General News

The Syrian conflict has forced an increasing number of children into work, with some as young as six helping to support their families, a UN report warned on Thursday.

The problem affects the war-torn country and regional neighbours, with 3,300 young refugees at work in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp, according to latest figures.

In Iraq, one-third of refugee children have been approached for recruitment with armed groups, the joint UNICEF/Save the Children report shows.

The 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were killed in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995 have been remembered at a commemorative event at UN Headquarters on Wednesday.

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the organization and the international community had failed to protect these innocent civilians.

More details of dreadful violence by Boko Haram fighters emerged on Wednesday at the UN where the organisation’s human rights chief called for a response “of commensurate magnitude.”

In his speech to the Human Rights Council, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein spoke of vicious and indiscriminate attacks stretching back years in and around northern Nigeria.

Zeid highlighted the plight of girls and women who’d been abducted by Boko Haram before being forced to marry and raped, before calling for accountability for the extremists and those government forces fighting them.

Rising incomes and population growth in developing countries will spur increased demand for food over the next 10 years.

That’s according to the Agricultural Outlook 2015-2024 launched on Wednesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

However, despite increased demand, prices for agricultural products are expected to fall due to strong crop yields, higher productivity and slower growth in global demand.

Killer heatwaves can catch governments by surprise, but that could be a thing of the past thanks to a new early warning system that’s now available, UN experts said Wednesday.

Led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the “heatwaves and health” initiative provides governments with procedures that they can put in place to protect vulnerable individuals.