Organized crime, breakdowns in law and order, and attacks by extremists, are examples of the challenges faced by UN peacekeepers, the Security Council was told on Wednesday, during a briefing by senior UN Police Commissioners, and UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday handed down a maximum 30-year prison sentence for mass murder and numerous other atrocities, to Bosco Ntaganda, the heaviest sanction yet imposed by judges at The Hague, in the Netherlands.
Current trends and public pronouncements by some political leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina indicate an effort to roll back reforms implemented since the end of the Balkan wars two decades ago, the UN Security Council heard on Tuesday.
At the core of peacekeeping lies the notion of shared responsibility, the UN peacekeeping chief said on Tuesday, presenting this year’s award for Female Police Officer of the Year, to a woman who “has made a career of speaking up and speaking out on behalf of all vulnerable populations”.
Tsunamis are rare, but when they strike, they are the deadliest and most costly of natural hazards. With half of the world’s population expected to live in coastal areas more prone to tsunamis by 2030, investing in early warning systems and resilient infrastructure, will be vital to saving lives and economies, said the top UN official on disaster risks on Tuesday.
Security measures for staff helping to fight health emergencies need to be stepped up urgently, a UN health agency top official said on Monday, after a frontline Ebola epidemic community worker was reportedly stabbed to death at his home in northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“An inspiration to all of us” is how top Police Adviser Luis Carrilho, described this year’s winner of the UN Female Police Officer of the Year Award, which was announced on Friday.
The UN’s weather watchdog and partners committed on Thursday to a new initiative to ramp up observation and prediction technology that will help address the challenges of climate change, melting snow and ice, and water-related hazards.
Mediation is “one of our most important tools to reduce and end conflict”, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the sixth Istanbul Mediation Conference, in Turkey's largest city on Thursday.
Over half of the world’s population now live in cities, with numbers expected to double by 2050, but while urbanization poses serious challenges, cities can also be powerhouses for sustainable development; something the UN is spotlighting on World Cities Day, marked 31 October.
