General News

The government of the Philippines needs to take “urgent action” to address a “spiralling” series of human rights violations, including the summary execution of children.

That’s the conclusion of a group of independent UN rights experts, who have issued a joint call to action, in order to protect “many groups” in society threatened by the hard-line government of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Despite years of policies to promote gender equality in the workplace, no country has managed to make it a reality.

That’s one of the findings of a report launched at the second Barbershop Conference, held in July at UN Headquarters in New York.

The initiative was created in 2015 by Iceland and Suriname and supports UN Women’s “HeforShe” movement to achieve gender equality within our lifetime.

Dianne Penn reports.

Duration: 3'04"

The newly appointed head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) says he is coming to the country to work with and for its people.

Veteran Lebanese diplomat and academic Ghassan Salamé is in New York for talks with UN officials and ambassadors before heading to Libya next week.

He was in Paris earlier this week for the signing of a declaration by two of Libya’s political leaders, which the UN Security Council has welcomed.

The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being discussed positively all over the world but they’re still “far away” from being reached.

That’s the long-term but optimistic view of the outgoing Under-Secretary-General for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA),Wu Hongbo, whose last day on the job is July 31.

Up to 50,000 civilians remain trapped in the former Daesh, or ISIL, terrorist stronghold of Raqqa, with “no way for them to get out.”

That’s the chilling assessment of the Assistant Secretary-General for the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, briefing the Security Council on latest developments in Syria.

Matt Wells has more on Thursday's meeting.

Duration: 2'31"

North-east Nigeria’s problems are principally due to long-term “development failures” compounded by a Boko Haram terrorist insurgency that’s provoked a “crisis of global magnitude.”

That’s the view of UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative for Nigeria, Edward Kallon, who is also UN Humanitarian Coordinator there.

Recently-liberated West Mosul has become “a ghost city” which is devoid of all life and urgently in need of international funds so residents can return.

That’s according to Hala Jaber of the UN migration agency (IOM) who was recently in the most devastated part of Iraq’s second-largest city, which was captured by Daesh terrorists in 2014.

She described houses flattened, cars incinerated, and even cats and dogs have forsaken the rubble-strewn streets.

It is “vital” that the status quo for Jerusalem’s holy sites is preserved, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said on Tuesday, following days of violent unrest that has claimed seven lives.

South Sudanese citizens who have been displaced to UN protection camps as a result of conflict in the country say they feel safer when those camps are searched for weapons and other prohibited items.

Currently around 219,000 people live in protection of civilians sites set up by the UN mission in South Sudan, UNMISS.

To ensure the sites, known as POCs, remain civilian in nature, the mission regularly carries out surprise inspections.

The launch of an early warning system in Tuvalu will better inform residents of the Pacific island nation about oncoming cyclones and other disasters, according to a senior UN official in the region.

It is the first such system for the Pacific and can be replicated in other nations there, said Bakhodir Burkhanov, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) office for the region.