The new Clean Industrial Deal outlines concrete actions to turn decarbonisation into a driver of growth for European industries. It’s a bold business plan to support the competitiveness of EU industry, decarbonise faster and secure the future of manufacturing in Europe.
The campaign has been extended until Wednesday to ensure full coverage, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at the regular news briefing in New York, citing UN humanitarian coordinators.
As of Monday, the third day of the campaign, some 548,000 children had been inoculated, or 93 per cent of the target population.
Humanitarian partners have been working to expand aid distribution since the fragile ceasefire began last month.
According to latest news reports, the Israeli Government is seeking to extend the first stage of the agreement, threatening to resume fighting without progress in talks this week on phase two.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered over 30,000 metric tonnes of food, with more than 60 community kitchens across the Strip distributing nearly 10 million meals.
Similarly, the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has provided food parcels to two million people and flour to 1.3 million.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also delivered animal feed in northern Gaza for the first time since the ceasefire, benefiting livestock-owning families in Gaza City and Deir al Balah.
Efforts are also underway by partner organizations to repair and reopen schools that had been used as shelters for displaced families in Rafah, Khan Younis, and Deir al Balah.
Despite the steady flow of aid, children in Gaza continue to suffer.
The head of Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday that six children died from the severe cold in recent days, bringing the total number of cold-related child deaths to 15, Mr. Dujarric said.
In the West Bank the security situation remains volatile, with Israeli military operations in the north leading to further casualties, mass displacement and destruction of essential infrastructure.
A two-day military operation in Qabatiya, Jenin governorate, ended Monday, Mr. Dujarric said.
The operation involved bulldozers and exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Palestinians, as well as detentions, disruption to electricity lines, water lines, and school closures.
“We once again warn that lethal, war-like tactics are being applied, raising concerns over use of force that exceeds law enforcement standards,” Mr. Dujarric emphasised.
Since the end of January, a wave of extreme brutality has led to widespread loss of life and the displacement of over 6,000 people in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
“We are deeply alarmed and appalled by the unacceptable and inhumane intensity of violence in Haiti,” the Haiti Humanitarian Country Team, which is made up of UN agencies, national and international NGOs and donors, said in a statement.
Entire families were killed in their homes, while others, including children and babies, were shot dead as they tried to escape.
The killings follow a massacre last December, when an outbreak of violence in the commune of Cité Soleil in Port-au-Prince led to the execution of more than 200 people by the Wharf Jérémie gang.
According to the UN, the daily life of many Haitians is marked by violence, fear, exhaustion, hunger, disease and an uncertain future. Women, girls and children are increasingly at risk, particularly that of sexual violence.
By the end of 2024, violence had claimed the lives of at least 5,600 Haitians and displaced more than a million.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms any attack against the civilian population and infrastructure, in this case the one that targeted the hospital of the State University of Haiti on February 13. These acts violate human rights and deprive the most vulnerable of essential vital services,” said Humanitarian Coordinator Ulrika Richardson.
On the ground, the humanitarian community is showing its determination to continue providing life-saving assistance to millions of children, women and men in vulnerable situations.
Beyond immediate humanitarian assistance, the agencies are also committed to coordinating efforts with development and peacebuilding actors, so that these collective efforts contribute to sustainable solutions that build community resilience.
“The mobilization actions of the international community in favour of Haiti will continue in order to guarantee the necessary funding to meet urgent needs and restore the dignity of the affected people,” the Humanitarian Country Team stressed.
The UN continues to support people who have been displaced by ongoing violence in Haiti.
An appeal for $908 million to help some 3.9 million Haitians facing food insecurity, in a country where basic services are nearing collapse, has been launched by the UN.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released the 2025 humanitarian response plan on 19 February, which focuses on addressing acute needs caused by recent events, including armed violence, forced displacement, epidemics, and the consequences of natural disasters.
The funding is earmarked to tackle Haiti’s profound challenges, including mobile teams to help humanitarians deliver aid, protection against sexual exploitation and abuse, and programmes aimed at supporting the country’s long-term development.
“While a number of countries argue that it lies within their national sovereignty, from my perspective, it is incompatible with human dignity and the right to life,” the High Commissioner told Member States, during a discussion about the contribution of judiciaries to advancing human rights over the issue.
The punishment had “no place” in the 21st century, Mr. Turk, continued, noting that “the top executing countries over recent years” include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the United States.
Latest UN data indicates that in 2023, 1,153 executions took place in 16 countries, representing a 31 per cent increase from 2022 and the highest number in the past eight years.
