The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
MANILA, Philippines, Mar 3 2026 (IPS) - Communities globally are increasingly exposed to overlapping threats. Extreme weather, health emergencies and cyberattacks are occurring more frequently and simultaneously, often interacting in ways that amplify risks and strain response systems.
Experts describe this as a polycrisis, where threats converge, creating a complex pressure point for governments, businesses and communities.
Today, a polycrisis is brewing at the intersection of climate change and cybersecurity. The latest Global Risks Report by the World Economic Forum ranks extreme weather and natural disasters among the top global threats, while risks linked to digital and artificial intelligence have climbed up the list.
Over the next decade, these environmental and technological dangers are expected to dominate, underscoring how deeply intertwined they have become.
Asia and the Pacific is increasingly becoming a hotspot for these twin threats. The world’s most disaster-prone region, it faced the highest number of disasters and deaths in 2023, with 66 million people affected and annual losses reaching an estimated US$780 billion. At the same time, the region has become the new ground zero for cybercrime, fuelled by rapid digital transformation during and after the pandemic.
In 2024, it accounted for over one-third of all global cyber incidents, including roughly 135,000 ransomware attacks in Southeast Asia alone, costing the region an average of US$3.05 million per attack. The Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam were among the most affected.
Asia’s geographic exposure and rapid digital growth have turned its climate vulnerability into a growing cyber vulnerability, especially across critical infrastructure and information systems.
As essential services including health, communications and energy depend on digital networks, climate-driven disruptions such as typhoons and floods can force systems into manual workarounds or less secure channels, creating openings for digital breaches at the worst possible moment.
The 9.1 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011 provided an early glimpse into the interconnected climate-cyber risks. In weeks following the earthquake, cyber criminals exploited the chaos with phishing and malware schemes disguised as disaster relief efforts, stealing data and hindering recovery.
So far, cases in the region have largely involved natural hazards, but climate change is intensifying these events, increasing their frequency and severity and placing sustained stress on digital infrastructure, which in turn creates more openings for cyber attacks.
Some researchers suggest that, contrary to prevailing beliefs, climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in addition to other extreme weather events, and all of these events have been linked to spikes in cyber incidents.
Research shows that the likelihood of cyberattacks increases dramatically during natural disasters, as defensive systems and attention are compromised. In the United States, for instance, government agencies and researchers have warned the public of heightened digital threats including scams following hurricanes and wildfires, demonstrating how climate hazards can create openings for malicious actors.
When these vulnerabilities are exploited, response and recovery efforts can be paralysed at the very moment they are most needed.
This convergence of vulnerabilities changes the nature of disaster risk. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction now includes cyber threats in its hazard taxonomies because losses of connectivity and cyber incidents reshape exposure and coping capacity. Treating these threats separately leaves significant gaps in preparedness and response.
Across the Caribbean, interest in the climate-cyber convergence has grown, with governments and partners conducting assessments, dialogues and scenario planning to strengthen shared resilience and ensure that physical and digital systems can withstand compounded shocks. In Europe, researchers are drawing lessons from environmental law to inform and strengthen cybersecurity policies.
Given these global developments, it is concerning that the recent COP30 focused heavily on how technology can support climate adaptation, yet paid less attention to how the same systems become vulnerable during climate-driven disruptions.
Even more worrying is that Asia and the Pacific, despite being highly exposed to both disaster and cyber risk, has not yet shown the same level of integrated response or public alarm seen elsewhere.
The region has robust frameworks for disaster and climate resilience under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, implemented through regional action plans, financing facility and cooperation programs.
At the same time, ASEAN and its partners have cybersecurity policy guidelines that cover digital governance, data management and response to transboundary cyber threats. However, these tracks largely operate in parallel, missing opportunities for integration.
Reports highlight gaps in how climate and cyber risks are managed and financed. Agencies still work in silos, with little joint analysis or shared data, and insufficient tools, financing and capacity to manage combined climate-cyber risks.
Asia and the Pacific has the institutions and expertise to respond, but what is missing is a mindset that treats climate and cyber threats as interconnected. As climate extremes and cyberattacks accelerate, the region cannot continue fighting on two fronts with divided defences.
Building climate-cyber resilience in the region requires integrated planning, strengthened continuity systems and regional cooperation.
First, joint climate-cyber assessments and exercises are needed to map interdependent failures and strengthen coordinated response.
Second, critical services need strong backups, diversified connectivity and tested recovery plans that anticipate physical damage to digital infrastructure, ensuring continuity even during disasters.
Third, financing and cooperation should harmonise reporting for compound events, require safeguards and build pooled insurance, supported by development banks and donors.
