UN News Centre

Persons with disabilities should have a leading say on the policies that impact them, a United Nations human rights expert told the General Assembly, while stressing the important role that member states play to ensure those disabled benefit from and contribute to development.

“Deeply troubled” that last night, while fires burned in parts of the Calais refugee and migrant camp that has become known as “the Jungle” burned, many children were forced to sleep out in the cold, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today underscored that authorities on the ground must guarantee their protection.

According to the United Nations heath agency, since the approval of new medicines for hepatitis C – offering a cure rate of over 95 per cent, fewer side effects and complete cure within three months – about two years back, more than one million patients in low- and middle-income countries have been treated.

When cultural heritage is under attack, it is also the people and their fundamental human rights that are under attack, a United Nations expert warned the UN General Assembly, issuing an urgent call to step up international action against the destruction of heritage such as monuments, historic sites and sacred places.

Environmental pollution is adding “complexity and danger” to the humanitarian crisis sparked by the military offensive in Mosul, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said today, warning that fumes from burning stockpiles of sulphur dioxide, and oil wells that have been set ablaze, have led to further suffering for civilians in northern Iraq.

Archives are humanity’s collective memory bank, maintained in many public and private organizations, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said today, urging all public and private entities as well as relevant professionals to take urgent action to safeguard audiovisual works and records ‘as an integral part of our shared heritage.”

The impact of severe El Niño-induced drought on crop production in southern Madagascar, where nearly 850,000 people are acutely food insecure, is likely to persist into 2017 and requires an intensified humanitarian response, the United Nations agriculture agency said today.

The United Nations envoy for education today called for an immediate investigation by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) into what he called a war crime in Syria – the latest attacks on a school compound in the western province of Idlib that left at least 20 pupils and teachers dead.

In another impassioned plea to the United Nations Security Council urging action to stop the bloodshed in war-ravaged Syria, the top UN humanitarian official stressed that since his last briefing to the body (on 29 September), 400 more Syrians had been killed and close to 2,000 injured in eastern Aleppo.

Prior to a meeting today at the United Nations on sovereign debt restructuring, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced that in order to deal with sovereign debt crises – which are creating a growing threat to economic stability in many developing countries – the world is in need of new ways to tackle the problem.

“Tremendous” efforts and increased investments are expected from countries and international organizations in order to improve national statistical capacities in achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Zero Hunger target, José Graziano da Silva, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said today in Rome.

In a near unanimous action, the United Nations General Assembly today adopted a resolution underlining the need to end to the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba, while also welcoming progress in the relations between the two countries.

United Nations human rights expert Ikponwosa Ero called upon government representatives gathered in New York for the General Assembly to take swift action to end a growing problem of violence and severe discrimination against people with albinism.

Globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surged again to new records in 2016, and, based on readings of the longest-established greenhouse gas monitoring station at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, the United Nations weather agency predicts that carbon dioxide concentrations will not dip below pre-2015 levels for many generations.

Today marks the start of the 6th Global Forum on Gender Statistics, a two day event in Helsinki, Finland, that will highlight ways to improve data on gender in order to support better policies for women and girls and Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Members of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention completed a two-week visit to the United States today and called upon the Government to abolish its mandatory detention of migrants, particularly asylum-seekers, after it found serious racial and economic disparities and that many people were being held under punitive conditions.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has regretted the decision of the South African Government to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and expressed hope that the country will reconsider its decision before the withdrawal takes effect.

The United Nations humanitarian chief said today he is “deeply frustrated and saddened” that the UN and its partners have been forced to abort current plans to evacuate critically injured and sick people from eastern Aleppo, Syria’s iconic city being razed by war.

With efforts to respond to the plight of more than 60 million internally displaced people (IDPs) around the world is falling short, a senior United Nations humanitarian official reiterated the UN relief wing&#39s call for a new approach to the crisis, in terms of coordination as well as better prevention and better solutions.

An assessment conducted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP), together with the Haitian Government and its National Coordination for Food Security (CNSA), has determined that in the wake of Hurricane Matthew some 1.4 million people are in need of food assistance, 800,000 of whom are in a dire situation.