UN News
- More than 1,000 people were killed in Haiti during the third quarter of this year, as armed gangs continue to terrorize the population in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, the UN team in the island nation, said in its latest human rights report.
- Kenya began a 42-day countdown to the end of its Ebola outbreak on Thursday, a day after the last patient being treated for the disease went home and 11 people were released from quarantine.
- From flooded homes to melting Himalayan glaciers, the human cost of climate change took centre stage at COP31 on Thursday, as world leaders turned their attention to protecting cities and vulnerable communities, while activists challenged governments to do more.
- UN agencies on Thursday launched a joint platform at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, that aims to secure access to more than $3 billion in risk financing to protect 75 million people and their livelihoods from climate shocks and natural hazards by 2030.
- The World Food Programme’s (WFP) new Executive Director has warned that funding cuts are worsening Sudan’s hunger crisis following his first field mission to the country, where he met families displaced by conflict and struggling to feed their children.
- Early warning systems are saving lives across the globe, but for millions of people the warning never arrives, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday, urging the world to protect every person on Earth by the end of 2027.
- UN chief António Guterres called for a new global climate justice agreement at COP31 on Wednesday, urging governments to tax fossil fuel companies to help countries bearing the brunt of a crisis they did little to cause. His appeal came as world leaders gathered in Antalya amid unresolved questions over climate finance and the future of fossil fuels.
- The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, expressed deep concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, as UN member states and partners have been repeatedly delaying sending their support to the Strip.
- The situation in southern Lebanon remains volatile and extremely difficult for communities trying to rebuild their lives, UN peacekeepers based there report, despite a significant decrease in hostilities following an agreement in June between the United States, Lebanon and Israel.
- Drones and drought are “closing in” on Sudan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said on Tuesday, describing unprecedented attacks on the country’s infrastructure including by drones travelling up to 1,500 kilometres before hitting their target.
- With South Sudan just six weeks away from its first national elections since independence, the Security Council meets in New York Tuesday amid deepening political uncertainty and worsening violence. Ambassadors are expected to press for an inclusive process and credible polls, while civilians bear the brunt of fighting, hunger and displacement.
- More than one in three women and girls worldwide – roughly 1.5 billion – live in so-called “climate hotspots”, where high exposure to hazards such as cyclones and droughts combine with insecure jobs and deep gender inequality.
- The global energy transition took centre stage on the second day of COP31, as countries explored how to move away from fossil fuels, accelerate clean energy and overcome financial and infrastructure barriers standing in the way.
- Six journalists who make up the entire newsroom of the Egyptian fact-checking website Matsadash remain in detention, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday, warning of proliferating assaults on press freedom by the Government.
- Violence in northern Nigeria is fueling a growing humanitarian crisis across the whole region: 64,000 have fled to neighbouring Niger and several hundred have left for Benin since the start of the year, as host countries struggle to cope, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
- Seventy-one confirmed Ebola cases have been detected along transit routes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since the outbreak began almost six months ago, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.
- Ending cholera as a public health threat by 2030 is within reach, as every cholera death can be prevented with tools that already exist, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
- Quality health data can help authorities to identify emerging threats and take lifesaving action, but a new report reveals critical gaps in Africa’s health information systems.
- The Security Council met in New York on Ukraine Monday. Russian strikes on energy infrastructure are threatening millions with another cold, dark winter, and civilian deaths are climbing sharply. The meeting comes on the eve of US-backed talks due to take place in Abu Dhabi. Follow our live meeting coverage below.
- In April this year, roughly 146.5 million Indians were exposed to an extreme heatwave with temperatures hitting a sweltering 47℃.
- The situation in southern Lebanon remains volatile and extremely difficult for communities trying to rebuild their lives, UN peacekeepers based there report, despite a significant decrease in hostilities following an agreement in June between the United States, Lebanon and Israel.
- In Gaza, 10-year-old Anas is one of three siblings born without legs and with only two fingers on each of their hands. They struggle to move around and perform daily activities like eating and writing independently.
- Many children born in Syria since the war began in 2011 have no legal identity because nationality passes only through fathers – many of whom are dead or missing – a member of the independent UN commission investigating rights violations in the country said on Wednesday.
- Gunfire hit and damaged multiple tents at a displacement site in Gaza’s northern Rafah region on Tuesday, reportedly causing injuries and forcing a humanitarian partner to leave the area, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) has said.
- Safa is 14. Her mother died earlier this year. She has no brothers or sisters. And a few weeks ago, as the crisis took hold, her father married her to an elderly man, afraid that if he were killed in the hostilities, no one would be left to protect her.
- The UN human rights chief on Saturday demanded an independent investigation into the death of a Yemeni colleague held by the Houthis for more than two years, whose family learned of his death only weeks after it happened.
- More than 280,000 people have now been displaced by fighting in Yemen and many vulnerable people are unable to access lifesaving relief because it is too dangerous to do so, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.
- Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into ever-smaller areas of the Gaza Strip while destroying civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, warned on Friday amid concerns of ethnic cleansing.
- Families in Gaza are bracing for a fourth winter in tents and makeshift shelters as UN aid operations face mounting obstacles, with transport suspended on Tuesday due to Israel’s closure of the key Kerem Shalom crossing for election day.
- Israel’s “aggressive operation” in the West Bank city of Hebron raises serious concerns of ethnic cleansing, UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned on Monday, as the number of Palestinians forced from their homes passed 3,000 on the eve of Israeli elections.
- Aid agencies warned on Friday of the fast-developing humanitarian emergency inside Taiz City in Yemen, which has been encircled by de facto Houthi forces fighting government troops along the country’s west coast.
- The UN said on Friday it was “extremely alarmed” by intensifying violence in the occupied West Bank, as Israel moved to seal off the territory following a deadly attack on its soldiers in Hebron.
- The use of live ammunition, arson and the destruction of centuries-old olive trees have marked the opening weeks of this year’s harvest in the occupied West Bank.
- More than 250,000 people have now fled renewed fighting in Yemen, the UN said on Tuesday, citing particular concern for those sheltering in the southwestern city of Taiz and the wider governorate, where access is “essentially blocked”.
- Israeli attacks on war-torn Gaza over the weekend killed at least six Palestinians, including children, despite a year-old ceasefire agreement. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, settler violence continued through the ongoing olive harvest, with UN independent experts on Monday urging Israel to protect Palestinian farmers.
- Funding shortages have forced the World Food Programme (WFP) to slash assistance to hungry families in the Gaza Strip by roughly one third – a move that will affect some 500,000 people as winter approaches, the UN agency announced on Monday.
- Like many people in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, Ahmed Al-Omari is preparing for another winter of bitter cold and rain that threatens to cause flooding as families struggle to survive in tattered tents and damaged buildings.
- A little over one year since a ceasefire agreement was announced between Hamas fighters and Israel, more than 340 children have been reported killed and hundreds more injured, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.
