“We call on world leaders to launch negotiations of a new legally binding instrument to set clear prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapon systems and to conclude such negotiations by 2026,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres and ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric said on Thursday. “In the current security landscape, setting clear international red lines will benefit…
Average surface temperature reached 16.38°C, or 0.5°C above the previous record in September 2020. Last month was roughly 1.75°C warmer compared to the pre-industrial period. It was also 0.93°C warmer than the 1991-2020 baseline which is used as a practical tool for climate sensitive sectors like agriculture. The heat is on WMO said this continues…
“We must stop taking water for granted,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said at the opening of the Rome Water Dialogue, focused on its critical role relating to soils, land, climate change, biodiversity and agriculture. With agriculture accounting for more than 70 per cent of the planet’s freshwater withdrawals, “by increasing efficiency, reducing negative impacts and…
Other key priorities to emerge were the state of the environment and ensuring responsible use of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Secretary-General António Guterres added. Against this backdrop, the UN’s visionary Our Common Agenda presents proposals and ideas that can bridge the gap, “between the world as it is and the world as…
“We are concerned by reported instances of election-related violence, use of language that could amount to hate speech, and attacks on journalists in Liberia ahead of the general election on 10 October,” said UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson in the country, Seif Magango. Violent clashes Violent clashes between supporters of the opposition Unity Party and…
It reveals the deadly toll of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Ukrainian civilians, with almost six people killed and 20 wounded on average every single day between February and July of this year. “In just six months covered by this report more than one thousand civilians died and nearly four thousand were injured,” said Danielle Bell,…
Bursting with translation anticipation, a quirky UN contest has had translators, interpreters, students, and lovers of a good multilingual idiom challenge submitting entries from around the world to the 2023 St. Jerome Translation Contest. On hiatus for three years, the contest is back and participants from across the world were limbering up for a new…
Over five million Haitians, including a record three million children, need humanitarian support in 2023. Nearly five million are acutely hungry, UNICEF said, adding the dire situation is “terrorizing children and families and destroying livelihoods amid unprecedented hunger, malnutrition and a resurgent cholera epidemic.” Haiti was among the top five countries globally in terms…
Roza Otunbayeva, a former President and Foreign Minister of Kyrgyzstan, serves as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan and head of the UN Assistance Mission in the country, UNAMA. She has to live and work in a State whose de facto authorities have practically outlawed women, forbidding them to work, study, and…
The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported that world economic growth is expected to decelerate from three per cent last year to 2.4 per cent through 2023, with limited signs of a rebound in 2024. These figures underscore the urgent need for reform of the global financial system, more practical policies to…
