World News

1 October 2023Humanitarian Aid UN World Health Organization (WHO) teams in Goris, Armenia, are tirelessly working to assist not only the vast numbers of refugees fleeing the Karabakh region but also to provide urgent medical support to individuals grappling with severe burn injuries resulting from a massive fuel depot explosion that occurred last week amidst the exodus. More than 170 people were killed and over 200 more injured, many with grievous burns and in a critical condition, in...

“Costa Rican society does not teach us that there are indigenous people in this country,” she said. “It is a form of discrimination, making the existence of indigenous peoples invisible.” Faustina Torres belongs to the Bribri indigenous community in Costa Rica. Amid an alarming trend of spiraling hate speech and discrimination online platforms, Costa Rica, with UN support, has been designing Latin America’s first ever strategy to fight back, Poised to unveil the powerful tool by the...

30 September 2023Humanitarian Aid A refugee from Afghanistan who moved to Ukraine two decades ago has been talking about his motivation for supporting the relief effort for people affected by the ongoing war there. Having previously endured conflict in Afghanistan, Ali comprehended the far-reaching implications of large-scale military actions on the lives of civilians. Immediately after the start of the Ukraine war, Ali and his wife, the owners of a small clothing store in Odessa...

29 September 2023Human Rights The UN human rights office (OHCHR) on Friday expressed grave concern at the spate of recent arrests and convictions of human rights defenders pushing for clean energy reforms in Viet Nam. On Thursday, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, an acclaimed climate activist and former World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) employee, was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $4,100 after being convicted for tax evasion. Her trial lasted only three hours, and access to family...

More than 11,600 unaccompanied children have crossed the Central Mediterranean to Italy so far this year the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday, an increase of 60 per cent compared with last year. The number of arrivals peaked this month on small island of Lampedusa off Italy’s southern coast, with 4,800 people arriving on a single day, the agency noted. According to news reports, a migrant reception centre there was overwhelmed earlier this month, as aid and medical workers coped...

The Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry reiterated his call for an international force in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Friday 22 September. “In the name of the women and girls raped every day, the thousands of families driven from their homes, the children and young people of Haiti, who have been denied the right to education and instruction, in the name of all a people who are victims of the barbarity of gangs, I urge the international community to act quickly.” Here’s what...

UNICEF stated that many more children are affected due to lack of essential services, such as health, schooling and safe water supply. “When disasters hit, children are always among the most vulnerable,” said Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s Regional Director, who has just returned from a visit to Al Bayda and Derna. Catastrophic flooding Storm Daniel struck eastern Libya on 10 September and left widespread flooding and destruction in its wake across Derna, Albayda, Soussa, Al-Marj, Shahat...

27 September 2023Human Rights The United States must end “the prolonged pre-trial detention” of Alex Nain Saab Morán, a Venezuelan Special Envoy who was arrested in 2020 and extradited to the US on money laundering charges, UN independent human rights experts said on Wednesday. They called for his immediate release and for the US “to comply with its obligations under international law…and drop all charges against him.” Allegations Mr. Saab was appointed as a Special Envoy by the...

“Azerbaijan must also promptly and independently investigate alleged or suspected violations of the right to life reported in the context of its latest military offensive…during which dozens of people, including peacekeepers, were killed,” said, Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN Human Rights Council-appointed Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. Thousands have moved into Armenia from the Karabakh Economic Region of Azerbaijan in the span of just a few days...

26 September 2023UN Affairs The health of our planet, its people, institutions, and the global economy are at serious risk, and such deep challenges cannot be tackled in isolation, Robert Rae, Ambassador of Canada to the United Nations, told the General Assembly’s annual high-level debate on Tuesday. Noting that we are at the halfway point in the global effort to ensure achievement of the of the Sustainable Development Goals, Mr. Rae said: “The consensus this past week was clear: we...