Global World News Digest

Multi-Source Editorial Roundup • Monday, 26 January 2026

Global Briefing #1

Hundreds feared dead in attempt to cross Mediterranean during cyclone

Fifty killed in one incident as Italian authorities estimate 380 people may have drowned last week

Europe live – latest updates

Up to 380 people may have drowned attempting to cross the Mediterranean last week as Cyclone Harry battered southern Italy and Malta, the Italian coastguard has said, as a shipwreck with the loss of 50 lives was confirmed by Maltese authorities.
Just one person, who was hospitalised in Malta, survived the shipwreck, which happened on Friday.
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Global Briefing #2

Crocodile warnings as floods devastate southern Africa

More than 100 people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe
Devastating floods have killed more than 100 people in southern Africa since the beginning of the year and displaced hundreds of thousands, as authorities and aid workers warn of hunger, cholera and attacks by crocodiles that have spread with the waters.
More than 70 people have died in Zimbabwe and 30 in South Africa, where hundreds of people were evacuated from Kruger national park earlier this month after a deluge of rain.
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Global Briefing #3

‘It’s the sovereignty of the country’: Guinea-Bissau says US vaccine study suspended

Despite US pushback, officials in west Africa say controversial hepatitis B study on pause amid ethics concerns
US health officials insisted it was still on. African health leaders said it was cancelled. At the heart of the controversy is the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau – one of the poorest countries in the world and the proposed site of a hotly debated US-funded study on vaccines.
The study on hepatitis B vaccination, to be led by Danish researchers, became a flashpoint after major changes to the US vaccination schedule and prompted questions about how research is conducted ethically in other countries.
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Global Briefing #4

ActionAid to rethink child sponsorship as part of plan to ‘decolonise’ its work

Development charity’s new co-chief executives signal shift from controversial sponsor a child scheme launched in 1972 to long-term grassroots funding
Child sponsorship schemes that allow donors to handpick children to support in poor countries can carry racialised, paternalistic undertones and need to be transformed, the newly appointed co-chief executives of ActionAid UK said as they set out to “decolonise” the organisation’s work.
ActionAid began in 1972 by finding sponsors for schoolchildren in India and Kenya, but Taahra Ghazi and Hannah Bond have launched their co-leadership this month with the goal of shifting narratives around aid from sympathy towards solidarity and partnership with global movements.
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Global Briefing #5

Head of US Africa bureau urges staff to highlight US ‘generosity’ despite aid cuts

Email sent to diplomats by state department office’s new boss is labelled ‘racist’ after dismissing Africa as a priority
US diplomats have been encouraged to “unabashedly and aggressively” remind African governments about the “generosity” of the American people, according to a leaked email sent to staff in the US state department’s Bureau of African Affairs this January and obtained by the Guardian.
“It’s not gauche to remind these countries of the American people’s generosity in containing HIV/Aids or alleviating famine,” says the email.
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Global Briefing #6

Guyanese businessman facing US extradition elected opposition leader

Azruddin Mohamed’s election comes six months after he formed political party that became country’s second largest
A Guyanese businessman facing extradition to the US on gold-smuggling and money-laundering charges has been elected as the country’s opposition leader, six months after he formed a political party that quickly became the second largest in the South American country.
Azruddin Mohamed, 38, was confirmed as Guyana’s opposition leader after 16 lawmakers from the We Invest in Nationhood party (Win) and another from a single-seat outfit voted in his favor. The tally made Win the second-largest party in parliament, securing Mohamed’s election even as a magistrate’s court hears state arguments for his extradition to the US.
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Global Briefing #7

UK supermarkets push for Amazon soy safeguards after traders abandon ban

European retailers urge traders to adhere to commitments after Brazilian lawmakers wreck forest protection pact
Leading British and European retailers are trying to salvage the core elements of the Amazon soy moratorium after the world’s most successful forest protection agreement was wrecked by Brazilian lawmakers and abandoned by international traders.
In an open letter, high street brands including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda say the breakdown this month of the 20-year-old agreement will damage consumer confidence unless new arrangements are put in place to ensure grain production is not linked to deforestation.
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Global Briefing #8

Toronto digs itself out after largest snowfall in city’s history

Some parts of city were buried under nearly 60cm of snow and over 500 flights were cancelled Sunday
Toronto is beginning to dig itself out from the largest snowfall in the city’s history, a process which officials say is likely to take “several days”.
Some parts of Canada’s largest city were buried under nearly 60cm (about 23in) of snow and more than 500 flights were cancelled Sunday after Toronto’s main airport was snowed in.
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Global Briefing #9