The convergence of climate and cyber risks is changing the nature of crises worldwide. Future disasters are likely to involve multiple, interacting shocks rather than isolated events. As this reality enters discussions in platforms such as Davos and ASEAN 2026, attention is turning to the Asia and Pacific region to advance integrated resilience as a policy priority. Delaying action will only compound impacts and put far more lives and futures at risk.
This article was originally published online at Devpolicy Blog. The Blog is run out of the Development Policy Centre housed in the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.
Anne Cortez is a knowledge and communications consultant for the Asian Development Bank’s climate and health portfolio. She also advises the APAC Cybersecurity Fund, an initiative of The Asia Foundation, on strategic communications and policy priorities. Learn more about her work here.
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2026 (IPS) - As the build-up for a proposed “new world order” continues, a lingering question remains: will the country with the most powerful military reign supreme?
The United Nations remains politically impotent. The UN charter is in tatters. The sovereignty of nation states and their territorial integrity have been reduced to political mockery. And the law of the jungle prevails—be it Palestine, Ukraine, Venezuela or Iran.
What’s next: Colombia? Cuba? Greenland? North Korea?
The widespread condemnation of the ongoing conflicts – including charges of war crimes and genocide— has continue to fall on deaf ears.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that under Article 2 of the UN Charter, all member states shall “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
But is anybody out there listening?
Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that warfare on the ground can’t match. Far from its victims, air power remains the height of modernity
Reliance on overwhelming air power is key to what the U.S. is doing in tandem with Israel. Bombing from the skies while not attacking with ground forces is the ultimate way of killing without suffering many casualties.
This reduces political blowback at home in a political and media culture that values American lives but sees the lives of “others” as readily expendable, he pointed out.
“This flagrant war of shameless aggression, launched by the United States and Israel, cannot be contained — much less rolled back — by the typical diplomatic euphemisms and caution.”
The U.S. and Israeli governments, said Solomon, are too completely run by psychopathic leaders who adhere only to the “principle” that might makes right. If ever there were a time that the vaunted “international community” should step up and confront an alliance of reckless outlaw governments, this is it.
The European allies of the United States, he said, should stop their cowardly vagueness and finally step up to demand a halt to this aggression that is setting the Middle East tinderbox on fire. The EU should be threatening huge countermeasures against the United States and Israel unless that pair of sociopathic governments immediately halts their assault on Iran.
“Playing evasive games with Washington makes the leaders in London, Paris, Berlin and elsewhere accomplices to methodical ongoing war crimes”, declared Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”
According to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, the US-Israeli act of aggression against Iran was undertaken in violation of international law and the UN Charter, as they exercised use of force without authorization from the UN Security Council (UNSC) or without a demonstrated threat to their security that would trigger the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
“The attack came amid ongoing nuclear talks between the US and Iran and just hours after Oman’s Foreign Minister – a key mediator in the negotiations – shared details on progress achieved and announced that a breakthrough was near. The attack also mirrors the recent unlawful actions undertaken by the US in Venezuela on 3 January, culminating in the kidnapping of the head of state and setting in motion profound uncertainty for the region and the global order.”
Meanwhile, the Geneva-based UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said it is deeply concerned about the escalation of conflict in the Middle East and its impact on civilians and further displacement in the region.
“Many affected countries already host millions of refugees and internally displaced people. Further violence risks overwhelming humanitarian capacities and placing additional pressure on host communities”.
“We echo the UN Secretary-General’s urgent call for dialogue and de-escalation, respect for human rights, the protection of civilians and full adherence to international law”.
James Jennings, President of Conscience International, told IPS the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran was misguided, illegal, and based on lies. It will retard, not advance, any future nuclear agreement, perhaps for decades.
It was illegal, he pointed out, because it violates both the US constitution and international law as enshrined in the UN Charter. It was based on lies because the nuclear watchdog groups have clearly indicated in essence that “There’s nothing to see here.”
“Trump regularly claims that June’s joint “Operation Midnight Hammer” obliterated Iran’s nuclear capability, yet his weak case for the current “Operation Epic Fury” war rests on the idea that perhaps someday in the future Iran might get a bomb. Several US administrations have worked diplomatically to prevent that, yet Trump tore the agreement up”.
Trump claims to be limited by no law, constitution, or the UN Charter. Guided only by his own morality, as he said recently, he followed Israel obediently in launching a massive war against a sleeping country of 92 million people, said Jennings.
“All the while, his amateur diplomats were negotiating deceptively for a compromise like Imperial Japan did in the run-up to the WW II Pearl Harbor attack. Ask the parents of the more than l00 schoolgirls killed on the first horrifying day of joint US-Israel bomb attacks at Minaj, Iran, and they will probably not see Mr. Trump as particularly moral”.
