Week in Review

The head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has declared “with great hope” an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, stressing that it does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat.

A turbulent transition to civilian rule has been underway in Sudan since the ouster of former President Omar Hassan El-Bashir in April 2019. The civilian-led transitional Government put in place later that year, through a power-sharing agreement between military and civilian leaders, was toppled by a military coup in October 2021.

Following a systematic crackdown on the rights of Afghan women and girls by the Taliban – from attending school to working at the UN – “the stage may be set for multiple preventable deaths that could amount to femicide” unless restrictions are reversed rapidly, independent UN human rights experts announced on Friday, following an eight-day visit to the country.

When fighting erupted in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, 25-year-old Arafa was at home alone with her two young children.

Social media has long been a boon to press freedom, allowing journalists from all over the world to make their voices heard, grow an audience, and build trust.

But rampant disinformation has increasingly eroded the space for trustworthy information online, multiplying risks for the journalists who help separate fact from fiction.

Ahead of World Press Freedom Day, on 3 May, Derek Bowler, Head of Social Newsgathering at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), has been talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer about the complicated relationship between social media and free speech.

UN Women is giving financial and technical support to young Sudanese who are leveraging the power of apps to keep women and girls safe amid the continuing military showdown that’s seen more than 100,000 already flee the country.

That’s according to the agency’s Representative in Sudan, Adjaratou Fatou Ndiaye, who told UN News that specially developed apps were also allowing women to map the availability of food and medicine, along with safe routes to escape the fighting. 

She told Abdelmonem Makki of our Arabic service that above all, they deserve peace and development. He began by asking her to describe how the fighting was impacting women in particular.

Disinformation, hate speech and deadly attacks against journalists are threatening freedom of the press worldwide, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday, calling for greater solidarity with the people who bring us the news. 

Three imprisoned Iranian women journalists – whose reporting helped spark the nationwide protests surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody – are the recipients of an award that celebrates press freedom, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced on Tuesday. 

Chinese writer Cixin Liu is one of the world’s most highly respected science-fiction authors, known for epics such as “The Three Body Problem,” soon to be adapted as a major TV series. He shared his thoughts on the future of the planet, at an event held at UN Headquarters to mark Chinese Language Day.

With 860,000 people projected to flee the fighting in Sudan for neighbouring countries, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and partners on Thursday appealed for $445 million to assist the displaced through October. 

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Ethiopia has said it’s “deeply concerned” over reports that significant amounts of food aid has been diverted away from those in desperate need in the post-conflict region of Tigray.

The UN chief has pledged that the Organization “will never be silent” when women and girls’ rights are under attack, as they are today in Afghanistan, and declared that the Taliban ban on Afghan women doing lifesaving humanitarian work is putting millions of lives in jeopardy there.

Critics have said justice takes too long, and perpetrators are not always held accountable in cases of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by UN personnel. Appointed by the Secretary-General in 2017, Jane Connors, the UN’s first Victims’ Rights Advocate, is tasked with getting a victim-centred approach installed across the system’s more than 35 entities.

A new photo exhibit on UN Peacekeeping opened at Headquarters on Monday, honouring the service and sacrifice of uniformed and civilian peacekeepers as it marks its 75th anniversary.

In the second episode of Humanitarian Leadership Stories, our co-production with OCHA, the UN Humanitarian Office, top UN relief officials explain how the key humanitarian principle of putting people in crisis first – and remaining accountable to them – guides their work.

Daniel Johnson hears how UN humanitarian coordinators go about their work, taking calculated risks where armed groups are concerned, and not shying away from standing up to authority either.

• Post-production: Srdan Slavkovic
• Music: Ketsa, Night Whispers