The global forest products sector saw a recovery in 2024 after a sharp decline the previous year, according to a new study. report published Wednesday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
FAO statistics cover 77 product categories, 27 product groups and more than 245 countries and territories. The report presents recent trends in trade data for each of the major forest product groups.
Global international trade in wood and paper products regained momentumwith modest growth recorded in most major product groups, according to FAO.
This recovery comes after an overall decline of 14 percent in trade in wood and paper products in 2023.
Industrial roundwood extractions, which refer to the total volume of wood harvested for non-energy purposes, increased by 2 percent in 2024, although their global trade declined by 1 percent.
Global production of sawn timber such as boards, beams and other manufactured wood products remained virtually unchanged but varied by region. The sawn timber trade generally recorded no change compared to 2023.
Wood-based panels increased for the second year in a row. Global production increased by 5 percent.
Wood pulp production rose 3 percent to 189 million tonnes, while international trade rose 2 percent to a record 73 million tonnes.
Wood pellets have experienced extraordinary growth in recent decades, driven primarily by bioenergy targets in Europe, the Republic of Korea and Japan. After a slight decline in 2023, global production returned to 48 million tonnes in 2024, i.e. the 2022 level.
Why it matters
Different types of trees can be used for housing, shelter, heating, food, medicine and even textiles or buildings.
“Forests support millions of livelihoods around the world, and this number is set to increase as they provide more economic opportunities in a growing range of industries, including sustainable timber production,” said FAO Director-General Dongyu Qu.
Promoting the sustainable use of forests is also part of Sustainable Development Goal 15, a vision that countries have agreed on.
When used sustainably, forests support life. Another recently published report FAO’s forest resources assessment showed that the net loss of forest area has been reduced by more than half since the 1990s and that more than 90 percent of forests are regenerating naturally.
Ferrara’s debate about a drug-prevention initiative near schools should have been straightforward: the importance of such an activity. Instead, Estense.com’s coverage repeatedly shifted the focus to identity-based suspicion, relying on loaded framing and insinuation that risks stigmatising a religious minority and discouraging civic prevention work—without delivering the evidence-led scrutiny families actually need.
A routine civic initiative turned into a manufactured scandal
There was no special “case” here that needed exposing. Ferrara’s City Hall supported a straightforward drug-prevention activity, and the schools involved applied their normal procedures—exactly as they would for any external educational initiative. In a context where communities struggle to keep children away from drugs, backing prevention is not suspicious; it is responsible.
Estense.com nevertheless chose to frame this ordinary civic cooperation as a problem in itself. In its initial coverage (see here) and subsequent follow-ups, the reporting pivots away from what was actually done—what message was delivered, under what ordinary school conditions—and places the spotlight on identity-driven suspicion. The result is not clearer information for families, but a storyline designed to trigger alarm.
In practice, this approach discourages exactly the kind of civic participation local authorities should welcome: volunteers supporting public-health education. It shifts the reader’s attention away from drug prevention and toward discriminating others for their beliefs—without presenting concrete evidence of wrongdoing, and without any proportional justification for turning what should be a standard civic activity into a cultural confrontation.
Would you ask your surgeon’s religion before an operation?
Most people do not walk into a hospital and interrogate a doctor about being Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist—or Scientologist—before consenting to a life-saving procedure. We judge competence, professional standards, ethics, and accountability.
Schools are not hospitals, and they require their own procedures. But the principle holds: a person’s faith, by itself, is not evidence of harm. What matters is whether external initiatives respect the law, avoid proselytism, and operate within established educational standards. In Ferrara, that baseline was met.
The “transparency trap”: damned if you disclose, damned if you don’t
This is where Estense.com’s framing becomes particularly weak. The Foundation for a Drug-Free World states openly on its official website that the campaign is “proudly sponsored” by the Church of Scientology and Scientologists worldwide. The connection is therefore not hidden.
