World News in Brief: State-supported safe houses in Haiti, EU pact strengthens refugee protection, demand for ‘critical minerals’ intensifies
According to gender equality agency, UN Women, the new haven announced on Friday will provide survivors with protection, psychosocial support and assistance rebuilding their lives amid escalating gang violence.
Speaking from Port au Prince, the agency’s Marie Goretti Nduwayo said that growing gang violence – which has caused rampant insecurity and mass displacement – used to be concentrated in the Haitian capital but was “now spreading across the country,” forcing thousands more from their homes.Lasting traumaThe result is deep and lasting trauma, mainly for women and girls.Ms. Goretti Nduwayo cited data showing that sexual violence surged by 163 per cent in 2025, compared with the previous year. This includes approximately 1,670 women and nearly 200 girls.UN Women supports all women and girls in Haiti by working with the authorities to provide lifesaving assistance and help them rebuild their lives.Haiti’s first State-backed safe house represents an important milestone confronting gender-based violence, the agency said.Race for critical minerals intensifies amid clean energy transitionAs countries race to build cleaner energy systems and expand access to digital technologies, it’s clear that a new global competition is taking shape around so-called “critical minerals”. The scare commodities – which include “rare earths” which are hard to mine in sufficient quantity – power everything from electric vehicles and batteries to semiconductors and data centres.A new UN trade and development agency (UNCTAD) report warns that demand for minerals including lithium, graphite, copper, cobalt and nickel, is set to surge over the coming decades. Lithium demand alone is projected to rise by more than 350 per cent by 2040.But the challenge is not only growing demand, it is who controls supply. Production and processing remain concentrated in a handful of countries.
