News headlines in March 2026

NEW YORK, March 31 (IPS) - Trump’s Iran war has left the Gulf shattered: US bases turned into targets, economies battered, and the “oasis” myth destroyed. Gulf rulers now confront a harsh reckoning over their reliance on Washington and the uncertain search for a new, fragile security order.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, March 31 (IPS) - While media coverage of Iran’s restrictions on passage through the Hormuz Straits focuses on fuel prices, partial closure is also disrupting crucial fertiliser and other supplies, risking catastrophe for billions worldwide.

GENEVA, March 30 (IPS) - The United Nations was not founded to be comfortable; it was founded to be necessary. Created in the aftermath of catastrophe, its purpose was clear: to maintain international peace and security, to uphold international law, to defend human rights and to promote human dignity and development.

KABUL, March 30 (IPS) - It is almost unheard of for a student to deliberately fail final school exams for no apparent reason. Therefore, when 13-year old Sara (not her real name) from Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan took her school report home to her parents, they were shocked to learn that the top-performing student had failed her final exams and would not advance to the next level. But there was no longer a next level for Sara, even if she had passed.

BRATISLAVA, March 30 (IPS) - Government and medical professionals must implement systematic changes to deal with a “crisis” of obstetric violence (OV) across Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA), experts and rights campaigners have said.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay / BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 30 (IPS) - On 19 March, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) did something unprecedented in its eight-decade history: it held a vote. The Trump administration, having spent two weeks attempting to defer, amend and ultimately block the session’s main outcome document, known as the agreed conclusions, cast the only vote against its adoption. That dissenting vote said a lot, as it came from the world’s most powerful government, backed by financial leverage, bilateral reach and a network of anti-rights states and organisations that are making inroads at many levels.

Fears are mounting for civilians caught up in Sudan’s deadly war between rival militaries as attacks intensify and humanitarian access shrinks, following a deadly airstrike on a funeral gathering in West Kordofan.

The United Nations has condemned two consecutive days of deadly attacks on peacekeepers serving with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), amid rising hostilities between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants.

A night of drone attacks reportedly killed two people and injured 12 in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, as a maternity hospital and three educational facilities were also damaged.

Asking the softly spoken, veteran humanitarian worker Philippe Lazzarini how he feels as he comes to the end of his second term as the head of the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, is perhaps an unfair question.