George W. Bush called himself “The Decider, so he foolishly decided to take the US into two unwinnable wars that most politicians in Washington, and even Trump himself, now consider monumental mistakes. Trump campaigned vigorously on keeping the US out of mistaken Middle East wars that became “Forever Wars,” said Jennings.
“Yet here he is being pulled around by the nose by Mr. Netanyahu. According to a classic rule when launching a war, one must recognize that two things cannot be changed: one is history and the other is geography. It is stunning that the leader of the United States is cavalier about going to war without understanding that or clearly stating the mission’s purpose or end game.”
Pundits and TV reporters are calling the attack on Iran “a war of choice,” said Jennings.
“Why not call it what it really is–a war of naked aggression? Nobody knows when will it end. Trump’s claim that the war will be over in a few days is a cruel joke. The other side gets a vote. Iran celebrated its 2,500th anniversary in 1971. Maybe people who have been around so long know a few things about survival,” declared Jennings.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3 2026 (IPS) - Across the world’s fragile borderlands where insecurity, climate stress, and marginalization intersect, communities often find themselves on the frontlines of violent extremism. Yet these same communities also hold the greatest potential for peace, when given the confidence, tools, and opportunities to shape their own future.
In northern Ghana, through the catalytic support of Denmark, Luxembourg, and the Republic of Korea to UNDP’s primary channel for thematic, flexible funding (Funding Windows), women, youth, and local institutions are redefining what community driven peacebuilding looks like. Through targeted peacebuilding interventions, they are strengthening social cohesion, expanding economic opportunities, and tackling the root causes of conflict.
Youth stepping forward as peace ambassadors, Northern Ghana’s border communities face growing risks of infiltration and recruitment by violent extremist networks operating across the wider Gulf of Guinea. Young people, often unemployed or excluded from decision making, are among the most vulnerable. But with support from the Funding Windows partners, youth are becoming champions for peace.
Surveillance and mobility support for local security actors in northern Ghana is enhancing early warning, border monitoring, and conflict prevention efforts. Credit: UNDP Ghana
Young people in border communities have been equipped with skills to identify early warning signs, counter hate speech, and prevent radicalization within their peer groups. Local language radio discussions, reaching more than 72,000 listeners, have further strengthened awareness of misinformation and the tactics extremist groups use to exploit frustration and fear.
For Alhassan Dasmani, a youth leader in Tempane in the Upper-East region of Ghana, the impact has been life changing:
“We never realized how easily conflict could spread in our communities. Unemployment, misinformation, and peer pressure make us vulnerable, but we also have the power to stop it. What we need is education, vigilance, and opportunities to build a better future.”
Her voice reflects a broader shift, with youth stepping forward to build safer communities.
Livelihoods that reduce vulnerability to extremism
One of the most effective ways to prevent violent extremism is by addressing the vulnerabilities extremist groups exploit: economic hardship, exclusion, and lack of perspectives.
In northern Ghana, the targeted peacebuilding investments are already making a tangible difference. Solar powered water systems are enabling women farmers to grow food year round, strengthening food security and household incomes.
In Yipala, Faustina, a small scale farmer, now supplies vegetables to nearby communities. What began as a modest plot has now become a source of dignity and stability.
“I can finally provide fresh food for my family and earn enough to support my children,” she said.
Training in climate-smart agriculture and support with seeds and inputs have helped women farmers like Faustina produce successful harvests. By enabling economic stability, these livelihood interventions are strengthening the community’s social fabric and reducing the incentives extremist groups often target.
Strengthening local institutions
Preventing violent extremism requires not only strong community engagement, but responsive institutions capable of sustaining peace over time. As part of the peacebuilding interventions, district assemblies, security agencies, and civil society organizations have been trained in conflict prevention. Targeted support including surveillance tools has strengthened border monitoring at the local level.
At the national level, institutions such as the Ghana Peace Council and the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons have strengthened their technical and operational capacity in peacebuilding and arms control, supporting efforts to curb the illicit spread of small arms.
For Anne Anaba, a participant in the UNDP-supported training with Ghana’s Regional Peace Council, the shift has been deeply personal:
“This initiative has exposed us to the reality that we can provide solutions to chieftaincy conflicts and land disputes in our communities. It has rekindled hope in us as peace actors.”
Her experience underscores a critical truth: peace endures when institutions and communities are strengthened together.
Scaling what works
What makes these efforts particularly powerful is the speed and flexibility of Funding Windows resources. By enabling women to lead, youth to rise, and institutions to respond, the combined investment of Denmark, Luxembourg, and the Republic of Korea is contributing to a more peaceful, cohesive, and resilient world.
As one peace agent in Natenga in Northern Ghana put it: “When we work together, extremists have no place among us.”
This is peace built from the ground up. It is what becomes possible when the world invests not only in preventing violence, but in empowering people to shape the future they deserve.
