themselves, according to a WFP official.
The crisis is driving more Rohingya families from Rakhine into Bangladesh, where more than 1 million members of the Muslim minority group already live in crowded refugee camps after a brutal Myanmar military crackdown in 2017 triggered a mass exodus.
Many newly arrived Rohingya refugees are suffering from acute malnutrition, especially children and pregnant and lactating women, the International Rescue Committee says.
Hospital admissions for severe wasting increased by 12% between January and June this year compared to the same period in 2024, and UNICEF treated 1,028 severely wasted children among new arrivals between October 2024 and June 2025, it said.
(Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
CAIRO (Reuters) -Hamas’s review of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan stretched into a third day on Wednesday, a source close to the militant group said, as other Palestinian factions rejected the proposal and as Israel again bombed Gaza City.
Trump on Tuesday gave Hamas “three or four days” to respond to the plan he outlined this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has backed the proposal to end Israel’s almost two-year-old war with the Palestinian militant group.
“Accepting the plan is a disaster, rejecting it is another, there are only bitter choices here, but the plan is a Netanyahu plan articulated by Trump,” a Palestinian official, familiar with Hamas’ deliberations with other factions, told Reuters.
“Hamas is keen to end the war and end the genocide and it will respond in the way that serves the higher interests of the Palestinian people,” he said, without elaborating.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued new orders for people to leave for the south and said it would no longer allow those to return to the north, as Gaza City came under heavy bombing.
GAZA CITY STRIKE KILLS 17, HEALTH AUTHORITIES SAY
Israeli planes and tanks pounded residential neighbourhoods throughout the night, residents in Gaza City said. Local health authorities said that at least 17 people across Gaza had been killed by the military on Wednesday, most of them in Gaza City.
A strike on the old city in northwestern Gaza City killed seven people, while six people sheltering in a school in another part of the city were killed in a separate strike, medics said.
In a new development, the Israeli military said that starting on Wednesday it would no longer allow people to use a coastal road to move from the south to communities in the north.
It would remain open for those fleeing south, it said.
In recent weeks, few people have moved from the south to the north as the military has intensified its siege on Gaza City. However, today’s decision will put pressure on those who are yet to leave Gaza City and also prevent hundreds of thousands of residents who have fled south from returning to their homes, likely deepening fears in Gaza of permanent displacement.
It would also stop the transfer by local merchants of goods from south to the north, which could worsen food shortages in Gaza City.
The military had taken similar measures in the early months of the war, completely separating north and south, before later easing those measures in January during a temporary ceasefire.
HAMAS UNDER PRESSURE ON PLAN, AS OTHER GROUPS REJECT IT
Hamas is yet to publicly comment on Trump’s plan, which demands that the militant group release the remaining hostages, surrender its weapons and have no future role in running Gaza.
The plan sees Israel making few concessions in the near-term and does not lay out a clear path to a Palestinian state, one of the key demands of not only Hamas but the Arab and Muslim world.
The plan states that Israel would eventually withdraw from Gaza but does not define a time frame. Hamas has long demanded that Israel must fully withdraw from Gaza for the war to end.
Three smaller Palestinian militant factions in Gaza have rejected the plan, including two that are allies of Hamas, arguing that it would destroy the ‘Palestinian cause’ and would grant Israel’s control of Gaza international legitimacy.
Many world leaders have publicly supported Trump’s plan.
A source who is close to Hamas told Reuters on Tuesday the plan was too heavily weighted towards Israel’s interest and did not take significant account of the militant group’s demands.
Many elements of the 20-point plan have been included in numerous ceasefire proposals previously backed by the U.S., including some that have been accepted and then subsequently rejected at various stages by both Israel and Hamas.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Editing by William Maclean)
OBERGOMS, Switzerland (Reuters) -Switzerland’s glaciers melted considerably over the past 12 months to log their fourth-largest reduction in ice volume on record, monitoring body GLAMOS said on Wednesday.
