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| Week in Review | 1 February 2025 | | | | | |
| Catch up on this week's must-read stories | | Our top story this week is a full-blown conflict decades in the making, in the east of a vast African nation, that now threatens a regional war. It's a complex story, but the conquest of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's main city of Goma by rebel forces with the so-called M23 group has its roots in the Rwanda genocide against the Tutsis, of 1994. Through daily interviews and updates drawing on the resources of the UN's large aid operation across this volatile region, we've followed every development and tried to explain the competing factors and forces which now threaten a potential war between Rwanda and South Africa – as the international community scrambles to stop the violence in a mineral rich area that is crucial to Africa's future economic development. Our other main story this week is more familiar: although aid is now surging into Gaza on the back of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas at the kind of scale needed, the UN's ability to support its millions of residents is under severe threat from Israel's ban on aid agency UNRWA, which came into force on Thursday. We explain what's going on and why the agency's truly irreplaceable. Uncertainty continues over the US decision to freeze all foreign aid, and its impact on hundreds of UN programmes worldwide, but in a positive development we reported on the change of heart over funding the crucial PREPFAR AIDS/HIV programme in Africa, and a plea from the UN chief to exempt development and humanitarian funds from the aid 'pauseThe story that's made the most significant and alarming headlines this week, is a conflict decades in the making in the east of a vast African nation, that now threatens a regional war. It's a complex story, but the conquest of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's main city of Goma by rebel forces with the so-called M23 group has its roots in the Rwanda genocide against the Tutsis, of 1994. Through near daily interviews and drawing on the resources of the UN's large aid operation across this volatile region, we have followed every development and tried to explain the competing factors and forces which now threaten a potential war between Rwanda and South Africa – as the international community scrambles to stop the violence in a mineral rich area that is crucial to Africa's future economic development. Our other main story this week is more familiar: although aid is now surging into Gaza on the back of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas at the kind of scale needed, the UN's ability to support its millions of residents is under severe threat from Israel's ban on aid agency UNRWA, which came into force on Thursday. We explain what's going on and why the agency's truly irreplaceable. Uncertainty continues over the US decision to freeze all foreign aid, and its impact on hundreds of UN programmes worldwide, but in a positive development we reported on the change of heart over funding the crucial PREPFAR AIDS/HIV programme in Africa, and a plea from the UN chief to exempt development and humanitarian funds from the aid 'pause'. We began the week marking 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camps, hearing the testimony of Holocaust survivors amid an alarming rise of antisemitism. The author of a new book on the aid workers who helped Jews escape the gas chambers of Europe, told us: "don't be neutral, especially not towards human suffering." | | | | | | | | |
| Gazans depend on us for 'sheer survival' insists UNRWA | | The largest UN agency in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, UNRWA, said on Friday that its staff are still providing aid to the people of Gaza and the West Bank including East Jerusalem who depend on them "for their sheer survival", a day after the Israeli parliament ban on its activities entered into force. | | Read more | | | | | | In an AI-enabled world, what is education for? | | If the international community is able to effectively put in place the ethical and practical guidelines proposed by UNESCO and others, AI has the potential to be an extremely important part of an educator's toolkit. But the introduction of this technology is just one part of a much wider philosophical discussion about the effectiveness of education in general in a world that many believe is about to upended by increasingly powerful AI-powered applications. Conor Lennon from UN News asked Matthew Rascoff, Vice Provost for Digital Education at Stanford University, to give his take on the role of education in today's world, after a keynote speech on AI and education delivered at UNHQ in late January 2025. | | Read more | | | | | | 'Nightmare scenario', as Israel UNRWA ban takes effect | | With new Israeli legislation coming into effect on Thursday outlawing Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, international staff have already been forced to leave the agency's headquarters in East Jerusalem for Jordan, after their visas were cut short. The UN is bracing for the "nightmare scenario" which would mean a halt to all operations – a major blow to "all the people it serves" in the region, UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler told UN News's Ezzat El-Ferri from Amman, Jordan. The move represents another blow to multilateralism worldwide, he said. | | Read more | | | | |  | | 'They did miraculous things': The aid workers who helped Jews escape Nazi-occupied Europe | | Long before the United States entered the Second World War in December 1941, American aid workers were fanning out across territory occupied by the Axis powers, attempting to help Jews escape, as their grip tightened. A new book on their work underlines the chaos of the time, and the difficult decisions they had to make, knowing that for every person they saved, many more would be killed. Saints and Liars, by Debórah Dwork, the Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the City University of New York Graduate Center, tells the stories of rescue workers in five key cities as the situation on the ground grew increasingly dire. At the launch ahead of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust marked annually on 27 January, Tracey Petersen, the manager of the UN Holocaust Education Outreach Programme, interviewed Debórah Dwork at UN Headquarters, and began by asking her about the book's title. | | Read more | | | | | | African schools gear up for the AI revolution | | The widespread awareness and growing availability of low-cost tools powered by artificial intelligence is putting them on the radar of African governments and entrepreneurs keen to develop home-grown digital solutions to improving education. | | Read more | | | | | | | | | |
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