An elderly woman evacuated from the Kursk regional border area with Ukraine, waiting to receive humanitarian aid and medical care delivered by the Russian Red Cross in Kursk, Russia, 10 September 2024. (Keystone/EPA/Stringer)

🇷🇺Red Cross pushes back over accusations against Russian chapter. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies rejected accusations that the Russian Red Cross is amplifying Kremlin propaganda or operating in occupied Ukraine in violation of international law, arguing that national societies engage with all parts of society, including the military, and insisting that the local branches set up in occupied areas are independent from the Russian organisation.

💰Rebuilding ‘human-made abyss’ in Gaza will cost at least $70bn, UN says. A UN trade and development report found that Gaza's economy shrank by 87 per cent across 2023-2024, while violence, settlement expansion, labour restrictions and withheld tax have “decimated” the West Bank’s economy.

🌾UN food agency projects northern Nigeria to experience hunger at unprecedented level in 2026. The World Food Programme warns that escalating militant violence could push 35 million people into severe hunger next year – the highest figure ever recorded in the country and the continent. Thousands in conflict-hit Borno state could face famine-like conditions.

🥡Three Cop30 takeaways for humanitarians. A climate summit marked by tensions, half commitments on adaptation, little progress on loss and damage and efforts to sidestep the climate-conflict link failed to live up to high expectations.

💭Opinion: Hopeful signs are emerging from the US global health strategy. Partnerships with Gilead and Zipline show the openings created by the Trump administration’s business-driven development approach, argues former USAid administrator and Republican lawmaker Mark Green.