Interviews

It’s widely understood that exercise is good for you, but how much should that be?

In the first global study of its kind into schoolchildren aged 11 to 17 years old, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that four in five of them are not active for even 60 minutes of exercise a day – that’s the minimum recommended amount.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, the agency’s Dr Leanne Riley explains why it is urgent that Governments do something about it – and how frozen Finland is already leading the way.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are facing a “toxic combination” of escalating violence, displacement, hunger, poverty and climate change, which has driven the whole central Sahel region to the “cusp of disaster”.

That’s according to World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson, Marwa Awad, who was in Burkina Faso just a few days ago, where already this year, civilian deaths are four times the level they were for the whole of 2018, and close to half a million have been displaced.

She spoke to UN News’s Matt Wells

Around 15 countries are preparing to test a technique that sterilizes male mosquitoes using radiation as part of a global health effort to control diseases such as chikungunya, dengue, and Zika.

In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Jeremy Bouyer, a UN pest control expert, explains how the process of using radiation on the bugs works.

Polarization and divisive language could be a major impediment to reaching the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the world needs to prioritize youth education to reach targets by 2030.

That’s from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who also previously served as envoy for the Middle East Quartet, which includes the UN. He sat down with Dan Thomas, who heads up communications for the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, at the recent UN Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.

Cases of Ebola virus are slowing down in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it is still way too soon to say the deadly disease is beaten.

That’s the message from the World Health Organization (WHO), which on Tuesday also hailed the decision by European regulators to green light the production of a new Ebola vaccine.

This will help prevent future outbreaks from spreading, the agency’s Christian Lindmeier told UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

Not only does torture not work, it’s counterproductive, and when the practice elicits false confessions, societies pay a “very high price.” 

That’s from Professor Juan Méndez, who served at the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture from 2014 to 2016, and experienced torture himself while practicing law in his native Argentina, defending political prisoners during the country’s 1970’s military dictatorship.  

Somalia could provide valuable “lessons learned for other mission set ups”, according to the UN police commissioner there.

In New York for UN Police Week, Meinolf Schlotmann, Police Commissioner of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) said that the country is on “a very positive trajectory”.

He spoke of the close collaboration between UNSOM officers and their counterparts in the African Union Mission in the country (AMISOM), saying the two were working on the ground “shoulder-to-shoulder”.

Although East Africa has been experiencing impressive economic growth for nearly a decade, it has not enabled the creation of enough decent jobs for the region’s rapidly growing population.

That’s according to a new study by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), which estimates that more than eight million new jobs are needed annually to meet the demand.

The study has been presented to government officials and experts meeting this week in Asmara, Eritrea, which is where Priscilla Lecomte caught up with Kato Kimbugwe, a trade specialist with UNECA.

Although almost nine in 10 people in developed countries use the internet, in poorer regions, only a fraction of that number goes online.

That’s the latest finding from ITU, the International Telecommunications Union, which in a new report, highlights how more women than ever are missing out on potential digital gains.

It’s difficult to predict when tsunamis will strike, and though occurrences are rare, investing in keeping cities safe from this deadliest and most costly disaster will keep lives and economies from being washed away. 

That’s from Mami Mizutori, the UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), who says proper allocation of disaster funds means “a hazard doesn’t necessarily have to become a disaster.”