World News In Brief: Sudan conflict intensifies, Global inequality deepening, HIV success amid new medicine, increase in ‘Domicide’ worldwide

In South Kordofan, confrontations between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia and the Sudanese Armed Forces have “intensified in recent days”, the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, said.

This includes a drone strike that hit the Dilling General Hospital this week, killing at least four patients and injuring civilians. 

Violence has also escalated in North Kordofan and the city of El Obeid has faced continued drone attacks over the past five days. 

Aid access ‘restrained’

“Humanitarian access is also becoming increasingly restrained,” Mr. Dujarric said. 

There are growing threats to critical infrastructure and supply routes, including the road between Kosti and El Obeid, raising serious concerns for both humanitarian and the also critical commercial supply chains.

Mr. Dujarric urged parties to follow international law and ensure “the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure and the facilitation of safe and sustained humanitarian access.”

UN rights chief warns global inequality is deepening

The UN human rights chief has warned that the world’s economic system is failing billions of people and putting development goals at risk.

Speaking on Thursday, Volker Türk said more than half of the world’s workers earn a living in the informal economy, often without basic protections like paid sick leave or maternity leave. 

This includes nearly 60 per cent of working women.

‘Devasting consequences’

He said deep inequality is worsening the situation. Over the past two decades, the richest one per cent captured 41 per cent of all new wealth, while the poorest half of humanity received just one per cent.

“The consequences are devastating,” he warned, linking poverty and lack of social protection to exploitation and human trafficking.

With the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development slipping off track, Mr.   Türk urged major reforms – from restructuring global debt and expanding social protection, to measuring progress by people’s wellbeing, not just economic growth.

HIV treatment ‘one of the defining public health successes’: WHO’s Tedros

Once a death sentence, HIV can now be controlled with safe and effective medication.

As a result, the number of annual AIDS-related deaths has dropped by 70 per cent in the past 20 years.

In recent years, the same medicines that are used to treat HIV infection have also been used to prevent it in people at risk.

Progress in mitigation 

Last year, a new medicine was approved for the prevention of HIV, lenacapavir, and was described by World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as the most important development in addressing HIV since the first antiretrovirals were approved almost 40 years ago

Lenacapavir is taken once every six months by people who are HIV-negative but at risk of infection. In trials, it has been shown to prevent almost all cases of HIV in those at risk.

In October last year, the WHO “prequalified” it. Since then, the WHO has supported nine countries to roll out lenacapavir to people at risk of HIV: Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

‘Domicide’ on the increase as conflicts proliferate, warns top rights expert

The mass destruction of homes due to conflict around the world has continued to cause massive destitution and AI has made it far worse, according to Special Rapporteur on housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal.

On the unfolding war in the Middle East, the UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent expert highlighted reports indicating that AI had been used to hit more than 1,000 targets in the first 24 to 48 hours in Iran.

“I hope that the Iran crisis stops gathering momentum, that steps are taken to bring it to a full stop as soon as possible, and that parties return to the negotiating table to sort out whatever differences that they have instead of trying to bomb each other and destroy everything that they’ve taken decades to build.”

Widespread destruction

In his last report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Rajagopal described the widespread or systematic destruction of housing in Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere as “domicide”.

Following his country visit to Guatemala in July 2025, the Special Rapporteur also highlighted the “widespread practice of forced evictions and the criminalization of Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities” there.

He maintained that many evictions were driven by judicial orders following criminal complaints filed by private developers, with little protection from the authorities for those losing their homes or land.