More than 120 humanitarian organizations and United Nations agencies have issued a joint appeal urging the world to unite and end the war in Syria.
The civil conflict there is entering its sixth year.
Around 250,000 people have been killed and some 13.5 million inside the country need relief assistance.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is one of the agencies behind the appeal.
Despite the destruction of yet another priceless heritage site in Iraq, cultural sites can be restored in the post-conflict era.
That’s the view of the UN Cultural agency’s emergency preparedness and response unit chief, Giovanni Boccardi.
The senior UNESCO official was responding to satellite images released on Tuesday, showing the total destruction of the 1400-year-old Christian monastery of St Elijah, in Mosul, an area controlled by the terrorist group, ISIL.
Mothers were crucial to so-called “language nests” that brought spoken Hawaiian back from the brink of extinction.
That’s according to activist Amy Kalili, who has been part of the US state of Hawaii’s indigenous language movement since the 1990s.
Latest government figures show there are more than 18,000 fluent speakers, a significant increase on ten years earlier.
Ms Kalili has been attending an international expert group meeting at UN headquarters on preserving and revitalizing Indigenous Languages.
Hopes are high for a peaceful vote next month in Niger, thanks to a strong tradition of holding “non-violent, credible” elections.
That’s the assessment of Mohamed Ibn Chambas, head of the UN Office for West Africa (ONUWA).
He added that some concerns surrounding the electoral register have been resolved, thanks in part to the community of French-speaking nations, La Francophonie.
Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou is seeking a second consecutive term.
Methods for growing cereal that respects natural ecosystems is the focus of a new book from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
The world’s major cereals, which include maize, rice and wheat, account for more than 40 per cent of human calories consumed and more than 35 per cent of our protein.
The new book examines ways for growing such food staples while also respecting and even leveraging natural ecosystems.
A virus that could result in devastating birth defects has now spread to at least 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a branch of the World Health Organization.
The Zika virus is spread by mosquitos. Its most common symptoms are a mild fever and skin rash accompanied by joint or muscle pain. It’s not thought to be fatal, but health experts becoming increasingly concerned about how the virus could affect unborn babies.
Nearly half of all people in the Central African Republic (CAR) are at risk of going hungry.
Conflict and insecurity in the country has left nearly 2.5 million people facing hunger, according to an emergency food assessment done by the World Food Programme (WFP).
The country has grappled with nearly three years of sectarian fighting.
Cristina Silveiro has been speaking with Pascal Diro, Chief of Programmes for WFP in CAR.
Duration: 2’30”
Spoken languages are disappearing around the world at a rate of one every two weeks.
That’s one of the worrying statistics being discussed at a UN conference on indigenous languages taking place this week.
The expert group meeting organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is focussing on finding out why languages are being lost, and how to revitalize them.
Developing countries could experience what a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund or IMF has described as a “bumpy ride” in 2016.
The comment follows the publication of an update to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, which was published in October last year.
The update projects that global growth this year will be 3.4 percent, slightly lower than last autumn’s forecast.
Bruce Edwards has compiled this report.
Duration: 3'58"
“Jobs mean dignity” the new head of the UN Refugee Agency, has been telling Syrians who have been forced to flee their country.
On his first official overseas trip as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi spoke to refugees in Turkey and Jordan about their plight.
In Turkey, he praised new government regulations which will allow many of those people to apply for work permits.
Matthew Wells has more.
Duration: 2’53”