Praise Nutakor is Partnerships and Communications Specialist, UNDP
IPS UN Bureau
BERLIN, Germany, Mar 2 2026 (IPS) - The crisis could scarcely be more dramatic. The US is blocking practically all oil deliveries to Cuba. The island depends on imports for all diesel, petrol and kerosine. Without diesel trucks cannot move, food cannot reach Cuban towns and hospitals will not get any oxygen.
The airports are already without kerosine and several airlines have already suspended flights to and from Havana. The strategy is clear: strangulation. The US extreme right is jubilant; at last, they have found the ‘choking point’ that may finally bring Havana to its knees, 67 years after Fidel Castro’s revolution.
Trump says that negotiations are already under way, outside of declaring that Cuba is a ‘failed state’ and the government there needs to make a deal. But Trump says a lot of things. Even a sober look at the alternatives, however, is fairly terrifying. There are basically four scenarios:
Scenario 1: Cuba continues to be denied oil deliveries. The government can impose austerity measures and commit itself to heroic resistance. But without new petrol or diesel the current crisis will become a humanitarian catastrophe within weeks. Havana could pin the blame for this on the US and with complete justification. For all its own faults, no other Caribbean island could withstand such an oil embargo, whatever its political system. But what good would playing the blame game do in the end? The social and human costs would be horrendous. Without diesel even international humanitarian aid deliveries couldn’t get from the ports to the towns that need them.
Moscow says that it is willing to supply Cuba with oil, but so far it hasn’t followed through.
Scenario 2: Some oil tankers reach the island, perhaps from Moscow, from spot market purchases or from other sources. This could relieve the worst of it, no doubt. But the question remains, to what degree? And for the foreseeable future? Trump’s threats of punitive tariffs and the seizure of proscribed tankers are already sufficient deterrent.
Even Mexico had to pull its support under pressure from Washington. But who else is up for incurring America’s wrath? Moscow says that it is willing to supply Cuba with oil, but so far it hasn’t followed through.
On top of that, Russian airlines are bringing their passengers home and suspending flights. Up until the US military strikes on Maduro on 3 January Venezuela had provided 70 per cent of Cuba’s oil imports. Instead of demanding hard currency payments, it settled for Cuban medical personnel. Who will take over this role?
Scenario 3: The desperate situation intensifies, leading to protests, unrest and the fall of the government. This is what the hardliners in Miami have been dreaming of. But for all the pent-up frustration Washington’s own policy is stymying mobilisation. Already in Venezuela Trump and Rubio ignored the opposition and made deals only with the post-Maduro elite.
If Trump is now saying that negotiations with Havana are already going on and the regime will fall of its own accord, who on the island will be inclined to put themselves on the line in demonstrations or protests? No doubt there’ll be outbreaks of desperation, windows may be smashed and sporadic looting.
But if the message is that only the power struggle between Washington and Havana really counts it makes more sense for the populace to see how things develop, waiting until things have been decided by those at the top.
Scenario 4: The US oil blockade could be lifted in the course of negotiations. But even though Havana has resumed communications with Washington dialogue remains a distant prospect. Some possible steps seem realistic. The Cuba government could order the release of hundreds of prisoners, held in the protests of 11 July 2021.
It could also remove particularly controversial sections of the penal code, push ahead with market reforms or improve investment possibilities for Cuban emigrees. And all without undermining the foundations of the system. This would not only serve US interests, but also many of the civilian population. In return, Washington could permit a resumption of oil deliveries to Cuba from Mexico and elsewhere. Restrictions on remittances from US Cuban expats could be lifted. A first milestone would be reached.
Never been weaker
Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine what kind of common denominator could be found that would ease the tension and usher in some kind of new normal. Cuba has been a worldwide symbol for the left since the revolution in 1959. But the same could be said for the right in the US.
Indeed, the latter would like nothing better than to see it fall. Trump won’t say what kind of deal he wants. But rest assured it will involve Cuba once more within the US sphere of influence and a US-friendly government in Havana.
Cuba really has its back against the wall. Its negotiating position has never been weaker. Venezuela has shown, however, that the US wants more than political alignment and access to resources. It also desires stability. The government in Caracas may have changed, but the military and the police, the state apparatus and even para-military forces remain intact.
Cuba isn’t a complete match in this respect, but if the US doesn’t want to put boots on the ground it will continue to need the state’s existing forces of order: police, military and administration. This gives the Cuban side at least something to bring to the negotiating table.
Nevertheless, Havana will have to cross a lot of red lines to reach an agreement with this US administration. And what’s more, under the constant shadow of the latent threat that Washington will again turn off the oil tap. The US government would be well advised to be pragmatic enough to allow the other side to save face.