“That followed a 53 per cent increase in executions between 2021 and 2022,” the High Commissioner said, adding that the figures do not take into account China, “where there is a lack of transparent information and statistics on the death penalty. I call on the Chinese authorities to change this policy and join the trend towards abolition.”
Although drug-related offences do not meet the “most serious crimes” justification for executions under international human rights law, they account for more than 40 per cent of death penalty executions – the highest number since 2016.
“This proportion has also risen sharply over the past two years, and almost all of these executions took place in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Mr. Türk explained.
In more positive developments and despite a global rise in executions, a growing number of countries are abolishing the practice – spurred by the Global South.
Today, 113 countries have scrapped the death penalty completely. This includes Zimbabwe – where President Emmerson Mnangagwa approved a law ending executions at the end of 2024 – along with 26 other countries in Africa.
Key to abolition are judicial reform and discretion in commuting executions to lesser punishments, the High Commissioner insisted. Malawi and Malaysia have implemented such reforms, leading to fewer death sentences, Mr. Türk continued, as he called for greater efforts globally to ensure fair trials and avoid wrongful convictions.
He urged nations to move towards the complete abolition of the death penalty, advocate for moratoriums, and ensure that the death penalty is only used for the most serious crimes.
Also addressing the Council, Zimbabwe Attorney General Virginia Mabiza explained that the death penalty had been introduced by colonial rulers in the 18th century, enduring beyond the country’s independence in 1980.
She said that more than 56 per cent of the population wanted the death penalty to remain in the statute books when asked in 1999, while between 1980 and 2005, 105 convicted offenders were executed.
“Since then, no other executions have been carried out in Zimbabwe, and this can be attributed to policy decisions coupled with judicial discretion against capital punishment,” the Attorney General told the Council.
Ms. Mabiza noted that a wide range of offences had been formerly punishable by the death penalty including conspiracy and attempted robbery, but by 2013, only a murder conviction could lead to death for the convicted offender, in compliance with the UN General Assembly resolution on reducing the number of offences that attract the death penalty.
And pointing to several instances where the Supreme Court in Harare determined that the death penalty constituted a violation of a prisoner’s human rights, Ms. Mabiza said that sentences were “often commuted death sentences to life imprisonment”.
We’re celebrating here: on 25 February, our very own Europa website is turning 30. What started as a website small enough to fit on a CD-Rom is now a web domain that includes 800 websites, attracting around 300 million visitors a year. Throughout the last 30 years, the Europa website has remained true to its original mission: to bring the European Union closer to citizens and communicate what the EU does for them.
The European Commission launched the Europa website in 1995, just in time for a G7 conference that took place at the time. During that event, Klaus Hänsch, then President of the European Parliament, said: “Access to information on information must be available to all” – something which still rings true today. In this era of disinformation, people, of course, want reliable information from sources they can trust, and that is what the Europa domain stands for.
The original Europa website was operated by the Commission and published in three languages. With email not yet widely available, the website team used to receive information via fax from different services and retype it manually before publishing on the website. The site’s come a long a way since then. Content has multiplied, other EU institutions have got on board, and technology has continued to advance. Europa now publishes information in 24 languages and certain other non-EU languages, like Ukrainian, Chinese and Arabic.
We have archives that include video footage and photos of Europa, some of which mark big moments in our history. They are stored on the EU’s Audiovisual Service, which along with us, is also celebrating an anniversary of its own. We send them our best wishes!
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From the archives: see the first Europa website
The Ombudsman has made a series of suggestions to the European Commission to help it monitor EU funds granted to Member States for border management and ensure their use does not result in fundamental rights violations.
In particular, she suggested the Commission create guidelines for assessing compliance by Member States with fundamental rights throughout the entire duration of funding programmes. These guidelines should include the need to take into account independent sources of information on potential rights violations and establish public criteria for withholding or suspending EU funding.
The Ombudsman’s inquiry into this issue follows a complaint from several non-governmental organisations who had raised concerns that the Commission has failed to effectively monitor EU-funded border management activities in the face of persistent allegations of human rights violations by the Greek authorities.
In its assessment of comp
Israel: Press remarks by High Representative Kaja Kallas after the EU-Israel Association Council
On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU has condemned Russia’s unprovoked aggression, imposed wide-ranging sanctions, and offered unwavering support to Ukraine. The EU will stand with Ukraine until it achieves a just and lasting peace.
In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU reacted swiftly and decisively, condemning Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified aggression, imposing wide-ranging sanctions, and offering Ukraine its unwavering support. The EU remains committed to supporting Ukraine until it achieves a just and lasting peace.
