News headlines in February 2026, page 3

Cuba’s humanitarian situation is worsening as fuel shortages deepen nearly a month after Washington took measures to block oil supplies from entering the Caribbean nation, a senior UN official warned on Wednesday.

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.

SYDNEY, Australia, February 25 (IPS) - Two Pacific Island nations have been applauded for their successes in the global health campaign to eliminate the infectious eye disease, Trachoma.

UNITED NATIONS, February 25 (IPS) - As generative artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly expands across nearly every sector of society, those that work in cultural and creative industries are expected to bear some of the greatest losses. With AI-generated content projected to dominate global markets in the coming years, combined with a lack of strong regulatory frameworks to protect intellectual property and AI’s ability to produce content quickly at a low cost, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warns that generative AI may become a major driver of inequality, threatening the livelihoods of millions of cultural workers around the world.

GENEVA, February 25 (IPS) - After surviving the harshest winter in a decade, millions of displaced Ukrainians are confronting a growing crisis marked by hardship and ongoing attacks as peace prospects remain distant.

Funding shortfalls are putting the lives of more than 1.9 million displaced people in South Sudan at risk amid rising humanitarian needs, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.