Democratic Republic of the Congo
More than 28 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are not getting enough to eat and the number is expected to tick up in the coming months, according to the latest alert from the IPC global food security monitor. The DRC continues to confront a severe food security crisis due to persistent conflict in the east, widespread displacement, an expanding Ebola outbreak, economic shocks and the potential impacts of the El Niño weather pattern. The IPC is a UN-backed platform that uses a five-phase scale to classify the severity of food insecurity, with level 5 being famine. – UN News DR Congo: Hunger deepens for millions amid conflict, Ebola and climate shocks
Gaza
Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into ever-smaller areas of the Gaza Strip while destroying civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, warned on Friday amid concerns of ethnic cleansing. OHCHR said that Israel has stated that it aims to increase the area of military deployment to 70 per cent of Gaza’s territory. The relentless contraction of space has caused new displacement in areas adjacent to the “yellow line” demarcation boundary. – UN News UN rights office warns of deepening displacement ‘nightmare’ in Gaza
G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting
The G20 foreign ministers meeting kicked off in Atlanta on Friday without a “family photo” after numerous representatives were expected to walk out rather than be pictured alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Two Western officials told CNN more than a third of attending officials had threatened to walk out of a picture with the Russian foreign minister. According to three sources, the US had explored doing two family photos – one with Lavrov and one without. Ultimately, Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided to scrap the photo – which is a traditional element of most high-level gatherings – altogether, two of the sources said. A US official said Rubio made the decision because he thought the drama around photo would become a distraction and a spectacle that would overshadow the gathering. – CNN G20 photo scrapped amid tensions over Russian foreign minister’s presence
Russia – Africa
Russia is seeking allies and expanding its influence abroad as its war in Ukraine drags on. African governments, meanwhile, are cozying up to the Kremlin for reasons of their own. As he hosted the third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow this week, President Vladimir Putin portrayed Russia as a better partner for Africa than the West, which he accused of exploiting the continent’s resources, maintaining a colonial approach and using debt to hold back development. Russia, he argued, offered a different model of cooperation, one which allowed both parties to prosper through closer ties in trade and technology. “Our business does not engage in the predatory, neo-colonial exploitation of natural and human resources,” Putin said, adding that Russian companies supported local job creation and tax revenues. Delegations from 48 of Africa’s 54 countries attended the two-day gathering. Twenty-two were represented by heads of state, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, compared with 17 at the 2023 summit and 43 at the first meeting in 2019. Such visibility helps Moscow counter its growing international isolation as it grapples with punitive Western sanctions. Will Brown, an Africa policy specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says images of Putin alongside African leaders may matter more than what was agreed at the summit, since they can be reused by Russian influence networks to shape perceptions across Africa and the wider Global South.
“The ‘story’ of the summit is the most important thing,” Brown told CNN. African governments, however, are not simply choosing between Moscow and the West. Tighisti Amare, director of the Africa Program at Chatham House, calls their approach “diversified non-alignment”: keeping ties with several partners rather than committing to one camp. Their reasons differ, she said. Some seek security support, others want agricultural supplies, energy investment, or diplomatic backing. Brown says many governments also use international competition to hedge their bets and secure better offers from Western partners. – CNN Putin is wooing Africa – and the feeling is mutual
Russia – Ukraine (and beyond)
The US State Department approved the potential sale of 500 Patriot air defense interceptor missiles to Ukraine on Friday, according to a department release. Kyiv uses the defensive weapons to blunt Russia’s continuous ballistic missile strikes on its territory, but Ukraine’s supply ran dry earlier this month, CNN previously reported. The deal is for the PAC-3 MSE variant of the Patriot — the most advanced version currently in service — that is one of the few weapons capable of shooting down incoming ballistic missiles. Notably, the purchase is not subsidized or financed by the US, according to the release. Instead, Ukraine is covering the estimated $2.1 billion purchase with funds from Canada, Germany and Norway in addition to a loan from the European Union, the State Department said. The approval comes after weeks of tensions between the US and Ukraine. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced a deal to allow Russian diesel exports to global energy markets and waived a further slate of sanctions related to Russian fossil fuel sales that had only just been signed into law. – CNN US approves potential $2.1 billion sale of scarce Patriot missiles to Ukraine
Each day the ceasefire in Oleshky holds means hope for civilians in the city, the UN’s top humanitarian official said, stressing that those wishing to leave must be able to do so safely and voluntarily. “Let this pave the way for vital aid to get in, and more humanitarian access on both sides of the frontline,” Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said in a social media post, also relayed by the Secretary-General’s Spokesperson on Friday. The ceasefire aimed at relieving the humanitarian emergency faced by trapped residents on the Russian-controlled left bank of the Dnipro, was brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump and announced by the White House on 23 October. It is due to end on the evening of 1 November. Asked whether the UN had played any role in the evacuation of hundreds of people from Oleshky – close to the city of Kherson – spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said it had not, but that it was providing humanitarian aid to evacuees on the receiving end, as they reach the Ukrainian side of the frontline. – UN News Ukraine: Oleshky ceasefire offers ‘hope’ for civilians as attacks on aid vehicles continue
US
A federal judge imposed a sweeping emergency order halting various aggressive tactics employed by the Trump administration in recent days to pressure election officials across the country. “Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” US District Judge Trina Thompson said in her opinion granting a temporary restraining order Friday evening. She said, while her order is in place, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security cannot demand that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voters from voter rolls, or halt ballot processing. Thompson, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, is also blocking threats of criminal prosecutions against election officials from those agencies and said that the administration cannot take other actions that “threaten, intimidate or coerce” election officials to demand changes in ballot processing procedures on claims the voters are ineligible. – CNN Judge imposes sweeping emergency order halting DOJ pressure campaign on election officials across the country
Yemen
More than 280,000 people have now been displaced by fighting in Yemen and many vulnerable people are unable to access lifesaving relief because it is too dangerous to do so, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday. In an alert, the agency said that tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers were struggling to survive. It described a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis for more than 65,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Yemen, as “escalating insecurity, economic collapse, depleting resources and severe humanitarian access constraints leave tens of thousands with nowhere to turn”. Despite intensifying conflict between Houthi opposition fighters and Government forces which escalated last month and ended a four-year ceasefire, thousands of people continue to risk dangerous sea crossings from the Horn of Africa to Yemen, said UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh. – UN News Yemen war makes reaching assistance too dangerous for many