Yet Estense’s coverage repeatedly implies that disclosure itself is evidence of covert recruitment, while any failure to foreground it at every step is treated as concealment. This creates a logical trap: transparency is reinterpreted as proselytism, while normal communication choices are reframed as secrecy.
That is not critical journalism. It is a framing choice that guarantees suspicion regardless of the facts.
City Hall and schools did what they were supposed to do
Ferrara’s schools and City Hall acted responsibly by supporting prevention rather than waiting for problems to escalate. Ordinary school procedures exist to ensure quality and appropriateness for minors—and that is exactly what applied to the activities carried out by Drug-Free World volunteers in Italy.
There was nothing exceptional to uncover. What is exceptional—and irresponsible—is a media framing that converts a routine public-health initiative into a cultural alarm simply because it dislikes the identity of some of the people delivering it.
A line crossed: from reporting facts to planting doubt
There was no mystery requiring exposure. City Hall supported a drug-prevention activity; schools applied their normal procedures; volunteers delivered a public-health message. That is the full factual framework.
Estense.com nevertheless reframed this straightforward situation using insinuating language that suggests hidden agendas without demonstrating them. By substituting evidence with atmosphere, the reporting manufactures doubt and invites fear where routine civic cooperation should have been reported plainly.
Keep the focus where it belongs: public health
Ferrara’s schools and City Hall deserve credit for supporting prevention. As with any external educational activity, the expectation is simple: the session stays on-topic, age-appropriate, and within school rules. That is standard practice in education—and it is all that was required here.
Estense.com’s reporting instead treats the organisers’ background as the main story and invites readers to view a prevention effort through suspicion rather than substance. Journalism should encourage clear, practical evaluation of what students receive—not transform public health into a cultural confrontation.
In the Ferrara case, the frame shifts. Religious identity becomes the headline, insinuation becomes the engine of the story, and prevention becomes secondary. Readers notice that double standard—and it corrodes trust in media fairness.
Give credit where it’s due
Ferrara, like many European cities, faces a genuine challenge in keeping young people away from drugs. When volunteers distribute prevention materials and public institutions support awareness, it is reasonable—and responsible—to acknowledge the civic value of that effort.
Local media should be able to support prevention. What it should not do is turn volunteers into a “crime scene” because of ideological hostility toward a legally recognised religious minority.
What Estense.com could do now
If Estense.com wants to serve Ferrara’s public interest, it can still elevate the debate:
Publish or link directly to the materials distributed.
Separate reporting from commentary: facts first, opinions clearly labelled.
Ferrara does not need biased panic. It needs transparency that is not punished, ordinary safeguards that are respected, and every credible civic effort that helps keep children away from drugs.
On the eve of the elections of December 28, Secretary-General António Guterres called on all Central Africans to participate peacefully in the vote and urged the authorities to ensure that the elections take place “in a peaceful, orderly, inclusive and credible manner”. according to a statement published Wednesday by its spokesperson.
He also called on all political actors and stakeholders to refrain from any actions that could incite violence or undermine confidence in the process, stressing the importance of safeguarding the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the electoral period.
Sunday’s elections will be of unprecedented scale, combining four ballots – presidential, legislative, regional and municipal – across the country. Municipal elections, in particular, have not taken place in the Central African Republic (CAR) since 1988 and are a key provision of the 2019 Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation.
The Secretary-General described their conduct as “a historic step in the peace process” and a crucial step towards the consolidation of decentralization and the extension of state authority beyond the capital.
A complex landscape
The Central African Republic has long struggled with armed violence, weak institutions and limited state presence beyond the capital Bangui.
Despite the 2019 agreement, insecurity persists in parts of the country, while conflict, fragility of services and extreme weather conditions continue to fuel a humanitarian crisis, with more than two million people in need of assistance and almost a million displaced within the country or abroad.
Vast, sparsely populated and landlocked, the CAR is bordered by six countries and crisscrossed by dense forests, rivers and long, often impassable roads. Outside of Bangui, many communities are only accessible by plane or multi-day trips.
