Demonstrators and lawmakers protest on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, against president Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s disruptions of the federal government, including the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, USAID, 5 February 2025. (Keystone/AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

💼‘We’ve had to shut down field operations’: Geneva NGOs grapple with tough choices. International Geneva is under pressure as its NGOs start to feel the impact of the US funding freeze and grapple with uncertainty about what may come next.

😶‍🌫️Bern reluctant to act as international Geneva NGOs struggle. The loss of US funding has plunged Geneva’s international network into uncertainty. Some parliamentarians argue that federal support is needed – but their pleas may be falling on deaf ears.

✂️IRC cutting thousands of staff after US aid freeze. The International Rescue Committee is the latest to announce cost-cutting measures following the US aid funding freeze, including scrapping a planned two per cent staff pay raise in some countries and a 20 per cent pay cut for its leadership board.

👑Hundreds of Iranian monarchists demonstrate in Geneva. Over 500 demonstrators, carrying flags of the former imperial regime alongside Israeli banners, gathered in the Place des Nations in support of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted despotic Shah of Iran. The Iranian opposition figure was in Geneva for a human rights summit.

💱WTO holds 'constructive' talks on global trade tensions. Countries called for restraint amid US-China tit-for-tat tariffs during trade talks that involved the United States, Nicaragua, Namibia, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago and Russia.