But this is unlikely given the intoxicating fantasy of omnipotence by which Washington is currently spellbound. Cuban-born hardliners in the US Congress are already demanding that the Department of Justice bring the 94-year-old Raúl Castro to trial.
Or perhaps everything will be resolved very quickly. The power bloc around Raúl Castro’s family and its associated network controls not just the military and the security apparatus, but also by far the biggest business entity in the country, the military holding GAESA. The profound crisis of recent years has enabled them to invest with grim determination in the expansion of luxury hotels, transferring state-run restaurants into private management and acquiring stakes in lucrative online supermarkets that emigrants in Miami and elsewhere use to support their families on the island.
Could the upshot be a form of capitalism that maintains their economic privileges, with American partners in the hotels, while the old networks retain control?
None of the four scenarios seem entirely credible, but surely one of them, or some combination, will be realised in the not-too-distant future. But maybe not, if all those who are currently mute in fear of falling victim to Trump’s random impulses actually come together. Not out of nostalgia for the Cuban revolution, but to stand up and be counted as the Washington regime calls into question the basic norms of coexistence between peoples and states, whether in Cuba or Greenland.
Professor Dr Bert Hoffmann is Lead Research Fellow at the GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg and Honorary Professor at Freie Universität Berlin.
Source: International Politics and Society, Brussels
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 2026 (IPS) - The United States and Israel launched a joint military strike on Iran on February 28. Iran followed with military strikes on Israeli bases and on Arab Gulf states, including Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The realized threat of a new war has caused alarm for the security situation in the Middle East and its impact on civilian populations.
While the latest outbreak of fighting unfolded in the Middle East, the UN Security Council in New York convened an emergency meeting to deliberate over the military attacks in Iran. The session was convened at the request of Iran and members of the Security Council.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefed the Council on the situation up to that point and condemned the escalating hostilities. “We are witnessing a grave threat to international peace and security. Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world,” he warned.
Under Article 2 of the UN Charter, all member states shall “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” Guterres reminded the Council. He reiterated that there would be no “viable alternative to the peaceful settlement of international disputes” and that “lasting peace” could only be accomplished through diplomatic negotiations.
Guterres also noted that the U.S.-Israeli strikes took place following the latest round of indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran mediated by Oman, which were expected to lead into further political talks. “I deeply regret that this opportunity of diplomacy has been squandered.”
According to Iran, the U.S.-Israeli strikes constituted a clear violation of the UN Charter and a threat to international peace and security. Sayed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s Foreign Minister, said in a letter addressed to Guterres that in response to the aggression, Iran was invoking its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter. This outlines that the Charter shall not “impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense,” and that any actions taken by member states to exercise their right to self-defense must be “immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and the responsibility” of the Council to take actions as it “deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
“The United States and the Israeli regime shall bear full and direct responsibility for all ensuing consequences, including any escalation arising from their unlawful actions,” Aragchi said. Noting the “grave and far-reaching consequences” of a regional conflict, Aragchi wrote of the collective responsibility of the UN and the Security Council to take immediate action and to “discharge their duties without delay.”
Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani of Iran reiterated the point before the Security Council, remarking on the threat to the country’s sovereignty and that actions taken by the U.S. and Israel were in violation of the UN Charter. There is also the added context that the first round of U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Some members of the Council spoke against Iran’s military actions on Saturday and against the regime under Khanmenei as it related to its nuclear program and its “appalling violence and repression against its own people.” The U.K., France and Germany jointly condemned the regime and its attacks on countries in the region.
Acting Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom James Kariuki remarked that the present was a “fragile moment for the Middle East.” As the president of the Security Council for the month of February, Kariuki noted that Iran “repeatedly ignored calls” for a solution to its nuclear program and the seeming lack of cooperation with the IAEA. He stated that Iran “must refrain from further strikes, and its appalling behavior, to allow a path back to diplomacy. ”
“My country, which is a champion of peace and coexistence, never expected to be targeted by wanton aggressions without any justification,” said Bahrain Ambassador Jamal Al Rowaiei. Bahrain was one of the Gulf states targeted by Iranian military forces and currently sits on the Security Council as an elected member. Al Rowaiei condemned Iran for its attacks on residential areas and vital facilities—including a U.S. Navy base—and called for all in “containing this crisis” to protect the stability of the region.
Other member states remarked on the threats to international peace and security. In condemning the military attacks on Iran and the Arab Gulf states, Pakistan Ambassador Asim Ahmad regretted that “diplomacy has once again been derailed,” referring to the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. “These military actions undermine dialogue and further erode trust that was already in short supply,” said Ahmad.
Echoing Guterres’ sentiments, other UN entities and leaders reiterated calls to continue negotiations and to respect international law. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said that he was “deeply troubled” by the situation in the Middle East and expressed that world leaders should choose the “challenging path of dialogue” over the “senseless route of destruction.”
