News headlines in August 2026, page 5

UNITED NATIONS, August 3 (IPS) - As the United States and Iran continue to escalate with military strikes across both fronts, the conflict took a new turn with Saudi Arabia becoming militarily involved on July 29, following coordinated airstrikes with U.S. Central Command according to the Saudi Ministry of Defence.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, August 3 (IPS) - Last August, a one-month-old girl in The Gambia bled to death after being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that had been illegal in the country since 2015. FGM is a human rights violation, whatever the appeals to faith or tradition made in its defence, but now the Gambian Supreme Court is being asked to strike the country’s ban down. This is the second attempt in two years to make FGM legal again.

GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , August 3 (IPS) - From wars that drive up fuel prices to supply chain disruptions, inflation and increasingly frequent climate disasters, Caribbean leaders say many of the forces shaping the region’s future lie beyond their control.

ROME, August 3 (IPS) - For the last few years, Artificial intelligence has been making increasingly intrusive demands for our attention. It burst onto the scene like a child prodigy, enthralling us with feats of brilliance. With consummate ease, it removed drudgery from our tasks and began helping us achieve our personal and workplace objectives.

Drone strikes are posing deadly risks to civilians in Sudan and hampering humanitarian efforts to reach them as attacks continue to affect conflict-hit areas, the UN aid coordination office OCHA said on Monday.

Israeli forces reportedly killed more than two dozen Palestinians in Gaza and violated Lebanese airspace more than 100 times over the weekend despite ongoing ceasefire agreements, UN agencies and peacekeepers said on Monday.

Amid a deepening hunger crisis in Somalia, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to deliver aid to the people who need it most.

Breastfeeding rates are rising worldwide, but millions of mothers and families still lack the services and protection they need to feed their babies safely, the UN has warned.

New UN-backed centres will serve eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as confirmed Ebola cases continued to climb sharply over the weekend in the largest ever outbreak of the highly contagious disease in the country.

VANCOUVER B.C., Canada, August 3 (IPS) - The Rohingya crisis remains one of the most enduring humanitarian and political failures in South and Southeast Asia. Since the 2017 mass expulsion from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Bangladesh has hosted more than one million refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, while Myanmar has failed to create conditions for safe return. What began as an emergency response has hardened into protracted displacement marked by statelessness, insecurity, aid dependency, and diplomatic fatigue. Repatriation is repeatedly presented as the preferred durable solution, yet every major attempt has failed because the core political question remains unresolved: the Rohingya cannot safely return to a state that denies them citizenship, protection, and equal belonging.