News headlines in January 2026

AI looks set to be transformative for us all, but it also brings a real risk of job losses and widening social and economic divides. UN experts are focusing on how to manage that transition, to ensure the benefits of the technology outweigh the threats.

UNITED NATIONS, January 30 (IPS) - On January 27, the United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty adopted in 2015 aiming to reduce global warming and strengthen countries’ resilience to climate impacts. Following a year of regulatory rollbacks and sustained efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle federal climate policy, this move is expected to trigger wide ranging ripple effects—undermining international efforts to curb climate change, accelerating environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, and increasing risks to human health, safety, and long-term development.

WASHINGTON DC, January 30 (IPS) - India’s productivity growth over the past two decades has been impressive, reflecting rapid expansion in high-value services, gradual efficiency-enhancing reforms, and scale advantages from a large domestic market.

UNITED NATIONS, January 30 (IPS) - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was dead on target when he told the Security Council last week that the rule of law worldwide is being replaced by the law of the jungle.“We see flagrant violations of international law and brazen disregard for the UN Charter. From Gaza to Ukraine, and around the world, the rule of law is being treated as an à la carte menu,” he pointed out, as mass killings continue.

Five years after Myanmar’s military seized power and jailed the country’s elected leaders, the United Nations says the country’s crisis has only deepened, marked by escalating violence, mass displacement and a military-controlled election that UN officials warn has further entrenched repression rather than restored civilian rule.

Military tensions in South Sudan are “rapidly expanding” between Government forces and opposition militia as fighting continues in restive Jonglei state.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria has welcomed a ceasefire agreement between the Syrian Government and the mainly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), urging all parties to seize the moment to protect civilians and prevent further violations in the country’s northeast.

The war in Ukraine remains the world’s biggest threat to nuclear safety as a fifth year of combat looms, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog warned on Friday, citing continued risks to power supplies at nuclear sites vulnerable to fighting nearby.

Reaching a single child in Sudan’s Darfur region can take days of negotiations, security clearances and travel across sandy roads that cut through shifting frontlines, UNICEF warned Friday – as children live “on the brink” of survival.

BRATISLAVA, January 29 (IPS) - “I’d never encountered anything like it before. I had no idea that there could be a place that needed humanitarian aid and that a government entity wouldn’t allow physicians or health workers into [that place],” says Jane.*