World

Simultaneously, WHO is launching a global traditional medicine library — the first-of-its-kind digital platform with over 1.6 million scientific records on the topic, a traditional medicine data network and a Framework on Indigenous Knowledge, Biodiversity and Health, among other initiatives.

Iran Human Rights director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam condemned the initial amount as punitive and discriminatory.

Accra said it had been "compelled to retaliate", framing the episode as a defence of the dignity of its nationals.

Unveiled on Tuesday, the 29-article charter lays out the rules for the one-year transition.

With this recognition, Diwali becomes the 16th Indian tradition to join UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Escalating clashes along the Thailand–Cambodia border have displaced over 500,000 people and killed at least 13, as shelling and air raids hit multiple provinces for a third straight day.

A new report warns biometric digital-ID systems across ten African countries are blocking millions from voting, healthcare and social protection, amid weak legal safeguards and rising fears over data misuse.

The UN warns global human rights are under growing threat in 2025, citing funding cuts, escalating conflicts and attacks on defenders, even as youth-led activism from Kenya to Peru pushes back.

Ghana has protested to Israel after seven citizens, including MPs, were detained and some deported at Ben Gurion Airport, calling the treatment humiliating and warning of possible reciprocal action.

The UN has rejected Israel’s proposed ‘yellow line’ Gaza border, saying it violates the ceasefire, as Egypt also dismisses US ideas for a foreign-backed interim administration in the territory.

Soldiers tried to seize Benin’s state broadcaster in a failed coup, citing security and political grievances. The mutiny was crushed, but analysts warn it exposes rising tensions and regional democratic backsliding.

A new study of African coups from 2001–2022 finds the AU firmly sanctions most military takeovers but rarely confronts leaders who rig constitutions or refuse to concede defeat, raising stability concerns.

The move follows long-standing concerns from parents and lawmakers about social media's effects on young people's mental health.

According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Israel broke international law by storming the compound and interfering with UN property and operations.

Hamilton, a Scottish zoologist and a pioneering figure in elephant research, transformed the way the world understands African elephants.

A CIVICUS report says at least 180 journalists were detained across sub-Saharan Africa in 2025, with Somalia and Kenya leading arrests and deadly crackdowns on protests shrinking civic and media space.

The Confederation of Sahel States (AES), comprising Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, confirmed the development in a statement, noting that the plane, which landed in Bobo-Dioulasso, did not have authorisation to enter the country.

The Benin incident is the latest in a series of attempted power grabs across West Africa, often triggered by contested elections, constitutional disputes and public frustration.

The children were among 315 pupils and staff who were kidnapped from a Catholic boarding school in late November.

Troops drawn from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone will be deployed to assist Benin's authorities in safeguarding constitutional order and territorial integrity, ECOWAS said in a statement.

China’s Shenzhou-20 capsule is returning to Earth without crew after a window was damaged by tiny space debris, highlighting rising orbital congestion, safety risks and gaps in global space governance.

Egypt’s foreign minister has rejected a US-backed interim administration for Gaza, insisting Palestinians must govern themselves and urging open crossings, peacekeepers along the Yellow Line, and no displacement via Rafah.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu confirms troops were sent to Benin at the government’s request after a failed coup, as ECOWAS deploys a regional force to help preserve constitutional order.

The decision marks a shift from earlier guidelines that only restricted certain types of filming.

A study finds more than 60,000 African penguins died in South Africa between 2004 and 2012 after sardines crashed, highlighting climate and overfishing threats to this now critically endangered species.

A Nigerian court’s terrorism conviction and life sentence for Biafra leader Nnamdi Kanu ends a decade-long case but leaves core Igbo grievances and rising south-east insecurity unresolved.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres reaffirmed in New York that he will keep pushing for a Palestine two-state solution, criticising a paralysed Security Council and warning of rising global conflicts and climate risks.

Benin’s government says it foiled an attempted coup in Cotonou after soldiers briefly claimed to oust President Patrice Talon, highlighting growing instability across Africa’s expanding ‘coup belt’.

The African Union has condemned a failed coup attempt in Benin, led by Lt-Col Pascal Tigri, backing President Patrice Talon and urging an immediate return to constitutional order and military barracks.

Hospitals in Gaza report 54 per cent of essential medicines and 40 per cent of surgery drugs are unavailable, as Israel allows only five medical supply trucks weekly, leaving patients without vital treatment.

Authorities have urged citizens to remain calm as operations continue to stabilise the capital following the failed coup attempt.

His life in music represented a struggle against narrow, oppressive definitions of race, instrumental appropriateness and musical genre.

Africa is the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, despite its limited contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

Opposition coalitions such as the Union for Democratic Change (UAD) and the Union for Democratic Movements (UMD) face significant constraints.

Identifying themselves as the Military Committee for Refoundation, the soldiers declared on Sunday that they had removed the president and disbanded all state institutions.

In Tubas, wide-ranging raids, curfews and bulldozer activity caused extensive damage to homes, roads and water networks, displacing families and cutting water supplies to nearly 17,000 people.

A new study finds more than 60,000 African penguins vanished as sardines declined off South Africa, driving a 95% collapse on two islands and leaving the species critically endangered.

Lamola issued an open letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the latter criticised South Africa's domestic policies and its G20 stewardship in a Substack post on Wednesday.

The impact has been devastating: premature births have risen sharply, along with miscarriages and stillbirths linked to severe malnutrition, exhaustion and constant fear.

Reports indicate that Yasser Abu Shabab, commander of the Popular Forces, died on Thursday during what Israeli officials described as internal fighting inside Gaza.

The WHO’s latest annual update shows impressive progress since 2000: intervention has saved an estimated 14 million lives worldwide over the last quarter of a century, and 47 countries are certified malaria-free.

A 2025 court ruling found South African liberation leader Albert Luthuli was murdered, overturning a 1967 inquest and reframing his legacy and his overlooked autobiography, Let My People Go.

Facing war, sanctions and drought at home, Iran is deepening ties with African states for security cooperation, uranium and markets, from Burkina Faso and Niger to South Africa and Uganda.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia are investing in new terrestrial cable systems to relieve the strain on underwater cables in the Red Sea. This is part of a fundamental modernization strategy.

The core contestation is between commodifying land through individual rights and markets, versus protecting it as a social good through communal rights to prevent landlessness and inequality.

Gaza’s crisis stems not just from the recent war but decades of blockade, external control, and repeated destruction, highlighting its dependence on decisions made outside the territory.

UNCTAD forecasts global growth will slow to 2.6 per cent in 2025, citing rising financial volatility and geopolitical risks, with developing economies facing higher borrowing costs and climate-related pressures.

Drylands, covering 60 per cent of Africa, are hot, low-rainfall areas that sustain the livelihoods and food security of half a billion people through pastoralism and crop farming.

Zambia’s education ministry plans legal changes to guarantee free schooling from early childhood to secondary level, aiming to make the 2022 policy permanent while maintaining quality standards.

Although the horrors of Gaza have dominated the news, she warned that settlement expansion, demolitions and increased settler violence in the West Bank continue to undermine the prospects for a sovereign, independent, contiguous and viable Palestinian State.

Local actors, state and non-state, are no longer passive recipients of external interference. They are active participants in shaping their own security environments.