BULAWAYO & BANGKOK, Oct 31 2025 (IPS)* – From the streets of Bangkok to power corridors in Washington, the civil society space for dissent is fast shrinking.
Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS Global Alliance. Credit: CIVICUS
Authoritarian regimes are silencing opposition but indirectly fueling corruption and widening inequality, according to a leading global civil society alliance.
The warning is from Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General of CIVICUSGlobal Alliance, who points to a troubling trend: civil society is increasingly considered a threat to those in power.
That is a sobering assessment from CIVICUS, which reports that a wave of repression by authoritarian regimes is directly fueling corruption and exploding inequality.
Waste collectors and informal economy workers navigate daily risks and hardships, making social protection an essential lifeline during crises, emergencies and economic shocks in the Philippines.
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MANILA, 29 October 2025 – Danger was a childhood companion for Mark Angelo Jacob. At just 12 years old, while trying to stay in school, he began scavenging at the Payatas dumpsite in Quezon City, Philippines. Child labour shaped his early years living and working in the dumpsite.
Funding cuts are forcing WFP to sharply shrink assistance to hundreds of thousands asylum seekers
Nyibol (carrying baby) and her children arrive in Gambella, Ethiopia, after a days-long trek from South Sudan. Photo: WFP/Michael Tewelde
– Nyibol and her four children crossed from their native South Sudan into Ethiopia last April, feeling weak from hunger. It had been days since their last meal.
“My children are small; the journey was difficult for them,” recalls Nyibol, describing struggling with sickness during a two-week long journey
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 31 2025 (IPS)* – The United States, the largest single contributor to the UN budget, is using its financial clout to threaten the United Nations by cutting off funds and withdrawing from several UN agencies.
Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe
In an interview with Breitbart News U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Mike Waltz said last week “a quarter of everything the UN does, the United States pays for”.
“Is there money being well spent? I’d say right now, no, because it’s being spent on all of these other woke projects, rather than what it was originally intended to do, what President Trump wants it to do, and what I want it to do, which is focus on peace.”
(UN News)* — The UN and its partners are accelerating deliveries of life-saving aid across Gaza, but relief efforts remain constrained by access restrictions and overwhelming humanitarian needs, officials said on Friday [].
Since the ceasefire on 10 October, the UN migration agency IOM has dispatched more than 47,000 relief items, including 2,500 tents, to help families rebuild amid devastation.
“People in Gaza have endured unimaginable loss,” said IOM Director General Amy Pope.
Achieving gender equality and empowering women is not only the right thing to do but is a critical ingredient in the fight against extreme poverty, hunger and climate change.
Women engaged in wage employment in agriculture earn 82 cents for every dollar that men earn, according to a recent FAO report. PHOTO:Sasint/Adobe Stock
Rivers cut by dams, farmland expansion and urban growth are putting food, water, biodiversity and livelihoods at risk unless urgent action is taken.
Bonn/Abu Dhabi, – Nearly one-third of the Earth’s land surface has already been profoundly transformed by human activity, leaving ecosystems degraded and fragmented, according to the Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Ecological Connectivity and Land Restoration, launched on 11 October 2025 at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi.
(UN News)* — The UN human rights office (OHCHR) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has warned of an alarming rise in violence and restrictions by Israeli settlers and security forces against Palestinian farmers, as the crucial olive harvest season gets underway.
Ajith Sunghay said on Tuesday [] that “settler violence has skyrocketed in scale and frequency, with the acquiescence, support, and in many cases participation, of Israeli security forces – and always with impunity.”
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In the first half of 2025 alone, there were 757 settler attacks causing casualties or property damage — a 13 per cent increase compared with the same period last year.
As humanitarian aid dries up, these countries are especially vulnerable
Afghanistan
People lining up for WFP assistance in earthquake-hit eastern Afghanistan. The country faces soaring needs – even as WFP assistance is being deeply cut. Photo: WFP/Arete/Muktar Nikrawa
There are 9.5 million food-insecure people in Afghanistan – a number that WFP fears will rise. WFP has a US$622 million funding shortfall over the next six months.
Tens of thousands of bundles of flatbread are being delivered daily, as part of a broader WFP effort to scale up food assistance to reach 1.6 million people.
Even before the ceasefire, WFP-supported bakeries in Gaza had already resumed bread production, churning out 100,000 loaves a day for hungry residents. Photo: WFP/Maxime Le Lijour
Even before the guns fell silent in Gaza, the cavernous Nuseirat bakery was back in service, churning out hundreds of hot, fragrant loaves for famished residents.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 