United Nations

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday emphasized the importance of sustaining the momentum for change sparked by recent student protests in Bangladesh and subsequent resignation of the former Prime Minister, speaking at the end of a two-day visit to the country.

Countries gathered in Colombia to work on a treaty to end plastic pollution must strive for “an ambitious, credible and just” deal that responds to the needs of communities everywhere, including some 20 million waste-pickers, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council met in emergency session on Ukraine on Wednesday amid unconfirmed reports that troops from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) – more commonly known as North Korea – are deploying to fight alongside Russia. We followed the meeting as well as developments at UN Headquarters and on the ground. UN News app users can follow our updates here. 

Live updates through the day featured the latest breaking news from UN Headquarters and the field, with human rights experts and top UN officials addressing the crisis roiling across the Middle East as conflict continues to grip Gaza and Lebanon. UN News app users can follow our live coverage here.

In a new report launched on Tuesday the UN independent expert on human rights in Russia exposes alarming patterns of torture used as a State-sanctioned tool of repression to stifle dissent and intimidate communities abroad.

Escalating violence and new atrocities in Sudan have pushed the humanitarian crisis to unprecedented levels, with displacement now exceeding 11 million people amid reports of mass killings and systematic-sexual violence across multiple regions, UN officials said on Tuesday. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday called for decisive action to restore harmony with nature, warning that environmental crises are pushing humanity toward tipping points that threaten ecosystems, livelihoods and global stability.

Countries from around the world are meeting in the Colombian city of Cali, to discuss how best to protect biological diversity and develop a lasting blueprint that will allow humankind to live in harmony with nature.

Our live coverage ranged from the Security Council and UN Headquarters to dispatches from across the Middle East as tensions escalated and the war on Gaza and Lebanon continued in the shadows of a new Israeli ban on UNRWA, the agency serving nearly six million Palestine refugees in the region. UN News app users can follow here.

Top UN officials continued to line up on Tuesday to defend the irreplaceable role of the global body’s agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, insisting that if implemented, the Israeli parliament’s decision to ban it would only deepen suffering in Gaza.

Around one in seven children and adolescents aged 10 to 19 are affected by mental health conditions – with anxiety, depression and behavioural disorders among the most common, according to a new World Health Organization and UN Children’s Fund report released on Wednesday. 

Five trailblazing women – a nun, an activist, a social entrepreneur, a volunteer aid worker, and an advocate for ending statelessness – have been named the winners of this year’s UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award.

As turmoil roils the Middle East, senior UN officials provided humanitarian updates on the impact of continued fighting in Lebanon and Gaza, while many ambassadors in the Security Council offered strong support for the "indispensable" role of the Palestine refugee agency, UNRWA, which has come under increasing attack in the Israeli parliament. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said attempts to "dismantle" the agency would compromise humanitarian work and human rights worldwide. Full coverage for app users, here.

The prospect of all-out war in Lebanon appeared undiminished on Wednesday as the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, said that there was “no end to hell” in northern Gaza, where lifesaving relief has shut down.

Our “collective amnesia” about how bad the COVID-19 pandemic was should not prevent us from protecting ourselves and our loved ones from the ongoing spread of respiratory diseases as the northern hemisphere prepares for winter, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches its 1,000-day mark, the UN’s top human rights official reiterated his call for Russia to cease its attack immediately and comply with its international obligations to protect civilians.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has concluded an urgent visit to Syria, highlighting the plight of 250,000 people who have crossed into the country fleeing airstrikes in Lebanon.  

The situation in Africa’s Great Lakes Region, in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has remained “alarming” amid ongoing violence in the restive country’s east, said the UN Special Envoy to the Region in a briefing to the Security Council on Tuesday. 

The UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL has been operating along the “Blue Line” which separates Lebanon and Israel since the 1970s, and its mandate was just renewed for another year by the UN Security Council. But what is UNIFIL and what is it doing amid the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel Defense Forces (IDF)?

Two bills before the Israeli parliament could put a halt to the lifesaving operations of UN Palestine relief agency, UNRWA, which has been indispensable and irreplaceable “more than ever” over the past year of war in Gaza, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.