- Amid a rise in lethal Israeli strikes, demolitions and violence in Gaza and the West Bank, the Security Council held an open debate on Thursday focusing on the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for promoting, providing and protecting health in the Eastern Mediterranean region, home to some of the world’s top humanitarian crises such as Sudan, Yemen and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
- The Security Council met in New York on Ukraine Monday. Russian strikes on energy infrastructure are threatening millions with another cold, dark winter, and civilian deaths are climbing sharply. The meeting comes on the eve of US-backed talks due to take place in Abu Dhabi. Follow our live meeting coverage below.
- Ukraine has sustained almost 2,000 attacks on education since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, with some 270 this year alone, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, a day after a strike at a school being used to distribute aid.
- The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is providing emergency food assistance to more than 400 people who were able to leave the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, in Ukraine’s Kherson region, during a brief local ceasefire.
- Each day the ceasefire in Oleshky holds means hope for civilians in the city, the UN’s top humanitarian official said, stressing that those wishing to leave must be able to do so safely and voluntarily.
- Top human rights experts investigating Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine said on Monday that the Russian authorities had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by attacking civilians and vital energy infrastructure, among other violations of international law.
- A patient in France has died after being infected with Shamonda virus, the first recorded human case of the disease.
- The price tag for smuggling on European sea routes reached up to half a billion dollars last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN migration office, IOM, reported on Wednesday.
- Civilian casualties in Ukraine remain at record levels, with intensified Russian attacks in September continuing a pattern of harm in 2026 far exceeding previous years, UN human rights monitors in Ukraine said on Friday.
- Ongoing and deadly Russian attacks across Ukraine are causing serious healthcare disruption, with more than $1.5 million-worth of medicines and supplies destroyed in four separate strikes on warehouses used by the UN there since July.
- Escalating violence and human rights violations in the four-year-old Russia-Ukraine war are in the spotlight in the Security Council on Friday following a spate of Russian attacks against civilian targets and infrastructure in recent days.
- Health authorities in Russia say there is “no plague case” in Siberia following reports last week that a lab technician had died of pneumonia of an unknown origin in the region, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Wednesday.
- The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine on Wednesday called for an end to attacks against civilians following further overnight strikes by Russian forces that reportedly killed at least 19 in the Chernihiv Region.
- The death of a lab worker in Russia’s Siberia region has sparked concerns over a possible plague case, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, adding that it was following the situation closely.
- The war in Ukraine is a human rights catastrophe that is “growing and intensifying by the week” and threatening an even greater disaster across the region, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Friday.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday called for intensified pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine, arguing that Moscow continues to incur massive losses while prolonging a conflict whose consequences are increasingly being felt far beyond the battlefield.
- The United Kingdom will fight disinformation at home and abroad, and work to ensure global safety standards for artificial intelligence (AI), new Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Monday evening in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly.
- Five years of war. Another winter closing in. Today, the Security Council once again debates a path to peace – though any resolution still runs up against the veto of Russia, one of its own permanent members, whose objections have repeatedly stalled any consensus. As world leaders take the floor, the gap between diplomatic process and battlefield reality appears to be stark.
- UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts on Monday laid out a grim picture of the human cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with a spotlight on civilians facing a third wartime winter as well as the intimidation of Russians who have fled abroad.
- Over 1,000 cases of sexual violence against civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) in Ukraine have been documented from the start of Russia’s invasion to the end of July this year.
- In an underground classroom in Sumy, Ukraine, children sit quietly at their desks, busy with the day’s lessons. For the moment they are shielded from the horrors of nearly five years of war, but just barely.
- More than 1,000 people were killed in Haiti during the third quarter of this year, as armed gangs continue to terrorize the population in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, the UN team in the island nation, said in its latest human rights report.
- The UN General Assembly on Wednesday called for the 34th time for an end to the US economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba – but with the weakest backing for the resolution in two decades.
- On 29 October 2012, Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York City, unleashing a devastating storm surge that flooded homes, subways and tunnels, knocked out power and sparked deadly fires.
- The General Assembly opened its annual debate on the US economic embargo against Cuba on Tuesday. On Wednesday, 28 October, Member States will vote for the 34th time on a resolution calling for it to end.
- Armed groups in Haiti are adapting to intensified security operations, stepping up reprisals against civilians and extending their reach into rural areas, the UN warned the Security Council on Monday.
- “I tell my kids I work in a time machine,” said Rhony Dostaly. In a basement beneath Lincoln Center, the media preservation engineer rescues moments from the past. “I go back in time, and I grab elements, and I make them available for people today.”
- UN independent experts welcomed on Wednesday a recent landmark corporate accountability ruling involving the Ecopetrol oil company by Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace, calling for reparations for victims.
- Haiti is living through one of the world’s most acute security crises. Armed gangs control large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and are pushing into rural areas, terrorising communities, killing people, committing rape and other sexual assaults, kidnapping for ransom and extorting individuals and businesses.
- Nearly 10 years after Colombia signed a historic peace agreement to end a decades-long insurgency, the deal is under strain from growing insecurity – and the UN’s top official in the country says it cannot be allowed to falter.
- The UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Friday warned that livestreaming a planned execution by firing squad in the United States would amount to a public execution and breach the absolute prohibition on torture.
- A documentary drawn from United Nations University research was screened at the COP30 climate conference and film festivals across Europe. Its most important journey, though, was the one back to the Mexico City canals where it was filmed.
- The UN human rights chief and nine independent rights experts on Thursday called on authorities in Tennessee not to pursue any further attempts to execute Christa Pike, saying her case highlights multiple concerns surrounding the death penalty.
- Cuba’s Foreign Minister warned the UN General Assembly on Saturday that escalating military and economic pressure in Latin America and the Caribbean was threatening international law, while accusing the United States of intensifying a decades-long campaign to isolate and weaken his country.
- Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand warned the UN General Assembly on Saturday that the international order has entered an era of profound disruption, calling for stronger multilateral cooperation and new partnerships as major powers increasingly turn away from global economic integration.
- Haiti is at a “watershed moment” in its struggle against gang violence and needs sustained international support alongside stronger national security institutions, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé told the UN General Assembly on Friday.
- “There is a people. A people who can wait no longer. A people waiting to regain security, to return home to work, to send their children to school, and to freely choose their leaders.” Those are the words of the Haitian Prime Minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who spoke at a special UN meeting on the future of security in Haiti.
- Venezuela is seeking to rebuild after a period of political upheaval and the destruction caused by twin earthquakes earlier this year, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez told world leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday.
- Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the General Assembly on Tuesday that the UN needs to become a “temple of peace” once again, as it confronts one of the most critical periods in its 80-year history.
- US President Donald Trump used his address to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to defend recent military action against Iran, urging countries to maintain economic pressure on Tehran – and declaring that he now faces a choice between making a deal, or taking far more drastic steps.
- Haiti is facing a worsening child malnutrition crisis, with an estimated 253,725 children aged 6 to 59 months projected to suffer from acute malnutrition between June 2026 and May 2027, new UN-backed analysis has revealed.
- More than half of Afghanistan’s children who should be in primary school remain outside formal learning and millions of girls can only dream of going to university.
