UN News Centre

After six consecutive weeks of decline, COVID-19 cases worldwide increased last week for the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. 

As the first recipients of lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine doses through the UN-partnered COVAX initiative, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana began their vaccine rollouts on Monday, prioritizing frontline workers and vulnerable groups, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Russia is responsible for the poisoning and attempted killing of jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny, two independent UN rights experts said on Monday, issuing an “open call” for an international investigation into the incident. 

The international response to Monday’s High-Level Pledging Event on Yemen has been described as “disappointing” by the UN chief, announcing that pledges totalled less than last year’s humanitarian response, and a billion dollars less than the figure raised in 2019.    

The fate of tens of thousands of civilians being held in Syria’s “notorious” prisons or detention centres is still unclear, 10 years after the country’s civil war began, UN investigators said on Monday. 

The UN's top human rights official on Monday called for transparent investigation into the death in custody of a writer in Bangladesh, who was held in pre-trial detention for nine months for publishing an article and sharing social media posts critical of the Government’s COVID-19 response. 

The United Nations Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA), on Sunday, strongly condemned an attack in Yemen that killed five civilians, including a woman and child. 

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Sunday urged all countries to repatriate and safely reintegrate their young nationals being held at Syria’s largest camp for refugees and internally-displaced, following a deadly weekend fire at Al-Hol camp which saw at least three children die, and another 15 injured.

In response to the killing of at least 18 protesters demonstrating against Myanmar’s military coup, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Sunday together with the UN chief, strongly condemned the “escalating violence” and called for an immediate end to the use of force.

In the West African country of Ghana, many people from farming backgrounds are forced to find new ways to survive, as droughts, floods and erratic weather patterns upend age-old agricultural practices.

In Yemen, whose people are living through a long-running, brutal war, which has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, COVID-19 is far from being a top priority, says the top UN refugee agency (UNHCR) official in the Arabian Peninsula country.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated much of the world’s attention over the last 12 months, but many other crises will continue to require the urgent attention of the UN and the international community in 2021.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres  received his second COVID-19 vaccine shot at the Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies in the Bronx,  New York, on Friday. 

The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution calling on all Member States to support a “sustained humanitarian pause” to local conflicts, in order to allow for COVID-19 vaccinations. Briefing journalists afterwards, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus argued that more could be done. 

The holding of free and fair elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territory will help “clear the path” for restoring a legitimate political horizon to realize a long sought two-State solution, the leading UN diplomat for the region told the Security Council on Friday.

As the COVID-19 pandemic gathers pace, people worldwide are “being left behind – or pushed even further behind”, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Friday. 

As the democratically elected leader of Myanmar, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is still in detention following the military takeover that triggered country-wide protests, violence and arrests, the UN envoy for the country observed on Friday, declaring that “democratic processes have been pushed aside”. 

Although a ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine has led to a significant decrease in civilian casualties, the overall situation remains fragile unless progress is made on the security and political fronts, the UN’s political affairs chief told the Security Council on Thursday. 

Amidst some positive news from the World Health Organization (WHO) that both COVID-19 deaths and new cases have recently been on the wane, there are “three major threats” to the UN-led international equitable vaccine initiative, COVAX, that require urgent attention. 

UN independent human rights experts appealed on Thursday for authorities in Egypt to remove two activists from a “terrorist” list and to stop systemic use of terrorism powers.