A winter with little snow, especially in the northeastern part of the Swiss Alps, followed by heat waves in June, caused the glaciers to lose 3% of their total ice mass, according to this year’s report by GLAMOS and the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation.
“This is really a lot,” said Matthias Huss, the director of GLAMOS, whose reports cover the October-September hydrological year.
Although the ice melt was not as extreme as in 2022 and 2023, when the glaciers lost 5.9% and 4.4% respectively, the trend is clear.
Switzerland has had its worst decade of ice melt on record, with one quarter of glacier volume lost since 2015, Huss added, speaking with Reuters during a visit to the Rhone Glacier in Valais canton.
The Rhone Glacier was the biggest glacier in Europe during the Ice Age, but has rapidly shrunk, losing on average about 1.5 meters in thickness this year.
According to GLAMOS, about one hundred glaciers in Switzerland have vanished between 2016 and 2022, and it says that most could disappear by the end of the century.
“Unfortunately, there is not much we can do to save the glaciers … They will continue retreating anyway, even if the climate is stabilised today,” said Huss.
But if carbon dioxide emissions were to fall to zero globally over the next 30 years, then up to 200 Swiss glaciers at high elevation could be saved, he added.
Swiss glaciers below 3,000 metres above sea level suffered in particular this year. The once healthy Silvretta Glacier in northeastern Switzerland had a huge ice melt following the lowest amount of snowfall for the area since measurements began some 100 years ago, the report found.
Huss also warned that the shrinking of glaciers contributes to the destabilisation of mountains. That can trigger avalanches of rock and ice, such as the devastating glacier collapse that destroyed the village of Blatten in Valais in May of this year.
(Reporting by Cecile Mantovani and Denis Balibouse; Writing by Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
(Reuters) -The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday agreed to more than double the size of an 15-month-old underfunded and understaffed international security mission combating armed gangs in Haiti and rename it a gang suppression force.
Russia, China and Pakistan abstained from the vote on the measure put forward by the United States and Panama. The remaining 13 council members voted in favor.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Christian Martinez)
BRUSSELS/ANKARA/BERLIN (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end nearly two years of war in Gaza has received the backing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while the plan has been shared with Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Here are some reactions to the peace plan.
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU”I support your plan to end the war in Gaza, which achieves our war aims.
It will bring back to Israel all our hostages, dismantle Hamas’ military capabilities, end its political rule, and ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.”
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY STATEMENT CARRIED ON STATE NEWS AGENCY WAFA
“The State of Palestine welcomes the sincere and determined efforts of President Donald J. Trump to end the war on Gaza and affirms its confidence in his ability to find a path toward peace.”
ISRAELI FINANCE MINISTER BEZALEL SMOTRICH
“It is a historic missed opportunity … and in my estimation it will end in tears. Our children will be forced to fight in Gaza again.
We will consult, consider and decide, God willing. But the celebrations since yesterday are simply absurd.”
EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF KAJA KALLAS
“President Trump’s Gaza plan is an opportunity for lasting peace. It offers the best immediate chance to end the war. The EU is ready to help it succeed. Israel has signed on to the plan. Hamas must now accept it without delay, starting with the immediate release of hostages.”
JOINT STATEMENT BY FOREIGN MINISTERS OF UAE, SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR, EGYPT, JORDAN, INDONESIA, PAKISTAN, TURKEY
“The ministers affirm their readiness to engage positively and constructively with the United States and the parties toward finalising the agreement and ensuring its implementation, in a manner that ensures peace, security, and stability for the peoples of the region.
They reaffirm their joint commitment to work with the United States to end the war in Gaza through a comprehensive deal that ensures unrestricted delivery of sufficient humanitarian aid to Gaza, no displacement of the Palestinians, the release of hostages, a security mechanism that guarantees the security of all sides, full Israeli withdrawal, rebuilds Gaza and creates a path for just peace on the basis of the two state solution, under which Gaza is fully integrated with the West Bank in a Palestinian state.”