“My heart goes out to the civilians trapped in the crossfire. Regardless of borders, everyone deserves to live without the threat of violence around them,” he said.
Across Iran, civilian infrastructures have been destroyed, leading to scores of casualties. Of note, schools have been bombed by Israeli airstrikes, including a girls’ elementary school in Minab in Hormozgan province in southern Iran. As of March 1, the death toll from this strike has risen to 165, according to state sources.
UNICEF issued a statement shortly after the school bombings, warning that the “weekend’s military escalation in the Middle East marks a dangerous moment for millions of children in the region.” They called for an immediate end to the hostilities and for all parties to uphold their obligations to international humanitarian and human rights law, including the protection of children. “Targeting civilians and civilian objects, including schools, is a violation of international law.”
“Bombs and missiles are not the way to resolve differences but only result in death, destruction and human misery,” said Volker Türk, the UN Human Rights Chief. He added that all parties must de-escalate and return to the negotiating table and warned that failing to do so would only lead to further “senseless civilian deaths” and “destruction on a potentially unimaginable scale.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that they were “closely monitoring” developments, urging restraint to “avoid any nuclear safety risks.”
The U.S. will take over as president of the Security Council in March. It will be a matter of waiting to see the role that this institution will play in protecting the principles of international law and preventing further loss of civilian lives.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Feb 27 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses the criminalisation of dissent in the Philippines with Kyle A Domequil, spokesperson of the Free Tacloban 5 Network, a campaign supporting journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, human rights defender Marielle Domequil and their co-accused and advocating for their release.
Kyle A Domequil
What were the circumstances of the arrests?
In the early hours of 7 February 2020, police and military forces raided the offices of several organisations in Tacloban City. Five people were arrested: Cumpio, a community journalist and Domequil, a Rural Missionaries of the Philippines lay worker, along with Alexander Philip Abinguna, a member of Karapatan’s National Council, People Surge Network spokesperson Marissa Cabaljao and Mira Legion of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Eastern Visayas. They’re collectively known as the Tacloban 5.
The raids followed Karapatan publicly raising concerns about extensive surveillance of its office and other organisations in the city. Days before her arrest, Cumpio reported to the Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility that masked men had been tailing the staff of Eastern Vista, the local news website where she served as executive director. Cumpio was already being followed and Legion received a very suspicious call from a man saying who just kept saying ‘stop it’. Cumpio was able to publish on Eastern Vista about what was happening to them just a few days before the arrest.
The Tacloban 5 have denounced that evidence was planted during the raid. Ammunition, explosives, firearms and a Communist Party flag were allegedly found where they slept, under pillows and mattresses and even near Cabaljao’s one-year-old child’s crib. They were unable to witness the seizure because they were turned away during the search. Authorities also seized ₱557,360 (approx. US$9,600) in cash.
Cabaljao and Legion faced bailable charges of illegal possession of firearms and were eventually granted bail. On top of that, Abinguna, Cumpio and Domequil faced non-bailable charges of illegal possession of explosives. Since their arrest, they remained detained while facing successive charges widely viewed as politically motivated. Now Cumpio and Domequil have been convicted, while Abinguna remains in pretrial detention six years after being detained.
What evidence did the court rely on to convict Cumpio and Domequil?
The conviction rested almost entirely on testimonies from four ‘rebel returnees’, people who claim to have left armed groups and who receive financial support from the military. They testified that on 29 March 2019, they saw Cumpio and Domequil at a camp of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party, handing cash, ammunition and clothing to an NPA commander.
There was no corroborating proof or documentary or photographic evidence, just those testimonies from military assets whose credibility should have been questioned. The defence presented evidence that Cumpio and Domequil were elsewhere that day and they also presented documents of their activities, but the court dismissed this.
The court acquitted Cumpio and Domequil of the illegal possession of explosives and firearms charges, ruling the evidence was based on unreliable witnesses and inconsistent narratives and there was indeed an opportunity for planting evidence. Yet on the same lies and perjured testimonies, the same court found them guilty of terrorism financing and sentenced them to 12 to 18 years in prison.
This verdict is particularly troubling given that in October 2025 the Court of Appeals had overturned a civil forfeiture case against them, finding there was little reason to believe they were connected to the NPA. The Court of Appeals even warned against the hasty labelling of human rights workers as terrorists.
How do anti-terror laws and red-tagging enable cases such as this?
They function as tools of political persecution. Red-tagging labels people as linked to insurgent or terrorist groups without credible evidence. Once red-tagged, they face arrest, harassment, surveillance and threats. It creates a climate where suspicion replaces due process.
