What's New

Road traffic accidents claim nearly 1.3 million lives each year, cost some countries up to three per cent of their annual GDP, and are the biggest killer of five to 29-year olds globally, the UN General Assembly President told a High-level Meeting on Improving Global Road Safety on Thursday.

The Caretaker Minister of Information, Ziad Makary, received in his office at the ministry, the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Beirut (UNIC Beirut) Margo Helou with whom she discussed the bilateral cooperation in terms of capacity-building, campaigns, and UN priorities.

Makary expressed "the ministry's readiness to cooperate fully with UNIC, especially in terms of capacity-building and trainings."

They also touched upon the continuity of the cooperation between UNIC, "Tele Liban" and "Radio Liban".

Episode 3 of #TheUrbanAthletePodcast, produced by a group of young professional athletes in collaboration with UNIC Beirut, is out. It features Daniel Chamoun and Rami Kalaani, two Lebanese professional gamers and streamers who bring years of insight from the eSports industry.

In this episode, World Champion Michel Zammar and Coach Ryan Merheb discuss all the nuances of eSports from game analysis, professional-level play, live-streaming on Facebook, the foundation of “Lebanon Clan,” and much more.

On the occasion of the first-ever International Day to Counter Hate Speech, the United Nations in Lebanon said #NoToHate in a two-fold communication plan targeting Lebanon and the region and advocating “more speech, not less”. 

Addressing the first meeting of the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee on Thursday over the global Monkeypox outbreak, the WHO chief told members that person-to-person transmission was ongoing, and “likely underestimated”.

In line with its efforts to support municipalities and unions of municipalities in Lebanon, the Municipal Empowerment and Resilience Project (MERP), which is implemented jointly by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and funded by the European Union, organized on the 21 June 2022 a discussion at Kempinski Hotel in Beirut, around Regional Technical Offices (RTOs) and the support that RTOs can provide to municipalities and unions in this area.

With humanitarian needs in Syria at their highest levels since the start of the civil war more than 11 years ago, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appealed on Monday for the Security Council to renew a resolution on delivering lifesaving aid to millions in northwest Syria, through cross-border operations from neighbouring Türkiye. 

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it should be that humanity is fragile and life is precious. For many of us, the insular existence of social distancing was deeply isolating, frightening, and traumatic. Grievances with the conditions of the pandemic saw people lash out in online fora, propagating dis- and misinformation, and even blaming individuals and groups for spreading the virus. Xenophobia and hate speech were rampant in a time where community and solidarity were needed more than ever.

Based on recent assessments, 2.5 million people are currently in need of humanitarian assistance in Lebanon – vulnerable Lebanese, migrants, and Palestine refugees in Lebanon (PRL) – in addition to 1.5 million Syrian refugees. During meetings with the Lebanese Government, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Mrs Najat Rochdi, has announced that Lebanon Humanitarian Fund (LHF) has allocated US$16 million to scale up humanitarian response in Lebanon.

New funding from governments for fossil fuel exploration or production is simply “delusional” the UN chief warned on Tuesday, adding that it would only “further feed the scourge or war, pollution and climate catastrophe.”

António Guterres was speaking at the Sixth Austrian World Summit on the climate crisis, convened by the Austrian Government and former Governor of California and Hollywood actor turned climate activist, Arnold Schwarzenegger.