News headlines in June 2026

SYDNEY, June 17 (IPS) - The French overseas territory of New Caledonia in the Pacific will hold elections on 28 June in the wake of the latest agreement on its political status with France being rejected. The representatives elected in the three provincial assemblies and territorial congress will then determine a new round of negotiations as the mission of achieving consensus on New Caledonia’s future continues.

In the human body, connective tissue rarely gets the attention given to the heart, lungs or brain. But without it, even the strongest organs cannot function as a system. It binds, supports and connects a healthy body. Fiscal systems work in a similar way.

UNITED NATIONS, June 16 (IPS) - A new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) highlights the vast, overlapping climate threats affecting children worldwide, which is leaving them increasingly vulnerable to escalating risks across health, security, and education.

BRATISLAVA, June 16 (IPS) - LGBTQ+ people in Russia are being forced to increasingly use self-censoring strategies in their daily lives as they struggle with systemic vulnerability, one of the largest surveys of the LGBTQ+ community in the country has shown.

KYIV, June 16 (IPS) - People often discuss Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine in terms of drones, missiles, shifting front lines, and territorial borders. But this war has another dimension — the human one.

Criminal networks are moving faster, reaching further and blurring the lines between threats. Into this shifting landscape steps Monica Juma, taking on one of the UN’s most demanding security and justice portfolios.

Although United Nations peacekeepers continue to observe violence and exchanges of fire in Lebanon, the level is significantly reduced when compared to the weekend, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Tuesday.

Passengers look out of the back of a brightly-coloured shared pick-up style taxi, known locally in Haiti as a “tap tap” as it makes its way along the Boulevard du 15 Octobre in the east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Countries must uphold international law limiting the use of anti-personnel mines, which kill and maim civilians long after conflicts have ended, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said in a report published on Tuesday.

As millions of people continue to flee their countries due to war or persecution, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, called on Tuesday for an urgent expansion of refugee resettlement programmes, warning that available places continue to fall short of global needs.