- As the sun sets over Samarkand’s majestic Registan, its last rays glint across the turquoise mosaics. Dusk settles on the ancient square where great trade routes have crossed for centuries.
- The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is building factories and hospitals, rolling out smartphones and mobile banking, and passing new laws at an unprecedented rate. But its people are more cut off from the outside world than at any point in the country’s history.
- Opium production in Afghanistan has risen fivefold in a year. According to a UN survey released on Thursday, it’s the first significant increase since the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in 2022.
- Myanmar’s human rights situation is “catastrophic”, the UN independent expert on the country warned at a press briefing Thursday, as the war spirals with no end in sight.
- Three years on from the reported resumption of large-scale forcible returns of nationals of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from China, serious concerns persist about their fate, according to a group of Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts.
- Following extreme hunger warnings, a bitter reality is unfolding across Afghanistan: food is available, but remains inaccessible for millions of people.
- Acute malnutrition and hunger in Afghanistan have reached the highest levels ever recorded, with 15.9 million people facing acute food insecurity and conditions set to worsen in the coming months, according to a global hunger monitor report released on Thursday.
- The United Nations has rushed to assist Nepal following new flash floods in the central Gorkha district on Sunday that swept away homes and bridges just weeks after catastrophic flooding in the north.
- For generations, farming in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta has depended on a delicate bargain. The river flooded, retreated and flooded again, carrying freshwater and sediment across a flat landscape whose vast fields helped turn the country into one of the world’s leading rice exporters.
- The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has voiced concern over reports of mass detentions in India of demonstrators, protest leaders, civil society members, lawyers and journalists, before and during large-scale protests in Delhi on Saturday.
- Years of conflict, displacement, economic disruption and climate shocks in Myanmar have led to the “simultaneous collapse” of shelter, healthcare, schooling and livelihoods affecting millions of people, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a report issued on Thursday.
- Afghan women and girls are being arrested, detained and threatened with arrest by Taliban authorities, the UN warned on Thursday as record numbers of returnees struggle to rebuild their lives back home.
- The UN Secretary-General appealed on Tuesday for an end to the United States-Iran war and the toll it has taken on global trade, as he began an official visit to Pakistan.
- Across Papua New Guinea, water sources are drying up, crops are failing and food prices are rising months before the worst agricultural impacts are expected. Behind those warning signs is an El Niño whose Pacific Ocean temperatures have already surpassed the equivalent measurements during the historic 1997 and 2015 events – part of an unfolding climate pattern being dubbed a “Super El Niño” by some climate watchers.
- “Your mind follows the thread, one by one, row by row. You know? It’s like meditation. I don’t like machines.”
- The International Criminal Court (ICC) has made public four arrest warrants against senior Taliban figures, accusing them of persecuting women and girls in Afghanistan, which amounts to a crime against humanity.
- The deadly flash floods in northern Nepal have severely disrupted employment and livelihoods, with wider impacts beyond communities that were directly affected, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a preliminary assessment released on Thursday.
- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has voiced concern over Malaysia’s decision to return 1,476 people to Myanmar amid an ongoing civil war and a dire human rights and humanitarian situation.
- The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) told the UN General Assembly on Monday that its status as a nuclear-armed State was irreversible, arguing that its military capabilities were necessary to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula.
- Kenya began a 42-day countdown to the end of its Ebola outbreak on Thursday, a day after the last patient being treated for the disease went home and 11 people were released from quarantine.
- Drones and drought are “closing in” on Sudan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said on Tuesday, describing unprecedented attacks on the country’s infrastructure including by drones travelling up to 1,500 kilometres before hitting their target.
- Quality health data can help authorities to identify emerging threats and take lifesaving action, but a new report reveals critical gaps in Africa’s health information systems.
- With South Sudan just six weeks away from its first national elections since independence, the Security Council meets in New York Tuesday amid deepening political uncertainty and worsening violence. Ambassadors are expected to press for an inclusive process and credible polls, while civilians bear the brunt of fighting, hunger and displacement.
- Violence in northern Nigeria is fueling a growing humanitarian crisis across the whole region: 64,000 have fled to neighbouring Niger and several hundred have left for Benin since the start of the year, as host countries struggle to cope, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
- The International Organization of Migration (IOM) and partners are calling for urgent funding to support tens of thousands of people who have escaped violent clashes in Ethiopia for the Moyale region in northern Kenya.
- Aid teams working to help millions of people uprooted by the ongoing war in Sudan appealed on Friday for more international assistance amid desperate funding shortages, empty warehouses and overwhelming needs.
- Two new Ebola vaccine candidates will be added to a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the country continues to battle a deadly outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus.
- Drone strikes that killed at least 30 people in Abyei last month have added “a new and concerning dimension” to security in the disputed area, the UN’s peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Thursday.
- Intensifying drone attacks on civilian infrastructure across Sudan are disrupting electricity, water and fuel supplies, putting lives at risk and hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid, the UN’s top official in the country has warned.
- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Monday for greater protection for civilians caught in conflict in northern Ethiopia following deadly drone strikes this past weekend.
- The UN remains committed to supporting a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution in Western Sahara that provides for the self-determination of its people, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday, as the UN peacekeeping mission there began to wind down.
- “The story of the UN's political engagement in Somalia has been one of persistence, partnership and adaptation,” Raisedon Zenenga, the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia has said, as three decades of UN political missions in the Horn of Africa country comes to an end on 31 October.
- More than 28 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are not getting enough to eat and the number is expected to tick up in the coming months, according to the latest alert from the IPC global food security monitor.
- Civilians in Sudan’s El Obeid live in constant fear of drone attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and of a wave of arbitrary arrests by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), UN-appointed independent investigators said on Wednesday.
- As Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) surpass the 10,000 mark, the World Health Organization (WHO) has underlined the need for continued efforts to contain spread of the disease.
- Twenty people associated with Kenya’s first case of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease have been reunited with their families after being released from quarantine following completion of a mandatory 21-day monitoring period.
- The UN’s Ebola coordinator and the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) have deplored the killing of a nurse working to halt the spread of the disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
- Around 36,600 people have fled into northern Kenya following an uptick in fighting on the Ethiopian side of the border.
- As Ebola continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), more resources are needed to fight the disease and feed patients and families, UN agencies said on Friday.
- Kenya began a 42-day countdown to the end of its Ebola outbreak on Thursday, a day after the last patient being treated for the disease went home and 11 people were released from quarantine.
- Quality health data can help authorities to identify emerging threats and take lifesaving action, but a new report reveals critical gaps in Africa’s health information systems.
- Seventy-one confirmed Ebola cases have been detected along transit routes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since the outbreak began almost six months ago, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.
- Ending cholera as a public health threat by 2030 is within reach, as every cholera death can be prevented with tools that already exist, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
- At least 30 civilians were killed overnight on Thursday in Beni Territory, North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to local sources cited by the UN aid coordination office (OCHA).
- Two new Ebola vaccine candidates will be added to a clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the country continues to battle a deadly outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus.
