General News

The brutalization of women during armed conflicts remains a persistent and serious problem.

That was the message from delegates addressing the UN Security Council on Friday at a debate on the protection of civilians from physical violence.

For the first time, the meeting focused on challenges faced by women and girls in armed conflict and post-conflict settings.

Stephanie Coutrix reports.

Duration: 2'17"

A social media campaign to counter widespread xenophobia and negative perceptions of migrants has been launched by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The “Migrant Heroes” campaign invites a global audience to identify and tell positive stories of people who have moved to other countries.

The agency, which works in partnership with the United Nations, says that in many countries, antipathy towards migrants is on the increase.

IOM’s Rosebell Kagumire discussed the “Migrant Heroes” campaign with Daniel Johnson.

Duration: 4’33”

The annexation of Crimea and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine are creating an HIV/AIDS crisis, according to a United Nations envoy.

Since Russia occupied Crimea in March 2014, injecting drug users are no longer receiving substitution treatment which had helped to reverse the growing AIDS epidemic in Ukraine.

Michel Kazatchkine, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia told Derrick Mbatha that 40 per cent of the patients who were receiving treatment are HIV-positive.

Duration: 4’59”

The use of social media platforms by ambassadors at the United Nations is making diplomacy more relevant and immediate.

That’s according to one of the authors of a study looking at the impact of the Twitter platform on diplomatic relations.

Adam Snyder, an analyst at the private sector firm Burson-Marsteller, was at the UN on Friday at a meeting focusing on social media developments.

Daniel Dickinson began by asking him how the diplomatic community is using Twitter.

Duration: 2’30”

A once empty Syrian border transit point has rapidly become home to more than 11,000 people from Iraq.

They’ve been forced to flee their homes following an upsurge of terrorist violence across the region.

Now named the Badjet Kandela camp, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is turning the site into a temporary home for the displaced people.

Pat Duffy reports.

Duration:  2'37"

Half a billion dollars is needed to continue fighting Ebola in West Africa, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The money is part of an appeal for $3.1 billion the agency launched on Thursday to help 62 million children at risk in humanitarian crises around the world.

Ebola has killed more than 8,700 people mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but now the number of cases is dropping.

Derrick Mbatha reports.

Duration:  2'46"

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the ongoing civil conflict in South Sudan and the rise of terrorism in Nigeria are topics on which the UN Secretary-General is expected to focus at the Assembly of the African Union.

Ban Ki-moon is on Thursday arriving in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to attend the annual gathering of African Heads of States.

The Deputy Spokesperson of the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, gave Stephanie Coutrix a preview of what the UN will contribute to the gathering.

Duration: 4’22”

Efforts are under way to secure the release of six crew members of a UN food agency’s helicopter who disappeared in Sudan.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says the helicopter was flying from South Sudan to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, for regular maintenance on Monday when it made an emergency landing in the Sudanese region of South Kordofan.

According to media reports, the crew members are being held by rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement - North, which has been fighting the Khartoum government since 2011.

The cultivation of potatoes, the staple food in Bolivia, is in danger as a result of climate change, according to the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Potatoes originated in the Andes and the region boasts more than 4,000 different varieties of the crop.

However, increased temperatures, changes in growing seasons and increased incidence of extreme weather events are taking their toll on the root vegetable.

IFAD has invested $10 million to help 32,000 farmers across Bolivia adapt to changing climate.

An investigation into the death of a UN peacekeeper killed in southern Lebanon is underway, according to the UN Interim Force in the country, UNIFIL.

The peacekeeper of was from Spain died from injuries sustained following an exchange of fire north of the Blue Line, a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon.

The Israeli Defence Forces have informed UNIFIL that they also have incurred casualties as a result of fire from the Lebanese side.