UN SPOKESPERSON IN GENEVA, ALESSANDRA VELLUCCI
“We are also continuing to be in touch with the parties, with the various parties, about the peace efforts. For indeed, we welcome all the mediation efforts. And of course, we stand ready to support any peace plan with everything we can do, including the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
TURKISH PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN
“I commend US President Donald Trump’s efforts and leadership aimed at halting the bloodshed in Gaza and achieving a ceasefire. Türkiye will continue to contribute to the process with a view to establishing a just and lasting peace acceptable to all parties.”
GERMAN CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ:
“We welcome the peace plan for Gaza presented yesterday by President Trump. This plan is the best plan to end the war.
The fact that Israel supports this plan is a significant step forward. Now Hamas must agree and clear the way for peace.”
FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON
“I welcome President @realDonaldTrump’s commitment to ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of all hostages.
I expect Israel to engage resolutely on this basis. Hamas has no choice but to immediately release all hostages and follow this plan. These elements must pave the way for in-depth discussions with all relevant partners to build a lasting peace in the region, based on the two-state solution and on the principles endorsed by 142 UN member states, at the initiative of France and Saudi Arabia.”
UK PRIME MINISTER SIR KEIR STARMER
“The new U.S. initiative to deliver an end to the war in Gaza is profoundly welcome and I am grateful for President Trump’s leadership.
We strongly support his efforts to end the fighting, release the hostages and ensure the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza. This is our top priority and should happen immediately.” ITALIAN GOVERNMENT
“The proposal presented today by U.S. President Donald Trump could mark a turning point, enabling a permanent cessation of hostilities, the immediate release of all hostages, and full and secure humanitarian access for the civilian population.
Hamas, in particular – having initiated this war with the barbaric terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 – now has the opportunity to end it by releasing the hostages, agreeing to have no role in Gaza’s future, and fully disarming.”
SPANISH PRIME MINISTER PEDRO SANCHEZ:
“Spain welcomes the US-backed peace proposal for Gaza.
We must put an end to so much suffering.
It is time for the violence to cease, for all hostages to be released immediately and for humanitarian aid to be allowed access to the civilian population.
The two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, is the only possible solution.”
(Reporting by Steven Scheer, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Gavin Jones, Madeline Chambers, Sabine Wollrab, Alexander Cornwell, Emma Farge and Tuvan GumrukcuWriting by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli tanks thrust closer to the heart of Gaza City on Monday, pressing a ground offensive hours before talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, who has hinted at a diplomatic breakthrough in a bid to end the war.
After nearly two years of failed diplomatic efforts, Washington presented a 21-point plan to Arab and Muslim states last week that calls for a permanent ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages.
Trump, who said last week that he believed a deal to end the fighting was close, promised “SOMETHING SPECIAL” on the eve of his meeting with Netanyahu.
“We have a real chance for GREATNESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST,” he wrote on social media. “ALL ARE ON BOARD FOR SOMETHING SPECIAL, FIRST TIME EVER. WE WILL GET IT DONE!!!”
Still, there are signs of scepticism from Israel.
ISRAELI OFFICIALS RAISE CONCERNS
A source familiar with the discussions said Israeli officials had raised concerns with U.S. counterparts over the proposal, including over the proposed involvement of Palestinian security forces in Gaza after the war, a lack of clarity over whether Hamas officials would be expelled from the enclave, and over who would hold overall responsibility for Gaza’s security.
Meanwhile, there was no let-up on the ground, where Israel has launched one of its biggest offensives of the war this month, an all-out assault on Gaza City, where Netanyahu says he aims to wipe out Hamas in its final redoubts.
Huda, a Palestinian woman sheltering in Deir Al Balah south of Gaza City with her two children, told Reuters that she worried Trump’s latest peace plan was “going to be another disappointment”.
“Trump has made promises in the past that all turned out to be fiction,” she said by phone.