Gunmen open fire at football match in Mexico, killing at least 11

Mayor of Salamanca in Guanajuato state says attack is part of ‘wave of violence’ as he appeals to president for help
Gunmen opened fire at a football match in central Mexico on Sunday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 12, in the latest outburst of violence in Guanajuato state.
César Prieto, the mayor of the town of Salamanca in central Guanajuato state, said in a statement posted to social media platforms that the gunmen arrived at the end of a match. Ten people died at the scene and one died later at a hospital.
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Global Briefing #10

‘They threw us out like baggage’: Russian family deported from US to Costa Rica still in limbo

Alexander, his wife and son, who fled danger under Putin, fighting for security – and compensation – after torment of migration journey
Almost a year after Donald Trump strong-armed a deal with Costa Rica to receive 200 people from other countries who were being deported from the United States after being denied the right to request asylum, a small handful remain there in legal limbo and fighting for compensation.
The asylum seekers flown to Costa Rica in chains last February, despite not being criminals, were from 20 other countries, chiefly parts of Asia and Africa and included 81 children. They had all tried to request refuge at the US-Mexico border but were quickly removed from American soil after Trump returned to the White House and effectively closed the US asylum system. In the face of a variety of political difficulties with deporting them to their native countries, the Trump administration sent them to Costa Rica, as he did others to Panama.
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Global Briefing #11

Fate of China’s top general more likely to do with power struggle than corruption

Experts suggest Xi Jinping is asserting his authority by sidelining an officer who has significantly betrayed his trust
Standing inches from Xi Jinping at a military ceremony in late December, China’s highest-ranking general, Zhang Youxia, may have had little inkling about the fate that was to befall him just a few weeks later when he was put under investigation.
The 75-year-old’s physical proximity to China’s leader, who stands to his right, reflects the position he holds in China’s hierarchy. As vice-chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the ruling body of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), he is the second-most powerful person in China’s military, after Xi, the commander-in-chief.
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Global Briefing #12

At least 18 people dead as Philippines ferry with 350 onboard sinks

Rescuers save at least 316 after inter-island ferry sank en route from city of Zamboanga to southern Jolo island
A ferry with more than 350 people onboard sank early on Monday near an island in the southern Philippines, killing at least 18 people, officials said. Rescuers saved hundreds more, while a fleet of coastguard and naval ships searched for those still missing.
Coastguard officials said the cargo and passenger ferry apparently encountered technical problems and sank after midnight. The steel-hulled vessel abruptly tilted to one side and took on water, hurling people into the sea in the darkness, according to a rescued passenger who lost his six-month-old baby.
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Global Briefing #13

China’s top general under investigation for alleged violations amid corruption crackdown

Zhang Youxia, long seen as Xi Jinping’s closest military ally, reportedly accused of leaking nuclear secrets to US
China’s military leadership is in turmoil after its most senior general – a close ally of Xi Jinping – was placed under investigation for “suspected serious violations of discipline and law”.
Zhang Youxia is the joint vice-chairperson of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the ruling body of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Second only to Xi in the military command structure, Zhang has long been seen as the Chinese president’s closest military ally.
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Global Briefing #14

Alex Honnold free solos Taipei 101 skyscraper in live Netflix climb

US climber takes an hour and half to scale one of Asia’s tallest buildings without ropes or a harness
The US rock climber Alex Honnold climbed one of Asia’s tallest skyscrapers without ropes or a harness on Sunday, fulfilling an ambition that began more than a decade ago and which he hoped would inspire people to pursue their own challenges because “time is finite”.
Honnold, who starred in the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, ascended the 508-metre (1,667ft) Taipei 101 using the skyscraper’s horizontal metal beams to pull himself up with his bare hands. The challenge had originally been scheduled to take place on Saturday but was postponed because of rain.
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Global Briefing #15

Advantage China: Trump’s tantrums push US allies closer to Beijing

In the search for stability, some western nations are turning to a country that many in Washington see as an existential threat
If geopolitics relies at least in part on bonhomie between global leaders, China made an unexpected play for Ireland’s good graces when the taoiseach visited Beijing this month. Meeting Ireland’s leader, Micheál Martin, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China’s president, Xi Jinping, said a favourite book of his as a teenager was The Gadfly, by the Irish author Ethel Voynich, a novel set in the revolutionary fervour of Italy in the 1840s.
“It was unusual that we ended up discussing The Gadfly and its impact on both of us but there you are,” Martin told reporters in Beijing.
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Global Briefing #16

Australia news live: out-of-control bushfire threatens Victorian towns; Adelaide swelters through its hottest ever night

Extreme fire weather expected to fuel blazes and pose threat to communities near Great Ocean Road. Follow today’s news live