Peace and Security

Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Lassina Zerbo.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Nuclear tests: 20 years after its adoption, the test ban treaty is yet to get into force

31 August 2016
Global

Adopted 20 years ago by the United Nations General Assembly, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not yet got into effect, and will only come into force once ratified by eight specific countries that have not done it yet.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meets with Virginia Gamba (centre right), Head of the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism, tasked with identifying “individuals, entities, groups, or governments involved in the use of chemicals as weapons” in Syria.
UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

INTERVIEW: The Syrian forces and ISIL used toxic chemicals as weapons – report

30 August 2016
Middle East

The Syrian Airforce and ISIL used toxic chemicals as weapons, according to a new report issued on Tuesday by Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), and mandated by the UN Security Council.

A Military Liaison Officer of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), looks through binoculars during a ceasefire monitoring patrol in Oum Dreyga, Western Sahara (June 2010).
UN Photo/Martine Perret

Ban 'deeply concerned' over tensions in south-western Western Sahara

28 August 2016
Africa

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned over the tense situation that has developed in the narrow buffer strip in south-western Western Sahara between the Moroccan berm and the Mauritanian border as a result of changes in the status quo and the introduction of armed units from Morocco and the Polisario Front in close proximity to each other.

In the Syrian Arab Republic, an extended family takes shelter under a makeshift tent on the sidewalk after the latest wave of attacks.. The grandfather is wheelchair-bound. The children prepare a fire for cooking and hang out clothes to dry.
UNICEF/ Al-Issa

Diary from Syria: An eyewitness account of broken families, grief and survival

12 August 2016
Middle East

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) supports more than 4 million people inside Syria with food assistance. Heading its operation there since December last year is Swiss national Jakob Kern.

Head of MINUSMA Mahamat Saleh Annadif receives Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support while visiting Mali. During the visit, Fernandez-Taranco will seize the opportunity to consult with the Malian authorities on United Nations support to national and international efforts to consolidate peace.

FEATURE SERIES: Mali and the UN Peacebuilding Fund

8 August 2016
Africa

“In the talk about peacebuilding and reconciliation, we sometimes forget that it’s about how local communities come back together,” said the United Nations Assistant-Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, discussing the UN’s Peacebuilding Fund – which supports millions of people in 27 countries.