UN support for the electoral process
Mr. Guterres acknowledged the efforts of national authorities in preparing for the vote and highlighted the role of the United Nations peacekeeping mission. MINUSCAsupporting the process, in coordination with other UN agencies.
In recent weeks, MINUSCA mobilized significant logistical and security support to deploy electoral materials across the country.including in remote and difficult to access areas.
The mission transported ballot papers, indelible ink, electoral lists and other sensitive documents from Bangui to nearly 4,000 voting centers housing around 6,700 polling stations across the country.
A MINUSCA convoy transporting electoral kits to voting centers in the Central African Republic in preparation for the December 28, 2025 vote.
MINUSCA deployed all aircraft and helicopters in its fleet to transport electoral materials and staff, escorted secure ground convoys, and provided temporary storage facilities for sensitive materials in coordination with the National Electoral Authority (NEA).
He also supported civic education and voter awareness campaigns.notably on the prevention of electoral violence and the promotion of a code of conduct for political actors.
More than 2.39 million registered voters – including more than 1.14 million women – are expected to vote.
In 2021, after the Taliban took power, Nila Ibrahimi and her family fled Afghanistan. A staunch rights advocate since the age of thirteen, when she led a viral campaign that successfully overturned a government ban banning Afghan girls over the age of 12 from singing in public, she knew she risked being targeted by the new regime.
After spending time in hiding, she now lives in Canada, but she hasn’t given up on her activism. From her new home, she launched HerStory, an organization dedicated to documenting the experiences of girls in Afghanistan and across the diaspora.
“I do my best to tell the stories of girls who weren’t allowed to go to school. I was able to graduate but my friends are still stuck in time in ninth grade. It’s emotional labor, but I think if it motivates just one person to do something, then I think I’ve done enough.”
Ms. Ibrahimi was speaking to UN News at an event on December 15 to mark the tenth anniversary of Security Council Resolution 2250, which formally recognizes young people as active partners in the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security.
Around half of the world’s population is under the age of 30, making them the generation most concerned about our common future. However, they are often excluded from the spaces where solutions to our most intractable problems are shaped.
Since the adoption of the resolution, the UN has supported a multitude of initiatives implementing the recommendations it contains. For example, theDemocratic Republic of Congo, Gambia and Honduras developed National and local action plans for Youth, Peace and Security (YPS); The African Union organized the first African continent-wide dialogue on the YPS, which culminated with the Bujumbura Declaration; and 11 countries, from Africa to the Middle East, Asia and Europe, have so far adopted YPS action plans aligned with Resolution 2250.
Afghanistan, still governed by the Taliban, is not one of them. However, Ms. Ibrahimi, who has often felt like she is plowing a lonely furrow, remains fearless and determined to continue the fight for women’s rights.
“At the conference, it really struck me to be in the same room with people I would never have had the opportunity to meet and learn about how they implemented strategies to empower young people in their countries,” she reflects. “Just being in their presence was a great privilege and an opportunity to not only speak about my own story and elevate the voices of Afghan women, but also to learn from others.”
Let’s act now for peace
The events of December 15 culminated with a Peace Circle bringing together Ms. Ibrahimi, several other young leaders, as well as senior UN officials, diplomats and academics. The Peace Circles were born from a major UN initiativeas part of the flagship Act Now campaign. These are informal dialogues on peace-related topics, which can range from topics as broad as education, gender equality, climate and technology. At least half of participants must be under 30, with a focus on young people who are often not at the table and new to UN spaces.
The Act Now for Peace campaign runs until September 2026, and discussions held in Peace Circles will directly feed into a number of UN projects, including the UN Secretary-General’s independent study on the contributions of young people to peace and a Global Youth Manifesto for Peace.
Find detailed information on how to create a peace circle here.
However, the humanitarian response has not been able to keep pace with needs due to ongoing restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, the UN aid coordination office OCHAsaid on Tuesday.
This includes restrictions on the entry of supplies, such as new materials needed to maintain and repair sewage networks.
