News headlines in February 2026

GENEVA, February 27 (IPS) - The situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a human-made disaster.

The report before you sets out events between 1 November 2024 and 31 October 2025 that show Israel’s utter disregard for human rights in Gaza and the West Bank, and the serious violations also committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, February 27 (IPS) - As US President Donald Trump pushes the world to war, arms spending has been rising worldwide. Wars secure more budgetary allocations, mainly benefiting the US-dominated military-industrial complex.

KAMPALA, February 26 (IPS) - When people ordinarily think about sexual violence, it’s of the rape of women by men. In Uganda, as in other countries, activists say men are also victims of sexual violence perpetrated by women, though males remain silent.

UNITED NATIONS, February 26 (IPS) - International Women’s Day 2026 comes at a defining moment: Women and girls have never been closer to equality, and never closer to losing it. Legal protection against domestic violence has expanded in many countries. Yet, the rights of women and girls are being rolled back in plain sight, and across the world, women still do not enjoy the same legal rights as men.

UNITED NATIONS, February 26 (IPS) - The 193-member General Assembly, the highest-ranking policy-making body at the United Nations, is most likely to elect Palestine as its next President in an unprecedented move voting for a “non-member observer state”—a state deprived of a country to represent.

Nearly three years of war in Sudan have been marked by killings, rape and other violations, with risk of genocidal violence spreading, the UN Human Rights Council heard on Thursday.

The UN rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday highlighted the “human-made disaster” across the Occupied Palestinian Territory stemming from Israel’s disregard for human rights norms and serious violations also committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday appealed for dialogue between Afghanistan and Pakistan amid border clashes and deadly airstrikes, while condemning ever harsher “apartheid” edicts issued by the Afghan de facto authorities that continue to severely impact women and girls.

An international early warning system blocked a shipment of chemicals used to make fentanyl that could have produced up to 1.6 billion potentially lethal doses, the UN narcotics control body said on Thursday.

ROME, February 25 (IPS) - Farmland has long been one of the most important sources of security across generations. Writing about China nearly a century ago, Pearl S. Buck noted in The Good Earth, “If you will hold your land, you can live.” That holds true today. When farmers own land, they invest in it. When they don’t, they extract what they can today without thinking of tomorrow.