While it took just over a year for the global COVID death toll to hit 2.5 million, the next 2.5 million deaths were recorded over the past eight months as the highly contagious delta variant spread around the world.

While countries from all over the world gather for COP26, "climate change famine" shows no sign of abating in southern Madagascar, where crippling droughts have left families starving, paying what the United Nations describes as the "highest price" of malnutrition induced from climate change. Africa, responsible for just 3% of global emissions, is seen as the most vulnerable region to climate change, as evidenced by Madagascar's droughts this year . African leaders demanded at the Glasgow conference that wealthy countries responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions make good on an earlier pledge to provide $100 billion a year to help poorer countries cope. Climate change is battering the Indian Ocean island and several U.N. agencies have warned in the past few months of a "climate change famine" there. Rainfall patterns in Madagascar are growing more erratic – they've been below average for nearly six years, said researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Top UN rights official Michelle Bachelet has slammed the military's violent repression following the October 25 coup. Sudan's prime minister is under house arrest.

The council's 15 member countries released the statement as Tigrayan rebels threatened to capture the capital, Addis Ababa, a year into the fighting. Twitter also has disabled the trends section on Ethiopia.

COVID and conflicts have pushed the number of people facing food insecurity to 45 million, with Afghanistan fast becoming the "world's largest humanitarian crisis."

Authorities in Portugal have launched raids after a tipoff that Portuguese troops may have smuggled contraband from the Central Afridan Republic. The country has 180 UN peacekeepers stationed in the African nation.

Europe has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic, followed by Asia. Meanwhile, Germany's incidence rate hit a new record for the second straight day. Follow DW for the latest.

The UN's special adviser on genocide prevention, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, says the parties fighting in Ethiopia's war have few options but to negotiate.

United Nations officials said staffers were rounded up by government authorities in raids targeting ethnic Tigrayans. Six have been arrested and released, while 16 others remain in custody.

A painting by Mark Rothko sold for $82.5 million (€72.6 million) making it the most expensive item of the evening. The collection was previously owned by real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his former wife Linda.

Police have previously denied that the arrests are ethnically motivated. Almost 200 young children have starved to death in Tigray.

A self-portrait by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold at auction on Tuesday for a record-breaking $34.9 million, the highest price ever paid for a Latin American art ever sold at auction. Diego y yo (Diego and I) depicts Kahlo's tumultuous second marriage to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Completed in 1949, the painting is Kahlo's final fully-realized bust self-portrait before she died in 1954 at the age of 47.