What's New

As the number of people with diabetes surges, many are at “increased risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19”, the UN chief said in his message for World Diabetes Day, on Saturday. 

“Many efforts have been made to prevent and treat diabetes”, but the disease continues to rise rapidly in low and middle income countries, those “least well-equipped with the diagnostics, medicines, and knowledge to provide life-saving treatment”, said Secretary-General António Guterres. 

With the world population expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050, food production will need to keep pace, and experts believe the Ocean can provide much of the sustenance we need. The second story in our two-part series on aquaculture focuses on the opportunities for significantly scaling up fish farming.

If just two per cent of the Ocean were to be sustainably farmed, the world could easily be fed, according to experts. In the first story of a two-part series looking at the opportunities and challenges facing Ocean farming, we take a look at the huge potential role of seaweed in mitigating climate change, cutting marine pollution, and achieving the UN goal of Zero Hunger.

The fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “go hand in hand”, the UN chief told a major development bank conference on Thursday.

Thousands of people continue to be killed and injured every year by landmines and explosive weapons in conflicts around the world, while the COVID-19 pandemic has forced mine-clearance efforts to be scaled back, a  UN-backed civil society report on the issue said on Thursday.

Those affected by the devastating explosions that tore through Beirut 100 days ago, killing more than 200 people, remain in need of crucial support, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Wednesday. 

Reporters and other media workers in warzones across the world, are reliable witnesses who contribute to forging peace, and must be better-protected under international humanitarian law, said the UN chief on Wednesday.

A UN rights committee has called on social media platforms to use big data and artificial intelligence to help eliminate trafficking in women and girls, amid an increase in online traps designed to recruit potential victims during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United Nations Secretary-General has called on the global community to stand against hatred in all its forms, and to reject the “lies and loathing” which led to the rise of Nazism and which fractures societies today. 

Secretary-General António Guterres warned that alongside COVID-19, the “virus” of anti-Semitism and other identity-based forms of hate, has also been spreading. 

The UN is calling for authoritative scientific information and research to be made freely available, to accelerate research into an effective vaccine against the COVID-19 virus, help counter misinformation, and “unlock the full potential of science”.