News headlines in January 2026

NAIROBI, January 15 (IPS) - President Donald Trump has escalated efforts to further distance the United States from international organizations and entities focused on climate, the environment, and energy. This strategy is in step with his administration’s established approach to undermine and redirect funds and international cooperation away from climate and clean energy programs.

BRATISLAVA, January 14 (IPS) - Israel must lift all restrictions on medicine, food and aid coming into Gaza, rights groups have demanded, as two reports released today (Jan 14) document how maternal and reproductive healthcare have been all but destroyed in the country.

BANGKOK, Thailand, January 14 (IPS) - Take a deep breath. Did you know that in many countries in Asia and the Pacific, the air we breathe falls short of the safety standards for air quality set by the World Health Organization? While the start of a new year signals new beginnings, it also marks the continuation of the recurring air quality crisis across many countries in the region.

With the multilateral system under pressure and under attack, Member States must fight for the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly said on Wednesday, laying out her priorities for its resumed 80th session.

A fragile political calm in Yemen is fraying, with renewed instability and aid restrictions deepening hunger, illness and displacement for millions of civilians, senior UN officials warned the Security Council on Wednesday.

The temporary closure of a UN-run health centre in East Jerusalem is the latest phase in “a pattern of deliberate disregard” for international law, the head of the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said on Wednesday.

The past 11 years have been the warmest in the modern era, while oceans continue to heat up, too, says the UN weather agency.

Global unemployment remains stable, but progress toward decent work has stalled, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO), which warns that young people continue to struggle in a job market which risks being further undermined by AI and trade policy uncertainty.

Nomadic Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay probably never dreamed that 21^st-century readers would be delving into his private correspondence some 77 years after his death. But that’s probably part of the professional hazard (luck?) of being a literary luminary, or, as Yale University Press describes him, “one of the Harlem Renaissance’s brightest and most radical voices”.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, January 13 (IPS) - At the moment, ICE’s advancement in the U.S. is apparently dividing the nation’s population into desired and undesirable elements. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was born after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers and intended to be a response to terrorism. However, with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, federal immigration agents have become the president’s praetorian guard, implementing his immigration politics.