Thursday 22 January 2026

The African Union lifts sanctions on Guinea and restores its membership, citing progress in the country's political transition which culminated in Mamady Doumbouya's election as president.

Colombia suspends electricity exports to Ecuador and announces a 30% tariff on selected Ecuadorian goods to reciprocate Ecuador's imposition of the same surcharge on Colombian imports effective February 1, which Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa attributed to a trade deficit and a lack of cooperation ‌on combating drug trafficking.

The French Navy boards and seizes a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker subject to international sanctions in the Mediterranean Sea.

The United States's withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) takes effect, becoming the first member state to leave the WHO.

A regional court in Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines, sentences journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and her accomplice to up to 18 years in prison for financing terrorism following their arrest in 2020, but acquits them on a weapons possession charge. Press freedom and rights groups condemn the verdict.

Three people are killed, including the perpetrator, and another is critically injured in a school shooting at a primary school in Ntabankulu, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Six people are injured, including two critically, in a mass stabbing during a Kurdish demonstration in Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. Two suspects are arrested.

Canadian drug trafficker and fugitive Ryan Wedding, who is on the FBI Most Wanted List, is arrested in Mexico.

South Korea enacts a law that requires human oversight of high-impact artificial intelligence (AI) systems, mandates disclosure and labeling of certain AI uses, and institutes fines of up to ₩30 million (around US$20,400) for violations.

Guinea-Bissau suspends a U.S.-backed study of a hepatitis B vaccine on newborns pending an ethics review.

A state of emergency is declared in several U.S. states in anticipation for a potentially severe winter storm affecting the South and Eastern United States, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Mexico.

The death toll from the school bus collision with a truck near Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng, South Africa, increases to 14 children killed, while the bus driver is charged with murder.

Ten people are killed and ten injured after a vehicle carrying army soldiers skids off a road and falls into a gorge in Jammu and Kashmir, India.

At least seven people are killed and more than eight others are injured in a suspected gas explosion near Tumaco in Nariño Department, Colombia.

Six people are lightly injured when a passenger train collides with a crane arm in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain, in the fourth railway incident in the country within a week.

One person is killed and 109 schoolchildren are injured in a head-on collision between a pick-up truck and a school bus on R510 in Thabazimbi, Limpopo, South Africa.

The death toll from a massive fire five days ago at a multi-story shopping mall in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, increases to 67 people.

Mozambique authorities report at least 13 deaths from flooding caused by heavy rains, which has affected more than 500,000 people.