What's New

On 10 January, the former United States Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, announced the designation of the Houthis (Ansar Allah) as a foreign terrorist organization and a specially designated global terrorist entity. The designation entered into effect on 19 January.

The number of new COVID-19 cases globally has fallen for the third week in a row, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Monday, though urging countries not to let up efforts to defeat the disease. 

Helping women start and grow businesses in the world’s poorest countries is a path to lifting them and their families out of poverty, the high-profile businesswoman, and new UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) Goodwill Ambassador Sonia Gardner, has told UN News, in the second of our two part series this weekend, on the role the financial sector can play in reducing inequality.

Several people, including four children, are reported dead, with many more injured, following a weekend of deadly bomb attacks in towns in northern rural Aleppo, Syria, that were roundly condemned by senior UN officials.

According to media reports, a car bomb detonated in the town of Azaz on Sunday, killing four and injuring at least 22. One of the dead was reportedly a 12-year-old girl. The attack comes just a day after an attack in Afrin, also in the Aleppo region, also a car-bombing, which reportedly killed six civilians, three of whom were children. 

With COVID-19 vaccines currently in scarce supply, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday pressed governments to prioritize inoculation of health workers and older persons, and to share excess doses with other nations. 

Geir Pedersen, UN Special Envoy for Syria, lamented the slow progress of the peace process in the country, in remarks to the press on Friday, following a meeting involving members of the UN-facilitated Syrian Constitution Committee, in Geneva.

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in The Bronx, a few miles uptown from UN Headquarters in New York.

Following an “annus horribilis” of death, disaster and despair, 2021 must be a year of transformation, Secretary-General António Guterres told the UN’s 193 Member States on Thursday. 

Outlining his priorities for the months ahead, Mr. Guterres emphasized that now is the time to secure the well-being of people, economies, societies and the planet. 

Heavy rains and floods in north-west Syria has worsened the plight of tens of thousands of internally displaced persons, destroying their tents, food and belongings in the midst of winter, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday. 

UNODC collaborated with the research team at JUST and EMPHNET to launch an updated version of the CImA App, incorporating parenting and caregiving under COVID-19 tools.