- One in four adolescents worldwide reported not getting at least 60 minutes of physical activity on any day in the previous week, according to new global estimates released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday.
- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) called on Monday for greater protection for civilians caught in conflict in northern Ethiopia following deadly drone strikes this past weekend.
- As Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) surpass the 10,000 mark, the World Health Organization (WHO) has underlined the need for continued efforts to contain spread of the disease.
- Twenty people associated with Kenya’s first case of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease have been reunited with their families after being released from quarantine following completion of a mandatory 21-day monitoring period.
- The UN’s Ebola coordinator and the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) have deplored the killing of a nurse working to halt the spread of the disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
- As Ebola continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), more resources are needed to fight the disease and feed patients and families, UN agencies said on Friday.
- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) is a self-confessed fan of K-pop sensation ENHYPEN and this week, he got the chance to tell them so in person.
- As the deadly Ebola disease outbreak reached an eighth province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), investigators pursued all leads on Thursday to assess the risk of the disease spreading in Nigeria.
- A patient in France has died after being infected with Shamonda virus, the first recorded human case of the disease.
- Representatives from across the international community are meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to ensure that children everywhere can thrive in a world marred by war, climate chaos and other fundamental challenges.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) is assisting Nigeria following confirmation of the first case of Ebola Bundibugyo virus disease in the country.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) is scaling up emergency health response operations across Afar, Amhara and Tigray in Ethiopia to address growing humanitarian and health needs resulting from ongoing hostilities.
- More than 250,000 people have now fled renewed fighting in Yemen, the UN said on Tuesday, citing particular concern for those sheltering in the southwestern city of Taiz and the wider governorate, where access is “essentially blocked”.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) is strengthening Ebola preparedness amid conflict and displacement affecting millions of lives in a region that spans parts of Africa, Asia and Europe.
- Nearly 200 countries have arrived on Türkiye's Mediterranean coast for a climate summit with a different ambition: fewer grand declarations and more concrete decisions. With a powerful El Niño threatening to worsen extreme weather, negotiators face difficult questions over climate finance, clean energy and how to protect communities already living with the consequences of climate change.
- The UN remains committed to supporting a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution in Western Sahara that provides for the self-determination of its people, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday, as the UN peacekeeping mission there began to wind down.
- “The story of the UN's political engagement in Somalia has been one of persistence, partnership and adaptation,” Raisedon Zenenga, the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia has said, as three decades of UN political missions in the Horn of Africa country comes to an end on 31 October.
- Artificial intelligence promises to make life easier. With a few keystrokes, it can write emails, summarize reports, generate ideas and answer complex questions in seconds. For many people, it feels like a technological leap on par with the arrival of the internet itself.
- Around 36,600 people have fled into northern Kenya following an uptick in fighting on the Ethiopian side of the border.
- The United Nations celebrates its 81st anniversary on Saturday, highlighting more than eight decades of work to advance peace, human rights and development around the world.
- Amid climate disruption, an AI revolution, war and growing hunger, “the need for the United Nations has never been greater,” Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, presenting a $3.3 billion programme budget proposal for next year – a cut of $40.8 million.
- As world leaders prepare for November’s major COP31 climate summit in Türkiye, record-breaking heat, devastating floods and an unprecedented El Niño climate pattern are making global climate action ever more urgent.
- Can the UN still remain relevant if it still looks and acts like the organization it was when it was formed in 1945? The debate over UN reform at the General Assembly in New York last month produced a striking common refrain from a diverse range of Member States.
- The UN Secretary-General appealed on Tuesday for an end to the United States-Iran war and the toll it has taken on global trade, as he began an official visit to Pakistan.
- Should the world move away sharply from fossil fuels, or manage a slower, more careful retreat?
- Governments, UN entities, civil society, media, academia and the private sector have called for stronger cooperation and practical action to respond to a rapidly changing global information landscape.
- The General Assembly met on Thursday to examine the Security Council’s latest veto, cast by China and Russia over a United States-backed sanctions panel of experts on Iran nuclear facilities.
- What if the world tackled inequality with the same kind of scientific firepower it has brought to the climate crisis?
- Artificial Intelligence or AI – and the technology behind it – is moving fast. The question being asked across the world is who gets a seat at the table deciding how it's used and who gets to benefit.
- South Sudan remains committed to holding general elections in December to conclude its transition period, the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Cecilia Adout Majok Adeng, told the General Assembly on Monday, calling for all sanctions, including the arms embargo to be lifted.
- The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) told the UN General Assembly on Monday that its status as a nuclear-armed State was irreversible, arguing that its military capabilities were necessary to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula.
- Sudan’s Foreign Minister addressed the UN General Assembly on Monday in place of Chairperson of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, whose visa application was rejected by Washington.
- After six days of speeches from the UN General Assembly podium, one word rose above all others: peace. This final edition of The Takeaway distils the messages he said reverberated through the Assembly Hall and looks at where the 193-member body goes from here.
- From artificial intelligence to migration, some of the forces reshaping the twenty-first century took centre stage at the UN General Assembly on Saturday. Leaders wrestled with a common dilemma: how to harness profound technological and social change without allowing it to deepen the divisions already separating countries and communities. This edition of The Takeaway distils key points from Day 5 of the annual high-level debate.
- Many children born in Syria since the war began in 2011 have no legal identity because nationality passes only through fathers – many of whom are dead or missing – a member of the independent UN commission investigating rights violations in the country said on Wednesday.
- Opium production in Afghanistan has risen fivefold in a year. According to a UN survey released on Thursday, it’s the first significant increase since the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in 2022.
- At least 139 migrants have died after their boat capsized off Djibouti, with a further 84 people still missing, the UN migration agency (IOM) said on Sunday.
- The United States has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an institution, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowing on Friday to “dismantle the ICC, brick by brick” unless it ends what Washington regards as a “threat” to its citizens.
- Antibiotics, malaria treatments, painkillers, opioids. More than 250 tonnes of medical products were seized over six years in Central Africa. Behind those numbers is an illicit market that thrives not simply despite the region’s fragile health systems, but in part because of them.
- “Your mind follows the thread, one by one, row by row. You know? It’s like meditation. I don’t like machines.”
- The package originated in Entebbe, Uganda, bound for Cairo, containing 10 kilograms of thumb-sized pieces that could have been either bone or elephant ivory.
- Homicide rates are falling across much of the world, but organised crime is on the rise in many regions as criminal networks diversify into trafficking, migrant smuggling, and the exploitation of natural resources, a new UN report launched on Wednesday revealed.
- Countries adopted on Saturday a new global blueprint for tackling rapidly evolving forms of crime, as the UN’s largest gathering on crime prevention and criminal justice opened in Abu Dhabi with a call for stronger international cooperation.
- Sitting in her Vienna office ahead of a pivotal UN gathering in Abu Dhabi, Monica Juma is focused on a simple reality: crime has evolved faster than many of the institutions designed to combat it.
