Interviews

There is urgent need for adequate measures to prevent cancer among people aged 20 to 39 years.

The call has been made by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which is part of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Globally, there were one million new cancer cases among this age group in 2012, as well as 400,000 cancer-related deaths, according to a recent IARC report.

The majority of those affected were women.

Soldiers in South Sudan have been reminded of their responsibility to protect children from violence, neglect, exploitation and abuse.

The army officers took part in a two-day workshop last week organized by the UN mission in the country, UNMISS, where they were urged to show leadership by ensuring their troops protect children caught in conflict.

South Sudan’s army, known as the SPLA, has been accused of grave violations against children, including rape, killings and recruiting them as fighters.

The death penalty is applied for many different crimes in Iran, but no official figures are released for who is on death row, or what they are accused of.

That’s one of the issues being highlighted by Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

She was at UN Headquarters in New York recently, to give her annual report to the General Assembly, along with other independent UN rights’ experts.

Police Week which began at UN Headquarters in New York on Monday, is a “unique time” for all involved in policing to exchange experience and learn from each other.

That’s the view of Luis Carrilho, who took up his latest post as the new UN Police Adviser with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) at the beginning of November.

It is time to acknowledge the value women bring in peace negotiations and society as a whole, a veteran activist has said.

Joy Ada Onyesoh, Vice President of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), was at UN Headquarters recently for a Security Council meeting marking 17 years since the adoption of a resolution aimed at increasing women’s participation in efforts to prevent and resolve conflict.

A change of mentality is needed in order to realize greater inclusion of persons with disabilities.

That’s according to Catalina Devandas Aguilar, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, who calls for people everywhere to “embrace human diversity”.

She underlined the importance of understanding that people with disabilities have the same needs, aspirations and rights of everyone else.

Changing realities on the ground in Sudan’s Darfur region have led the joint United Nations-African Union mission there, UNAMID, to refine and adapt its Protection of Civilians strategy.

The new approach involves focusing more on coordination as well as greater clarity on roles and responsibilities, according to Zurab Elzarov, who’s in charge of civilian protection, or PoC, for the mission.

The Security Council has to be careful not to negatively impact “ordinary people” in North Korea through sanctions aimed at stopping its nuclear weapons programme.

That’s the opinion of Tomás Ojea Quintana, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Grave human rights violations were committed by ISIL fighters against civilians trapped in the Iraqi city of Mosul which amount to “international crimes”, a new UN report published on Thursday claimed.

Focusing on the insurgents’ efforts to resist the Iraqi military which finally retook the city in July, the report indicates that more than 2,500 civilians were killed, mostly as a result of ISIL attacks.

Prices have declined for some of the world’s most important foods as harvests continue to outstrip demand, the UN food and agricultural agency (FAO) said on Thursday.

FAO, which announced the development in its monthly Food Price Index, said that lower dairy prices led the downward trend in key commodities.

Forecasts for 2018 indicate that worldwide cereal production and surpluses are likely to reach record levels, FAO senior economist Abdolreza Abbassian told Daniel Johnson.