Interviews

Hundreds of trucks of goods are expected to enter Gaza now that Israel has reopened the only functioning commercial crossing into the enclave, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The Kerem Shalom crossing had been closed for a month, with only food, medical and limited fuel deliveries allowed in, in response to the firing of kite bombs into southern Israel from Gaza.

Israel has also extended Gaza’s permissible fishing area to nine nautical miles, up from six.

A California court’s decision to award $289 million to a dying man after finding that agrochemical giant Monsanto did not warn people that its products can cause cancer, is a “substantial warning” to industry, a UN rights expert said on Wednesday.

It has been 15 years since the terrorist attack on the UN compound at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad: “the darkest day in our lives at the United Nations”, in the words of the Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan.

The truck bomb killed 22 international and local staff, including the top UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

An invasive pest, the Fall Armyworm, risks ruining up to 40 per cent of farmers’ yields in Asia, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Tuesday.

Many growers still rely on maize and rice to feed their families, FAO has warned, meaning that the food security of millions is potentially at stake.

The good news is that there are new tools that use machine learning to help farmers combat the caterpillars in a sustainable way, as FAO’s Allan Hruska told UN News’s Jens Renner.

It has been 15 years since the terrorist attack on the UN compound at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad: “the darkest day in our lives at the United Nations”, in the words of the Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan.

The truck bomb killed 22 international and local staff, including the top UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

It has been 15 years since the terrorist attack on the UN compound at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad: “the darkest day in our lives at the United Nations”, in the words of the Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan.

The truck bomb killed 22 international and local staff, including the top UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

It has been 15 years since the terrorist attack on the UN compound at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad: “the darkest day in our lives at the United Nations”, in the words of the Secretary-General at the time, Kofi Annan.

The truck bomb killed 22 international and local staff, including the top UN representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

If emergency fuel is not immediately allowed into the Gaza Strip, five key hospitals could be forced to close and other vital facilities could grind to a halt, according to David Carden, head of the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Since 2 August, the Israeli authorities have stopped fuel entering the enclave, in response to the launching of incendiary kites into the country across the Gaza border.

UN News’s Mustafa Al Gamal spoke with Mr. Carden.

Hundreds of migrant children are getting the chance to go to school in Indonesia’s third city as part of a groundbreaking deal with the UN Migration Agency, IOM announced on Wednesday.

Under the agreement officials in Medan in northern Sumatra, have committed to help the migrant children - mainly of Afghan origin -  attend lessons.

UN News’s Michelle Kusuma spoke with IOM spokesperson Paul Dillon.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced vaccinations against the latest deadly Ebola Virus outbreak in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), will begin on Wednesday. 

This follows confirmation that the virus shares the same Zaire strain as the most recent outbreak, in the Equateur Province, on the other side of the country.

UN News’s Daniel Johnson spoke with WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.