Combatting terrorism while also respecting human rights is one of the aims of a two-day conference taking place in the Arab region.
The forum opens on Wednesday in Doha, Qatar, and participants will also share best practices and expectations related to the promotion and protection of human rights.
Humanitarian operations continue in the Lake Chad Basin region in Africa where the terrorist group Boko Haram has forced millions of people to flee their homes.
The situation is the fastest growing displacement crisis on the continent, according to the United Nations which on Tuesday allocated more than US$30 million to support partners working in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
The UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, estimates that 2.7 million people, most of them children, have been affected.
When UN humanitarian workers and their partners arrived in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya on Monday, they found residents who were malnourished, desperate and convinced that the world had forgotten about them.
That’s according to the man who headed the joint mission carried out by the UN together with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
Evidence “on the ground” indicates that some civilians trapped in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya have been dying from starvation.
That’s according to members of the UN team which successfully managed to get aid into the town on Monday, after months of being denied access.
Matthew Wells reports.
Duration: 2'42"
The World should prepare for an overall increase in the number of people who are migrating away from home.
That’s one of the key findings in a UN report published on Tuesday.
The report, Trends in International Migrant Stock, says that the number of international migrants is growing faster than the global population, although the figure represents just 3 per cent of the overall population of seven billion.
Migrants have an important economic role, sending around US$ 400 billion in 2014 to their families in developing countries.
The UN’s 40-plus Special Rapporteurs can play a unique role in the promotion of human rights, although that job is not without challenges.
Rapporteurs are not UN officials, but carry out mandates from the organization to look into and report on human rights situations around the world.
Some rapporteurs address broad thematic topics, while others handle country-specific issues.
The detention centre at Guantánamo Bay should be closed “promptly” by the United States and dismantled, said the UN’s expert on judicial independence.
Special Rapporteur on the independence of the judiciary, Monica Pinto, said that the US was “violating human rights every day” by continuing to keep suspects imprisoned in the 14-year-old facility located in Cuba.
The General Assembly hall was the centre of the body’s 70th birthday celebrations on Monday, and it’s the place where leaders come to “thrash out” the major challenges of the day.
That’s according to Dan Thomas, spokesperson and communications director for the President of the General Assembly.
Matthew Wells spoke to Mr Thomas in the centre of the chamber where history has been made, over 70 years of lively debate.
Duration: 3’05”
The General Assembly is “at the heart” of the United Nations, according to the head of the UN Department which supports dialogue and cooperation among the 193 countries that make up the global organization.
Catherine Pollard is Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) the largest Department in the UN Secretariat.
Veronica Reeves spoke to Ms Pollard and asked her about the importance of the General Assembly.
Economic growth in Africa is expected to accelerate to 4.2 per cent in 2016 following a disappointing performance last year.
Overall global growth is forecast at just under 3 per cent.
The projections come in the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report published this month.
Marc Stocker is a senior economist at the Bank and co-author of the report.
Daniel Dickinson asked him what was driving growth after last year’s slowdown.
Duration: 3’47”
