People hold up photographs of political prisoners during a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court of Justice in Caracas, Venezuela, 3 March 2026. (Keystone/EPA/Miguel Gutierrez)

🇻🇪At rights council, Venezuela rights abuses struggle for attention as focus shifts elsewhere. As the US-Israeli war with Iran stifles public attention from other humanitarian crises, a general debate at the UN rights council Monday suggested that Venezuela’s long-running rights violations are slipping from the spotlight.

🚸Around 4.9 million children under five died in 2024, says UN. The joint report, produced by several agencies including Unicef, showed most of the deaths were preventable with better access to healthcare and low-cost interventions for challenges ​like complications from pre-term birth.

✂️Aid cuts could not come at worse time for Africa’s forgotten wars, Red Cross warns. In an exclusive interview, the organisation’s Africa director shares a stark warning about escalating conflicts across the continent being ignored.

☢️‘Worst-case scenario’: Middle East nuclear concerns haunt top health officials. The World Health Organization’s regional director for eastern Mediterranean said staff are monitoring the fallout of US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s atomic sites and remain “vigilant” for any type of nuclear threat.

⚛️Scientists at Cern discover a heavier version of proton. The nuclear physics laboratory said a new particle with a structure similar to that of a proton had been spotted in a shower of debris that lit up the Large Hadron Collider. It comes as its new director general, British physicist Mark Thomson, sets out in a separate interview his ambitions for the organisation.