UN News Centre

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) urged world leaders to take note of the profound implications of record-high carbon dioxide readings this month and appealed for their increased commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

On 22 August 2014, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he had appointed Mr. Espen Barth Eide of Norway as his new Special Adviser on Cyprus, replacing Mr. Alexander Downer of Australia, who had stepped down four months earlier, in April.

Children in Aleppo are trapped in a “living nightmare,” a senior official of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today, stressing yet again, the direness of the situation, particularly for the children, in Syria’s war-ravaged Aleppo.

Expressing dismay over the death of a protestor who was injured by the police use of a water cannon on a peaceful rally last year in the country, a United Nations human rights expert has called for a full investigation into the incident and to ensure that such a “tragedy” is never repeated.

The region of the Americas is the first in the world to have eliminated measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems, the United Nations health agency has declared.

Denouncing a surge in “horrific attacks” on hospitals, clinics and medical staff, most recently in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the Security Council today to take decisive steps to end such obvious war crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable.

A revamped global database launched today by the United Nations atomic agency highlights startling disparities across the world when it comes to access to treatment and care for cancer.

For the first time in more than two years, the United Nations food relief agency has distributed urgently-needed food for people in and around the northern Iraqi town of Shirqat, which was under siege and cut off from humanitarian access from 2014 until earlier this month.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other senior UN officials have paid tribute to Shimon Peres, former Israeli President and the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who passed away early Wednesday at the age of 93.

Officials at the United Nations today urged human and animal health authorities around the world to step up and more effectively address rabies &#8211 a preventable but fatal disease that still claims the lives of an estimated 60,000 people each year &#8211 as the international community marks World Rabies Day.

At interactive dialogues on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Libya Ukraine, and Burundi, senior UN human rights officials and independent experts today urged the governments to take immediate steps to ensure protection of human rights in their respective countries.

Noting the obstacles that persons with disabilities or those with other access requirements face in taking advantage of fundamental aspects of travel, senior United Nations officials today urged policy-makers, travel planners and companies that work with persons with disabilities to work together to make travel more accessible.

Four United Nations human rights experts today urged authorities in Pakistan to halt the execution of Imdad Ali, a man with a psychosocial disability, and to re-try him in compliance with international standards.

Warning that unsafe abortions kill nearly 50,000 women each year, United Nations human rights experts today called on States across the world to repeal restrictive abortion laws and policies, and all punitive measures and discriminatory barriers to access safe reproductive health services.

A new delay in Somalia’s elections is a matter of “immediate concern,” raising fears that the process is being politically manipulated and that the latest postponement may only be one of yet further rolling delays, the top United Nations official in the long-troubled East African country warned today.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today cautioned that unless it receives $3 million in urgent funding, it will have to suspend its school meals programme in Mali, affecting nearly 180,000 children in about 1,000 schools.

Recalling the progress made by Uzbekistan over the past 25 years, its Minister for Foreign Affairs said today that the country will remain firmly committed to the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, as well as the country’s national constitution.

Mounting the podium of the United Nations General Assembly today, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stressed the critical importance of enhancing better understanding among diverse communities and encouraging mutual respect in order to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of Agenda 2030.

As Botswana prepares for its 50th Anniversary, on 30 September, Vice-President Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi, described to the United Nations General Assembly the journey of how the country went from one of the world’s poorest nations to a middle income country.

Addressing the annual debate of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, leaders from Pacific Small Island Developing States underlined today the urgency of strong and committed action on the global pledges made for the planet and its people.