AI chatbots and
AI companions designed to simulate human-like conversation and provide relationships and companionship through generative artificial intelligence (AI) have rapidly evolved from science fiction into everyday reality.
Africa contributes the least to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces some of the world's most severe climate-related health impacts. Several realities define the continent's climate and health landscape – increased infectious diseases, air pollution, death, disruption and pressure on health systems through heatwaves, floods, droughts and storms.
CIVICUS discusses Botswana’s decriminalisation of same-sex relations with Faith Gunda, a Botswana-based law student and human rights defender, a member of the CIVICUS Protest Lab and co-founder of Sisterhood Chain International, a solidarity initiative that supports grassroots groups and amplifies young women’s voices.
In Yemen, increasing funding constraints on humanitarian operations have put millions of civilians in dire need of life-saving assistance amid overlapping crises. Acute food insecurity is a persistent issue, as recent reports from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) give a stark warning of conditions without urgent intervention.
Over the past few years, the humanitarian crisis in Africa’s Sahel region has expanded considerably, largely driven by a surge of violence—particularly in the Central Sahel. Although the crisis has been described by the United Nations (UN) as having “largely faded from the headlines” since its wake in 2012, millions of people across the region are in dire need of humanitarian assistance as civilian displacement, climate shocks, and widespread hunger rapidly spill across borders.
Martin Luther King Jr. , when he received the Nobel Peace Prize, reminded us of “The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of the nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not ‘acceptable’, does not alter the nature and risks of such war. The device of ‘rejection’ may temporarily cover up anxiety, but it does not bestow peace of mind and emotional security.” I have devoted many decades of my life to not ignoring the risk of nuclear annihilation and since 1995 have attended every Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to learn and hopefully contributed to a saner safer world.
As South Africa officially launches the rollout of a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug, civic groups in the country have slammed the plan, saying it will not reach anywhere near enough people.
When the world learned that
Ebola was spreading across parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, one fact stood out above all others: there was no approved vaccine for the virus responsible.
CIVICUS discusses the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla on its mission to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza with Musa Roshdy, a humanitarian activist who took part in the flotilla.
"While pressures on public budgets are growing and geopolitical tensions rising, it can be tempting to see environmental finance as optional. It is not,” GEF Interim CEO and Chair Claude Gascon told the closing plenary of the Eighth GEF Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, today.
Ask any woman miner in the Katoro goldfield in Tanzania’s northern Geita region, and she will tell you that she touches toxic mercury with her bare hands when extracting gold from crushed ore.
In 2026, the population of the United States is significantly larger, older, and more diverse than it was 250 years ago when the country declared its
independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain on July 4, 1776.
Last week on May 28, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) issued an evacuation
order to Lebanese civilians ordering them to move north of the Zahrani River, approximately 25 miles from the Israeli border, and roughly 20 percent of the Lebanese territory. These new escalations bring the displaced population to more than
1.3 million people, including more than
300,000 of those people being children. 1.3 million people represents approximately 1/4th of the nation's population of 5.3 million.
2025 was one of the three hottest years ever recorded.
The years from 2015 to 2025 were the hottest eleven years on record.
While Afghanistan faces a serious shortage of female doctors, the country’s Islamist regime has placed restrictions on female students from graduating, further exacerbating the situation. Female medical graduates are barred from writing their final exams, which provide them with the professional qualification to practice as medical doctors.
‘As record heat sweeps the world, the climate crisis is no longer a warning for the future, but a reality of the present.’
Since May 16, there has been a significant increase in the number of laboratory-confirmed and suspected Ebola cases reported across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), primarily in Ituri Province, with additional unrelated cases identified in Kampala, Uganda. Although the outbreak has remained largely confined to that region, it has been heavily linked to areas affected by insecurity, civilian displacement, and mining-related migration, raising concerns among global health experts that the outbreak could spread without effective monitoring and response efforts.
It is often said that the quality of seed determines the quality of the produce and, consequently, the sustainability of the entire agricultural value chain, influencing everything from crop yields to nutritional value.
The protracted years of conflict in Syria have inflicted profound scars that transcend physical destruction, permeating the psychological well-being of millions.
Sharp surges in energy, fertilizer, and food prices triggered by the ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf strikingly illustrate the deep interconnections between geopolitical conflict, food insecurity, and the fragility of fossil fuel–dependent food systems.
With death being an inevitable outcome, a fundamental question that crosses the minds of practically everyone is: “How am I going to die?”