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Measures by governments across the world to curb the COVID-19 pandemic have led to the widespread disruption of trafficking routes for illegal drugs, mainly by air and on land, upping some prices, according to a new UN report published on Thursday.

Today, following consultations with the government and international partners, the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator ad interim and humanitarian partners are launching the Lebanon Emergency Appeal. The Appeal, requesting for US$350 million, is to address critical areas of humanitarian intervention to protect the lives of people in Lebanon who are most acutely at risk due to the COVID-19 outbreak and its immediate socio-economic impact.

With the novel coronavirus exacerbating already dire socio-economic conditions in Lebanon, journalists there find themselves facing double the work. Even as Lebanon’s government grapples with a deteriorating economy and financial crisis on one hand, and the COVID-19 pandemic on the other, popular demonstrations have resumed. Many of those protesting are ignoring measures aimed at guarding against the spread of the coronavirus. Reporters are caught in the middle.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 116 million babies have been born since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on Thursday called for governments to maintain lifesaving services for pregnant women and newborns that are under increasing threat from strained health services and supply chains.

New mothers and their babies are facing systems in crisis, including overwhelmed health centres; supply and equipment shortages; and a lack of skilled birth attendants, including midwives. 

Since the start of the month, an average of 80,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported each day to the World Health Organization (WHO), the agency’s chief told journalists listening in to his virtual press conference on Wednesday.

As the COVID-19 pandemic reshapes the way in which we work, keep in touch, go to school and shop for essentials – across the world – it has never been more important to bridge the digital divide for the 3.6 billion people who remain off-line.

That’s according to top experts from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), who outlined the implications of the new coronavirus pandemic during a digital briefing on Tuesday to correspondents in Geneva.

The COVID-19 pandemic is intensifying inequalities experienced by the world’s one billion people with disabilities, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in launching a report issued on Wednesday that calls for a disability-inclusive recovery and response to the crisis.

Even under normal circumstances, people with disabilities are less likely to access education, healthcare and income opportunities, or to participate in their communities, according to Mr. Guterres.

The “most massive public health effort in history” is needed to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN chief said on Monday, addressing a European Union pledging conference in Brussels.

Journalists are key to countering the “dangerous outbreak of misinformation” accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN Secretary-General said on Monday during a virtual dialogue on promoting press freedom amid the global crisis.

A new UN report finds that some 19 million children were displaced within their own countries due to conflict and violence in 2019, more than in any other year, making them among the most vulnerable to the global spread of COVID-19. 

According to the “Lost at Home” report, published on Tuesday by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there were 12 million new displacements of children in 2019:  around 3.8 million of them caused by conflict and violence, and 8.2 million, due to disasters linked mostly to weather-related events.