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The Handmaid’s Tale: making a drama out of a crisis
The Handmaid’s Tale, an award-winning television series, may be about a fictional “alternative reality”, but the show’s creators have gone to great lengths to ensure that references to themes such as climate change, human rights abuses, and refuge
UN chief launches plan to revitalise Beirut as ‘beating heart of Lebanon’
Against the “grim background” of tragic explosions that destroyed much of central Beirut in early August, the UN chief on Wednesday offered a new multi-agency plan to help the Lebanese people move forward, following months of political gridlock.
2020 may be third hottest year on record, world could hit climate change milestone by 2024
Global pressure on wages from COVID-19 will not stop with the arrival of a vaccine, the head of the International Labour Organization (ILO) warned on Wednesday, coinciding with a major report showing how the pandemic had slowed or reversed a trend
Climate Action: It’s time to make peace with nature, UN chief urges
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has described the fight against the climate crisis as the top priority for the 21st Century, in a passionate, uncompromising speech delivered on Wednesday at Columbia University in New York.
COVID-19’s impact on wages is only just getting started, ILO warns
Global pressure on wages from COVID-19 will not stop with the arrival of a vaccine, the head of the International Labour Organization (ILO) warned on Wednesday, coinciding with a major report showing how the pandemic had slowed or reversed a trend
Cut fossil fuels production to ward off ‘catastrophic’ warming: UN-backed report
Countries must decrease production of fossil fuels by 6 per cent per year, between 2020 and 2030, if the world is to avert "catastrophic” global temperature rise, a new UN-backed report has found.
UN humanitarian office puts Yemen war dead at 233,000, mostly from ‘indirect causes’
Almost a quarter of a million people have died in Yemen’s war, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on its website on Tuesday, confirming the huge toll from a conflict that has ravaged Yemen’s economy and created
With challenges, COVID-19 also saw initiatives helping migrants: Guterres
The Global Compact for Migration, adopted by countries in 2018 as a comprehensive framework for cooperation on international migration, is “taking root in promising ways”, the UN Secretary General said on Tuesday.
COVID-19 can spark new generation of social protection measures: UN chief
While COVID-19 has wiped out important development gains in mere months, with extreme poverty rising for the first time in decades, the pandemic could spark the transformations needed to achieve stronger social protection systems, the UN Secretary
INTERVIEW: Economic and Social Council ‘vital to promote global peace and global cooperation’
Munir Akram wears two hats. He is Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN and was elected on 23 July as the 76th President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); one of the three main bodies that provide the backbone of the United Nations.
UNHCR asks Ethiopia for urgent access to 96,000 Eritreans cut off without food
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, appealed to Ethiopia on Tuesday for urgent access to 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, saying the month-long conflict in Tigray had left them without vital supplies.
UN appeals for $35 billion to help world’s ‘most vulnerable and fragile’ in 2021
A record 235 million people will need humanitarian assistance and protection next year, a near- 40 per cent increase on 2020 which is “almost entirely from COVID-19”, the UN’s emergency relief chief said on Tuesday.
Growing potatoes in the air: agricultural innovation in Rwanda
A Rwandan entrepreneur is pioneering the use of innovative farming technology that, he believes, is set to play a major role in feeding the growing population in his country, amid increasing pressure on arable land.
UN refugee agency appeals for $147 million to support thousands of Ethiopians fleeing to Sudan
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has launched an appeal for $147 million to support as many as 100,000 people fleeing Ethiopia’s Tigray region into neighbouring Sudan, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Monday.
The race to zero emissions, and why the world depends on it
A host of countries have recently announced major commitments to significantly cut their carbon emissions, promising to reach "net zero" in the coming years.
UN condemns ‘brutal and callous’ attack on civilians in north-east Nigeria
Denouncing attack, on Saturday, targeting civilians in Nigeria’s restive Borno state, a senior UN humanitarian official called on the authorities to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
First Person: ‘people with disabilities are the greatest untapped resource on the planet’
Worldwide, persons with disabilities experience higher levels of unemployment and economic inactivity than non-disabled persons. Ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Mike Hess, US-based entrepreneur and founder of the Blind Ins
Rising hunger in drought-stricken southern Madagascar forcing families to eat insects: WFP
Hunger is on the rise in southern Madagascar due to consecutive years of drought, affecting half the region’s population, or 1.5 million people, and forcing most families to eat insects, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Friday.
Address water scarcity ‘immediately and boldly’, urges UN agriculture agency chief
More than three billion people live in agricultural areas with high levels of water shortages and scarcity, the UN agriculture agency said in a new report launched on Wednesday.
‘Incredibly hard’ winter beckons for Syrians, more assistance urgently needed
More than three million people across Syria require assistance through what is likely to be an “incredibly hard” winter, the acting deputy UN Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Wednesday, highlighting that those displaced re
UN report finds Gaza suffered $16.7 billion loss from siege and occupation
Israel’s military operations and prolonged closure of Gaza, has caused economic damage of $16.7 billion between 2007 and 2018, driving the poverty rate up almost fourfold compared to what it might have otherwise been, the UN trade and development
Afghanistan conference draws donor pledges and calls for lasting ceasefire
International donors pledged financial and political support for Afghanistan’s peace process at the 2020 Afghanistan Conference in Geneva on Tuesday, anticipating a sustainable ceasefire that will help the country rebuild and heal after decades of
‘Foundational and necessary change’ needed to heal post-COVID world
With the COVID-19 pandemic precipitating one of the world’s worst health, socioeconomic and humanitarian crises in over a century, the UN chief told a high-level discussion on Tuesday to seize the opportunity “to make real, foundational, and neces
Desert Locust resurgence worries in Horn of Africa, reports UN agency
The Desert Locust crisis, which struck the greater Horn of Africa region earlier this year, could re-escalate as recent strong winds carried small mature yellow swarmlets from southern Somalia into eastern and northeastern Kenya, the UN Food and A
UN ‘extremely concerned’ for safety of Tigray civilians in regional capital, as refugee numbers grow
The UN on Monday said it was “extremely concerned” over the safety of civilians across Ethiopia’s Tigray region, as fighting between Government troops and those loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) reportedly continued, with the Et
Carbon dioxide levels hit new record; COVID impact ‘a tiny blip’, WMO says
Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hit a new record of 410.5 parts per million in 2019, and are expected to keep rising this year, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin on Monday.
No time to waste, as Yemen inches towards famine: UNICEF
Raising alarm over “an imminent catastrophe” in war-ravaged Yemen, the head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated the urgent need to stop fighting.
‘We see the sparks before they turn into fires’: training women to avoid conflict in Sierra Leone
In the West African country of Sierra Leone, the UN is supporting a government programme, training women and men to take on leadership roles in areas such as peacebuilding, with the aim of promoting peace and non-violence.
UN chief to press G20 for greater solidarity and support during pandemic
When he addresses leaders of the world’s richest countries at the G20 summit on Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will deliver a simple message on the COVID-19 pandemic: “We need solidarity and cooperation.
Guterres pledges support for sustainable industrial development in Africa
The COVID-19 crisis was impacting Africa “well before the pandemic spread across the continent”, the UN chief said on Friday, marking Africa Industrialization Day, arriving at a point when many economies were expanding and “poverty was in decline”