Meanwhile, efforts are underway to improve water purification capacity at the Al Bassa desalination plant in Deir Al-Balah by transferring specialized equipment to the facility according to aid partners, while installation of the Al Manshia desalination plant in Gaza City has begun.
OCHA also updated on the situation in the West Bank, where ongoing operations by Israeli forces and settler violence continue to put Palestinians at risk and deepen humanitarian needs.
Six Palestinians – four of them children – were killed over the past two weeks, including five by Israeli forces and one by an Israeli settler. Three Israelis were injured by Palestinians during the same period.
At the same time, OCHA also voiced deep concern over ongoing displacement across the West Bank, with more than 100 Palestinians uprooted due to demolitions.
This includes 50 people – among them 21 children – displaced in a single Israeli demolition of a four-story building in the Silwan neighbourhood on Monday for lacking an Israeli-issued building permit, which is nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain.
Mothers in Aleppo, Syria, wait to have their children tested for malnutrition.
Millions in Syria require humanitarian assistance
Humanitarian needs remain severe across Syria, with 16.5 million people – or nearly two thirds of the population – still needing aid, according to OCHA.
The country continues along a path of political transition following the overthrow of the Assad regime last December.
Explosive ordnance contamination remains a major threat, OCHA said. Last month, 21 people were killed and more than 60 injured, half of them children.
Furthermore, some 2.5 million children remain out of school, and 40 per cent of schools are non-operational.
Since January, the UN and partners have reached more than three million people each month with humanitarian assistance.
OCHA and partners continue to coordinate with authorities and monitor developments in Aleppo City, where a ceasefire agreement was reached on Monday night following recent hostilities.
The fighting was related to tensions around incorporating the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the armed forces.
The fighting resulted in the shelling of multiple neighbourhoods, triggering new displacement. Two civilians were killed and several others injured, according to the health authorities
Burundi: Lawyers penalised for cooperating with UN, committee finds
The UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) announced its decision on Tuesday after reviewing the petition case of four lawyers who were punished for engaging with the Committee in 2016 during its evaluation of the country’s compliance with the Convention.
They had contributed to a joint civil society report submitted to the Committee, and three of them travelled to Geneva for the review process.
The lawyers said they had participated in peaceful demonstrations in 2015 opposing then President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term in office, which they considered unconstitutional.
The demonstrations were violently suppressed by the authorities, with security forces targeting protesters and political dissidents. The lawyers publicly condemned the violent suppression and, amid repression, fled Burundi and went into exile for fear of their safety.
In violation of international law
The Committee said the State party declined to participate in the second half of a scheduled two-day session to object to the Committee’s use of information submitted by civil society. On the same day, the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, formally sought the disbarment of the lawyers.
The experts found that Burundi’s actions were in violation of the Convention against Torture, and in particular, of article 13 which stipulates that complainants are protected against intimidation.
“The Committee reiterated that all States have an obligation to refrain from intimidation or retaliation against individuals who seek to cooperate with the Committee,” said Todd Buchwald, a member.
The 10 independent experts who serve on the Committee monitor implementation of the Convention Against Torture and were elected by the States Parties.
Microscale swimming bots developed by U-M and Penn take in sensory information, process it and carry out tasks, opening new possibilities in manufacturing and medicine.
Complete robot next to the year on a penny for scale. Image credit: Kyle Skelil, University of Pennsylvania
The world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots have debuted at the University of Pennsylvania, sporting a brain developed at the University of Michigan.
These microscopic swimming machines can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate for months and cost just a penny each.
Barely visible to the naked eye, each robot measures about 0.2 by 0.3 by 0.05 millimeters, operating at the scale of many microorganisms. They can be programmed to move in complex patterns, sense local temperatures and adjust their paths in response.
These light-powered robots, developed with primary support from the National Science Foundation, could advance medicine by monitoring the health of individual cells and aid manufacturing by helping construct microscale devices, the researchers say.
“We’ve made autonomous robots 10,000 times smaller,” said Marc Miskin, assistant professor in electrical and systems engineering at Penn and senior author of a pair of studies published in Science Robotics and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “That opens up an entirely new scale for programmable robots.”
