Palestinian firefighters work to extinguish a fire following an Israeli strike that destroyed a building in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, 16 June 2025. (Keystone/AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

📢UN rights chief urges governments to ‘wake up’ to ‘horrifying’ suffering in Gaza. Volker Türk opened the Human Rights Council on Monday, urging government leaders to exert “maximum pressure” on Israel and Hamas to end the war, while also appealing for a de-escalation between Israel and Iran.

💸UN slashes global aid plan over ‘deepest funding cuts ever’. The UN’s humanitarian coordination office, Ocha, is revising its 2025 appeal of $44 billion down to $29 billion as it struggles to fund its operations in the wake of waning support from the US and other western donors.

🔄Reset, reform, or repeat? Humanitarianism’s reboot searches for the right script The heads of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee will meet in Geneva today to plot next steps for a “humanitarian reset” – a largely behind-closed-doors discussion to grapple with the Trump-driven funding crisis.

✂️UN refugee agency confirms 3,500 job cuts globally. The agency said it has finalised a review aimed at downsizing its operations to cope with the steep cuts to US funding.

💬Opinion: The resilience of world trade. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization, argues that despite the challenges it faces today, global trade is an underappreciated force for economic recovery with a unique opportunity to reposition itself.

☎️Swiss foreign ministry seeks to verify staff involvement in Gaza letter to Ignazio Cassis. Employees were contacted by HR to confirm if they had signed an internal letter urging Cassis to act on Gaza. While the government cited doubts over its authenticity, some saw the move as intimidation.

🫥The US is a no-show at Bonn climate negotiations. Its absence from the midway talks, which are key to shaping the outcomes of Cop30 in November, could make room for other countries to step up.