UNITED NATIONS, October 15 (IPS) - After two years of conflict with Israel, Hamas has released the remaining 20 living hostages, while Israel has freed 250 Palestinian prisoners and over 1,700 detainees who have since returned to Gaza. Following a ceasefire agreement which took effect on October 10, Israeli forces are set to withdraw from designated areas within the Gaza Strip as humanitarian organizations mobilize to assist Palestinians in urgent need.

WASHINGTON DC, October 15 (IPS) - I moved to the United States in 2012 with great reluctance. I wasn’t sure why I should uproot myself to a country thousands of miles away from my hometown. The move reminded me of a childhood I hadn’t fully embraced—growing up in faraway countries like Russia and China, making constant adjustments, encountering racism, forging and losing friendships along the way. I had promised myself I would not impose the same cycle on my children.

Poverty is not just scarcity. It is exclusion, stigma, and invisibility. Poverty is not a personal failure. It is a systemic failure. A denial of dignity and human rights.

BANGALORE & PAKHIRALAY, India, October 15 (IPS) - Bapi Mondal’s morning routine in Bangalore is a world away from his ancestral village, Pakhiralay, in the Sundarbans, West Bengal. He wakes before dawn, navigates heavy traffic, and spends eight long hours molding plastic battery casings. It’s not the life his honey-gathering forefathers knew, but factors like extreme storms, rising seas, and deadly soil salinity forced the 40-year-old to abandon centuries of family tradition and travel miles away to work in a concrete suburban factory.

WASHINGTON DC, October 15 (IPS) - Countries across the Global South face an accelerating climate crisis, tepid growth, and unsustainable levels of debt. Yet hopes of finding support at the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Annual Meetings in Washington are dim. The IMF is tightening its purse strings — even as it leaves untouched a vast treasure of more than 3,000 tons of gold that offers a prime opportunity to stabilize the global economy.

Bangladesh has begun legal proceedings against security officials accused of sanctioning enforced disappearances and torture under the previous government – a move UN human rights chief Volker Türk called “an important step towards accountability.”

Over 212,000 Afghan children are now at risk of acute watery diarrhoea and other deadly waterborne diseases, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Recovery in Gaza must also include accountability for violations, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

The Secretary-General on Wednesday outlined a set of proposals to strengthen the UN’s effectiveness and improve coordination across its three core pillars: peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights.

Nearly 14 million people could face severe hunger by the end of the year, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Wednesday, as slashed humanitarian funding threatens six of its most critical operations.