What's New

Marking the International Day of Older Persons this Friday, the United Nations is driving home the message that “digital equality” online, needs to be inclusive of everybody, regardless of age.  

When the extremist militant group ISIL, or Da’esh, collapsed in Iraq and Syria, thousands of foreign nationals were hastily detained in prisons and camps. At least 42,000 foreign women and children, most under the age of 12, currently remain in squalid and overcrowded conditions inside camps in northeast Syria.  

After a one-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the Karama Beirut Human Rights Film Festival (KBHRFF) that is organized by Lebanese NGO “Art Factory 961” returned for its fifth edition 2021 under the theme “Occupy the Void”. Several Arab and international directors, actors/actresses and media personalities gathered at the Sunflower Theater in Beirut at the opening of the festival, held for the third time in collaboration with the UN Information Centre in Beirut.

Following a decade of appalling suffering and losses in Syria, and amid a current period of relative calm, now is the time to push for a political process to end the fighting, UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen told the Security Council on Tuesday.

Almost two years into the COVID-19 crisis, a huge divergence in the recovery is undermining global trust and solidarity, according to a new policy brief on jobs and poverty eradication, outlined by UN chief, António Guterres on Tuesday. 

The Secretary-General warned that the pandemic has not only confirmed but deepened existing inequalities. 

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has caused and perpetuated “truly shocking” inequality that has affected the world’s most vulnerable individuals, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday, in a call for greater coronavirus vaccine solidarity and a human rights-led post-pandemic economic recovery.

The world needs a new approach to allow as many people as possible to access digital data across borders, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Wednesday. 

This should help maximize development gains and ensure that they are equitably distributed, said the agency, launching its Digital Economy Report 2021. 

The members of the Security Council welcomed the announcement on 10 September 2021 of the formation of a new government in Lebanon led by Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the 20 September 2021 vote of confidence by the Parliament of Lebanon as necessary first steps towards the resolution of Lebanon’s crisis.

Tourism “touches almost every part of our economies and societies”, enabling the historically marginalized, and “those at risk of being left behind, to benefit from development”, declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, marking World Tourism Day.  

The world’s poorest countries will remain on the margins of the global economy if States are unable to boost economic production, and the international community fails to provide more support, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned.