Morning light spreads over Sikaiana, a remote atoll in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific where the ocean both sustains life and threatens it.

NEW YORK, November 7 (IPS) - The New York City mayoral elections captured the world’s attention with an excitement normally reserved for the United States presidential elections. It all culminated on Tuesday night with Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory, signaling that hope was emerging after a period of anxiety and uncertainty for the United States. Zohran Mamdani will represent and govern New York City, one of the world’s wealthiest and most high-profile cities.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, November 7 (IPS) - President Prabowo Subianto welcomed his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil to Jakarta recently to strengthen ties between the fast-growing economies.

UNITED NATIONS, November 7 (IPS) - “Has the world given up fighting climate change?” was a rhetorical question posed recently by the New York Times, perhaps with a degree of sarcasm. It might look that way, says Christiana Figueres, a founding partner of the nongovernmental organization Global Optimism, “as US president Donald Trump blusters about fossil fuel, Bill Gates prioritizes children’s health over climate protection, and oil and gas companies plan decades of higher production.”

Warnings of worsening humanitarian conditions in Sudan continue, despite reports of a ceasefire deal brokered by international mediators on Thursday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is continuing his campaign to accelerate the global switch from fossil fuels to clean energy – “the cheapest source of new electricity in nearly every country.”

Independent UN human rights investigators have heard first-hand accounts of torture, unlawful detention and the forced transfer of civilians during their first visit to Ukraine in more than a year.

Nearly 100 people in Syria have been abducted or forcibly disappeared since January, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Friday, calling for greater accountability from the authorities.

The crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to worsen amid ongoing fighting that has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes and created acute hunger, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, November 6 (IPS) - The Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, is the name given by the Taliban to their religious police, tasked with enforcing strict Islamist rule on the people of Afghanistan. But for Afghan women, the name evokes only fear and terror, as they bear the harshest consequences of its actions.