Global

The first elements of the new UN Emergency Force (UNEF) arrived in Cairo on 26 October 1973 to supervise the cease-fire between Egyptian and Israeli forces at the end of the Yom Kippur War. Seen here are members of the Austrian Battalion at UNEF Position 103, Suez Canal, Egypt.
UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata

FEATURE: From a first mission of 120 unarmed men – UN peacekeeping across the decades

29 December 2015
Peace and Security

It began when the United Nations was not even three years old, in the fog of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, the Organization’s first peacekeeping mission – 120 unarmed men in motley uniforms, not a gun between them, fanning out across scrubby hilltops and desert cliffs to monitor a shaky truce.

At a port in Greece, a young boy and his family join other refugees and migrants trying to board a bus that will transport them to the centre of Athens. UNHCR/Achilleas Zavallis

2015 in pictures: a review of some of the year’s major developments

23 December 2015
SDGs

Looking back at the year 2015, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon summed it up in two words: “breakthrough and horror.”

The site of the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP21).
Stephanie Coutrix

COP21: a ‘green’ UN climate change conference, from electric cars to the power of human energy

14 December 2015
Climate and Environment

With countries reaching a new agreement at the United Nations climate change conference (COP21), the global meeting has been qualified as a “monumental triumph” by top UN officials. While many continued to hail the outcome document as the walls of COP21 were torn down on Sunday, the UN News Centre looked back on other aspects that contributed “positive energy” to the two-week event.

Eleanor Roosevelt holds an English version poster of the Universal Declaration Human Rights (November 1949).
UN Photo

Compelling moments from 2015, told by UN human rights experts

9 December 2015
Human Rights

Every year, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly hears from dozens of experts on human rights-related issues. The experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back, in an unpaid capacity, on specific human rights themes. The work of the experts, 54 of whom presented their latest findings over the past two months, covers all human rights – civil, cultural, economic, political, and social.