News headlines in 2026, page 12

PORTLAND, USA, January 16 (IPS) - Ageing and shrinking populations are becoming more prevalent in many countries around the world.

LONDON, January 16 (IPS) - “The ‘spirit of dialogue’, the theme for this year’s meeting in Davos, which begins January 19, has been painfully and increasingly absent from international affairs of late. President Trump’s first year back in office has seen the United States withdraw from multilateral bodies, bully other states and relentlessly attack the principles and institutions that underpin the international justice system.

YANGON, Myanmar, and CHIANGMAI, Thailand , January 16 (IPS) - Held incommunicado in grim prison conditions for nearly five years, Aung San Suu Kyi quite possibly does not even know that this week the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened a landmark case charging Myanmar with committing genocide against its Rohingya minority a decade ago.

Myanmar on Friday rejected allegations of genocide against the Rohingya minority, telling the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the Gambia’s case rests on “unsubstantiated allegations,” as public hearings continued in a landmark case on the application of the Genocide Convention.

More children in war-ravaged Gaza are now back in the classroom, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) said on Friday.

Peacekeeping operations in the Middle East are facing mounting security risks, funding pressures and political uncertainty, the head of UN peacekeeping warned on Friday.

In war-torn Sudan, local communities say they don’t have enough settlements for the internally displaced, few solutions for women who have suffered sexual violence – and there’s a lack of aid available for people with disabilities.

A staggering 55 million people across West and Central Africa are expected to suffer crisis levels of hunger, or worse, during the lean season from June to August as funding cuts to humanitarian operations continue amid rising violence and displacement.

Families across Ukraine are in “constant survival mode” amid ongoing waves of Russian missile and drone strikes that have left blocks without power for days at a time, while temperatures plunge to deadly lows, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.

UNITED NATIONS, January 15 (IPS) - On January 12, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), opened landmark hearings in a case brought by the Republic of The Gambia, alleging that Myanmar’s military committed acts of brutal genocide against the Rohingya minority during its 2017 crackdown. Described by the United Nations (UN) as a case “years in the making,” the ICJ will spend the next three weeks reviewing evidence and testimony from both sides to determine whether the Myanmar military violated the Genocide Convention.