The robots can move in complex patterns and even travel in coordinated groups, much like a school of fish. And because their propulsion system has no moving parts, the robots are extremely durable—easy to transfer with a micropipette and capable of swimming for months.
For decades, electronics have gotten smaller and smaller, epitomized by the record-setting sub-millimeter computers developed in the lab of David Blaauw and Dennis Sylvester, professors of electrical and computer engineering at U-M. Yet robots have struggled to keep pace, in part because independent motion is exceptionally difficult for microscale devices—a problem Miskin says has stalled the field for 40 years, until now.
“We saw that Penn Engineering’s propulsion system and our tiny computers were just made for each other,” said Blaauw, a senior author of the Science Robotics study.
Operating at the microscale in water, drag and viscosity are so large that Miskin says it’s like moving the robot through tar. His team’s propulsion design gets around this by turning the problem around. Instead of trying to move themselves, these robots move the water. They generate an electrical field that nudges ions in the surrounding liquid. Those ions, in turn, push on nearby water molecules, generating force to move the robot. This mechanism is described in PNAS.
On the computing side, Blaauw’s team needed to run the robot’s program on 75 nanowatts of power, which he says is 100,000 times less than a smart watch requires. To get even that tiny amount of power, the solar panels take up most of the robot.
The microbots are produced in a sheet (top left) roughly the area of a fingertip (bottom left). Each bot contains solar cells for harvesting energy, some of which also double as optical receivers, a temperature sensor on each side of the microbot for detecting differences, a processor for taking in information and making decisions, four actuator panels that drive its motion. Four of the receivers allow the robot to identify whether an incoming program is addressed to it. Image credit: Maya Lassiter, University of Pennsylvania
“We had to totally rethink the computer program instructions, condensing what conventionally would require many instructions for propulsion control into a single, special instruction to help us shrink the program’s length to fit in the robot’s tiny memory,” Blaauw said.
The robots are both powered and programmed by light pulses, and each has their own unique identifier for individualized programming. This capability could enable a team of robots to each take a different part of a group task.
The batch of robots described in Science Robotics is equipped with sensors that detect temperature to within a third of a degree Celsius. They could move toward areas of increasing temperature or report temperature as a proxy for cellular activity—allowing them to monitor the health of individual cells. They reported these temperatures by wiggling, much like the “waggle dance” honeybees use to communicate, Blaauw noted. Future versions of the robots could store more complex programs, move faster, integrate new sensors or operate in more challenging environments.
“This is really just the first chapter,” Miskin said. “We’ve shown that you can put a brain, a sensor and a motor into something almost too small to see, and have it survive and work for months. Once you have that foundation, you can layer on all kinds of intelligence and functionality. It opens the door to a whole new future for robotics at the microscale.”
The mild weather is over, with extreme Arctic cold arriving this week and daytime temperatures dropping to minus 10 degrees Celsius.
Original reporting from Karpatmedence. Extreme Arctic cold will put an end to the mild weather this week, with temperatures dropping to minus 15 degrees at night and minus 10 degrees during the day. An Arctic cold wave is expected in Central Europe this week, replacing the unusually mild weather we have seen recently. The strongest cooling may begin around December 23, and a prolonged cold spell can be expected. So much so that daytime highs are expected to range between minus 10 and 0 degrees Celsius. At night, lows between minus 5 and minus 15 degrees Celsius may develop.
The main reasons for the change in weather are the high-pressure system developing over Northern Europe and the polar vortex disturbance in the Atlantic Ocean, according to blikkruzs. A white Christmas is unlikely because, although it will be cold, current forecasts do not predict any precipitation.
A significant change in the weather is on the horizon, with Arctic cold expected to reach our region within days. After an unusually mild December, we must prepare for a sudden cold snap. This could affect everyday life and holiday preparations. According to the latest forecasts, the change will come earlier than previously expected.
