Week in Review

Countries will review progress towards transforming food systems worldwide at a three-day meeting in Rome this July, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister announced on Friday, in the Italian capital. 

Trafficked medical products kill almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, and action is needed to stem the flow, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states in its new threat assessment report.

A UN-led global initiative to tackle breast cancer could save 2.5 million lives by 2040, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday, just ahead of World Cancer Day.

Online hate speech might seem like an unstoppable tide, but strategies are being employed by governments, civil society, and individuals, to fight back. A new UN Podcasts series, UNiting Against Hate, explains how this dangerous phenomenon is being tackled worldwide.

Online hate speech is a growing, worrying phenomenon that puts lives at risks. In the second of three feature stories based on the new UN Podcasts series, UNiting Against Hate, we focus on the national strategies Costa Rica and the Czech Republic have put in place to tackle the issue.

Two UN aid convoys have reached communities with acute needs near the contact line in Ukraine’s war-shattered east this week, relief coordinators reported on Friday.

Iraq’s political class must urgently seize the current brief window of opportunity to break chronic cycles of instability, the UN Special Representative told the Security Council on Thursday.

Three independent UN-appointed human rights experts on Thursday demanded that the Spanish Government thoroughly investigate an alleged spying operation against leaders and activists from the Catalonia region, in the wake of a failed bid for independence six years ago. 

A series of interconnected crises are expected to have a huge impact on children in 2023. A report from the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), released on Tuesday, details the trends that will shape their lives over the next 12 months.

In an interview with UN News, Gennady Trukhanov, the Mayor of Odesa, describes the inclusion of the historic city centre and port in the UNESCO World Heritage List as a great victory, which will help in the protection of the Odesa’s cultural treasures.

Although coastal and freshwater wetlands – such as swamps, mangroves and marshes – contain 40 per cent of all plant and animal species, many are polluted or degraded due to climate change and human development. 

A UN-led group of humanitarians are hoping that the Taliban will allow Afghan women to again work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground following last month’s ban, four senior aid officials told journalists in New York on Monday. 

UN agencies have welcomed a pledge by 12 African countries to end AIDS in children by 2030, announced on Wednesday at a meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. 

A UN-led plan to tackle climate change by radically improving the way heat-trapping atmospheric pollutants are measured all over the planet, is being given serious consideration by governments and the international scientific community, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday.

The international community must promptly deny the legitimacy of Myanmar’s military junta, the UN-appointed independent expert on the situation of human rights in the country said briefing at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday, launching a critical report as the coup enters its third year on Wednesday.

Top UN-appointed independent rights experts on Tuesday called on the authorities in Mali to launch an immediate probe into the mass execution of civilians last year, allegedly by Government forces and the Russia-based private military contractor, the Wagner Group.

The head of the UN health agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Monday that COVID-19 is still a global health threat and that now is not the time to declare the pandemic over.