António Guterres was speaking at the third international forum on China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has funded and built roads, power plants, bridges, ports and other facilities across developing countries over the past decade. Although infrastructure “is the foundation of everyday life for people and economies”, Mr. Guterres recalled that billions in the developing…
The past 10 days of conflict have claimed the lives of 4,200 people, forced more than one million individuals to flee their homes following an order from the Israeli authorities and left large areas in the Gaza Strip “reduced to rubble”, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “We have…
The experts were alarmed that hundreds of escapees – the vast majority of whom are women – have been sent back, despite repeated appeals by multiple international human rights bodies. Hundreds more reportedly are in detention awaiting the same fate. There are long-standing and credible reports that people returned to the DPRK, more commonly known…
Marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Mr. Guterres pointed out that nearly 700 million people are living on less than $2.15 per day and over a billion don’t have access to basic needs like food, water, health care and education. Billions more lack sanitation and access to energy, jobs, housing and social safety…
The humanitarian role is what gets a lot of public attention as agreements are secured to arrange for aid to get through to civilians and to protect them, including trying to ensure that international humanitarian law (often called the laws governing war and broadly covered by the Geneva Conventions) are upheld. The Gaza Strip prior…
An Israeli airstrike struck al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, international media reported, citing the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled enclave. The details have yet to be verified, but the Israeli Defense Forces tweeted that according to its intelligence information, rockets fired by Islamic Jihad militants towards Israel were to blame, having deviated off course….
“History is watching,” Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths told UN News in Geneva, highlighting the desperate situation facing around one million Gazans uprooted in the last week, after the Israeli military warned of an imminent offensive following the deadly 7 October attacks on Israel by militant group Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza strip since…
Siobhán Mullally, UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, said unaccompanied children and children from poor families have reportedly been targeted by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in the outskirts of the capital Khartoum and elsewhere. They’ve forcibly recruited women and children especially, she warned. Girls have also reportedly been abducted from Khartoum to…
Briefing the Security Council, Abdoulaye Bathily noted the thousands of lives lost by the dam bursts which destroyed whole neighbourhoods after Storm Daniel slammed the region on 10 September. The Special Representative told ambassadors that despite the sense of national unity and compassion shown by ordinary Libyans, the disaster had revealed “severe governance deficits” across…
The weeklong forum, organized by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), focuses on the challenges faced by developing countries amid today’s overlapping global crises. The Secretary-General urged participants – including national and business leaders, sustainable stock exchanges, sovereign wealth funds and finance experts – to put the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) Stimulus Package…