- The Security Council met to mark 25 years since the 9/11 attacks with a briefing on counter-terrorism as ambassadors take stock of a threat that has morphed dramatically since resolution 1373 built the council's counter-terrorism machinery in 2001. Briefers highlighted militants' growing use of artificial intelligence, drones and encrypted platforms for recruitment and attack planning.
- As criminal networks increasingly exploit weak institutions and operate across borders, the UN says no police force can tackle them alone.
- About 20 million children aged 12 to 17 – one in five across 21 countries – were sexually exploited by perpetrators using technology such as social media, according to a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report released on Thursday.
- The killings in Kenscoff began late Sunday, when armed men descended on the farming community in the hills overlooking Haiti’s capital, setting homes ablaze and attacking residents. By Monday, bodies lay in the streets and survivors were searching for missing relatives.
- Conflicts can expose civilians and detainees to grave abuses; the challenge is not only to document these crimes, but also to ensure all survivors are recognised, protected and able to access justice and care.
- In the wake of President Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia’s re-election for a second five-year term, UN human rights chief has raised concerns over the reported arrests and detention of political opponents in the country.
- The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday responded to a new round of US sanctions targeting its president and a senior prosecutor, calling them “a flagrant attack” against the court.
- Independent UN Human Rights Council-appointed experts on Tuesday condemned the execution of at least 16 people in Singapore for drug-related offences this year and urged the country to end its “continued and unlawful use of capital punishment.”
- Authorities in Iran intercepted 3,663 kilogrammes of methamphetamines headed for Europe and the Persian Gulf in the first quarter of 2026, according to the UN’s drugs and crime fighting agency (UNODC).
- Five years into Taliban rule, Afghans still have almost no way of knowing whether soldiers, police and morality officers who abuse their power ever face consequences – and that secrecy is corroding trust in the State, the UN said Monday.
- More than 1,000 people were killed in Haiti during the third quarter of this year, as armed gangs continue to terrorize the population in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, the UN team in the island nation, said in its latest human rights report.
- Six journalists who make up the entire newsroom of the Egyptian fact-checking website Matsadash remain in detention, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday, warning of proliferating assaults on press freedom by the Government.
- Drones and drought are “closing in” on Sudan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said on Tuesday, describing unprecedented attacks on the country’s infrastructure including by drones travelling up to 1,500 kilometres before hitting their target.
- On his way to school in Vienna on the morning of 10 November 1938, eight-year-old Arthur Schneier watched his synagogue burn while firefighters and police officers stood by “rejoicing”.
- Afghanistan stands at a “difficult crossroad” more than five years after the Taliban returned to power, a senior UN official said on Friday. Relative stability and security are being undercut by a fragile economy, sweeping curbs on rights and acute humanitarian need.
- In Mexico’s armed forces, an order from a superior is meant to be obeyed without question. For many women in uniform, investigative journalist Zorayda Gallegos found, that can include an order to step into an officer’s bedroom.
- The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is building factories and hospitals, rolling out smartphones and mobile banking, and passing new laws at an unprecedented rate. But its people are more cut off from the outside world than at any point in the country’s history.
- The UN human rights chief on Saturday demanded an independent investigation into the death of a Yemeni colleague held by the Houthis for more than two years, whose family learned of his death only weeks after it happened.
- Israeli forces continue to push Palestinians into ever-smaller areas of the Gaza Strip while destroying civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, warned on Friday amid concerns of ethnic cleansing.
- More than 300,000 people displaced since early March remain internally displaced in Lebanon, where the humanitarian crisis is “far from over,” according to the UN’s aid coordination office (OCHA).
- Myanmar’s human rights situation is “catastrophic”, the UN independent expert on the country warned at a press briefing Thursday, as the war spirals with no end in sight.
- Top human rights experts investigating Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine said on Monday that the Russian authorities had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by attacking civilians and vital energy infrastructure, among other violations of international law.
- Israel’s “aggressive operation” in the West Bank city of Hebron raises serious concerns of ethnic cleansing, UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned on Monday, as the number of Palestinians forced from their homes passed 3,000 on the eve of Israeli elections.
- The UN said on Friday it was “extremely alarmed” by intensifying violence in the occupied West Bank, as Israel moved to seal off the territory following a deadly attack on its soldiers in Hebron.
- Long-range Russian attacks across Ukraine are intensifying, including in Kyiv, causing at least 14 civilian deaths and 78 injuries overnight into Thursday, as UN agencies continue to provide aid.
- Representatives from across the international community are meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to ensure that children everywhere can thrive in a world marred by war, climate chaos and other fundamental challenges.
- Three years on from the reported resumption of large-scale forcible returns of nationals of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from China, serious concerns persist about their fate, according to a group of Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts.
- More than 250,000 people have now fled renewed fighting in Yemen, the UN said on Tuesday, citing particular concern for those sheltering in the southwestern city of Taiz and the wider governorate, where access is “essentially blocked”.
- At 14, Bushra faced being married off – until community leaders at a UNICEF-supported child protection hub worked with her father to prevent her from being given away against her will.
- More than a quarter of humanity struggles to get enough food, even though the world produces enough for everyone, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Monday, blaming injustice and the denial of human rights for hunger in a world of plenty.
- The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, expressed deep concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, as UN member states and partners have been repeatedly delaying sending their support to the Strip.
- Drones and drought are “closing in” on Sudan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said on Tuesday, describing unprecedented attacks on the country’s infrastructure including by drones travelling up to 1,500 kilometres before hitting their target.
- The International Organization of Migration (IOM) and partners are calling for urgent funding to support tens of thousands of people who have escaped violent clashes in Ethiopia for the Moyale region in northern Kenya.
- An infant reportedly drowned and five Gazans were killed – including three children – when a sand dune collapsed on their tents as the first heavy rains swept across the enclave at the weekend, according to the UN aid coordination office (OCHA).
- In Gaza, 10-year-old Anas is one of three siblings born without legs and with only two fingers on each of their hands. They struggle to move around and perform daily activities like eating and writing independently.
- Aid teams working to help millions of people uprooted by the ongoing war in Sudan appealed on Friday for more international assistance amid desperate funding shortages, empty warehouses and overwhelming needs.
- Afghanistan stands at a “difficult crossroad” more than five years after the Taliban returned to power, a senior UN official said on Friday. Relative stability and security are being undercut by a fragile economy, sweeping curbs on rights and acute humanitarian need.
- Drone strikes that killed at least 30 people in Abyei last month have added “a new and concerning dimension” to security in the disputed area, the UN’s peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Thursday.
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres remains concerned over the situation on the Korean Peninsula, including the potential escalation of tensions across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), his Spokesperson said on Thursday.
- Ukraine has sustained almost 2,000 attacks on education since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, with some 270 this year alone, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, a day after a strike at a school being used to distribute aid.
- Intensifying drone attacks on civilian infrastructure across Sudan are disrupting electricity, water and fuel supplies, putting lives at risk and hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid, the UN’s top official in the country has warned.
- The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is providing emergency food assistance to more than 400 people who were able to leave the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, in Ukraine’s Kherson region, during a brief local ceasefire.
