General News

A real two-state solution between Israel and Palestine is still very far away, according to the outgoing UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.

Robert Serry says the seven years he has served in this capacity have been “eventful and difficult”.

More than half a million Israelis have settled in the West Bank, a territory he says should be part of Palestine.

May Yaacoub has been speaking with Mr Serry.

The situation in Ukraine has been described by a top UN official as a “real tragedy”, which is man-made and affecting people in a dramatic way.

John Ging, the Operations Director of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says more than a million displaced Ukrainians fleeing violence “may be alive but have no life”.

Meanwhile, the UN estimates that more than 6000 people have been killed since fighting between government and pro-Russian separatists began in April 2014.

The global threat of transnational organized crime is due to be discussed at an upcoming UN meeting on  the issue.

Qatar will be hosting the Thirteenth Crime Congress in Doha next week, bringing together government representatives and experts to discuss the links between security, justice, and how to build a more equitable world.

Mark Hudson met with the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

He began by asking Yury Fedotov how transnational organized crime has evolved in the last 60 years.

A “desperate” situation is developing inside a refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus in Syria where heavy fighting between warring parties is putting hundreds of thousands of civilians in “acute danger”.

That’s according to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) which on Monday appealed to all armed actors to withdraw immediately from Yarmouk camp.

Meanwhile, media reports indicated that the terrorist group ISIL had captured nearly all of the camp.

Global food prices dropped again in March, driven by a decline in sugar prices, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The FAO Food Price Index dropped by 1.5 per cent from February and by 18.7 per cent compared to its level a year ago.

The index measures monthly changes in international prices of a basket of food commodities.

The UN agriculture agency said the price index for sugar reached its lowest level since February 2009.

Radio listener clubs for women have been established in the towns of Rumbek and Wau in South Sudan.

The UN cultural agency (UNESCO) is working with the South Sudan Women’s General Association and a local radio station to promote freedom of expression for women in the country through the use of radio.

The radio listeners clubs aim to enable women across the country to talk about issues that are important to them, such as girls’ education and access to clean water.

Restrictions to people’s freedom of movement in South Sudan limit their abilities to provide for themselves, says Toby Lanzer, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the country.

South Sudan continues to be plagued by a conflict that broke out between government and opposition forces in December 2013, displacing more than two million people and forcing half a million of others to flee to neighbouring countries.

According to the UN, traditional livestock migration patterns, agriculture and trading routes have been significantly disrupted by the ongoing fighting.

It is not clear how many land mines and other explosive devices have contaminated South Sudan, according to experts from the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS).

UNMAS is helping to clear the new African country of landmines and other explosive devices in the new African nation but the conflict which erupted in December 2013 is not making the job easy.

Ivana Mousa spoke with UNMAS’ programme manager, Lance Malin and Robert Thompson, the chief of operations about the work that is being done in South Sudan.

A  vaccination campaign to protect children against measles is being launched to vaccinate over 35,000 children at the UN Protection of Civilians site in South Sudan’s Bentiu town.

Cases of the highly contagious disease have been reported within the camp where more than 50,000 have sought shelter.

The campaign by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is scheduled to start on 7 April.

Unexploded ordnance worldwide poses a greater threat to people’s safety than landmines, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service, UNMAS.

The Director of UNMAS, Agnès Marcaillou, recently led a panel discussion at UN Headquarters in New York which focused on the need for governments to continue developing national mine-action capacities.

She underlined both the social and economic effects of explosive remnants of war, which are killing thousands of people every year.