Latest News

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that it will commemorate the fifth World Hepatitis Day next week with a global ?injection safety initiative campaign in three pilot countries together with the foundation arm of IKEA to combat the “silent epidemic” that kills more than 1.4 million each year.

Welcoming the recent stated commitment by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to a peaceful solution to the region’s most enduring crisis, the United Nations special envoy on the Middle East told the Security Council today that such words need to be translated into “concrete and sustained actions on the ground.”

Syria’s food production in 2015 remains at 40 per cent below its pre-crisis levels, impacting the price of bread, which has spiralled by 87 per cent, and shrinking poultry production by half, according to a United Nations agency report released today that warns that “the risk of irreversible damage to the children is real, with tragic future consequences.”

Wrapping up his tour of the region, the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura visited Damascus today, where he met with senior Government officials on ways to maintain momentum towards a political solution to the crisis in the country, which is entering its fifth year.

Taking note of the “broadly peaceful” conduct of polling in the Burundian presidential elections on 21 July, the top United Nations official today called on all parties to continue to remain calm and immediately resume an inclusive political dialogue.

No new cases of Ebola were reported in Liberia nor in recent hotspots in West Africa with half the 26 cases in this week’s update from the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) coming from the capitals of Guinea and Sierra Leone, bringing the number of people who have died of the disease to 11,269.

The United Nations Security Council has condemned in the strongest terms the recent terrorist attack in Suruc, Turkey, which killed at least 31 and injuring over 100 people.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has expressed deep concern at the plight of civilians in Zabadani, in the wake of credible reports that overnight, a large number of barrel bombs were dropped on the north-western city.

The United Nations Special Rapporteurs on summary executions, Christof Heyns, and on torture, Juan E. Méndez, welcomed Zambian President Edgar Lungui’s decision to commute death sentences of 332 people to life imprisonment, and encouraged the authorities “to take a step further by removing all reference to the death penalty in the country’s laws.”

With Iraq facing “one of the most difficult phases in its modern history,” the Government, its leadership and, most of all, Iraqis themselves, will need “continuous and massive” support and assistance from the international community, the top United Nations official in the country told the Security Council today.