The anti-terrorism law contains vague, overly broad provisions. Authorities can associate community organising humanitarian work and journalism with armed groups, even without intent to commit violence. Cumpio was reporting on red-tagging and illegal searches before her arrest. Her radio programme was also red-tagged.
Public vilification combined with expansive security legislation produces a repeatable pattern: stigmatise, raid, charge and detain for years. Cumpio and Domequil’s case reflects this architecture of repression.
Who celebrated their conviction, and what does that reveal?
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) celebrated the verdict as a ‘decisive legal victory against terrorism’. NTF-ELCAC is a government body that systematically targets activists, human rights defenders and journalists through red-tagging. It has repeatedly accused Karapatan of being a communist front. It labels legitimate civil society organisations as terrorist supporters, creating the pretext for raids, arrests and prosecutions.
When a court convicts a community journalist based on compromised testimony and the government’s counter-insurgency apparatus celebrates, it reveals the conviction’s true purpose: silencing dissent and punishing those who document abuses.
What’s happened to the other members of the Tacloban 5?
Cabaljao and Legion were released on bail, but not without suffering frozen assets, multiple cases, extended detention and relentless red-tagging. Abinguna remains in pretrial detention and his trial continues at Tacloban City Regional Trial Court, where the prosecution has so far presented fewer than half its listed witnesses, effectively delaying proceedings and prolonging his detention.
While detained, Abinguna was hit with additional trumped-up charges: double murder and attempted murder, based solely on testimony from a ‘rebel returnee’ who tried to link him to an alleged NPA ambush in October 2019. Cumpio faced the same charges until a court granted her motion to quash them in November 2025. Abinguna’s motion was denied.
Beyond this case, what does Karapatan’s documentation reveal about the broader pattern?
Karapatan documents arbitrary imprisonment, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and militarisation across the Philippines. We conduct fact-finding missions, file cases through courts and international human rights bodies, provide psychosocial support to victims and help organise victims’ families.
Under the current government, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 have been aggressively enforced not to protect the public, but to persecute critics and suppress dissent.
The Tacloban 5 case exposes how counter-terrorism laws, fabricated charges, judicial harassment and years of unjust detention silence activists, humanitarian workers, human rights defenders and journalists. It’s not an isolated incident; it’s a deliberate strategy.
According to our latest data, there are around 700 political prisoners in the Philippines. Many face the same pattern: red-tagging, questionable raids, planted evidence, reliance on testimony from military assets and prolonged detention.
What happens next?
The case is under appeal. All available legal remedies are being pursued. The conviction needs rigorous review, particularly of due process violations and evidentiary standards in terrorism-related cases. Courts must ensure national security claims don’t override fundamental rights.
But we need more than case-by-case appeals. Structural reforms are essential. Red-tagging must be explicitly prohibited with those responsible held accountable. The anti-terrorism law must be repealed or fundamentally amended to prevent misuse against human rights defenders and journalists. Safeguards must be strengthened to prevent unlawful raids, evidence-planting and security force abuses. NTF-ELCAC must be held accountable for its role in criminalising dissent.
Ultimately, prevention of similar cases requires the dismantling of mechanisms that treat dissent as crime. Without accountability and structural reform, the criminalisation of activism will continue.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 27 2026 (IPS) - Your morning cup of coffee could soon cost more, thanks to climate change, which is raising the heat on the production of the world’s most loved beverage.
Increased episodes of high heat in top coffee-growing regions of the world are affecting the production of coffee, leading to low harvests and high prices for consumers. This is the finding of a new study by Climate Central, highlighting the urgency for coffee farmers to adapt to adverse weather conditions. Coffee plants are highly sensitive to weather changes.
Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Indonesia – the top five coffee-producing countries – have each experienced 57 extra days of harmful heat per year on average due to climate change, according to Climate Central, a non-profit organisation of independent scientists and communicators researching climate change. The five countries collectively supply 75 percent of the world’s coffee.
High Heat, Low Coffee
An analysis by Climate Central compared observed temperatures from 2021 to 2025 to a hypothetical world without carbon pollution using the Climate Shift Index. The analysis calculated the additional number of days per year that climate change pushed temperatures above the coffee-harming threshold of 30°C (86°F) across the major coffee-producing countries.
“When temperatures rise above this threshold, coffee plants experience heat stress that can reduce yield, affect bean quality, and increase the vulnerability of plants to disease,” the study said, noting that climate change threatens a reduced supply and quality of coffee, not to mention higher prices for the most favoured beverage.
The world drinks an estimated 2.2 billion cups of coffee every day. The United States is the world’s largest consumer of coffee by volume. Finland is the largest consumer of coffee per person, at four cups a day per person, according to Statista.
