News headlines in February 2025

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.

Myanmar is mired in one of the world’s worst human rights crises, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Friday, describing conditions there as “a litany of human suffering.”

Governments on Friday reached agreement on a strategy to raise an additional $200 billion each year to better protect the world’s flora and fauna by 2030.

UN humanitarians on Friday warned again that thousands of families could starve in the coming weeks inside the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur.

There were just under 150 incidents of illegal or unauthorised activity involving nuclear and other radioactive material reported last year, according to the international nuclear energy watchdog’s monitoring database tracking these incidents.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Friday that severe cuts to humanitarian and development funding by the United States will have devastating consequences for millions of vulnerable people worldwide.