What's New

Representatives from across the Middle East are meeting at UN Headquarters this week in efforts to negotiate a legally binding treaty establishing a regional zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Ending the practice of defecating in the open, rather than in a toilet, will have “transformational benefits” for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, says the UN’s partner sanitation body, the WSSCC (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council). 

Saving lives by improving road safety is “one of the many objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, the United Nations chief said in his message for the global day set aside for remembering the victims of traffic accidents.

Although the world has made historic gains over the past three decades in improving children’s lives, urgent action is required if the poorest children are to feel the impact, a new UN report published on Monday warns.

The study by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calls on countries to recommit to promises made under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted 30 years ago.

The top UN humanitarian official was in the Security Council on Wednesday to appeal for the renewal of an operation that delivers life-saving food and other aid relief to some four million civilians in northern Syria.

The mandate of the cross-border mechanism operating from Turkey will expire in January.

“Without the cross-border operation, we would see an immediate end of aid supporting millions of civilians,” Mark Lowcock, the UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Council.

Noting that the people of Iraq were at “a critical juncture”, the top UN Envoy in the country told parliamentarians there on Thursday that over the past six weeks, hundreds of thousands have been peacefully voicing their “genuine, legitimate, demands, loud and clear”. 

Education is an “essential pillar” to achieving the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN chief António Guterres told an audience on Tuesday at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Culture Organization, ahead of the agency’s General Conference.

Spotlighting the role of targeted investment and innovation towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with special focus on ‘Harnessing the Potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Digital Economy,’ the World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum kicked off on Tuesday in the Bahraini capital, Manama.

From before birth, to the end of life, taking to the dance floor or sketching a still life, can positively affect our health and even prove more cost-effective than conventional medical treatment, the World Health Organisation (WHO) found in a new study published on Monday.

In a speech to the Paris Peace Forum in Paris on Monday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that to thrive, multilateralism had to adapt, mindful that “conflicts persist, creating suffering and displacement: our world is unsettled”.  He was speaking as commemorations took place in countries across the world, marking the official end of the First World War, in 1918.