UN News Centre

In Malawi, where children with albinism face attacks, and even ritual killings, going to school can expose them to life-threatening dangers. The UN is helping to make schools safer for these vulnerable students. 

For the first time, the UN Military Gender Advocate award has been awarded to two UN peacekeepers: Commander Carla Monteiro de Castro Araujo, a Brazilian Naval officer, and Major Suman Gawani, of the Indian Army.

A master practitioner of the Hawaiian hula dance has told UN News that he is “nothing without my culture.”

School children in Mozambique are facing what a senior United Nations and World Bank official in the southern African country are calling “catastrophic outcomes” from the COVID-19 pandemic. By the UN Resident Coordinator in Mozambique, Myrta Kaulard, and Mark Lundell, World Bank Country Director.

African countries have “demonstrated commendable leadership” battling the COVID-19 pandemic, but more nations across the continent where conflict prevails, should heed the UN call for a global ceasefire to push back the deadly virus, said the Secretary-General on Monday.

Costa Rica is winning plaudits for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alice Shackleford, UN Resident Coordinator in Costa Rica, and WHO Representative María Dolores Pérez-Rosales, explain why the small Central American country is managing to keep the number of cases down, and its population healthy.

The UN Secretary-General has welcomed the announcement by the Afghan Government and the Taliban of a ceasefire to mark the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims around the world.

In his daily briefing to the press on Friday, World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that supplies of medicine are at risk of disruption due to the epidemic, given that China - the worst hit nation so far - is a major producer of pharmaceutical ingredients.

The UN human rights office is calling on authorities in Yemen to revoke death sentences imposed against 35 parliamentarians allegedly for treason charges.

As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread globally, the UN’s top human rights official appealed on Friday to put rights “front and centre” when implementing preventative measures. 

The benefits of gender equality are not just for women and girls, but “for everyone whose lives will be changed by a fairer world”, the chief of UN Women said in her message for International Women’s Day (IWD) at UN Headquarters on Friday, being celebrated in New York, ahead of the official day.

Urgent resources are needed to support countries in southern Africa and the Great Lakes region which are hosting more than 900,000 refugees and asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and partners said in a $621 million appeal launched on Friday. 

Countries meeting in New York next month to review progress on nuclear non-proliferation are being urged by the UN Secretary-General to use the opportunity to strengthen global peace and security. 

Women's Rights in Review, 25 years after Beijing takes stock of how the landmark gender equality plan, the Beijing Platform for Action, is being implemented and calls for greater parity and justice.

School closures in 13 countries linked to the COVID-19 virus epidemic have disrupted the education of more than 290 million students, a record number, the UN education agency UNESCO said on Thursday.

The UN Secretary-General said on Thursday that he hoped the latest ceasefire agreement between Russia and Turkey to end fighting across Syria’s stricken Idlib region, would finally lead to “an immediate and lasting cessation”, that would protect civilian lives.

Prosecutors have been given the green light to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan - and beyond its borders – linked to Afghan, Taliban and US troops, the International Criminal Court said on Thursday. 

Gender discrimination and violence, as well as “huge” gaps in education, are among the factors why women and girls remain vulnerable to HIV, according to the UN agency working to end the AIDS epidemic. 

Despite decades of progress in closing the gender equality gap, close to nine out of 10 men and women around the world, hold some sort of bias against women, according to new findings published on Thursday from the UN Development Programmme (UNDP).

Javier Pérez  de Cuéllar, the fifth United Nations Secretary-General, praised for his ability to foster dialogue and for leading the Organization through a turbulent decade, has passed away at the age of 100.