Smaller harvests and higher prices hit smallholder farmers the hardest. Smallholder farmers account for about 80% of global producers and about 60 percent of global supply but received just 0.36 percent of the financing needed to adapt to the impacts of climate change in 2021. The average cost of adaptation for a 1-hectare farm is USD 2.19 a day — less than the price of a cup of coffee in many countries.
“The world’s coffee supply is under growing pressure and climate change is playing a significant role,” says the study.
All 25 coffee-growing countries examined – representing 97% of global production – experienced more coffee-harming heat because of climate change. On average, each country experienced 47 additional days per year with temperatures harmful to coffee plants that would not have occurred without fossil fuel pollution.
Shel Winkley, a meteorologist with Climate Central, said global coffee prices have reached record highs during the last five years and climate change has added more ‘coffee-harming’ heat above 30°c across the global bean belt.
“Heat stress can reduce both the quality and quantity of harvests, meaning less coffee, higher prices and a more costly morning routine and afternoon pick-me-up,” said Winkley in a statement. “Farmers are doing their best to adjust, like planting shade trees that naturally cool coffee plants, attempting to protect future harvests in our warming world.”
Cooling coffee, protecting harvests
In Ethiopia, one of the largest coffee producers in the world, farmers are feeling the heat.
Dejene Dadi, General Manager of Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (OCFCU), a smallholder cooperative that is one of the largest coffee producers and exporters in Ethiopia, highlighted that the Ethiopian Arabica is sensitive to direct sunlight and needs sufficient shade to produce more beans.
“To safeguard coffee supplies, governments need to act on climate change,” said Dadi, adding that, “They [government] must also work with, and invest in, smallholder coffee farmers and their organisations so we can scale up the solutions we need to adapt.”
The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperatives Union (OCFCU) has distributed energy-efficient cookstoves that reduce the need for firewood and protect forest areas that serve as natural shelters for coffee cultivation. More than 19 000 efficient “Mirt” and “Caltu” cookstoves have been distributed to coffee farmers in Jima, Ethiopia, replacing traditional fires. The project, according to the Union, has reduced 20,323 tCO₂e/year and saves half of the fuel needs.
In 2025 Ethiopia exported 467,000 tonnes of coffee to the European Union for the 2024/2025 farming. Ethiopia and Uganda account for 80 percent of Africa’s total coffee exports, mainly to the European market, according to the International Coffee Organization (ICO).
A 2022 study predicted a massive decline in the suitable land for growing arabic coffee by 2050 as a result of rising temperatures. Already the IPCC forecasts that the world is on course to surpass the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. Any further rise in temperatures could lead to the loss of the
Coffee farming provides income for around 12.5 million farming families globally and is one of the top traded commodities.
While in Colombia, another world-top coffee producer, farmers experienced extreme heat with an average of 70 extra coffee-harming hot days annually because of climate change.
Eugenio Cifuentes, from Tuluá, Valle, Colombia, who has been farming coffee for 25 years and co-founded the Colombian Organic Coffee Growers Association, ACOC-Cafe Sano, said Colombian coffee farmers were battling against heat, drought and erratic rainfall. They need training and funding to adapt to climate impacts.
“We need to eliminate monoculture farming – which relies on chemical fertilisers and pesticides to produce a single crop – in favour of practices such as agroforestry that work with nature to build climate resilience,” he said.
“You can see and feel the benefits on my farm where I planted trees to protect the coffee from the heat. In 2024 – a hot and dry year – the cooling effect of the trees helped maintain the quality and quantity of production, whereas the neighbouring monoculture farms had serious quality problems.”
India is the seventh largest producer of coffee globally and a top exporter as well. The country produces arabica and robusta coffee under shade. Arabica and robusta coffee make up 99 percent of the coffee consumed globally out of the more than 120 coffee species grown around the world.
In India, Sohan Shetty, who manages a number of biodiversity-rich shaded organic coffee farms for Satyanarayana Plantations in the Western Ghats, has experienced increased temperatures and erratic rainfall.
“We see a reduction in soil moisture, even in shade-grown coffee,” Shetty said. “This creates stress for coffee plants, which in turn triggers blossoms with erratic rains. So it’s quite common to see planters halting harvesting because part of their plants have blossomed.
Akshay Dashrath, co-founder and grower at the South India Coffee Company, produces coffee at his Mooleh Manay farm.
Dashrath said climate change was no longer something they predicted but something they measured daily owing to higher temperatures and higher moisture loss than what the coffee in the region depended on.
“Coffee is a crop that thrives on balance. Shade, moisture, and cool recovery periods. As that balance narrows, farms like ours and our partner farms have to adapt fast through better shade management, soil health, and water resilience. What’s happening at Mooleh Manay is a clear signal that climate change is already reshaping how coffee is grown in Kodagu,” said Dashrath.
IPS UN Bureau Report