News headlines in 2026, page 21

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, January 6 (IPS) - While US President Donald Trump has blamed the BRICS and foreign investors for de-dollarisation, his rhetoric, actions and policy measures are mainly responsible for the trend’s recent acceleration.

Thousands of displaced people in northern Syria are struggling to cope with freezing conditions after a severe snowstorm struck dozens of displacement sites, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

Thirteen more lives – including children – were reportedly lost on Tuesday in another drone attack on Sudan’s North Kordofan region.

Some 65,000 households in the Gaza Strip were affected by the severe winter storms that whipped through the enclave last month, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s agricultural sector remains under intense pressure as the war continues to disrupt food production and endanger civilians, the UN food security agency warned on Tuesday, as it unveiled a new three-year plan to help farmers survive and protect their livelihoods.

Venezuela’s political shock has sharpened global attention on a country already facing one of the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crises. For the United Nations, the priority remains unchanged: protecting lives, sustaining basic services and supporting Venezuelans at home and across the region.

Responding to the seizure of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro by the United States, UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Tuesday reiterated deep concerns that the military operation undermined fundamental protections for sovereign countries.

VIENNA, Austria, January 5 (IPS) - Consider our political systems not merely as battlegrounds of passions, ideologies and economic interests, but as systematically functioning arrangements of interactions, akin to game theory. In recent decades, we have witnessed the dissolution of large homogeneous groups into numerous subgroups — a patchwork of minorities.

UNITED NATIONS & JOHANNESBURG, January 5 (IPS) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed deep concern about the immediate future of Venezuela.

UNITED NATIONS, January 5 (IPS) - The statistics are staggering: while military spending keeps skyrocketing, Official Development Assistance (ODA) – from the rich to some of the world’s poorer nations – has been declining drastically.