UN News Centre

Despite a brief dip in global carbon dioxide emissions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the planet is still heading for a global temperature rise in excess of 3 degrees Celsius this century, a new United Nations report has revealed. 

Social media platforms, technology companies, and religious and civil society leaders have a central role in combatting hate speech, “a clear warning sign” of genocide, the United Nations Secretary-General has said. 

Corruption has thrived under the coronavirus pandemic and anyone involved in graft must be prevented from exploiting the rollout of new vaccines, the UN Secretary-General has said.

The UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) which responds to crises around the world, consistently delivers “principled, coordinated, fast and agile” humanitarian action, the UN chief said on Tuesday, appealing for hundreds of millions of dollars for the year ahead. 

The dire shortage of food, water, fuel and cash in the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia is seriously affecting people there, including aid workers, the United Nations reported on Tuesday, citing its humanitarian affairs office, OCHA.  

International support for Sudan is critical as the country continues on the path to democratic transition, amid challenges that include political disagreements, economic decline, and the COVID-19 pandemic, UN political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo told a virtual meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday. 

Developing countries are building more ambitious plans to tackle climate change, with COVID-19 stimulus packages often serving as a springboard towards a greener recovery, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said on Tuesday.

Amid a COVID-19 outbreak at London’s Belmarsh prison, an independent UN expert appealed to British authorities on Tuesday to release Julian Assange or to place him under guarded house arrest during extradition proceedings to the United States.  

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, announced the start of a year-long global campaign to help people quit tobacco, with millions citing the threat of COVID-19 as a new incentive to give up the habit.  

Countries fighting the coronavirus should not impose nationwide or large-scale school closures, which is the wrong response and compounds the societal cost of the disease, with 320 million children locked out of school at the start of December, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday.  

As COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact women and girls hit by multiple humanitarian crises, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency appealed on Monday for $818 million to provide 54 million women and youth with essential and life-saving services throughout 2021. 

The UN Secretary-General said on Monday it was “essential to quickly restore the rule of law” in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, where Government forces and those loyal to the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have been engaged in fighting for more than a month.

As countries plan to roll out COVID-19 vaccines in the coming days, weeks and months, health workers and other at-risk populations should be prioritized for vaccination, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. 

A new UN office in Doha will advance research into the factors that drive violent extremism and terrorism, the Organization’s counter-terrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov said on Monday during the soft launch held online. 

There is a critical need for State institutions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to provide more stability and safety for citizens facing multiple threats, the head of the UN mission there told the Security Council on Monday. 

Afghanistan’s justice system is continuing to fail female victims of violence and sex crimes, despite a 2009 law that was hailed as a significant step forward in legal efforts to protect them, according to a UN report published jointly on Monday by the UN human rights office (OHCHR) and the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

The head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), has voiced concerns over the reported relocation of some Rohingya refugees by Bangladeshi authorities, to an island off the country’s coast, in the Bay of Bengal. 

The UN Secretary-General has called for greater support for the aviation sector, badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, to allow it to better weather the global economic crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

An innovative initiative to provide child-friendly information about COVID-19 has been launched by a UN volunteer (UNV) in Thailand who recognized that children needed to know more about the dangers of the virus but also have fun learning at home during the lockdown. On International Volunteer Day marked annually on 5 December, UNICEF’s Rasa Pattikasemkul talks about motivation, family loss and keeping children safe.

Even though soil organisms play a crucial role in boosting food production, enhancing nutritious diets, preserving human health, and combating climate change, the real contribution of these tiny life forms remains largely underestimated, the UN agriculture agency (FAO) said on Friday.