UN News Centre

Governments should immediately address the inhumane conditions in detention faced by migrant workers who are also being blamed for spreading the coronavirus, a UN panel of independent rights experts said on Thursday.

Deterring genocides, armed conflicts and other atrocious crimes supports sustainable development says the President of the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) Chile Eboe-Osuji.

Nearly 140 asylum seekers were relocated from Greece to Germany on Wednesday through a European Commission-funded initiative that has relocated more than 1,000 people so far this year alone, three UN agencies have reported. 

The UN Secretary-General on Wednesday called for all nations to provide further urgently needed funds – the equivalent of the total spent on cigarettes worldwide every two weeks – on behalf of global COVID-19 vaccine efforts to ensure that everyone, everywhere, gets protection from the virus. 

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is reckoning with the disproportionate and severe impact that the virus has wrought on the “health…rights and well being” of older persons, the UN chief has said, marking the international day highlighting their issues.

Delegations from Libya’s warring sides meeting in Egypt have concluded two days of security and military talks in efforts towards a lasting ceasefire, the UN political mission for the country, UNSMIL, has reported. 

Chief executives of 110 companies in Thailand on Wednesday, have signed up to a new set of UN principles on women’s economic empowerment, pledging to improve gender equality in the boardroom, equal pay for equal work, and safer and more inclusive workplaces.

Here's our special LIVE coverage of the UN Summit on Biodiversity, where activists and senior UN officials are calling for urgent action on biodiversity, to help ensure sustainable development for all.  

For the first time in the history of the United Nations, global leaders were not able to meet in person for the General Assembly’s annual debate, but the 193-Member body’s President said on Tuesday that the precautions forced by the COVID-19 pandemic “did not prevent multilateralism from operating at the highest levels.”

The COVID-19 outbreak reminds the world that we need “to enhance solidarity within the multilateral system” to confront global challenges, the representative of Tanzania told the closing session of the UN’s annual high-level session on Tuesday.

During the past several decades, North Korea has done “everything possible” to safeguard peace and security on the Korean peninsula, the country’s representative told the UN high-level General Debate on Tuesday.

Through deliberate and targeted actions, Uganda has been able to contain the spread of COVID-19, the country’s representative to the UN told the General Assembly, adding that the Government also prioritized sustainable recovery from the pandemic in its national plans. 

Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and their international partners, must urgently resume peace efforts “before it is too late”, UN Middle East envoy Nikolay Mladenov told the Security Council on Tuesday, echoing the Secretary-General. 

There is no vaccine against climate change, the Permanent Representative of New Zealand told the UN General Assembly debate on Tuesday, noting that now more than ever, the international community must “step up, collectively and in the common interest.”

While telling the UN General Assembly on Tuesday there was “good news” to report about the “expanding circle of peace” between Israel and some Arab countries, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also accused Hezbollah militants of storing weapons in a residential area of Beirut.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, promised that any of its staff working as part of the agency’s Ebola response team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) found to have been involved in sexual exploitation and abuse, would face “serious consequences, including instant dismissal.”

From domestic violence to sexual abuse, online harassment and increased child marriage, gender-based violence (GBV) is “a global scourge” that is being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN chief said on Tuesday. 

COVID-19 has had a “catastrophic” impact on workers, the head of the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Wednesday, with lost working hours higher than originally forecast, and equivalent to 495 million full-time jobs globally in the second quarter of the year. 

The UN system is standing in solidarity with landlocked developing countries, which lack access to vital trade links, and supporting them in their efforts to rebuild once the global coronavirus pandemic abates, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday. 

Learning its lessons from the Ebola outbreak, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) took swift and decisive measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus, when the first cases were detected in March, the country’s President told world leaders, gathered virtually, at the UN General Assembly.