General News

At least 400 million people worldwide lack access to essential health services such as antenatal care, child immunization and treatment for diseases like tuberculosis.

The finding comes from a report launched on Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank Group.

It’s the first report to measure health service coverage and financial protection, and to assess countries’ progress towards universal health coverage.

Forcing children to work and denying them an education are tantamount to violence, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi said Friday.

The veteran child rights campaigner made his comments during the International Labour Organization’s annual meeting in Geneva.

He said that with another US$22 billion in funding, every child could be sent to school.

Here's Daniel Johnson's report from Geneva.

Duration: 1'32"

Worldwide, more than 120 million children under the age of 14 are involved in child labour.

That’s according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) which this week wraps up its annual conference on social and labour issues of global importance.

Friday, 12 June, is the World Day Against Child Labour and delegates are looking at how quality education can help tackle this problem.

Key climate change talks in Paris are bound to fail unless US$100 billion is found to make an agreement happen, President Francois Hollande of France said Friday.

The warning came during a speech by the French statesman to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva.

In addition to the funding issue, President Hollande said that many more countries needed to step up with concrete proposals that will stop the planet from warming up.

Here’s Daniel Johnson’s report.

Experts have been discussing how satellites are important tools to monitor the effects of climate change on the planet.

At a meeting of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space, currently held in Vienna, Austria, they’re looking at how these satellites can help understand and forecast climate change.

Thierry Duquesne is a director at the French space agency, CNES.

Half a million refugees in two locations in Kenya are to have their food rations cut by almost a third, the World Food Programme, WFP, has announced.

The UN food agency said a shortage of funds means food stocks are dwindling and that the cuts are expected to last until September.

Daniel Dickinson has been speaking to WFP’s Challiss McDonough in Nairobi.

Duration: 3’08” [early out 2’18”]

A lack of basic services as well as continued fighting is driving thousands of people to a United Nations base in the north of the South Sudan, according to the UN mission in the country, UNMISS.

Around 2000 South Sudanese are arriving each week at the UN protection site in Bentiu, a town in Unity State.

Ongoing conflict in the African nation has caused around 1.4 million people to flee their homes.

Regina Gorle asked Arianne Quentier, UNMISS spokesperson, about the latest arrivals.

Women with disabilities face higher levels of poverty, violence, forced sterilization and exclusion from schools than other people, according to the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Catalina Devandas Aguilar was attending an annual conference on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) at UN headquarters in New York.

The global community needs to think about how it will support people who have become disabled due to the Syrian conflict.

That’s according to Chavia Ali, the chairperson of a non-profit organization called the Cultural Forum for People with Special Needs in the Syrian Arab Republic,.

She is at UN Headquarters in New York attending an annual conference on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Child rights experts say a traditional form of ritual abuse of minors continues in Ghana despite a years-old pledge by authorities to tackle the problem.

The practice, which is known as Trokosi, entails families handing over a child to a priest in return for absolution; it often results in sexual abuse and other violations.