UN News Centre

At an event commemorating the Day of Vesak, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged the global community to draw inspiration from the Buddha’s teachings and message of tolerance, empathy and humanism.

Science and technology offer part of the solution to climate change, inequality and other global issues, a United Nations official said on Tuesday, spotlighting the enormous potential these fields hold for achieving humanity’s common goal, of a poverty and hunger-free world by 2030.

More than 50 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse involving personnel serving with the United Nations and its partners in the field were received in the first three months of this year, the global organization said on Tuesday.

The Security Council on Friday extended the mandate of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara until 31 October 2018, calling for a “realistic, practicable and enduring” political solution to end the decades‑old conflict.

The United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) has condemned the suicide bombing on Saturday that reportedly killed government security officers and civilians in the city of Gaalkacyo.

The lives of tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees hang in the balance as monsoon and cyclone seasons threaten camps in southern Bangladesh, the United Nations migration agency warned Friday, appealing for urgent financial support to prepare the area against floods and landslides.

Students from around the world joined United Nations and Government officials in New York on Friday to celebrate the contributions made by the people of African descent, beginning from the time they were taken from their countries and forced into generations of servitude.

Surging violence in parts of South Sudan is putting thousands of war-weary civilians at risk and endangering the fragile peace process in the world’s youngest nation, the United Nations peacekeeping mission there has warned.

Some 2,900 mostly Syrian and Iraqi families have arrived in Evros this month, with eight others losing their lives trying to cross the Evros River from Turkey – prompting the United Nations refugee agency to call on the Greek Government to improve the conditions at its reception area.

The United Nations emergency food relief agency has issued an urgent appeal for nearly $46 million to feed some 350,000 impoverished migrants who crossed the border from Venezuela into Colombia, as well as host communities with pre-existing vulnerabilities.

With over 40 Palestinians killed and more than 5,500 injured during protests in Gaza over the past month – many by live ammunition – the top United Nations human rights official on Friday called on Israel to ensure that its security forces do not resort to use of excessive force amid the ongoing demonstrations.

Following Friday’s summit between the leaders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea, Secretary-General António Guterres and other top officials expressed hope that the two countries would swiftly implement all agreed actions, including ridding the Peninsula of nuclear weapons.

United Nations human rights experts have expressed serious concerns about racism rooted in the fabric of the United Kingdom’s society, given the disproportionate number of people of African descent and of ethnic minorities dying due to excessive use of force by State security.

A quarter of all thyroid cancer cases among patients who were children at the time of the Chernobyl accident 32 years ago, are “probably” due to high doses of radiation received during and after the event, the United Nations body reviewing the effects of atomic radiation on human health and the environment has said.

Peacebuilding and sustaining peace require a more coherent United Nations strategy, as well a ‘quantum leap’ in funding activities that prevent the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict, Secretary-General António Guterres said Wednesday.

The world’s nuclear proliferation watchdog has welcomed the announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to suspend its nuclear and missile tests and shut down its Punggye-ri atomic test site.

UN-trained law enforcement units have intercepted huge shipments of illegal drugs being trafficked through seaports this year, including 2.8 tons of cocaine at Brazil’s Port Santos, the largest such seizure in the port’s history

International donors at a United Nations-European Union humanitarian conference pledged nearly $4.4 billion on Wednesday to fund critical aid programmes in war-torn Syria throughout 2018.

Marking World Malaria Day, the head of the United Nations health agency on Wednesday stressed the need to get the global response against the disease back on track while acknowledging progress that had helped avert millions of malaria deaths, especially among children, since 2000.

With one in four of the world’s 1.2 billion youth affected by some sort of violence or armed conflict, the United Nations on Tuesday launched a project to support new, youth-driven initiatives in education, science, culture and the media to prevent violent extremism in Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia