What's New

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has issued a statement expressing his profound concern over the rise in violence against Asians, and people of Asian descent, during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The growing gap between the number of vaccines being given in rich countries and those administered through COVAX is becoming “more grotesque every day”, the head of the UN health agency said on Monday.

“In January, I said that the world was on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure unless urgent steps were taken to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) told journalists at a regular news briefing. 

Climate change has hit the world’s oceans hard, UN weather experts said on Monday, in a call for lifesaving monitoring and early warning services that were interrupted by COVID-19 to be ramped up again, to protect shipping and coastal communities at risk. 

The UN is marking World Water Day on Monday with a global conversation on how people value the lifegiving resource in different parts of the world, according to local needs.

“For me, water means protection”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message. 

New technologies have given us new ways to control diseases - crucial to fighting the COVID pandemic, and future global outbreaks, says the World Health Organization’s Chief Scientist.

Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic should lead to stronger action to safeguard the world’s forests, a senior UN official said on Friday, highlighting how these natural resources have helped to protect health and well-being during the global crisis. 

Liu Zhenmin, head of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), issued the call during a virtual event to commemorate the International Day of Forests, observed annually on 21 March. 

Much of today’s racism is “deeply entrenched in centuries of colonialism and enslavement”, the UN chief said on Friday ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

“Today, apartheid lies dead. But, sadly, racism lives on – in all regions and all societies”, Secretary-General António Guterres told a meeting of the General Assembly commemorating Sunday’s international day.   

The UN weather agency on Thursday cautioned that the current onset of warmer temperatures in the northern hemisphere should not be used as a trigger to relax measures to halt the spread of coronavirus. 

New and unprecedented forms of natural disasters are most heavily felt in the agricultural industry, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday.

Negative stereotypes, prejudice and perceptions towards people based on their age, not only leads to poorer health and social isolation, it is also costing economies billions of dollars, UN agencies said on Thursday, calling for urgent action to combat ageism.