News headlines in October 2026, page 4

Three years on from the reported resumption of large-scale forcible returns of nationals of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from China, serious concerns persist about their fate, according to a group of Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts.

The use of live ammunition, arson and the destruction of centuries-old olive trees have marked the opening weeks of this year’s harvest in the occupied West Bank.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is scaling up emergency health response operations across Afar, Amhara and Tigray in Ethiopia to address growing humanitarian and health needs resulting from ongoing hostilities.

The price tag for smuggling on European sea routes reached up to half a billion dollars last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN migration office, IOM, reported on Wednesday.

Representatives from across the international community are meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to ensure that children everywhere can thrive in a world marred by war, climate chaos and other fundamental challenges.

Two UN agencies issued a powerful appeal on Wednesday for immediate assistance to help communities already being impacted by the strongest El Niño weather pattern on record.

Talks to halt the fighting in Sudan and alleviate the humanitarian crisis there continued in Geneva on Wednesday, where nearly two dozen countries convened to discuss a pathway to a ceasefire and transition to peaceful governance that represents all Sudanese people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is assisting Nigeria following confirmation of the first case of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease in the country.

With global temperature rise set to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, countries “must pull out all the stops” and urgently cut emissions to minimize the overshoot and return to the internationally agreed threshold by the end of this century.

VICTORIA, Seychelles, October 21 (IPS) - When you grow up on a small island, the ocean is not scenery. It is your neighbour, your livelihood, and the measure of time itself. For decades, as I walked the beaches of Seychelles, I watched the subtle shifts that scientists were warning the world about. The tide crept a little higher up the sand each year. After a warm season, vibrant coral gardens turned ghost-white. Storms that once belonged to rare memory began arriving with unsettling regularity.