Latest News

The incidences of torture and ill-treatment around the world have not been diminishing and the need for effective prevention is “as great as it ever has been,” a United Nations human rights expert said today as he urged Member States to do more to tackle domestic corruption in order to prevent such episodes of abuses.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has opened new sites for about 28,000 internally displaced persons adjacent to its bases in three state capitals to improve living conditions of civilians who have been uprooted by the recent conflict, a senior UN official said in Juba today.

Secretary -General Ban Ki-moon has condemned last week’s decision by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to expel from the country its top United Nations human rights official, saying that doing so can “only be harmful for the country’s progress” and urged the Government to reconsider its position.

The General Assembly today elected 15 countries to serve on the United Nations Human Rights Council for a period of three years beginning on 1 January 2015.

Amid positive developments in the global fight against Ebola, including a growing response to the Secretary-General’s appeals for the more funding to tackle the outbreak, the United Nations health agency today announced the expected delivery of Ebola candidate vaccines, as the UN system continues to ramps up efforts to quell the spread of the deadly virus.

On the heels of last week’s visit to Gaza, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council today that promises made at a recent donor conference on rebuilding the war-ravaged enclave must “quickly materialize” into concrete assistance on the ground, especially as winter approaches.

Trucks carrying lifesaving supplies for Syrian children have managed to cross over the battle line in Aleppo for the first time in months, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today in what was described as a “small but significant breakthrough” in the UN agency’s efforts to help children displaced by the fighting in Kobane.

Spotlighting the plight of Syrian refugees in Turkey, as well as the Turkish Government’s efforts to meet the needs of an influx of an estimated 1.6 million people, United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos today urged the world to “remember the suffering of the Syrian people” and the urgent need for a political end to the three year conflict.

The implementation of higher taxes on tobacco products and greater regulation for electronic cigarettes are among the decisions passed by a United Nations-backed conference amid comprehensive efforts to clamp down on the tobacco “epidemic” and save millions of lives, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced.

The city of Detroit must restore access to water for its citizens who remain unable to pay their bills, two United Nations experts urged today, adding that a failure to do so would be a violation of the most basic human rights of those residents.