News headlines in 2026, page 2

NAIROBI, August 13 (IPS) - Women’s rights advocates, judges and lawyers have launched a coordinated campaign to reform family laws that discriminate against women and girls in Africa.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 13 (IPS) - Dhaka’s recent and recurrent flooding is often treated as a natural disaster, but rain is only the trigger. The deeper causes are political, planning and ecological failure: wetland loss, canal encroachment, unplanned growth, weak enforcement, fragmented institutions and short-term engineering fixes. Dhaka is not drowning because it rains; it is drowning because it has been built as if water had nowhere to go.

UNITED NATIONS, August 13 (IPS) - Global goods trade reached approximately USD 13.7 trillion in the first half of 2026, up 12.5 percent from the same period in 2025, while services grew 10.5 percent, together adding USD 2 trillion to global trade. While these figures point to continued expansion, much of the increase reflects rising prices rather than stronger trade volumes.

In one of the cities hardest hit by the earthquake that struck Colombia, hundreds of people are still waiting for news of missing relatives, friends and neighbours.

New satellite assessments show the destruction of buildings in Gaza has climbed by nearly 10 per cent since October’s faltering ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces aim to end the two-year war, which reduced cities to rubble and displaced more than one million people, UN agencies said on Thursday.

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are tracking a growing share of people exposed to Ebola, but the epidemic in the country's restive east continues to outpace their ability to find and isolate the sick, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Five years since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, life for some Afghans has improved while many others suffer growing hardship.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine reached their highest monthly level in July, with more people killed and injured than at any time since March 2022, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country, HRMMU, said in an update on Thursday.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Thursday condemned an amendment adopted by Türkiye’s parliament that would allow judges to give life sentences to child offenders convicted of serious crimes.

As tensions triggered by the US-Iran war continue to ripple across the Middle East, the Security Council holds an open debate Thursday on Yemen, where escalating deadly military clashes are worsening an already fragile humanitarian situation amid fears that recent Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and commercial vessels could threaten the 2022 truce between the Yemeni militia and the government. UN News app users can follow our live coverage here.