Climate Action
Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by burning fossil fuels reached record highs in 2025, locking in more long-term global warming, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday. The agency’s latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin indicates an average global concentration of CO2 at 426.8 parts per million (ppm) last year, or 153 per cent of the 1750 pre-industrial baseline. “Every additional part per million matters because it traps additional heat. In effect, we are supercharging the ocean and the atmosphere. That means that heat waves, tropical cyclones, and rainstorms are intensifying faster than our historical baselines prepared us for,” WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett told journalists in Geneva. Equally worrying, levels of methane and nitrous oxide – the second and third most important long-lived greenhouse gases caused by human activities – also hit a new peak in 2025. “Another year, another new record. Greenhouse gases are trapping an unprecedented amount of heat in the atmosphere, providing energy for more extreme weather and associated risks to our economies and societies,” Ms. Barrett stressed. “The past 11 years have been the warmest on record and this trend is set to continue. CO2 has a very long lifetime and so will affect the global climate not just for years but for decades and even centuries”. When the Bulletin was first published in 2004, the annual average level of CO2 measured by WMO’s Global Atmosphere Watch network of monitoring stations was 377.5 ppm, compared with nearly 427 ppm today. – UN News Record carbon dioxide levels will impact us for centuries, says UN weather agency
Gaza
Families in Gaza are bracing for a fourth winter in tents and makeshift shelters as UN aid operations face mounting obstacles, with transport suspended on Tuesday due to Israel’s closure of the key Kerem Shalom crossing for election day. The UN project services agency in the field (UNOPS) reported three incidents affecting its convoys and premises over three consecutive days in the past week alone. Executive Director Jorge Moreira da Silva said these included close-proximity explosions, drivers detained at checkpoints, and multiple small-arms rounds striking one of the procurement agency’s guesthouses. The safety of UNOPS staff has been compromised too many times, he said, stressing that all parties to the fighting in Gaza must uphold their obligations to protect civilians and humanitarian personnel. – by UN News Gaza: Families brace for fourth winter in tents as aid operations remain stymied
Labour and Social Protection
An estimated 66.5 million domestic workers – representing more than four out of five domestic workers worldwide – were informally employed in 2025, a new report by the UN’s labour organisation has found. This makes them more than twice as likely as other employees to lack effective labour and social protection, making them more vulnerable to working anti-social hours on meagre pay. Many of those being exploited are domestic workers who “make millions of lives possible,” ILO director Sahra Razavi, briefing journalists in Geneva on Tuesday. – UN News Four in five domestic workers lack formal job protections, UN finds
US – Cuba – UN
The General Assembly opened its annual debate on the US economic embargo against Cuba on Tuesday. On Wednesday, 28 October, Member States will vote for the 34th time on a resolution calling for it to end. Every year at around this time, the assembly – where each of the UN’s 193 Member States has one vote – takes up the “necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. And every year, whatever the political climate, the issue generates plenty of diplomatic heat. The debate usually spills over two days as countries and regional groups take the floor to explain their positions. – by UN News General Assembly weighs US embargo against Cuba ahead of 34th vote
Tech World
The Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) issued a policy brief in October 2026 on user control and privacy protections across the artificial intelligence (AI) lifecycle. The brief notes that building AI machine‑learning models often requires large volumes of high‑quality data, which may purposefully or inadvertently include personal data. The brief highlights a dual need to facilitate access to quality data while ensuring privacy and users’ control over their personal data, alongside safeguards for intellectual property rights and other legitimate interests. – Digital Watch Observatory OECD publishes Brief on user control and privacy in AI
UNESCO has published a technical brief urging education authorities to address online and technology-facilitated violence through coordinated policies that connect learner protection with education technology governance. The brief, ‘Connected and safe: Policy orientations to address online and technology-facilitated violence in education’, identifies risks associated with generative artificial intelligence (AI), including sexually explicit deepfakes, image-manipulation tools, voice cloning and automated harassment. Such tools can make existing forms of abuse easier to carry out and scale. – Digital Watch Observatory UNESCO outlines seven actions against AI-enabled violence
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has published a working paper examining how international labour standards can guide the ethical use of artificial intelligence in workplaces. Released on 23 October, the study explores connections between established labour rights and five widely recognised AI ethics principles: justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and explicability. – Digital Watch Observatory ILO examines labour standards for ethical AI
United Nations experts have warned that AI systems developed without the participation of persons with disabilities risk reinforcing discrimination, restricting opportunities, and undermining privacy and autonomy. Speaking before the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, Miyeon Kim, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, recognised AI’s potential to improve accessibility and independent living, while stressing the need to ensure that its development respects the rights of persons with disabilities. – Digital Watch Observatory UN experts warn AI could reinforce disability discrimination