Abu Abdallah, sheltering with nearly two dozen family members in tents along the Gaza City coast, said the family was waiting until after the White House meeting before deciding whether to flee south.
“It is either peace or Gaza City would be wiped out, just like Rafah was,” he said, referring to a southern city that Israel completely flattened earlier in the war.
ISRAEL SAYS OFFENSIVE WILL ERADICATE HAMAS
Israeli tanks advanced on Monday to within a few hundred metres from Gaza City’s main Al Shifa Hospital, where doctors say hundreds of patients are still being treated despite Israeli orders to leave.
Health officials said tanks had also surrounded the area around nearby Al Helo hospital, where 90 patients were being treated including 12 babies in incubators. Medics said the hospital was shelled overnight.
Israel has said it will not halt fighting unless Hamas frees all hostages and permanently surrenders its weapons.
Hamas, which precipitated the war by attacking Israel nearly two years ago, says it is willing to free its hostages in return for an end to the war, but will not give up its arms as long as Palestinians are still fighting for a state. It has said it has yet to be shown any new U.S. peace proposal.
Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages in their October 2023 attack. More than 66,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s assault, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
PREVIOUS CEASEFIRE EFFORTS FELL APART
In Israel’s latest offensive, troops have flattened Gaza City neighbourhoods, dynamiting buildings which they said were used by Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled, though many say there is nowhere to go. Israel has told them to head south, where other cities have already been razed and much of the population is crammed into tented camps.
The military said in a Monday statement it was continuing to target militant groups to ensure the protection of Israeli civilians. Medics said the military had killed at least 18 people across Gaza on Monday, most of them in Gaza City.
Previous ceasefire efforts backed by the U.S. have fallen apart due to a failure to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas.
Netanyahu’s far-right allies in the Israeli government want the war to continue until Hamas has been defeated. They have also called for the annexation of the West Bank, which Palestinians want for their future state.
But the Gaza City offensive is also a source of domestic political tension within Israel, where families of hostages say it is time to seek a peace deal to bring their loved ones home, and some accuse Netanyahu of prolonging the war.
The Hostages Families Forum, representing many relatives of those held captive in Gaza, sent a letter to Trump ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, urging him not to allow anyone to sabotage the deal he is putting forward to end the Gaza war.
“The stakes are too high, and our families have waited too long for any interference to derail this progress,” the letter said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Alex Cornwell in JerusalemEditing by Peter Graff)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union confirmed on Monday that it had reinstated sanctions against Iran, following a similar move against Iran by the United Nations.
“Today, the EU reinstated sanctions against Iran in response to its continued non-compliance with the nuclear agreement. The door for diplomatic negotiations remains open,” said the EU presidency in a statement.
The EU said the sanctions included freezing the assets of the Iranian Central Bank and other Iranian banks, as well as travel bans on certain Iranian officials.
The EU was also banning Iran’s purchase and transportation of crude oil and the sale or supply of gold and certain naval equipment.
On Sunday, the United Nations reinstated an arms embargo and other sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme following a process triggered by European powers that Tehran has warned will be met with a harsh response.
Britain, France and Germany initiated the return of sanctions on Iran at the U.N. Security Council over accusations it had violated a 2015 deal that aimed to stop it developing a nuclear bomb. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray;Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Ros Russell)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — With China leading the way by announcing its first emission cuts, world leaders said Wednesday they are getting more serious about fighting climate change and the deadly extreme weather that comes with it.
At the United Nations’ high-level climate summit, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the world’s largest carbon-polluting country would aim to cut emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035. China produces more than 31% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and they have long been soaring.
The announcement came as more than 100 world leaders gathered to talk of increased urgency and the need for stronger efforts to curb the spewing of heat-trapping gases.
With major international climate negotiations in Brazil 6½ weeks away, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened a special leaders summit Wednesday during the General Assembly to focus on specific plans to curb emissions from coal, oil and natural gas.