- More than 280,000 people have now been displaced by fighting in Yemen and many vulnerable people are unable to access lifesaving relief because it is too dangerous to do so, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday.
- More than 28 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are not getting enough to eat and the number is expected to tick up in the coming months, according to the latest alert from the IPC global food security monitor.
- Each day the ceasefire in Oleshky holds means hope for civilians in the city, the UN’s top humanitarian official said, stressing that those wishing to leave must be able to do so safely and voluntarily.
- The UN’s top humanitarian official in Ukraine on Thursday condemned a Russian drone attack on the city of Dnipro that killed at least 13 civilians and injured 10 others at its main railway station.
- At least five children were killed and two others injured in a drone attack on a market in Nyala, in Sudan’s South Darfur state, on Monday, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday.
- Reducing conflict is the single most effective way to tackle global hunger, the new head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Luke Lindberg, said on Wednesday, noting that conflict drives two thirds of the acute food insecurity affecting 266 million people worldwide.
- Aid agencies warned on Friday of the fast-developing humanitarian emergency inside Taiz City in Yemen, which has been encircled by de facto Houthi forces fighting government troops along the country’s west coast.
- The international community must combat inequality and stop wars from expanding to ensure a safer world for all, the UN Secretary-General said on Thursday.
- On his way to school in Vienna on the morning of 10 November 1938, eight-year-old Arthur Schneier watched his synagogue burn while firefighters and police officers stood by “rejoicing”.
- More than half of Afghanistan’s children who should be in primary school remain outside formal learning and millions of girls can only dream of going to university.
- Global impunity for journalist killings has risen for the first time in more than a decade, while the growing use of drones is an emerging threat for reporters in conflict zones, according to the latest report from UN cultural organization UNESCO.
- In Mexico’s armed forces, an order from a superior is meant to be obeyed without question. For many women in uniform, investigative journalist Zorayda Gallegos found, that can include an order to step into an officer’s bedroom.
- As the sun sets over Samarkand’s majestic Registan, its last rays glint across the turquoise mosaics. Dusk settles on the ancient square where great trade routes have crossed for centuries.
- “I tell my kids I work in a time machine,” said Rhony Dostaly. In a basement beneath Lincoln Center, the media preservation engineer rescues moments from the past. “I go back in time, and I grab elements, and I make them available for people today.”
- For a long time, launching something beyond Earth was reserved for a relatively small number of national space programmes. That is changing.
- Right after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, UNOOSA, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, was established and has since been monitoring developments across more than 77 successful lunar missions and other journeys while also taking a lead role in the annual World Space Week, which runs from 4 to 10 October.
- A new academic year is underway in many countries across the world, yet millions of children still attend schools where the water is unsafe to drink, toilets are unusable and there is nowhere to properly wash their hands.
- The world's first scientific body on artificial intelligence (AI) called on Monday for safeguards to be adapted as current firewalls are “unravelling”.
- The UN Secretary-General has called for concerted action by governments, technology companies and civil society to stamp out hate speech, emphasizing that “its toxic message is spreading fast and striking deep”.
- In an underground classroom in Sumy, Ukraine, children sit quietly at their desks, busy with the day’s lessons. For the moment they are shielded from the horrors of nearly five years of war, but just barely.
- When UNICEF’s Representative in Haiti Geetanjali Narayan stepped into a classroom in Port-au-Prince at the start of the new school year, she asked the children a simple question: What did they most need from the UN children’s agency?
- While September traditionally marks the start of the school year across the northern hemisphere, a staggering 93 million children are not in class at all amid an unprecedented number of attacks on learning, education experts warned on Wednesday.
- The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa look far smaller than it really is.
- The seizure of a vocational training centre in occupied East Jerusalem has left hundreds of Palestinian young people without access to skills and training that could help shape their futures.
- For millions of children in Sudan, the classroom remains out of reach as the country’s civil war continues to disrupt their education. To help tackle this huge problem, the UN global education fund on Monday announced a $22 million initiative to help 200,000 youngsters return to learning.
- A single New York Times article on a disaster generated an additional $500,000 in official aid. That’s just one of the findings on the critical role a free press plays in saving lives, according to a new UN report released on Tuesday.
- Five years since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, life for some Afghans has improved while many others suffer growing hardship.
- As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly transforms everything from how we learn, to the job market, children are adopting the technology more than three times faster than adults – exposing them to unique opportunities and risks.
- UN chief António Guterres called for a new global climate justice agreement at COP31 on Wednesday, urging governments to tax fossil fuel companies to help countries bearing the brunt of a crisis they did little to cause. His appeal came as world leaders gathered in Antalya amid unresolved questions over climate finance and the future of fossil fuels.
- The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, expressed deep concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, as UN member states and partners have been repeatedly delaying sending their support to the Strip.
- The global energy transition took centre stage on the second day of COP31, as countries explored how to move away from fossil fuels, accelerate clean energy and overcome financial and infrastructure barriers standing in the way.
- When war shut the Strait of Hormuz in February, oil prices soared everywhere. But the pain at the pump has been far from equal, and the world’s developing economies are paying the heaviest price, according to a new report from UNCTAD, the UN trade and development agency.
- A school in Myanmar has been hit in an airstrike, with three children reported killed and five others injured, according to UN Children’s Fund UNICEF.
- Opium production in Afghanistan has risen fivefold in a year. According to a UN survey released on Thursday, it’s the first significant increase since the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in 2022.
- Artificial intelligence promises to make life easier. With a few keystrokes, it can write emails, summarize reports, generate ideas and answer complex questions in seconds. For many people, it feels like a technological leap on par with the arrival of the internet itself.
- The UN General Assembly on Wednesday called for the 34th time for an end to the US economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba – but with the weakest backing for the resolution in two decades.
- An estimated 66.5 million domestic workers – representing more than four out of five domestic workers worldwide – were informally employed in 2025, a new report by the UN’s labour organisation has found.
- The General Assembly opened its annual debate on the US economic embargo against Cuba on Tuesday. On Wednesday, 28 October, Member States will vote for the 34th time on a resolution calling for it to end.
- Air traffic delays cost billions and turn journeys into ordeals. Some countries are already proving that better coordination saves thousands of flying hours and cuts emissions – and the UN’s aviation agency wants the rest of the world to follow.
- Rapid transformations – from artificial intelligence and digital technologies to renewable energy and demographic shifts – are reshaping economies worldwide, creating new opportunities but also threatening to deepen socio-economic inequalities, a new UN report warned on Thursday.
- $228 billion is a staggering amount of money to find, but that’s exactly what communities around the world are faced with every year, to rebuild housing after disaster strikes.
- Approximately 800 million young people entering the labour market in developing economies over the coming years will not find jobs unless countries act, the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) warned on Tuesday, as the agency launched two initiatives to boost investment and employment.
- Nidaa, Hanaa and Hanin have different stories, but share a common thread: the determination to build something of their own and keep it going despite extraordinary challenges facing them in war-ravaged Gaza.
