Global Issues News Headlines for “Non-governmental Organizations on Development Issues”

Burkina Faso’s Cancelled Democracy

2026-08-07T05:58:03-07:00

LONDON, August 7 (IPS) - Burkina Faso’s charismatic young military leader, army captain Ibrahim Traoré, has stopped pretending. In April, he declared that people should ‘forget about the question of democracy’ because ‘democracy isn’t for us’. When Traoré seized power in September 2022, ousting a leader who’d staged a coup earlier that year, he promised elections by June 2024. The junta broke that pledge, pushing any transition back to 2029. Now Traoré has confirmed he has no intention of restoring democracy. Instead, Burkina Faso’s military junta is tightening its repression, while working with neighbouring states to internationalise its dangerously undemocratic model.

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The World’s Aid Workers Must Be Protected

2026-08-07T05:16:54-07:00

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 7 (IPS) - This summer, an ambush on a marked humanitarian convoy in Duk County, South Sudan, left 17 dead and five injured. While the UN called for an immediate investigation, history suggests the victims’ families will wait indefinitely for answers.

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CHINA: ‘The Ethnic Unity Law Means There Is One Acceptable Way to Be Chinese’

2026-08-05T17:21:45-07:00

CIVICUS speaks about China’s recently implemented Ethnic Unity Law with Gulchehra Hoja, a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and a Uyghur activist and journalist known for her reporting on human rights abuses against Uyghur people in China.

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Female Genital Mutilation: Winning the Argument, Losing the Funding

2026-08-03T11:23:15-07:00

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.

Read the full story, “Female Genital Mutilation: Winning the Argument, Losing the Funding”, on globalissues.org →

ARMENIA: ‘Anti-LGBTQI+ Discourse Is Increasingly Tied to Anti-democratic Narratives’

2026-07-31T07:34:30-07:00

CIVICUS discusses disinformation campaigns targeting the LGBTQI+ community in Armenia with Hripsime Kizogyan, Executive Director of Pink Armenia, a community-based organisation that defends the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and advocates for policy change.

Read the full story, “ARMENIA: ‘Anti-LGBTQI+ Discourse Is Increasingly Tied to Anti-democratic Narratives’”, on globalissues.org →

From the Foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, Magnolia Athletics Camp Is Helping Girls Stay in School, Pursue Athletics and Escape the Pressures of Harmful Traditional Practices

2026-07-30T09:29:21-07:00

OLOITOKTOK, Kenya, July 30 (IPS) - Before sunrise each morning, 19-year-old Josephine Sembeyo joins dozens of teenage runners leaving Magnolia Athletics Camp for training beneath the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Read the full story, “From the Foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, Magnolia Athletics Camp Is Helping Girls Stay in School, Pursue Athletics and Escape the Pressures of Harmful Traditional Practices”, on globalissues.org →

The Americas have the Tools to Eliminate HIV, but Gaps in Access & Coverage remain, says PAHO

2026-07-28T05:23:41-07:00

RIO de JANEIRO, Brazil, July 28 (IPS) - The Region of the Americas has more tools than ever before to prevent, diagnose, and treat HIV, yet many of them are still not reaching everyone who needs them, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Jarbas Barbosa said during the opening session of the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026).

Read the full story, “The Americas have the Tools to Eliminate HIV, but Gaps in Access & Coverage remain, says PAHO”, on globalissues.org →

Cockroach Protests: How India’s Youth Movement Led to Minister’s Resignation

2026-07-27T08:44:58-07:00

NEW DELHI, July 27 (IPS) - On July 25, after 50 days of protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.

Read the full story, “Cockroach Protests: How India’s Youth Movement Led to Minister’s Resignation”, on globalissues.org →

Guatemala: A Narrow Opening in a Captured Justice System

2026-07-24T15:47:43-07:00

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, July 24 (IPS) - José Rubén Zamora, founder of elPeriódico, Guatemala’s now-defunct leading investigative newspaper, spent 1,295 days in detention before a court granted him house arrest on 12 February. He endured long stretches of solitary confinement in a military jail, held in near-constant darkness and subjected to treatment that six UN experts warned could amount to torture. His offence was simply doing his job. For decades, he exposed the corrupt dealings of Guatemala’s economic and political elites. Prosecutors are still trying to send him back to prison.

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From Castel Gandolfo to Campidoglio: Call for Human Dignity to Be at the Heart of the AI Revolution

2026-07-24T12:16:18-07:00

ROME, July 24 (IPS) - After two days of debate at an international conference devoted to the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI), nuclear war and global security, Nobel laureates, former heads of state and government, scientists, human rights defenders, religious leaders and representatives of civil society adopted a joint declaration, calling for it to be based on human dignity.

Read the full story, “From Castel Gandolfo to Campidoglio: Call for Human Dignity to Be at the Heart of the AI Revolution”, on globalissues.org →