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The conflict in the Middle East continues, with strikes and counter-strikes across the region and the humanitarian toll mounting. UN agencies warn that rising civilian casualties, mass displacement – particularly in Lebanon – and damage to critical infrastructure are deepening the crisis, while disruptions to shipping and energy routes risk driving up global prices and worsening food insecurity. Stay with us for updates from across the United Nations system. UN News app users can follow the coverage here.

A Japanese peace activist is hoping to promote global nuclear disarmament by keeping alive the stories of the atomic bomb survivors through the creation of a mobile museum.

Despite some progress made globally, children around the world still face serious and evolving risks of being sold, sexually exploited and abused, the UN independent human rights expert on the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children, Mama Fatima Singhateh, warned on Monday.

Crises in the region on both Afghanistan’s longest borders are undermining the country’s stability, a senior UN official warned the Security Council on Monday as concerns over Middle East crisis grow amid clashes with Pakistan and a worsening humanitarian crisis. 

Conflict continues to fuel suffering and drive humanitarian needs in Myanmar, the UN relief coordination office, OCHA, said in a bulletin on Monday.

Welcome to our live coverage of International Women’s Day 2026 and the opening of the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women at UN Headquarters in New York. Throughout the day, we will bring you updates, reactions and key moments from global leaders, diplomats and advocates gathering at the UN, alongside stories and reports from the field across the UN system, as communities around the world mark International Women’s Day and advance the theme “Rights. Justice. Action” for all women and girls. UN News app users can follow the coverage here.

On day 10 of the war engulfing the Middle East, UN agencies on Monday reported massive displacement across the region, along with surging food and fuel prices that risk increasing hunger and suffering for the most vulnerable.

Every morning in Kabul, several cars make their way across the Afghan capital to pick up the producers of Radio Begum. The young women do not travel to the office on their own as moving around the city has become too complicated.

Lebanon has been “dragged back into a state of turmoil and violence”, the UN’s top envoy in the country warned on Saturday, after the latest round of regional strikes triggered a fast‑escalating crisis along the Blue Line. What had been fragile but real momentum, she said, has now collapsed in a matter of days.

Women held 27.5 per cent of parliamentary seats worldwide as the year began –a 0.3 per cent increase from 2025, marking the slowest growth in nearly a decade, according to a new report from the UN-backed Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). 

Women have never been closer to equality and never closer to losing it, according to UN Women ahead of the start of the world’s largest gender equality gathering.

The escalating war in the Middle East has heightened growing concerns about further civilian suffering and displacement in the region and far beyond, UN agencies said on Friday.