UN News Today 16 September 2026 |

• World leaders will gather in New York starting Tuesday for several days of high-level debate at the United Nations General Assembly. • Diplomats indicate there will likely be a high-level meeting on the sidelines regarding the conflict in Sudan.

• A Saudi-led coalition shot down a Houthi drone near Mecca on Tuesday amid ongoing regional instability. • The United States embassy issued a travel advisory urging citizens to reconsider traveling to Saudi Arabia following alerts in Mecca and other areas.

• Member states are meeting at the U.N. General Assembly to address global food crises and humanitarian diplomacy amid ongoing financial shortfalls and political tensions. • The session on realigning global food action is scheduled to last only 75 minutes.

• Yemen's Houthi movement evolved from a local Zaydi Shi'ite revivalist group in the 1990s into a heavily armed force capable of striking regional targets. • The group expanded its reach along the Red Sea coast to threaten the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical global maritime chokepoint.

• Iran-backed groups attacked a major Saudi oil pipeline, forcing the facility to shut down. • Social media platforms have seen a surge of old and repurposed videos falsely presented as current footage from the Houthi-Saudi front lines.

• A building collapse in Gaza killed at least 21 people, including 12 children, amid widening Middle East conflicts. • The tragedy occurred alongside diplomatic stalemates in Cairo and delayed security talks in Oman.

• The BRICS grouping adopted a joint declaration by consensus on September 12 after back-channel negotiations resolved disputes between Iran and the UAE. • The agreement overcame sharp divisions regarding the conflict in West Asia to reach a unified diplomatic position.

• Ronald Reagan entered the White House in January 1981 during a period of deteriorating relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. • Diplomatic agreements reached in 1988 led to the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola and paved the way for Namibian independence in 1990.

• Gillian Mackay introduced motion S7M-01178 for a parliamentary debate on September 16, 2026, regarding boycotts, divestment, and sanctions in the Middle East. • The motion cites that more than 20,000 children have been killed and 45,000 injured in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Exclusive: Sisters of Nicholas Brandram recount 44-year-old’s deteriorating mental health in days before he took his lifeDays before Nicholas Brandram, the man suspected of being the “Putney pusher”, killed himself, he told his family that the police investigation was “murdering him”.He had “no fight left” in him, he told his sisters, Alexia Hicks and Sophie Voelcker, and could not see an end to the Metropolitan police investigation, or the online abuse. Continue reading...

The US health secretary added that he would’ve made sweeping changes ‘on day one’ but he had to follow the lawAs the death toll from the worst measles outbreak in decades rises, Robert F Kennedy Jr headlined the Washington DC conference of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, which he led for nearly two decades.“Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy, now serving as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told anti-vaccine activists at the conference in a nearly hour-and-a-half-long speech. He urged patience, saying that he would’ve made sweeping changes “on day one” but that he had to follow the law in order to make permanent change. Continue reading...