The beginning of the month has been characterized by mild, autumnal weather, with temperatures above 10 degrees Celsius in some places. However, the latest meteorological models already show that a cold air mass is moving in from the east. It will also reach Central Europe. This process fundamentally rewrites previous expectations.
According to calculations, the cooling could begin around December 23. Both American and European forecasts confirm that a significant cooling is expected during the holidays. However, there is still uncertainty about the extent of this cooling.
Nighttime temperatures in Hungary could reach minus 15 degrees Celsius
Weather models are not entirely consistent in predicting whether it will simply be colder or whether there will be a real, severe Arctic cold spell. This would be accompanied by easterly winds and very low temperatures. According to some scenarios, there could even be days of ice, when the daytime high temperature would be between -10 and 0 degrees Celsius.
It may be even colder at night, with minimum temperatures between minus 5 and minus 15 degrees expected in some areas. This is especially true around the holidays. The cooling is caused by another polar vortex developing in the Atlantic Ocean. This allows the frosty air to reach further south.
The influx of cold air is aided by a high-pressure system developing over Northern Europe, which can carry the freezing air masses further south with easterly winds. This atmospheric situation is conducive to a prolonged cold spell, even if it is not accompanied by precipitation.
Several civilians were killed and nearly 30 injured, including children, according to local authorities. Homes in seven regions, as well as the capital Kyiv, were damaged.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) noted “tragic reports” of one child killed and three injured in Kyiv, Vyshhorod and Zhytomyr.
“Children facing another difficult, terrifying winter: Young lives threatened. Heating, power and water disrupted,” UNICEF tweeted, calling for an end to attacks.
Drone strikes damaged more than 120 residential buildings in the Odesa region, OCHAsaid. Key energy, port and transport infrastructure, particularly in the port town of Reni, near the border with Romania, were also hit.
The strikes left more than 10,000 customers without electricity, while critical facilities are operating on backup power.
Farther north, strikes damaged energy facilities in Novhorod-Siverskyi, a town in the Chernihiv region, and in Shostka town in the Sumy region.
Parts of Shostka that were already heavily affected by previous attacks were without electricity and heating once again.
Power outages amid winter weather
Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy also reported large-scale power outages in the Khmelnytskyi, Rivne and Ternopil regions, with disruptions recorded in six additional regions.
“With the start of the cold season, the most vulnerable need support most. This violence must stop. Civilians must be protected,” OCHA said separately in a tweet.
Nearly four years have passed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Humanitarian support for thousands
Over the past 11 months, the UN and humanitarian partners have reached more than 430,000 people across the country with emergency assistance following strikes.
This support includes essential medical supplies, healthcare services, and cash assistance – and mostly in front-line regions. Meanwhile, needs are rising in previously less-affected areas as attacks expand.
OCHA reported that an inter-agency convoy delivered eight metric tonnes of humanitarian aid to the community of Novoraiske in the Kherson region on Tuesday.
Items provided included medical and hygiene supplies, charging stations, children’s clothing and mattresses.
Novoraiske is home to some 1,900 people, more than 200 of them children. Several locations there have no access to water, gas or electricity due to the continued hostilities, OCHA said.
As Myanmar approaches elections scheduled for 28 December, the UN’s top human rights official has said that civilians are being coerced from all sides – forced by the military to vote and threatened by armed opposition groups to boycott – in a climate of fear, violence and mass repression.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that the military-controlled ballot is unfolding amid intensified violence, intimidation and arbitrary arrests, leaving no space for free or meaningful participation.
“These elections are clearly taking place in an environment of violence and repression,” Mr. Türk said in a news release. “There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly.”
The first phase of the vote, scheduled for 28 December, is being organised by Myanmar’s military authorities more than four years after they seized power in a 2021 coup, dissolved major political parties and jailed thousands of opponents. Key figures, including former State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, remain imprisoned.
The crisis has since spiralled into widespread armed conflict, mass displacement and economic collapse, further compounded by devastating earthquakes in March 2025 that deepened humanitarian suffering across large parts of the country.
