The latest revelations on government surveillance show that British and American intelligence agencies targeted charitable organizations including the UN's children's charity Unicef and Médecins du Monde, a French organisation that provides doctors and medical volunteers to conflict zones.

• Joaquín Almunia, vice-president of the European commission, was named as a surveillance target. He said he was "strongly upset" about being spied on and did not know what the intelligence services were after. "This piece of news follows a series of other revelations which, as we clearly stated in the past, if proven true, are unacceptable and deserve our strongest condemnation," said Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, European Commission spokesperson.

• At his final press conference of the year, US president Barack Obama addressed the White House review panel report on NSA surveillance, which was released on Wednesday. "I'm going to make a pretty definitive statement about this in January," Obama said. He also refused to comment on whether he would consider granting NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden amnesty. Snowden has been indicted by the US government.

• The UK executive director of Médecins du Monde, Leigh Daynes, said he was "bewildered" by the latest report. "If substantiated, snooping on aid workers would be a shameful waste of taxpayers’ money; money that would be better spent vaccinating Syrian children against polio, or rebuilding the Philippines’ shattered health system," Daynes said.

• Kenneth Roth, executive director at Human Rights Watch, said: "No one should be surprised that governments spy on each other, but when they start spying on humanitarian groups, the pretense of counterterrorism is stripped away, and the need for strict limits on these mass invasions of our privacy becomes glaring."