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Some 20,700 people have been displaced since the operation to liberate the Iraqi city of Mosul from terrorists started on 17 October, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today, estimating that 9,700 of them are children in urgent need of assistance.

Welcoming a six-month unilateral cessation of hostilities by the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minnawi and the Justice and Equality Movement-Gibril, the African Union (AU)-United Nations mission in Darfur today called on Abdul Wahid El Nur, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid to also make a similar declaration.

Meeting in Rome with members of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) highlighted the “universal and inspirational” nature of the 2030 Agenda, adding that it is a tremendous benefit for system-wide coherence and coordination across all UN agencies.

A day before the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change comes into force, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is urging the world to ‘dramatically’ step up its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions – by some 25 per cent more than those pledged in Paris last year – “to meet the stronger, and safer, target of 1.5 degrees Celsius” global temperature rise.

Japan’s initiative to raise the awareness of the risks posed by tsunamis will this weekend mark a milestone when World Tsunami Awareness Day makes its debut on 5 November – an occasion that goes beyond paying tribute to the victims of tsunamis.

Warning that millions of people die every year from preventable surgical infections, particularly in developing countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued new guidelines today on tackling hospital-acquired infections with the aim of saving lives, cutting costs and arresting the spread of ‘superbugs.’

Expressing concern over what they called an “unjustified” ban on protests in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a group of United Nations human rights experts today called on the authorities to protect the fundamental rights of the people and to revoke the prohibition.

The United Nations envoy for the Great Lakes region today highlighted the challenges posed by armed groups which continue to threaten the region's stability and called for concerted efforts to avert any reversal of the commendable gains it has achieved thus far.

Addressing the National Assembly of the Central African Republic (CAR) today, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the legislators that the country’s people had given them a clear mandate, and as such, he urged them not only to play their traditional role as parliamentarians, “but also as defenders of dialogue and reconciliation.”

The United Nations will do everything in its power to support the people of Kunduz in, the political chief of UN mission in Afghanistan told Government officials, civil society and media professionals in the restive northern province, where the security situation has remained tense since the provincial capital was briefly overtaken by the Taliban in late 2015 and was attacked again in October this year.