- World trade reached a record $35 trillion in 2025 – but developing countries were held back from greater participation in the global economy because of new technological and policy barriers, the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD said on Friday.
- People around the world are living longer again, with global life expectancy almost fully recovered from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
- The deadly flash floods in northern Nepal have severely disrupted employment and livelihoods, with wider impacts beyond communities that were directly affected, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a preliminary assessment released on Thursday.
- The continuing conflict in the Middle East is disrupting global energy markets and pushing up fuel prices, with knock-on effects far beyond the region.
- The war in Sudan has devastated the economy and agricultural production, but a UN-backed plan aims to mobilise private sector investment to help farmers return to their fields.
- More than one in three women and girls worldwide – roughly 1.5 billion – live in so-called “climate hotspots”, where high exposure to hazards such as cyclones and droughts combine with insecure jobs and deep gender inequality.
- Safa is 14. Her mother died earlier this year. She has no brothers or sisters. And a few weeks ago, as the crisis took hold, her father married her to an elderly man, afraid that if he were killed in the hostilities, no one would be left to protect her.
- Gender equality and diversity are good for business – but while increasing numbers of women are reaching top spots in the corporate world, more initiatives are needed to keep momentum going.
- As online abuse, gender-based attacks and impunity ramp up the threats to women reporting from crisis zones, journalists and UN leaders are calling for urgent action to protect those who document conflict.
- From Gaza to Yemen, women and girls are facing ever greater dangers this year simply surviving in war zones. The Security Council meets Tuesday to debate the best way to improve security for women caught up in conflict.
- War is growing deadlier for women and girls, who accounted for one in four of the more than 37,000 civilians killed in armed conflict last year – double their share in 2021 – according to major UN report released Monday.
- When Tahani Al-Numeiri heard the first explosions in Khartoum, her hometown, war seemed so remote that she assumed they were celebrations from a nearby wedding. It was the morning of 15 April 2023, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had just turned their guns on the army.
- Mothers around the world get nearly eight times as much paid leave as fathers, leaving women to shoulder most of the care burden – at a cost to families, children and economies, according to new UN data published on Thursday.
- Older women around the world face violence, exploitation and neglect, yet remain largely invisible in the laws, policies, data and services designed to protect women overall, a UN independent human rights expert said on Thursday.
- The International Criminal Court (ICC) has made public four arrest warrants against senior Taliban figures, accusing them of persecuting women and girls in Afghanistan, which amounts to a crime against humanity.
- Women must be at the centre of efforts to prevent conflict and build lasting peace, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Thursday.
- At the current rate of progress, gender equality would take 171 years to achieve, a new UN report finds as institutions built to advance gains are being defunded and demobilised.
- In war-torn Gaza, a growing number of women-headed households face “impossible decisions” every day, amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes and still-scarce resources, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
- Gloria Steinem, the journalist and women's rights campaigner who became one of the most influential voices of the feminist movement, has died at the age of 92. In an announcement on Instagram, her family said she had passed away on Wednesday at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her.
- An independent UN human rights expert has welcomed ongoing proceedings in the United States to extradite “manosphere” bloggers Andrew and Tristan Tate to the United Kingdom, calling the case an important step towards accountability for serious allegations of violence against women and girls.
- In El Obeid, women and girls now face an impossible choice over something as basic as a bucket of water: risk a drone strike by collecting it in daylight, or risk rape by waiting until dark.
- One month after twin earthquakes rocked Venezuela, thousands of women and girls continue to face difficulty in accessing essential healthcare and protection services, a senior official with the UN reproductive and sexual health agency UNFPA said on Friday.
- When a 12-story apartment building pancaked in La Guaira, Venezuela, following two powerful earthquakes late last month, panic ensued to save people injured or trapped under the rubble.
- Thousands of people in some of Yemen's most conflict-affected communities are receiving lifesaving health care closer to home, thanks to funding from the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) through the Yemen Humanitarian Fund.
- A UN independent human rights expert has urged political leaders in the United Kingdom to support implementation of a Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of sex, warning that opposition to updated equality guidance risks weakening protections for women and girls.
- More than 1,000 people were killed in Haiti during the third quarter of this year, as armed gangs continue to terrorize the population in the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond, the UN team in the island nation, said in its latest human rights report.
- The situation in southern Lebanon remains volatile and extremely difficult for communities trying to rebuild their lives, UN peacekeepers based there report, despite a significant decrease in hostilities following an agreement in June between the United States, Lebanon and Israel.
- Drones and drought are “closing in” on Sudan, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said on Tuesday, describing unprecedented attacks on the country’s infrastructure including by drones travelling up to 1,500 kilometres before hitting their target.
- With South Sudan just six weeks away from its first national elections since independence, the Security Council meets in New York Tuesday amid deepening political uncertainty and worsening violence. Ambassadors are expected to press for an inclusive process and credible polls, while civilians bear the brunt of fighting, hunger and displacement.
- Six journalists who make up the entire newsroom of the Egyptian fact-checking website Matsadash remain in detention, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday, warning of proliferating assaults on press freedom by the Government.
- The Security Council met in New York on Ukraine Monday. Russian strikes on energy infrastructure are threatening millions with another cold, dark winter, and civilian deaths are climbing sharply. The meeting comes on the eve of US-backed talks due to take place in Abu Dhabi. Follow our live meeting coverage below.
- The El Niño extreme weather pattern could cost the global economy up to $11 trillion and seriously impact food security, said the UN agency tackling rural poverty in developing countries on Monday.
- At least 30 civilians were killed overnight on Thursday in Beni Territory, North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to local sources cited by the UN aid coordination office (OCHA).
- Afghanistan stands at a “difficult crossroad” more than five years after the Taliban returned to power, a senior UN official said on Friday. Relative stability and security are being undercut by a fragile economy, sweeping curbs on rights and acute humanitarian need.
- Attacks that damaged or destroyed water and sanitation systems in conflict zones tripled between 2021 and 2025, increasing children’s risk of exposure to disease outbreaks, malnutrition and violence.
- Drone strikes that killed at least 30 people in Abyei last month have added “a new and concerning dimension” to security in the disputed area, the UN’s peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Thursday.
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres remains concerned over the situation on the Korean Peninsula, including the potential escalation of tensions across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), his Spokesperson said on Thursday.
- When war shut the Strait of Hormuz in February, oil prices soared everywhere. But the pain at the pump has been far from equal, and the world’s developing economies are paying the heaviest price, according to a new report from UNCTAD, the UN trade and development agency.
- Gunfire hit and damaged multiple tents at a displacement site in Gaza’s northern Rafah region on Tuesday, reportedly causing injuries and forcing a humanitarian partner to leave the area, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) has said.
- The UN’s peacekeeping chief warned on Wednesday that the withdrawal of “Blue Helmets” from Lebanon and Western Sahara risks leaving a dangerous security vacuum, while the Security Council remains divided over what, if anything, should replace them.
- Many children born in Syria since the war began in 2011 have no legal identity because nationality passes only through fathers – many of whom are dead or missing – a member of the independent UN commission investigating rights violations in the country said on Wednesday.