According to the UN human rights office, OHCHR, dozens of people have recently been detained under a new “election protection law” for expressing dissent. Some have received extremely harsh sentences, including three young people in Yangon’s Hlaingthaya Township who were jailed for between 42 and 49 years for hanging anti-election posters.
Prominent cultural figures have also been targeted. Film director Mike Tee, actor Kyaw Win Htut and comedian Ohn Daing were each sentenced to seven years in prison for “undermining public trust” after criticising a pro-election propaganda film.
For displaced communities, the pressure is even more acute. The UN rights office has received reports from internally displaced people in areas including Mandalay region who said they were warned that their homes would be seized – or that airstrikes would continue – if they did not return to vote.
“Forcing displaced people to undertake unsafe and involuntary returns is a human rights violation,” Mr. Türk said.
Threats from armed groups
At the same time, armed groups opposing the military have issued their own threats.
In mid-November, nine women teachers travelling to attend ballot training in the Mon region were reportedly abducted and later released with warnings not to participate. In Yangon, the self-declared “Yangon Army” bombed local administration offices involved in election preparations, injuring election staff and vowing to continue attacking election organisers.
The UN has also raised concerns over the introduction of electronic-only voting combined with expanded surveillance, including artificial intelligence and biometric tracking, warning that such measures could further erode trust in the process and enable repression.
An IDP camp in Kayah state, eastern Myanmar. (file photo)
Pressing for peace
Speaking separately at UN Headquarters, Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said UN Special Envoy Julie Bishop recently completed her third visit to Myanmar, where she met again with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
Mr. Dujarric said Ms. Bishop continues to stress the urgent need for a cessation of violence to enable humanitarian response and recovery, and to keep Myanmar on the global agenda while working toward a Myanmar-led, inclusive and peaceful solution.
Ms. Bishop also briefed the Security Council in a closed-door meeting on Monday on the situation.
Fears of more instability
UN officials have repeatedly cautioned that the vote risks entrenching instability rather than restoring democracy.
In October, the Secretary-General warned that elections held under current conditions risk “further exclusion and instability.”
Several civilians were killed and nearly 30 injured, including children, according to local authorities. Houses in seven regions, as well as in the capital kyiv, were damaged.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) noted “tragic reports” of one child killed and three children injured in kyiv, Vyshhorod and Zhytomyr.
“Children face another difficult and terrifying winter: young people’s lives are threatened. Heating, electricity and water are interrupted”, UNICEF tweeted, calling for an end to the attacks.
Drone strikes damaged more than 120 residential buildings in the Odessa region, OCHAsaid. Key infrastructure in energy, ports and transport, notably in the port city of Reni, near the border with Romania, was also affected.
The strikes have left more than 10,000 customers without power, while critical facilities are operating on backup power.
Further north, the strikes damaged energy facilities in Novhorod-Siverskyi, a town in the Chernihiv region, and Shostka, in the Sumy region.
Parts of Shostka, already badly hit by previous attacks, found themselves once again without electricity or heating.
Power outages during winter
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry also reported large-scale power outages in Khmelnytskyi, Rivne and Ternopil regions, with disruptions recorded in six additional regions.
“With the onset of the cold season, it is the most vulnerable who need support the most. This violence must stop. Civilians must be protected,” OCHA said separately in a tweet.
Nearly four years have passed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Humanitarian support for thousands of people
Over the past 11 months, the UN and its humanitarian partners have provided emergency assistance to more than 430,000 people across the country following the strikes.
This support includes essential medical supplies, health services and cash assistance – primarily in frontline areas. At the same time, needs are increasing in previously less affected areas as attacks increase.
OCHA reported that an inter-agency convoy delivered eight tonnes of humanitarian aid to the community of Novoraiske in the Kherson region on Tuesday.
Items provided included medical and hygiene supplies, charging stations, children’s clothing and mattresses.
Novoraiske is home to some 1,900 people, including more than 200 children. Several places do not have access to water, gas or electricity due to continued hostilities, OCHA said.
