News headlines in August 2026

LONDON, August 31 (IPS) - On 24 August, police sealed off access to Zambia’s courts, closed the day before the deadline for petitions to challenge the results of the 13 August presidential election. The judiciary’s top official cited security reasons, but the timing left little doubt that authorities meant to block the defeated candidate’s legal challenge.

DAR ES SALAAM, August 31 (IPS) - When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 31 (IPS) - Bangladesh’s riverine and coastal chars have always been landscapes of movement, but climate change is making that movement more violent, frequent, and unequal. The shifting islands of the Jamuna, Brahmaputra, Padma, and other rivers now reveal how climate stress multiplies deprivation, weakens citizenship, and forces char dwellers to absorb the costs of a crisis they did little to create.

TOKYO / ASTANA, August 31 (IPS) - Across the vast steppe of northeastern Kazakhstan, the scars of the Cold War remain visible. At the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests between 1949 and 1989, exposing nearby communities to radiation and leaving health and environmental consequences that have endured across generations.

The confirmed death toll from Nepal’s catastrophic floods has surged to 903, with more than 4,200 still missing as rescue crews and humanitarian workers battle blocked highways to reach the hardest-hit areas, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Monday.

Slavery is not just a thing of the past. Its effects continue to be felt in systemic inequality and racism. This was reiterated on Monday by the UN Committee against Racial Discrimination (CERD) as the world marks the International Day of People of African Descent.

He was born without arms, a legacy of four decades of nuclear explosions at the Semipalatinsk test site in his native Kazakhstan.

On the shores of Nkondo, in Uganda’s Kikuube district, the day begins before sunrise. Fishers enter the lake to fish, while families around Lake Albert rely on its waters for food, income and daily survival.

The ocean is rising faster now than at any point in recorded history. The impacts are already being felt and the threats are growing.

UNITED NATIONS, August 28 (IPS) - Following 42 consecutive days without a new confirmed case, The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have announced the end of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda.