This work has several components, including offering timely and compassionate advice to Irish citizens in challenging circumstances, publishing accurate travel advice for more than 200 countries and territories and responding to crises overseas,
Israeli forces have begun demolishing dozens of buildings housing Palestinian families in the northern occupied West Bank, forcing mass displacement as winter sets in, and leaving communities scrambling for shelter. Israeli military bulldozers and cranes tore through residential blocks in the Nur Shams refugee camp on Wednesday, flattening homes that housed about 100 families. Thick clouds of dust rose over the camp as residents watched from a distance, according to an AFP news agency journalist at the scene.
Details of the incident are still emerging, but informal mining operations are a frequent source of conflict in South America, as criminal groups jockey for control. The latest incident took place near the town of Vijus, in the department of La Libertad in northwestern Peru. Police reported that 13 miners had been killed in the same region last May. That incident prompted a stern response from local authorities, including the 30-day suspension of mining activities and a night-time curfew.
Latest attacks bring the total number of known boat strikes to 33 and the number of people killed to at least 110 since early September. The United States military has killed at least three people in yet another attack on alleged drug smuggling boats, and ordered the country's coastguard to launch a search for survivors. The statement by US Southern Command on Wednesday did not reveal where the attacks occurred. Previous attacks have been in the Caribbean Sea and in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
As we enter 2026, one truth is impossible to ignore: children around the world are facing their greatest levels of need in modern history just as the humanitarian system meant to protect them and their futures is battling some of its biggest challenges in decades. The events of 2025 marked a dramatic rupture in global humanitarian and development efforts. When the United States abruptly halted foreign aid in January, billions of dollars vanished overnight.
On December 18, 2025, Pope Leo published his first major peace message themed "Peace be with you," in preparation for his and the Catholic Church's annual January 1st exhortation on World Peace. Pope Leo's December message urged the faithful to not surrender to the idea that fear and darkness are normal, but to see peace as not only possible but necessary.
On the shores of the Dead Sea, about 1,500 Israeli and Palestinian women had gathered, holding hands and calling for an end to what they called a vicious cycle of bloodshed. It was an October evening in 2023 and they had travelled from villages, settlements and refugee camps around the region for a mass peace rally jointly organised by the Israeli movement Women Wage Peace and the Palestinian group Women of the Sun.
Australian beef producers said they were extremely disappointed after China announced a 55% tariff on imports that exceed quota levels in a move to protect a domestic cattle industry slowly emerging from oversupply. China's commerce ministry said on Wednesday the total import quota for 2026 for Australia and other countries such as Brazil and the US covered under its new safeguard measures is 2.7m metric tons, roughly in line with the record 2.87m tons it imported overall in 2024.
The world's richest individuals accumulated a record $2.2 trillion (£1.7 trillion) in additional wealth during 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with just eight billionaires accounting for around a quarter of the gains. The surge pushed the combined net worth of the world's 500 wealthiest people to $11.9 trillion, fuelled by booming equity markets, a rally in cryptocurrencies and metals, and renewed investor optimism following Donald Trump's election victory in 2024.
Responding to the U.S. military's drone strikes on small boats and seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, Andreína Chávez says U.S. claims of pursuing fentanyl traffickers lack evidence and are "pretext" for an attempt "to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy" and wrest control of the country's state-owned oil reserves.
It's been an adventurous three decades for The World and we're glad to have you with us as we celebrate our 30th anniversary. In this special New Year's show, we highlight some of our reporting over the years. We bring you a discussion with Neil Curry, who helped create the show and was The World's first executive producer, as well as a conversation with our reporters Matthew Bell and Shirin Jafaari, who discuss how their coverage of major global news evolved after 9/11.
Trevor Bayliss will be among those watching the fifth Ashes Test at the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground this Sunday. But even as the head coach responsible for delivering the World Cup in 2019, the majority of England fans who walk past him will probably do so without so much as a double take. This was very much the Australian's way when sporting the Three Lions on his training kit for five years low key and forever dodging the spotlight under that wide-brimmed hat.
