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The plight of 219 Chibok schoolgirls abducted two years ago is all too common in Nigeria's conflict-affected north-eastern communities, and up to 7,000 women and girls might be living in abduction and sex slavery, senior United Nations officials warned today.

The United Nations human rights chief today appealed to Iran to halt executions for drug offences until the new Parliament debates a proposed law that would remove the mandatory death penalty for drug crimes.

The day after a new round of intra-Syrian talks began in Geneva, the United Nations envoy mediating a solution to the crisis reported today on the latest humanitarian assessment, stressing the need for improvement amidst a picture that is frustrating but not “completely negative.”

The viability of a two-state solution, which envisages peaceful co-existence of both Israel and Palestine, is in danger due to the negative trends on the ground, including recent violence, ongoing settlement activity, demolitions, incitement, and the absence of Palestinian unity, a new United Nations report warned today.

Speaking at an open debate on countering terrorism, United Nations Secretary-General today called on Member States to take more concrete steps to stop fundraising through the smuggling of oil and gas, the illicit trade of cultural artefacts, kidnapping for ransom and donations from abroad.

In a massive undertaking aimed at stamping out polio once and for all – dubbed ‘the switch’ – a United Nations-backed eradication initiative will next week begin the largest and fastest globally coordinated rollout of a vaccine into routine immunization programmes in history.

The United Nations refugee agency has expressed concern about the welfare of tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDP) in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who have been driven out of host sites due to fresh fighting between the Congolese army and rebel forces.

The third and final session of informal briefings to hear the views of three more candidates for the position of the next United Nations Secretary-General is taking place at UN Headquarters in New York today, focusing on how they would tackle some of the world’s most urgent issues should they be selected to replace current UN chief Ban Ki-moon in January 2017.

A new United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report presents evidence on the ways inequality is affecting children in high income countries, in areas such areas as education and life satisfaction – with Denmark at the top and Israel and Turkey ranking the lowest overall.

A 15-foot giraffe is one of the main characters in Giraffada, a film shown at the United Nations, depicting the struggles of living in a Palestinian town as seen through the eyes of a young boy who has a close connection with the animal.