News

Millions of people in Ukraine are facing cold and energy shortages as the country prepares for a fourth winter under fire.  

Afghanistan is confronting “a perfect storm” of overlapping crises, the UN’s outgoing envoy warned the Security Council on Wednesday, as an Afghan women’s rights advocate told the body that Taliban policies amount to “gender apartheid” which are suffocating a whole generation of girls.

The UN has welcomed Colombia’s first convictions under its transitional justice tribunal, calling sentences handed down to former rebel commanders “a crucial milestone on the path to accountability,” in the words of human rights chief Volker Türk.

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning on Wednesday that southern and eastern European countries are losing large numbers of doctors and nurses who are leaving to work abroad.

In South Sudan, “systemic government corruption” and “brazen predation” on the part of political elites have created a human rights crisis that must be urgently addressed, the UN Commission on Human Rights in the country said in a new report issued on Tuesday.

A senior UN humanitarian official in Pakistan has warned that “the needs are huge” as massive floods across Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan continue to leave millions homeless, destroying vital crops and pushing fragile communities to the brink.

Every year on 16 September, the UN celebrates the international community’s success in healing the ozone layer and brings attention to what more can be done to protect the planet.

Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador contribute an estimated $900 million each year to the country’s economy, yet many remain trapped in informal work and vulnerable conditions, according to a new study by the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM).

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged world leaders to “get serious – and deliver” as they begin arriving in New York for the high-level week of the 80th General Assembly.

As bombs continue to fall on Gaza City as part of Israel’s intensifying military operation, families with starving children are being pushed southwards from one “hellscape” to another, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday. 

Senior independent rights investigators appointed by the Human Rights Council alleged on Tuesday that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, a charge flatly rejected by Tel Aviv.

Amid reports of intensifying bombardment in Gaza City overnight, the Middle East crisis took centre stage at the UN on Tuesday, starting at the global body’s Geneva headquarters, where Israel rejected allegations of genocide by an international panel of independent human rights investigators. The development came ahead of an urgent debate at the Human Rights Council prompted by Israeli strikes on Hamas political leadership last week in Doha.