At the start of this year’s UN Forum on Forests, the United Nations will launch the Global Forest Goals Report 2026, the latest global assessment of progress towards the six Global Forest Goals and 26 targets of the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017–2030.

 With less than five years remaining to 2030, the report provides current evidence on progress, gaps and the urgent need to scale up action to halt deforestation, restore degraded lands and advance sustainable forest management. It underscores the critical role of forests in supporting climate stability, biodiversity, the livelihoods of over a billion people and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Drawing on voluntary national reports and the latest forest-related global data, the report also identifies key gaps in finance, governance and data and sets out policy recommendations to accelerate action in the final years leading to 2030.

Thirteen individuals, including senior officials in Ethiopia’s petroleum sector, have been charged with corruption offenses tied to what prosecutors describe as a coordinated fuel diversion scheme that allegedly contributed to recent fuel shortages across the country.

The charges were filed before the Federal High Court Lideta Branch, 3rd Anti-Corruption Criminal Bench.

Among those charged are Esmealem Mihretu, CEO of the Ethiopian Petroleum Supply Enterprise (EPSE), Dibara Fufa, Deputy Director of the Petroleum Sector at the Ethiopian Petroleum and Energy Authority, and Shum-Alem Berhane, Director General of EPSE, alongside other officials and private sector actors.

Prosecutors allege that the defendants diverted more than 70 million birr worth of gasoline and white diesel outside government oversight, exacerbating fuel shortages in the domestic market.

The charge sheet outlines four separate counts involving alleged abuse of power, illegal fuel distribution, and collusion between state officials and private operators.

On Monday, drones struck Khartoum’s international airport, the first attack on the capital in months, shattering a fragile return to normalcy. Just one week prior, the airport had received its first international arrival since the civil war began, a Kuwait Airways flight bringing back 300 Sudanese citizens.

Sudan’s military said it had conclusive evidence the drones were launched from Bahir Dar airport in Ethiopia and constituted what it referred to as “direct aggression.” Khartoum recalled its ambassador to Addis Ababa. Ethiopia denied everything, calling the accusations “baseless” and made “at the behest of external patrons” — a likely reference to Egypt, which backs Sudan’s army and is locked in an existential dispute with Addis Ababa over the Nile water rights.

Egypt’s foreign ministry in turn, described attacks launched from “the territory of a neighbouring country” as a flagrant violation of Sudanese sovereignty — language that condemned Ethiopia without triggering a formal diplomatic rupture. Saudi Arabia called on “neighbouring countries of Sudan” to respect Sudan’s sovereignty and prohibit the use of their territory “as a launchpad for such attacks,” a formulation that managed simultaneously to condemn Ethiopia, and gesture toward its own backing of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

COP31 President-Designate, H.E. Murat Kurum today outlined how Türkiye’s model of urban reconstruction following the 2023 earthquake represents a vision of scaling up climate action in cities.

During his keynote address at the ‘Türkiye’s road to COP31: Resilient Cities’ event, he outlined a vision “to make resilient, sustainable and people-centred cities one of the main pillars of the global climate agenda.”

Mr. Kurum, who will lead the annual UN climate summit COP31 in Antalya this November and serves as Türkiye’s Minister for Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, has led the ministry’s reconstruction effort which has already rebuilt almost half a million homes across the affected region.

Speaking at an international conference in Hatay, one of the epicenters of the destruction, Mr. Kurum set out how the COP31 President sees the November conference as “a platform for solutions – one that responds to the challenges of cities, makes the capacity of local governments visible, and turns words into concrete results.”

He explained the Presidency’s intention to make resilient cities one of the fundamental priorities of the international climate agenda “because globally, we must reduce emissions from buildings.”