UN News

• First Person: ‘people with disabilities are the greatest untapped resource on the planet’
  Worldwide, persons with disabilities experience higher levels of unemployment and economic inactivity than non-disabled persons. Ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Mike Hess, US-based entrepreneur and founder of the Blind Institute of Technology, spoke to UN News as part of the International Labour Organization (ILO) photography project "Dignity at Work: The American Experience".
• Renew commitment to Palestinian people, UN chief urges, marking International Day
  Commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to explore every opening to “restore hope” for a two-State solution. 
• COVID-19: Testing still vital even as vaccines roll out
  Testing will still be a critical tool against COVID-19, even as vaccines are deployed against the disease, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday during his regular briefing on the crisis. 
• UN Committee urges end to impunity for enforced disappearances in Iraq
  A pattern of enforced disappearance – and impunity for such acts - persists in Iraq, according to a report published on Friday by the UN Committee charged with monitoring how well the country upholds its international obligations in dealing with the issue.
• Rising hunger in drought-stricken southern Madagascar forcing families to eat insects: WFP
  Hunger is on the rise in southern Madagascar due to consecutive years of drought,  affecting half the region’s population, or 1.5 million people, and forcing most families to eat insects, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Friday. 
• First of four UN humanitarian airlifts for Ethiopia refugees lands in Khartoum
  An airplane loaded with humanitarian supplies for people fleeing violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the UN refugee agency (UNCHR) said on Friday, in an appeal for international assistance to cope with the growing numbers seeking shelter in Sudan.
• UN rights experts condemn retaliatory arrests of activists in Egypt
  A group of UN independent human rights experts have called on Egyptian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release activists arrested, apparently in retaliation, for discussing human rights issues with foreign ambassadors. 
• African nations ‘far from ready’ for COVID-19 vaccination drive, says UN health agency
  As efforts to find safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 are showing increasing promise,  the African continent is “far from ready” to roll out what will be its largest ever immunization drive, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
• Global HIV toll likely to be far higher owing to COVID-19, warns UNAIDS
  Countries should adopt ambitious new targets to tackle HIV / AIDS to avoid hundreds of thousands of additional infections and deaths linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN said on Thursday.
• Address water scarcity ‘immediately and boldly’, urges UN agriculture agency chief 
  More than three billion people live in agricultural areas with high levels of water shortages and scarcity, the UN agriculture agency said in a new report launched on Wednesday. 
• FROM THE FIELD: Girl child soldier shunned at home in Uganda
  A young mother has been talking about how she was shunned by her community in Uganda when she returned home after being abducted and forced to fight for rebels as a child soldier.
• UN experts decry Iran’s reported plan to execute Iranian-Swedish academic
  Iran must halt any planned execution of Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who has not been given a fair trial and was forced to confess under torture, two experts advising the UN Human Rights Council said on Wednesday. 
• Build on momentum to end violence against women and girls: Secretary-General
  Although much progress has been made in highlighting the pressing issue of violence against women and girls, UN Secretary-General António Guterres is pushing the world to go further towards ending what he has characterized as a blight on all societies. 
• ‘Incredibly hard’ winter beckons for Syrians, more assistance urgently needed 
  More than three million people across Syria require assistance through what is likely to be an “incredibly hard” winter, the acting deputy UN Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Wednesday, highlighting that those displaced remain “particularly vulnerable”.  
• UN report finds Gaza suffered $16.7 billion loss from siege and occupation
  Israel’s military operations and prolonged closure of Gaza, has caused economic damage of $16.7 billion between 2007 and 2018, driving the poverty rate up almost fourfold compared to what it might have otherwise been, the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD said in a report published on Wednesday.
• Alert over growing use of cluster munitions, despite stockpile reductions
  Lethal cluster munitions are still being used in old and new conflicts around the world, from Syria to Libya, to Nagorno-Karabakh, a UN-backed civil society report said on Wednesday.
• A child infected with HIV every 100 seconds, new UN report reveals
  Approximately once every minute and 40 seconds, a child or young person under the age of 20 was infected with HIV last year, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported, calling on governments to “protect, sustain and accelerate” efforts to combat childhood HIV. 
• End gender-based violence, ‘once and for all’, UN urges on International Day
  Commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Wednesday, the United Nations has called on governments worldwide to redouble efforts and eradicate gender-based violence forever. 
• UN officials denounce bombings in northern Syria
  Two separate bomb attacks in northern Syria on Tuesday, which reportedly left at least seven civilians dead and many more wounded, have been condemned by the UN.
• DR Congo: War crimes conviction ‘an important victory’ for justice – UN envoy 
  Two senior UN officials welcomed on Tuesday the war crimes conviction and life sentencing of an armed combatant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 
• Iraq: Continued international support vital amid ‘multiple storms’
  As authorities in Iraq continue to operate “in the eye of multiple storms”, international support remains essential for resolving ongoing political, security, economic and social crises, as well as the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Security Council heard on Tuesday. 
• Afghanistan conference draws donor pledges and calls for lasting ceasefire 
  International donors pledged financial and political support for Afghanistan’s peace process at the 2020 Afghanistan Conference in Geneva on Tuesday, anticipating a sustainable ceasefire that will help the country rebuild and heal after decades of conflict. 
• ‘Foundational and necessary change’ needed to heal post-COVID world
  With the COVID-19 pandemic precipitating one of the world’s worst health, socioeconomic and humanitarian crises in over a century, the UN chief told a high-level discussion on Tuesday to seize the opportunity “to make real, foundational, and necessary change”. 
• 'Deplorable' killing of Afro-Brazilian man shows need to address racism, discrimination
  The killing of an Afro-Brazilian man, and the widespread outrage it has sparked, underscores the urgent need for the Government to tackle racism and racial discrimination in South America’s largest country, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday. 
• Protect civilians uphold human rights, UN tells warring parties in Ethiopia
  The UN's top human rights official has called on the parties to the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region to give “clear and unambiguous orders” to their forces not to target civilians, and protect them from assault.