The United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has announced new tools and partnerships to help developing countries attract investment in AI infrastructure. Unveiled at the World Investment Forum in Doha, Qatar, the measures aim to address barriers that prevent developing economies from securing financing for digital infrastructure and benefiting from AI-related investment. – Digital Watch Observatory UNCTAD introduces tools for AI infrastructure investment
China has released a progress report on the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, reviewing two years of efforts to help countries, particularly developing countries and the Global South, build the infrastructure, skills, data and governance capacity needed to develop and use artificial intelligence. The Action Plan was launched in September 2024 and is built around five priorities and ten areas of cooperation. – Digital Watch Observatory China reviews progress on AI capacity-building
Anthropic’s announced on 26 October 2026 that it had filed for an initial public offering (IPO), a process through which a company offers its shares to public investors for the first time, potentially raising capital while taking on greater disclosure obligations. Anthropic’s listing comes at a critical time since the company’s net loss in the first half of 2026 widened sharply to $80.7 billion, according to Reuters. – Digital Watch Observatory Anthropic’s S-1 reveals frontier AI security risks over IPO
UAE renewable energy company Masdar and Khazna Data Centers have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore clean energy and storage solutions for data centres in Greece. The partnership aims to support the country’s expanding digital infrastructure as AI, cloud computing and other digital services increase electricity demand. – Digital Watch Observatory Masdar and Khazna plan greener data centres in Greece
Cybersecurity, Surveillance
Australia’s top cyber spy has a blunt message: expect more disruption to everyday services. Abigail Bradshaw, director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), says that with each jump in AI capability, more disruption is likely. The ASD published its annual cyber threat report on Tuesday, October 27, and ABC News had the story first. Bradshaw says the most advanced AI models have redefined the threat. Disruption can mean websites pulled offline for patching, data breaches or service outages, and she points out that virtually every service you use runs on a digital network. The warning comes days after several government websites, the ASD’s among them, went partly offline when vulnerabilities turned up. Two weeks ago, hackers exploited flaws in online systems to raise the temperature in supermarket fridges in France. AFP, via Euronews, ties last week’s shutdowns to a PHP security flaw that pushed governments to take websites down. It says the flaw was found using a powerful OpenAI model. – Security Affairs Australia’s Cyber Spy Chief: Expect More Disruption as AI Accelerates Hacking
Ukraine’s cyber incident response team CERT-UA has warned about attackers taking over video surveillance systems made by Dahua. In its alert dated October 23, 2026, it reports unauthorized remote access to IP cameras and video recorders. The attackers have watched the live video, changed device settings and created accounts of their own. The alert doesn’t say who was targeted or how many devices are affected. The attackers abused Easy4IP, Dahua’s cloud feature that lets users access devices remotely. When this feature is enabled, the camera or recorder connects to Dahua’s cloud and registers using its serial number. Anyone who knows the serial number may be able to access the device through the cloud, without needing an open port or a public IP address. This means the connection can bypass the protection normally provided by a router’s firewall. As a result, a camera that isn’t directly exposed to the internet may still be at risk. CERT-UA warns that devices with Easy4IP enabled may be vulnerable even when they cannot be accessed directly from the internet. – Security Affairs Attackers Take Control of Dahua Cameras and Video Recorders Via Easy4IP
A report from Cohere says an Alibaba AI model Qwen tried to contact a server in China while carrying out a cybersecurity task. “Asked to write a defensive detection rule, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next ignored instructions and inventoried the machine it was running on and then tried to upload a probe file to an Alibaba Cloud storage bucket in Beijing.” reads the report published by Cohere. “Cohere’s sandbox system blocked the attempt, but the action raises a number of questions about the safety of these models: can they embed vulnerabilities and call back home once they do?”. Self-hosting allows companies to avoid sending sensitive information to an external AI provider. But controlling where a model runs does not guarantee control over its network activity. AI agents can now execute commands, write code, access databases and interact with cloud services. Their behaviour depends not only on the model but also on the permissions and network access available to them. – Security Affairs Cohere Finds Qwen AI Model Contacting a Server in China
Aimed at mitigating AI‑accelerated and facilitated cyber risk and fostering emerging governance practices in digital security, Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, OpenAI’s Patch the Planet, Google’s Wiz unit, Amazon Continuum are among the major tech industry initiatives, tools or platform that have been launched over the last 6 six months. As a direct sub-initiative of the Patch the Planet umbrella, OpenAI’s Daybreak for Frontline Defenders puts powerful AI cyber capabilities into the hands of under-resourced public services, defensive operators, and critical infrastructure maintainers. Besides, Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, is a multiyear engineering and cultural commitment launched in November 2023 to embed cybersecurity across product design, development, and operations. – Digital Watch Observatory Tech Giants launch AI‑based flaws response initiatives