- Ukraine has sustained almost 2,000 attacks on education since the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, with some 270 this year alone, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday, a day after a strike at a school being used to distribute aid.
- Safa is 14. Her mother died earlier this year. She has no brothers or sisters. And a few weeks ago, as the crisis took hold, her father married her to an elderly man, afraid that if he were killed in the hostilities, no one would be left to protect her.
- A school in Myanmar has been hit in an airstrike, with three children reported killed and five others injured, according to UN Children’s Fund UNICEF.
- Intensifying drone attacks on civilian infrastructure across Sudan are disrupting electricity, water and fuel supplies, putting lives at risk and hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid, the UN’s top official in the country has warned.
- Violence in northern Nigeria is fueling a growing humanitarian crisis across the whole region: 64,000 have fled to neighbouring Niger and several hundred have left for Benin since the start of the year, as host countries struggle to cope, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.
- Seventy-one confirmed Ebola cases have been detected along transit routes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since the outbreak began almost six months ago, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.
- The International Organization of Migration (IOM) and partners are calling for urgent funding to support tens of thousands of people who have escaped violent clashes in Ethiopia for the Moyale region in northern Kenya.
- At least 56 people died in a series of shipwrecks off Senegal and Greece over the weekend, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday, calling it a stark reminder of the deadly risks they face on the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
- The climate emergency is an immediate crisis for refugees, with three in four – nearly 90 million people – living in countries facing high to severe exposure to hazards such as drought, floods and extreme heat.
- At least 30 civilians were killed overnight on Thursday in Beni Territory, North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to local sources cited by the UN aid coordination office (OCHA).
- More than 300,000 people displaced since early March remain internally displaced in Lebanon, where the humanitarian crisis is “far from over,” according to the UN’s aid coordination office (OCHA).
- The price tag for smuggling on European sea routes reached up to half a billion dollars last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN migration office, IOM, reported on Wednesday.
- Fewer people from West Africa are reaching Europe by sea, but the journey has not become safer, the UN migration agency (IOM) said on Tuesday.
- The money is running out faster than needs are growing: with 117 million men, women and children now forced from their homes, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has received just $3 billion of the $8.5 billion it needs this year – and its chief, Barham Salih, warns that the global support system for asylum-seekers risks buckling.
- At least 139 migrants have died after their boat capsized off Djibouti, with a further 84 people still missing, the UN migration agency (IOM) said on Sunday.
- New data on child migrants published on Wednesday highlighted the harrowing treatment many face while travelling to Europe in search of work and shelter.
- Djibouti is facing “overlapping emergencies” as refugees fleeing the conflict in Yemen arrive on its shores while migrants continue to travel in the opposite direction, the UN migration agency (IOM) warned on Tuesday.
- A teenage girl who fled war-torn Sudan for neighbouring Egypt and hopes to pursue a technology degree is an example of why countries must ensure that young refugees can continue to learn.
- The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has voiced concern over Malaysia’s decision to return 1,476 people to Myanmar amid an ongoing civil war and a dire human rights and humanitarian situation.
- Haji Mohammad Shafi spent 44 years in Pakistan before he was forced to leave. He sold everything he owned and returned to Afghanistan with his five children, arriving with almost nothing.
- Nine years after the mass displacement of the Rohingya from Myanmar, their situation remains one of the world's most protracted and complex refugee crises, marked by years of persecution and uncertainty over the prospect of returning home.
- The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is seeking to raise $97.5 million to protect 540,000 children and their families in Gaza and the West Bank from harsh winter conditions in the coming months.
- Migrants sent $728.6 billion home to families in low and middle-income countries in 2025, nearly double the amount recorded a decade earlier, according to a new report from the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
- At least 46,000 people have been displaced since renewed fighting last week between Houthi rebels and pro-government forces in southwestern Yemen, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Friday.
- From flooded homes to melting Himalayan glaciers, the human cost of climate change took centre stage at COP31 on Thursday, as world leaders turned their attention to protecting cities and vulnerable communities, while activists challenged governments to do more.
- As the sun sets over Samarkand’s majestic Registan, its last rays glint across the turquoise mosaics. Dusk settles on the ancient square where great trade routes have crossed for centuries.
- A new Kenyan initiative is helping farmers better understand their soils in a bid to improve crop yields amid intensifying climate shocks.
- Biodiversity losses continue to upend the lives of billions of people whose future prosperity depends on countries taking urgent action to protect our planet, the top UN official leading talks at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, said on Monday.
- The UN Secretary-General has called for an end to the “war on nature”. On Monday, governments gathering in Yerevan, Armenia, will have to confront a more practical question: are they doing enough to win the peace and put the world’s biodiversity goals back on track?
- The United Nations Secretary-General appealed on Friday for governments, businesses and communities to accelerate efforts to protect biodiversity for future generations and all life on Earth.
- Fewer than half of the national targets set to protect the world’s plants, animals and ecosystems are on track, the UN warns in a new report, days before countries gather in Yerevan, Armenia, for the COP17 biodiversity conference.
- The UN and its partners are stepping up preparations in Gaza for the approaching cold and rainy season, even as attacks affecting civilians continue, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Wednesday.
- The UN Special Representative on Violence Against Children has called for stronger global action to protect boys and girls caught up in a growing number of crises, as current efforts fall short.
- The number of people living in “multidimensional” poverty has risen for the first time in 15 years, reaching 1.2 billion, as families struggle to meet their basic needs.
- Adam Ouattara and Makongo Traoré have four children and a home on the edge of Torla village in Côte d’Ivoire. He herds cattle. She grows vegetables on a small plot nearby. For years, the dry season pitted their two livelihoods against each other.
- Years of conflict, displacement, economic disruption and climate shocks in Myanmar have led to the “simultaneous collapse” of shelter, healthcare, schooling and livelihoods affecting millions of people, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a report issued on Thursday.
- Representatives from governments, civil society and academia meeting in Muscat, Oman on Monday called for urgent action to address a global housing crisis affecting nearly 3.4 billion people.
- What if the world tackled inequality with the same kind of scientific firepower it has brought to the climate crisis?
- Artificial Intelligence or AI – and the technology behind it – is moving fast. The question being asked across the world is who gets a seat at the table deciding how it's used and who gets to benefit.
- Food waste is helping to fuel global warming, one half-eaten sandwich at a time.
- Africa should focus its use of technology on solving its own real challenges rather than copying the systems and priorities of other parts of the world.
- Ahead of the 40th anniversary of the groundbreaking Declaration on the Right to Development this December, world leaders gathered at a High-Level Week meeting on Wednesday to map progress made and the 21st century challenges still ahead – from narrowing the digital divide to levelling the AI playing field – as the UN chief presented a “blueprint” to address promises that remain unfulfilled.
- A new academic year is underway in many countries across the world, yet millions of children still attend schools where the water is unsafe to drink, toilets are unusable and there is nowhere to properly wash their hands.
- In northern Kenya, a herder scans the sky for rain that hasn't come. The grass his animals need is thinning by the day.
