A poster of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, for World Environment Day celebrated on 5 June. (Credit: Keystone/EPA/Wu Hong)

🇨🇳🌳 Biodiversity talks kick off with a five-day online segment. As China takes over the summit’s presidency from Egypt, the country is using the opportunity to turn around souring attitudes from Western countries. But what will be the impact on the meeting’s outcome?

🤕 The Committee Against Torture is electing five new members on Monday, resuming work after an 18 month hiatus. Gerald Staberock, secretary general of the Geneva-based World Organisation Against Torture, tells us what the impact has been for activists on the ground and why the integrity of the body’s elections is more important than ever.

Women demand their rights under the Taliban rule at a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 3 September, 2021. (Credit: Keystone AP Photo/Wali Sabawoon)

🕊️ An Afghan journalist on her escape. Lima Niazi, a journalist for Voice of America Pashto, recalls reciting her poem, I am President, in the presence of Afghanistan’s former president, Hamid Karzai, as a schoolgirl. Eight years later, Niazi says the freedom to dream of such aspirations for women in Afghanistan – has been dashed.

🎙️ Alarm grows for women journalists under Taliban rule. Every week, reports emerge of new assaults on press freedom and concerns for the safety of journalists in Afghanistan. The country's women journalists are especially at risk and their presence in the deteriorating media landscape is disappearing fast.

📌 12 October | Glasgow, the last chance summit? With less than three weeks before climate talks in Glasgow, this three part event looks at the steps needed at international level at COP26 but also at local level in Switzerland to keep the world from breaching the 1.5ºC limit.

📌 11-22 October | Extraordinary session of the World Meteorological Congress. In an online meeting, state members will discuss progress on the WMO’s reform, as well as support for the global water agenda and the earth data exchange.

📌 15 October | Digital Trust 2025. Speakers will address questions around the lack of digital trust today and if it is justified, based on current privacy and security issues, or exaggerated.