What's New

On Wednesday, the global community marks the International Day of Non-Violence, which this year coincided with the 150th anniversary of the birth of the global peace icon who led India to independence, Mahatma Gandhi.

In the coming decade, the number of persons aged 60 or over is projected to grow by 46 per cent, making the increase in those officially classified as elderly, one of the “most significant transformations of this century,'' the United Nations declared on Tuesday, marking the International Day of Older Persons. 

There is a “sign of hope for the long-suffering Syrian people” as a Syrian-led, Syrian-owned, credible and inclusive Constitutional Committee is set to start deliberations next month, the United Nations Special Envoy for the country told the Security Council on Monday.

The only way to guarantee peace, security and sustainable development is for countries to work together, the UN General Assembly president said in his speech on Monday concluding the annual high-level debate in the Hall.

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande underscored the value of multilateral cooperation in addition to what he described as “the give-and-take spirit” that defines it.

Although terrorism is a “global nightmare which haunts everyone”, some countries have invested in terrorism as a tool to impose their “insidious agendas” on other nations, Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister Walid Al-Moualem told the UN General Assembly on Saturday. 

Small island nations are “not sitting idly by” but are emerging as “frontrunners” in the fight against climate change according to Fekitamoeloa Katoa ‘Utoikamanu, the UN High Representative for Small Island Developing States.

On Friday, they will be centre stage during the General Assembly’s big opening week, when countries will discuss progress made since the landmark SAMOA Pathway agreement was reached, five years ago.

Progress made in reducing the danger posed by nuclear arsenals has not only come to a halt, “it is going in reverse”, and any use of a nuclear weapon in the future would ignite “a humanitarian catastrophe.” 

While the “heated” wars in the Middle East over the last decade have recessed, the President of Lebanon told the United Nations General Assembly’s annual general debate on Wednesday that Syria’s displacement crisis has had repercussions on his country’s “security, political, social, economic and environmental spheres”.

The first UN summit on the progress of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development closed on a hopeful note, with Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed declaring that the two-day event had been a reminder of “the boundless potential of humanity to create a better future for all”.

For the second year in a row, Lebanon took part in one of the biggest one-day global civic movements against waste, “World Cleanup Day”.