General News

There has been an influx of internally displaced people in South Sudan seeking shelter at the UN’s so-called “Protection of Civilians sites”, according to the UN Mission in the country (UNMISS).

The latest estimates indicate that 118,000 people are seeking shelter at six UNMISS sites nation-wide due to food insecurity and sporadic fighting.

This number reportedly continues to grow as a registration continues.

For more details, Regina Gorle spoke with Joe Contreras, a spokesperson for the UN Mission.

Negotiations to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian relief supplies to besieged communities in Syria are currently underway, according to the WFP representative in the country.

Matthew Hollingworth says the agency is also trying to organize an air bridge from Damascus into Deir-ez-Zor, an ISIL-controlled governorate where 215,000 people are cut off without aid.

May Yaacoub met with Mr Hollingworth in Syria’s capital, Damascus and began by asking him about the scale of the crisis.

Duration: 4’18”

Women in all parts of the world are being subjected to sexual violence according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

It can take many forms such as domestic abuse, human trafficking and rape as a weapon of war.

The reasons behind that violence can vary from region to region, but social, cultural and economic factors generally play an import role.

Jorge Miyares has been speaking to Claudia Baroni, who works on the issue of violence against women at UNODC.

Information about soils in Latin America and the Caribbean is scarce and outdated, according to a senior soils officer for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) based in Santiago, Chile.

Jan VanWambeke says the issues of soil degradation and land resources are not sufficiently studied in the region, yet they directly affect 150 million Latin Americans and Caribbean people.

He is calling on governments to deal with these challenges during the International Year of Soils in 2015.

Escalating violence in Yemen has forced thousands to flee the country in search of safety, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

The UN agency says many people are crossing the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa country, Djibouti.

Meanwhile, the impact of the conflict on one of the poorest countries in the Arab world has left many Yemenis hungry.

Julian Franks reports on how WFP is doubling up its efforts to respond to the crisis.

Duration: 1’38”

The Lebanese government and the United Nations are working together to ensure that urgent needs of more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees can be met, according to the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon.

Since her appointment in December, Sigrid Kaag has been leading efforts to mitigate the impact on Lebanon of more than four years of civil conflict in neighbouring Syria.

She recently visited a number of settlements as well as vulnerable Lebanese host communities, where she says people are hopeful for a solution to the political crisis.

The lack of women working in new technology must be reversed, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said Thursday at the start of a global event to change the status quo.

ITU’s Girls In ICT Day event - now in its fifth year - aims to encourage more girls to consider a tech career, with more than 140 countries and more than 110,000 schoolgirls taking part.

Over one billion people, or approximately 15 per cent of the world’s population, are living with a disability, according to the UN.

Indigenous persons with disabilities often experience discrimination on different levels and face barriers to the full enjoyment of their rights.

The issue was highlighted at the UN’s Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, currently taking place at UN Headquarters in New York.

Cathrine Hasselberg reports.

Duration: 2'00"

The safety and security of three staff members from the World Food Programme (WFP) who went missing in South Sudan at the beginning of April is of great concern, the UN agency has said.

They were reportedly traveling in a convoy from Malakal to Melut County in Upper Nile state to deliver food, when fighting broke out along the road they were travelling.

WFP operations in the area have been temporarily suspended.

For more details on the situation, Daniel Johnson spoke with WFP’s George Fominyen who is based in South Sudan.

People need to start living in a way that is less damaging to our planet, according to a United Nations sustainable development expert.

Nikhil Chandavarkar says the global community has been digging into what he called the earth’s “savings account”, which is unsustainable.

On the occasion of International Mother Earth Day, the UN is underlining that 2015 brings a critical opportunity to change habits.

A new and meaningful universal climate change agreement is expected to be agreed upon this December.