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Afghanistan’s economy continues to face significant challenges despite showing signs of modest growth, the World Bank warned on Wednesday, with the future “uncertain.” The economy’s challenges include “fiscal constraints, trade imbalances, and a limited capacity for public investment,” the bank said in its Afghanistan Development Update. Critical factors
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Iraq’s parliament will review contentious legal amendments Sunday, including a reworked family law bill that has sparked civil society outrage over fears of a resurgence in underage marriages. The proposed amendments would let people choose between religious or state regulations for family matters, such as marriage, inheritance, divorce and
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Children made up nearly 40 percent of the more than 3.4 million people in Myanmar displaced by civil war and climate change-driven extreme weather, the UN agency for children said Thursday. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in 2021
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Landmines and unexploded munitions claimed more victims in Myanmar than in any other country last year, a monitor said on Wednesday, warning the true toll could be double or triple its estimate of 1,000 people killed or wounded. Decades of sporadic conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups
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Almost 60 percent of South Sudan’s population will be acutely food insecure next year, with more than two million children at risk of malnutrition, data from a United Nations-backed review warned on Monday. The world’s youngest country is among the globe’s poorest and is grappling with its
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For the third straight year, efforts to fight climate change haven’t lowered projections for how hot the world is likely to get — even as countries gather for another round of talks to curb warming, according to an analysis Thursday. At the United Nations climate talks, hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan,
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Unrelenting price rises and a brutal insurgency had already made it hard for Nigerians in northeastern Borno State to feed their families. When a dam collapsed in September, flooding the state capital and surrounding farmland, many people ran out of options. Now they queue for handouts in camps for those
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Climate change is contributing to record numbers of people being uprooted from their homes globally, while worsening the often already “hellish” conditions of displacement, the United Nations said Tuesday. With international climate talks under way in Baku, the UN refugee agency highlighted how soaring global temperatures and extreme weather events
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Francisco Murgui went out to try to salvage his motorbike when the water started to rise. He never came back. One week after catastrophic flooding devastated eastern Spain, María Murgui still holds out hope that her missing father is alive. “He was like many people in town who went out
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The temple reverberated with rhythmic Sanskrit and Tamil hymns, as a Hindu priest held a flame before the god. As this tiny South Indian village gathered to pray for Kamala Harris, a gaggle of reporters jostled for space and camera angles. There's little to distinguish the village of
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In a matter of minutes, flash floods caused by heavy downpours in eastern Spain swept away almost everything in their path. With no time to react, people were trapped in vehicles, homes and businesses. Many died and thousands of livelihoods were shattered. Five days later, authorities have recovered 217 bodies
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Air pollution in Pakistan’s second biggest city Lahore soared on Saturday more than 80 times over the level deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization (WHO), with an official calling it record high. The level of deadly PM2.5 pollutants — fine particulate matter in the air that causes the
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Failing to curb emissions of nitrous oxide will make it impossible to meet the main goal of the Paris climate agreement to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the first major global assessment of the pollutant released on Thursday. Why it's important Nitrous oxide
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More than 600 million women and girls are now affected by war, a 50 percent increase from a decade ago, and they fear the world has forgotten them amid an escalating backlash against women’s rights and gender equality, top UN officials say. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a
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Patches of palm thatch entwined with a few forlorn stilts sticking out of the emerald waters in a Malaysian marine park off the island of Borneo are the only traces remaining of the homes of hundreds of sea nomads. Robin, one of those left homeless among a community that inspired
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Keir Starmer met Donald Trump in New York for a two-hour dinner, the first meeting for the new British Prime Minister and the former US President, media reports said on Friday. Trump, the Republican nominee in November’s US election, hosted the Labour Party leader at Trump Tower on Thursday,