Breastfeeding in the first hour after birth “is critical for saving newborn lives” said the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, on Tuesday, although 78 million babies each year are still missing out.
Just over a quarter of people trafficked worldwide are children, according to latest figures from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Marking the 2018 World Day against Trafficking in Persons this Monday, the UN drugs and crime-fighting agency, UNODC, is highlighting the urgency of acting “as soon as possible” to prevent a crime that claims more than 20,000 identified victims each year; a number that represents the “tip of the iceberg”, with many still unaccounted for.
Despite a diminishing budget and rising casualties among ‘blue helmets’, peacekeeping remains “a very important tool” in the promotion of peace and stability, according to the United Nations peacekeeping chief.
In Lao People’s Democratic Republic, commonly known as Laos, the UN is involved in an emergency relief operation after a huge dam breach on Monday released floodwater that destroyed entire villages.
According to IOM, the UN Migration Agency, people fled the disaster with nothing.
Speaking from Bangkok, the agency’s Chris Lom, told UN News’s Daniel Johnson how the agency aims to help in the worst-affected areas.
Algeria’s reluctance to address its violent past has meant that it has “stepped back” on basic human rights, the UN Human Rights Committee said on Thursday, in Geneva.
In its report on the country the panel expressed concern for victims of enforced disappearance during the civil war in the 1990s, the lack of freedom of assembly today and called for action on the reported mass deportation and abandonment of around 13,000 migrants in the Sahara desert since April last year.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council extended the mandate of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) by six months, as UN-brokered talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots aim at unification remain deadlocked.
Elizabeth Spehar, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus and Head of UNFICYP – told UN News’s Yasmina Guerda, why UNFICYP is still needed today.
Major advances are being made to better safeguard natural environments across the world, but more action is needed if the planet’s long-term survival is to be ensured, according to the UN’s top environment official.
Citing the case of a whale off the coast of Thailand which died after swallowing 80 plastic bags, Erik Solheim, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said this was one poignant example of the hard work and commitment that’s needed.
The people of Gaza “can’t understand the silence of the international community” over the “suffering” they are enduring; that’s according to Jamie McGoldrick, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Mr. McGoldrick, who visited the Gaza Strip last week, spoke with Daniel Dickinson about the hardships that Palestinians face living in the Gaza Strip, where communities have endured an Israeli blockade for over 10 years.
As the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) officially declared the end of its most recent deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus on Tuesday, one of the senior officials leading the World Health Organization’s (WHO) response, has been recounting how even just reaching the first victims, was a major logistical challenge.
Dr Renée van de Weerdt is Deputy Head of Operations at WHO, who coordinated efforts against the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, after it was declared in early May.
She spoke to Daniel Johnson earlier this week in Geneva.
Promoting the rights of women in the Occupied Palestinian Territory “is not going to be easy” but the political will is there to bring about change, a leading UN-appointed expert said on Monday.
It marks the first time that the Palestinian Authority, which administers much of the occupied West Bank, has worked directly with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
