Interviews

Female Peacekeepers add an extra dynamic to teams in the field, breaking barriers that allow women civilians to describe what’s really going on inside their communities.

That’s the view of Major Fiona Bruce, from the Australian Defence Force, who served in the UN’s Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) in both Lebanon and Syria.

In an interview ahead of UN Peacekeeping Day marked on 29 May, Major Bruce highlights the fact that people going through crisis and conflict still ‘view the UN in high regard’.

The study of astronomy can “shed light” on the challenges the planet faces from climate change; according to a professor at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy.

Professor John Tonry says, astronomers, astrophysicist and other scientists are looking at a range of climate-related issues, including the temperature of the sun, what will happen to the atmosphere of a warming planet, and even whether or not other planets in the solar system could be habitable.

UN humanitarians and partners are working hard to assist the people of Bangladesh and India suffering from the impact of Cyclone Amphan, which left dozens dead, causing widespread destruction.

According to the UN Country Team in India, Cyclone Amphan, with more than 2.4 million people and 500,000 livestock evacuated to cyclone shelters., is now considered even more destructive than Cyclone Aila, which slammed the region in 2009.

The teaching of traditional cultural practices like tattooing not only preserves cultural identities but underlines the important role indigenous people can play in the modern world; that’s according to a practitioner of the art of tattooing in Hawaii.

Keone Nunes, brought the practice of the traditional art form back to Hawaii from Samoa in the 1990s after it was largely forgotten in the US island state.

Somalia is a land facing problems on many fronts, from severe floods to desert locust swarms and terrorist attacks, but there’s an even darker threat, too: rising sexual violence amid the coronavirus crisis.

After the horrific rape of a young girl last week in the capital Mogadishu, it’s something that the UN wants to help the Government put a stop to more than ever, as Anders Thomsen from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

After the first Rohingya refugee had tested positive for the new coronavirus late last week, in an overcrowded refugee camp in Bangladesh, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced additional measures and appealed for funds to prevent further spread of the disease. 

Sheltering around 860,000 mainly Muslim Rohingyas who’ve fled neighbouring Myanmar, the camps have a population density one and a half times higher than New York City, raising serious concerns about the potentially severe impact of the virus. 

Set piece speeches need to be set aside by world leaders attending the World Health Assembly this week, in favour of “bold and daring” action to end the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Health.

It may seem obvious to an adult, but to a child it may not be so clear that they aren’t to blame if they get sick with COVID-19.

That’s one of the key messages that the World Health Organization - WHO - wants to convey as part of the UN campaign to promote good mental health during this incredibly stressful pandemic, full of unknowns.

Just ahead of the UN’s major update on mental health during the crisis, Daniel Johnson, spoke to Dr Fahmy Hanna, from the WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Use. 

Since COVID-19 emerged in central China in late December, health officials have raced to locate where and how the virus was first transmitted from its likely animal origins, to humans.

As the main international regulator dealing with the wildlife trade - both legal and illegal - the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES, is highlighting the crucial importance of developing a better balance in the relationship between people and the natural world.

As the world marks 75 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany, one Israeli film-maker has been talking to UN News, about the former police investigator who is the subject of his latest film, which takes us inside the prosecution of the notorious Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann.

Avner Less spent an extraordinary 275 hours interrogating the mastermind of what was known as “The Final Solution”, to exterminate European Jewry, as part of the team, which for nine months painstakingly build the case against Eichmann, ahead of his trial in Jerusalem, in 1961.