Strong and comprehensive EU response
The EU has provided almost €135 billion in support to Ukraine, including economic, military, financial, and humanitarian aid. It continues to work with international partners to ensure sustained support and hold Russia accountable.
Hard-hitting sanctions have significantly weakened Russia’s economy and war capabilities. The EU is also working to ensure those responsible for war crimes face justice through the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine in The Hague.
Peace, reconstruction, and Ukraine’s European future
On the third anniversary of the invasion, President von der Leyen and the College of Commissioners are visiting Kyiv. The President is meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and together, they are co-chairing a College-to-Government meeting to discuss Ukraine’s future as a free and sovereign nation.
The EU continues to work with Ukraine on its EU accession process. Ukraine’s progress towards EU membership reflects the will of its people for democratic reforms and a European future.
After the war, Ukraine will require extensive reconstruction. The EU has been actively contributing to the country’s resilience and recovery, but further support will be needed to rebuild a free and prosperous country, anchored in European values and well-integrated into the European and global economy.
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On the opening day of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Secretary-General rounded on “warmongers who thumb their nose at international law, international humanitarian law and the UN Charter”.
To date, Ukraine has seen more than 12,600 civilians killed, many more injured and entire communities reduced to rubble, Mr. Guterres told the UN’s top human rights body. “We must spare no effort to bring an end to this conflict, and achieve a just and lasting peace in line with the UN Charter, international law and General Assembly resolutions, he insisted.
“One by one, human rights are being suffocated,” Mr. Guterres continued, singling out the “autocrats crushing opposition because they fear what a truly empowered people would do”, amid “wars and violence that strip populations of their right to food, water and education”.
Turning to the “precarious” ceasefire in Gaza, the UN chief insisted that a resumption of hostilities must be avoided at all costs for the sake of the enclave’s people who have endured 15 months of constant Israeli bombardment. Mr. Guterres also expressed deep concern about rising violence in the occupied West Bank by Israeli settlers – “and other violations, as well as calls for annexation”.
“It’s time for a permanent ceasefire, the dignified release of all remaining hostages, irreversible progress towards a two-State solution, an end to the occupation, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, with Gaza as an integral part.”
In a wide-ranging speech to the world’s top human rights forum, the UN Secretary-General also called for diplomacy and dialogue to help resolve horrific, ongoing rights violations from the Sahel to Myanmar, Haiti and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“We see a deadly whirlwind of violence and horrifying human rights abuses, amplified by the recent M23 offensive, supported by the Rwandan Defense Forces – as more cities fall, the risk of a regional war rises,” Mr. Guterres said. “It’s time to silence the guns; it’s time for diplomacy and dialogue.”
And amid growing intolerance towards many of society’s most vulnerable and marginalized people – from indigenous peoples, to migrants, refugees, the LGBTQI+ community and persons with disabilities – the UN Secretary-General also criticized the voices of “division and anger” for whom human rights threaten their quest for “power, profit and control.”
Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the opening of the 58th session of the Human Rights Council.
Echoing the UN chief’s concerns that human rights are “being pummelled hard” today, putting at risk 80 years of multilateral cooperation embodied by Organizations, UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned that the international system “is going through a tectonic shift, and the human rights edifice we have built up so painstakingly over decades has never been under so much strain”.
Beyond Ukraine, where Russian attacks have created “wanton destruction”, Mr. Türk told the Council’s Member States that the suffering borne by Gazans and Israelis since the Hamas-led attacks that sparked the war in October 2023 had been “unbearable”.
The UN rights chief also repeated his call for an independent probe into grave violations of international law “committed by Israel in the course of its attacks across Gaza, and by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups”.
Mr. Türk also condemned as “completely unacceptable” any suggestion that people can be forced from their land – amid proposals floated by the United States that Gazans should be resettled outside the devastated Strip.
His comments came on the opening day of the Human Rights Council in Geneva which meets in three scheduled sessions throughout the year. March is traditionally the “high-level” session where top national representatives rub shoulders at the Palace of Nations in Geneva.
Nigh-on six weeks of debates are slated to discuss emergencies in around 40 countries – from Belarus to DR Congo, DPRK/North Korea, Haiti, Sudan, Ukraine and more – along with thematic issues and some 80 reports from top independent rights experts and the UN human rights office, OHCHR – on disability rights, genocide, children in armed conflict and torture, among others – until the 58th session ends on Friday 4 April.
The Human Rights Council is the world’s principal body for discussions and action on human rights. It was founded in 2006 and has 47 Member States, although all 193 countries belonging the UN can take part as observers.
