Week in Review

Countries must phase out coal and other fossil fuels to avert climate “catastrophe”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Thursday in New York.  

Local volunteers based in communities located on transnational trafficking routes in Southeast Asia are playing an increasingly important role in preventing the trade in illicit drugs, people and other items thanks to the support of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

An activist who wants to highlight the challenges and opportunities for people living with Down syndrome has told UN News how he wants the voices of people with disabilities to be heard “louder and louder” around the world.

Shoppers in Mali’s Gao, Timbuktu, and Ménaka regions can snap up AK-pattern assault rifles for $750 and cartridges for 70 cents apiece, from locally handcrafted pistols to smuggled French and Turkish machine guns, as a dizzying array of illegal weaponry dots market stalls across the Sahel, a 6,000-kilometre-wide belt in the middle of Africa.

As donors gathered in Brussels at an international pledging conference for Syria organized by the European Union on Thursday, UN chief António Guterres highlighted the immense suffering of the Syrian people, which he said “defies description”.

Plans to help the people of Ukraine following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam are centred on saving people “right now”, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told UN News in an interview on Friday.

The UN Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) said on Thursday it was “appalled and deeply shocked” at the killing of the Governor of West Darfur, calling for a halt to the spiralling violence and for those responsible to be brought to justice.

The UN Secretary-General said on Wednesday he was horrified at the news of dozens more deaths in the Mediterranean after an overloaded boat reportedly capsized and sank off the coast of Greece.

In the face of rising hatred worldwide, both on and offline, faith leaders are vital allies in the quest for global peace, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

The full-scale war in Ukraine, alongside other conflict and climate-driven upheaval, meant more people than ever remained uprooted from their homes last year, heightening the urgency for immediate, collective action to alleviate the global crisis, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Wednesday.  

Countries must address the “grave global harm” caused by the proliferation of hate and lies online, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, launching a key report designed to shore up information integrity on digital platforms.  

Nobody yet knows what the full long-term effects of taking cannabis are and legalizing it for recreational use runs the risk of trivializing the dangers for teen consumers, the President of the UN-administered international narcotics watchdog has warned.

In an interview with UN News, Professor Jallal Toufiq also raised the alarm over the continuing proliferation of synthetic opioids on the black market, describing it as the International Narcotics Board’s number one issue – stating the INCB was doing all it can to tackle the scourge.

Khaled Mohamed of our Arabic news service, began by asking him to sum up the impact of cannabis on public health, and the push to legalize it recreationally.

Around the world, some 160 million children work to earn a living, instead of going to school. That’s almost one in every 10 children.

A new UN report launched on Monday revealed no improvement in the level of prejudice shown against women over the past decade, with almost nine out of 10 men and women worldwide, still holding such biases.

One of the world’s most celebrated poets is also one of the closest to the heart of the UN. Kahlil Gibran wrote The Prophet a century ago, and this milestone was marked at a special exhibit at the UN, which is also celebrating 75 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.