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The World Food Programme (WFP) announced today that aid workers have reached more than 30,000 newly displaced people in desperate need of food in the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, where the situation remains “tense and volatile” after a new surge in violence.

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan decreased 19 per cent in 2015, compared to the previous year, according to the latest Afghanistan Opium Survey figures released today by the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Targeted policies and investments in food security and agriculture should be at the centre of debates on climate change, according to a top UN official and the French Minister for Agriculture, speaking at the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome this week.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) today welcomed the Dutch Safety Board’s final report on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which crashed on 17 July 2014 in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine.

Senior United Nations human rights officials today expressed their alarm at the rise in violent rhetoric by influential religious leaders – including calls for “holy war” against certain faiths – in relation to the situation in Syria.

The head of Operations at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), John Ging, called today for renewed international commitment to address urgent humanitarian needs, and to shore up regional peace and stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, noting that the two countries were on differing humanitarian trajectories.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, Miklós Haraszti, today said that while the Presidential polls conducted in the country this past Sunday were not met with violence as in previous cases, no progress was made in serving the Belarusians’ right to free and fair election.

Commemorating in Tehran the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, the UN Deputy Secretary-General has highlighted the contributions Iran has made to the global community over the decades, as well as the significant challenges the country still faces.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the “indispensable” power of traditional, indigenous and local knowledge in his message on this year’s observance of the International Day for Disaster Reduction.

Expressing serious concerns at recent statements made from the Taliban that identified specific Afghan media outlets and its staff as targets, the United Nations Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMA) today urged all parties to the conflict to respect and protect the right to freedom of expression.