The United Nations International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) today ordered Russian authorities to release a Japanese fishing vessel it had detained for alleged illegal fishing in Russian waters but turned down Japan’s application to release a second vessel.
On the 62nd anniversary of the world’s first-ever atomic bomb attack, which devastated the Japanese city of Hiroshima, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the occasion serves as a “powerful reminder” of the efforts necessary to halt nuclear proliferation.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser on Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, today arrived in Singapore on the first leg of an Asian trip that will also take him to Bangkok, Thailand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Jakarta, Indonesia.
As monsoon rains continue to pound South Asia, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that the sheer size and scale of the resulting floods, as well as the massive numbers of people affected, poses an “unprecedented challenge” for governments and aid agencies in their relief efforts.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is sending up to three months worth of emergency rations to some 60,000 flood victims in Nepal after incessant rains over the past three weeks wrought havoc across the Himalayan country.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has extended by another three years its agreement with Pakistan and Afghanistan that has already regulated the voluntary repatriation of more than 3 million Afghans to their homeland since the fall of the Taliban.
A six-member team of international nuclear safety experts, assembled by the United Nations atomic watchdog agency, is set to arrive in Japan on Sunday to begin a six-day mission to examine the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant that was affected by a strong earthquake last month.
A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conference to tackle illiteracy in East Asia, South-East Asia and the Pacific has wrapped up, with participants calling for strong political commitment and close cooperation between governments and civil society organizations.
A new study of the role played by pollution-filled “brown clouds” over South Asia offers hope that the region may be able to arrest some of the alarming retreat of Himalayan glaciers which provide a lifeline for billions of people by feeding the major rivers in the region, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The international donor and humanitarian community must work even more intensively to ensure that Afghan refugees returning home are able to resume a normal life, with the lack of land, shelter and jobs posing a very long-term challenge for which there are no quick fixes, the United Nations refugee agency has warned.
