What's New

Despite the loss of its last stronghold in Syria and the death of its leader, ISIL “remains at the centre of the transnational terrorism threat”, a senior UN official told the Security Council on Friday. 

In presenting the latest UN report on ISIL, Vladimir Voronkov, head of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, urged the international community to remain united in fighting the group’s reach, which extends to Africa, Europe and Asia. 

Air and ground strikes in the region of Idlib, northwest Syria, are causing “massive waves of civilian displacement and major loss of civilian life”, causing unacceptable human suffering which must stop now, Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Envoy for Syria, told the Security Council on Thursday.

Mark Lowcock, UN Humanitarian Affairs chief and Emergency Relief Coordinator also briefed the Council on what he described as the “humanitarian catastrophe” unfolding in Syria as a result of the military escalation.

A military escalation in northern Syria which has trapped civilians in Idlib has “shocked and horrified” a senior UN humanitarian official. 

The UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Mark Cutts, said that “bombing has just been continuing with impunity.”

With the ocean in deep crisis, members of civil society and philanthropic organisations are urging governments and corporations to take bold action to safeguard the ocean.  After a two-day preparatory meeting in New York ahead of June’s UN Ocean Conference in Portugal, activists handed over what they termed “A Blue Call to Action” to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on Wednesday.  

Although around 1.4 million refugees are estimated to be in urgent need of resettlement worldwide, only 63,696 were resettled through the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) last year - that's only 4.5 per cent  -  due to a continuing shortage of offers of sanctuary from governments across the world.

Rising instability and unpredictable geopolitical tensions have led to a “wind of madness” across the world, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday during his main annual press conference for journalists at UN Headquarters in New York. 

Following recent flare-ups in some hotspots, the UN chief observed that although de-escalation efforts indicated progress, the situation has now changed.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) has taken steps to ensure that the coronavirus epidemic that has claimed hundreds of lives in central China does not spark a dangerous social media “infodemic” fuelled by false information.

Climate action will be both a priority and a driver of world affairs through the coming decade, United Nations Secretary-General chief António Guterres announced on Monday, during a speech at UN Headquarters in New York on Monday, in which he declared that the next ten years will be “crucial for achieving a fair globalization, boosting economic growth and building peaceful societies”.

Indigenous and tribal communities are around three times more likely to face extreme poverty than others with women “consistently at the bottom of all social and economic indicators”, UN labour experts said on Monday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) raised the alarm on Monday over critical health threats facing hundreds-of thousands of Syrians forced to flee due to intensified hostilities in Syria’s northwest, where health facilities and workers have increasingly come under attack.