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International donors on Thursday pledged an additional $118 million for the United Nations agency assisting Palestine refugees to help overcome what its chief called its “greatest and gravest financial crisis ever.”

Established by the General Assembly in 1949, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides assistance and protection to over five million registered Palestine refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

“Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic Lyme disease, depression” – just some of the illnesses outlined by World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, who drove home the danger by asking delegates to stand up, when they heard the name of an illness that had killed someone they loved: One by one, every single person in the room, got to their feet.

King Adbullah II of Jordan told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that “challenges do not make collective action and mutual respect less important,” and spotlighted the need for all countries to “pull together to get [the Middle East] peace process back on track.”

“We have a long way to go to deliver global opportunity and hope, but we can’t simply give up because the task is hard. All our countries benefit when we unite in common cause,” he told the Assembly’s annual general debate.

Although Lebanon ‘is groping our way to rise from consecutive crises’, President Michel Aoun said on Wednesday that his country was being buffeted by regional crises and called on the United Nations to show global leadership by taking action to resolve conflicts in the Middle East.

Facing a world where trust – trust in national institutions, trust among States and trust in the rules-based global order – is at a breaking point, Secretary-General António Guterres set the stage for the 73rd general debate of the United Nations with a call to rebuild solidarity, repair broken trust and reinvigorate the spirit of multilateralism.

The United Nations Secretary-General launched a new partnership strategy with the world’s 1.8 billion young people on Monday, to help put “their ideas into action”.

Noting that it was “a rare treat” to see so many young faces at the UN, to launch the new “Youth2030” strategy, UN chief António Guterres highlighted a list of challenges “the largest young generation in history” faces today.

António Guterres launches his strategy to finance the 2030 Agenda plan to “transform the world” on 24 September, ahead of the General Assembly’s annual general debate.

New York, 23 September – The United Nations announced today the launch of the SDG Media Compact, an initiative marking a new drive to advance awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were unanimously adopted by all world leaders at the United Nations in 2015. The Compact seeks to inspire media and entertainment companies around the world to leverage their resources and creative talent to advance the Goals.

The UN Information Centre (UNIC) in Beirut and LUXURY LIMITED EDITION, an international public relations company owned by Cynthia Sarkis Perros, organized on 16 September a private screening of the Avant-Premiere of the Cannes Film Festival “Jury Prize winner” Movie “Capharnaüm”.  The screening, attended by the Lebanese Minister of Culture, Heads of UN agencies in Lebanon, including the Resident Coordinator Philippe Lazzarini, and UNIC’s stakeholders

Half of all people living in poverty are younger than 18 years old, according to estimates from a new report released on Thursday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and partners.