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
After more than six hours of speeches, promises and announcements, about 100 nations — responsible for about two-thirds of the world’s emissions — gave plans or some kind of commitments to further curb fossil fuel emissions and fight climate change, Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said. In a video address, Xi pledged that China would increase its wind and solar power sixfold from 2020 levels, make pollution-free vehicles mainstream and “basically establish a climate adaptive society.”
Europe then followed with a less detailed and not quite official new climate change fighting plan. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said last week, member states agreed that their emissions cutting targets would range between 66% and 72%. The EU will formally submit its plan before the November negotiations.
While the new promises are in the right direction and show stronger commitment to fighter climate change, “these targets will not be enough to keep us safe from climate destruction,” said Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director for international climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Xi and Brazil’s leader also made statements on Wednesday afternoon that may have referred to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks a day earlier on renewable energy and the concept of climate change. “While some countries are acting against it, the international community should stay focused on the right direction,” Xi said.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is hosting the upcoming climate conference, said, “no one is safe from the effect of climate change. Walls at borders will not stop droughts or storms,” Lula said. “Nature does not bow down to bombs or warships. No country stands above another.”
Said Guterres: “The science demands action. The law commands it. The economics compel it. And people are calling for it.”
Time to ‘wake up’ amid catastrophes
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said she was there to issue “a demand for us all to wake up from a community whose hospitals and schools are being destroyed” by rising tides. She said she has regularly been awakened by floods and drought emergencies in her small island nation and that it will soon be others’ turn.
“If we fail to wake up now and end our dependence on fossil fuels the leaders of every country in this room will be woken up by calls about catastrophes of wildfires, of storms, of heatwaves, and of starvation and drought,” she said. Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif said his country knows this all too well, with recent floods that have affected 5 million people across over 4,000 villages, killing over 1,000.
“As I speak to you, my country is reeling from intense monsoon rains, flash floods, mudslides and devastating urban flooding,” he said. “We are facing this calamity at a time when the scars of the 2022 floods that inflicted losses exceeding $30 billion and displaced millions are still visible across our land.” Anthony Albanese, prime minister of Australia, called this a decisive decade for climate action and said Australians know the toll of more frequent and extreme weather events like cyclones, floods, bush fires and droughts. “Australia knows we are not alone,” he said.
‘Here we must admit failure’
“Warming appears to be accelerating,” climate scientist Johan Rockstrom said in a science briefing that started the summit. “Here we must admit failure. Failure to protect peoples and nations from unmanageable impacts of human-induced climate change.”
“We’re dangerously close to triggering fundamental and irreversible change,” Rockstrom said.
Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe told leaders that every tenth of a degree of warming is connected to worsening floods, wildfires, heat waves, storms and many more deaths: “What’s at stake is nothing less than everything and everyone we love.”
In a news conference, Lula said he invited both Trump and Xi to the November climate negotiations, saying it’s important that leaders listen to scientists. Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, 195 nations are supposed to submit new more stringent five-year plans on how to curb carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
U.N. officials said countries really need to get their plans in by the end of the month so the U.N. can calculate how much more warming Earth is on track for if nations do what they promise. Former U.S. President Joe Biden submitted America’s plan late last year before leaving office and the Trump administration has distanced itself from the plan.
Before 2015, the world was on path for 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, but now has trimmed that to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), Guterres said.
However, the Paris accord set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid 19th century and the world has already warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since.
Simon Stiell, UN’s climate chief, said the Chinese plan “is a clear signal that the future global economy will run on clean energy. And that for every country, stronger and faster climate action means more economic growth, jobs, affordable and secure energy, cleaner air, and better health, for all of us, everywhere.”
Lula also praised China’s announcement, but some advocates were underwhelmed, but they said China has reputation for under-promising and over-delivering on climate action.
“China’s latest climate target is too timid given the country’s extraordinary record on clean energy,” said former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, chair of the group The Elders. “China must go further and faster”
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Copyright 2025. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
