News headlines in June 2026

CIVICUS discusses Ghana’s anti-LGBTQI+ law with Leila Lariba, Executive Director of One Love Sisters Ghana, a community-driven organisation that advances human rights, social inclusion and wellbeing for Muslim LGBTQI+ people in Ghana.

MEXICO CITY, June 29 (IPS) - Ever since the Berlin Wall fell 37 years ago and the communist Eastern Bloc collapsed, Cuba has been debating economic reforms to its socialist system. Essentially, the discussion always revolves around the same issues: less state planning, more personal responsibility. In other words, a strong dose of capitalism as an antidote to inefficient and corrupt state bureaucracy.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, June 29 (IPS) - There is a question that is never asked plainly enough in reports on Haiti: why, despite decades of analysis, billions in international aid, and an abundance of national strategies, does the potential of Haitian youth remain so consistently underutilized? This report, The Silent Transformation, is an attempt at an honest answer.

Some 680,000 children are among the 1.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance following the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on 24 June, the UN child rights agency UNICEF reported on Sunday as rescue efforts continue.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 27 (IPS) - Animal disease is no longer a distant concern for farmers and veterinarians alone. It is increasingly visible in household budgets: global egg prices surged more than 60% during recent bird flu outbreaks. In South Africa, foot-and-mouth disease pushed beef prices up by 34%. These are not isolated fluctuations in price. They are reminders that when prevention falls short, families, farmers and food systems all pay the price.

More than 2,000 rescue workers from 27 countries have been deployed to Venezuela to locate people trapped under the rubble following the twin earthquakes on Wednesday, in a deployment supported and coordinated by the United Nations.

NEW YORK, June 26 (IPS) - Artificial intelligence (AI) promises remarkable gains in productivity, science, medicine and education. But it is also poised to wipe out millions of jobs, hollow out the middle class, and drain the tax revenues that pay for hospitals, schools and pensions. The process has already begun, and the time to act is running out.

LONDON & KARACHI, Pakistan, June 26 (IPS) - The 30 COP gatherings may not have done what three months of US-Israeli war against Iran did: expose the world’s vulnerability to fossil fuels.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, June 26 (IPS) - On 21 June Colombians made their choice. By the narrowest of margins, Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right criminal lawyer who’s never held elected office, became president-elect. Climate activists, human rights defenders, Indigenous communities and peace advocates have the most to lose from the incoming government’s agenda.

WASHINGTON DC, June 26 (IPS) - For decades, official development assistance has been a central pillar of financing in sub-Saharan Africa. That pillar is now weakening—quickly and broadly.