United Nations

The legacy of enslavement and colonialism continues to shape the lives of Africans and people of African descent, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Thursday, calling for urgent action to deliver reparatory justice beyond financial compensation.

Older women around the world face violence, exploitation and neglect, yet remain largely invisible in the laws, policies, data and services designed to protect women overall, a UN independent human rights expert said on Thursday.

Afghan women and girls are being arrested, detained and threatened with arrest by Taliban authorities, the UN warned on Thursday as record numbers of returnees struggle to rebuild their lives back home.

Years of conflict, displacement, economic disruption and climate shocks in Myanmar have led to the “simultaneous collapse” of shelter, healthcare, schooling and livelihoods affecting millions of people, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a report issued on Thursday.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine on Wednesday called for an end to attacks against civilians following further overnight strikes by Russian forces that reportedly killed at least 19 in the Chernihiv Region.

Health authorities in Russia say there is “no plague case” in Siberia following reports last week that a lab technician had died of pneumonia of an unknown origin in the region, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Wednesday.

New data on child migrants published on Wednesday highlighted the harrowing treatment many face while travelling to Europe in search of work and shelter.

Kenya’s first Ebola death has triggered a race to trace everyone the victim came into contact with, as the United Nations and partners provide full support, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) top official in the country has told UN News in her first interview on the case. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that significantly more resources are required to scale up its response in Yemen amid escalating conflict and rising needs.

Can the UN still remain relevant if it still looks and acts like the organization it was when it was formed in 1945? The debate over UN reform at the General Assembly in New York last month produced a striking common refrain from a diverse range of Member States.

Child and adolescent obesity has quadrupled since 1990, rising from two per cent to around eight per cent of youngsters in the five-to-19 age group, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).  

For a long time, launching something beyond Earth was reserved for a relatively small number of national space programmes. That is changing.

Sixty-nine Palestinians – more than half of them children – were displaced on Tuesday after Israeli authorities green lit the demolition of their residential building in the At Tur area of East Jerusalem, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) has reported.

Across Papua New Guinea, water sources are drying up, crops are failing and food prices are rising months before the worst agricultural impacts are expected. Behind those warning signs is an El Niño whose Pacific Ocean temperatures have already surpassed the equivalent measurements during the historic 1997 and 2015 events – part of an unfolding climate pattern being dubbed a “Super El Niño” by some climate watchers.

Djibouti is facing “overlapping emergencies” as refugees fleeing the conflict in Yemen arrive on its shores while migrants continue to travel in the opposite direction, the UN migration agency (IOM) warned on Tuesday. 

The death of a lab worker in Russia’s Siberia region has sparked concerns over a possible plague case, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, adding that it was following the situation closely.  

The UN Secretary-General appealed on Tuesday for an end to the United States-Iran war and the toll it has taken on global trade, as he began an official visit to Pakistan.

The Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is robbing children of their loved ones – with some succumbing to the deadly disease themselves – the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Tuesday.

Antibiotics, malaria treatments, painkillers, opioids. More than 250 tonnes of medical products were seized over six years in Central Africa. Behind those numbers is an illicit market that thrives not simply despite the region’s fragile health systems, but in part because of them.

Three years after Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups attacked Israel, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said nothing can justify the atrocities of 7 October – calling for an end to the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians alike.