Page 73 - United Nations

100 mn people displaced globally in 2022; UN efforts underway to assist

Outbreaks of violence, or protracted conflicts, were key migration factors in many parts of the world, including Ukraine, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Syria and Myanmar

United Nations urges rescue of 190 refugees adrift in Andaman Sea

Reports indicate that they have been at sea in dire conditions for a month, lacking sufficient food or water, and with no efforts from any States in the region to help

India's leadership at UNSC draws global praise on completion of 2-year term

As India wraps up its two-year term as an elected member of the Security Council and its month of presidency, it has received praise from an array of countries spanning the globe

Text of UN biodiversity pact agreed at COP15 with 2030 vision released

After two days of agreeing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15 to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the final text of the historic framework has been released

UN calls for restoration of university rights for Afghanistan women

UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous has called for the restoration of Afghan women's right to higher education after the Taliban-run administration banned female students from university

UN Deputy urges nations to consider forces for Haiti to restore security

The UN's deputy secretary-general urged every country with capacity to urgently consider the Haitian government's request for an international armed force to help restore security and alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the Caribbean nation, which is in a deepening crisis of unprecedented scale and complexity that is cause for serious alarm. Amina Mohammed also reiterated Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' call for international support for the beleaguered Haitian National Police. Insecurity has reached unprecedented levels and human rights abuses are widespread, she told the UN Security Council. Armed gangs have expanded their violent criminal activities, using killings and gang rapes to terrorise and subjugate communities. Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the country's Council of Ministers sent an urgent appeal October 7 calling for the immediate deployment of a specialised armed force, in sufficient quantity to stop the crisis caused partly by the criminal actions of armed

India votes in favour of resolution on mental health of UN peacekeepers

India voted in favour of a resolution on the mental health of UN peacekeepers

UN official warns against new Armenia-Azerbaijan clash over disputed land

A senior UN official urged the international community on Tuesday to prevent Armenia and Azerbaijan from resuming their conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as the two countries accused each other of violating a Russian-brokered peace agreement. UN Assistant Secretary-General for political affairs Miroslav Jenca said a renewed conflict would likely impact the wider south Caucasus region and beyond. He urged redoubled diplomatic efforts to achieve a lasting peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan before it is too late. The former Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan reclaimed broad swaths of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories held by Armenian forces. More than 6,700 people died in the fighting that was ended by a ...

India 'closely monitoring' security situation in Afghanistan, UNSC told

'We are deeply concerned at the unfolding humanitarian situation in Afghanistan. In response to the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people'

United Nations extends Congo peacekeeping force with an eye to its exit

The Security Council has voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo with an eye to its eventual exit, and to lift a notification requirement on some arms purchases which Congo's foreign minister recently called unjustified and humiliating. The separate resolutions were approved on Tuesday amid worsening security in Congo's mineral-rich east, a region rife with rebel groups and an upsurge in violence and civilian killings that has uprooted tens of thousands of its inhabitants. The resolution extending the U.N. peacekeeping force known as MONUSCO until Dec. 20, 2023, strongly condemns all domestic and foreign armed groups operating in the country and demands they immediately cease all violence and destabilizing actions and the illegal exploitation and trafficking of natural resources. It also demands the immediate withdrawal of M23 rebels, who have been fighting a coalition of armed civilian protection militias in the east for more than a year, as agreed at a ...

Have no personal feelings about who manages Twitter: UN chief Guterres

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said he has no personal feelings about who manages Twitter, but he is very interested in how the platform is managed, underlining the importance of combating hate speech and ensuring freedom of expression, especially of journalists, on social media platforms. I have no personal feelings in relation to who manages a platform. I am very interested in about how the platform is managed, he said here on Monday. Guterres was responding to a question during his end of the year press conference on whether he thinks Twitter's owner Elon Musk was a threat to free speech and would he be relieved if the billionaire stepped down as head of the social media platform. Twitter users had voted on Monday for Musk to quit as head of the social media giant in a poll the technology tycoon ran on his future and promised to abide by its results. A total of 57.5 per cent of people voted "yes" after the 51-year-old billionaire asked his 122 million followers whethe

US clashes over Russia using Iran drones in Ukraine war; accuses UN

The United States and its allies clashed with Iran and its ally Russia over Western claims that Tehran is supplying Moscow with drones that have been attacking Ukraine and the US accused the UN secretary-general of yielding to Russian threats and failing to launch an investigation. At a contentious Security Council meeting Monday on the resolution endorsing the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers, the United States and Iran also accused each other of responsibility for stalled negotiations on the Biden administration rejoining the agreement that former President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018. Iran's U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani insisted Iran's negotiating team exercised maximum flexibility in trying to reach agreement and even introduced an innovative solution to the remaining issues to break the impasse. But he claimed the unrealistic and rigid approach of the United States led to the current stalled talks on the 2015 agreement, known as the JCPOA. Let's

UN chief to convene 'no-nonsense' climate ambition summit in Sept next year

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday announced that he will convene a no-nonsense climate ambition summit in September next year where countries will have to come with credible and new action plans, with no room for back-sliders, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years. Addressing journalists at his end of year press conference here, Guterres said climate change is an area where good news can be hard to find. We are still moving in the wrong direction. The global emissions gap is growing. The 1.5-degree goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short, he said. Guterres said that going forward, he will keep pushing for a Climate Solidarity Pact, in which all big emitters make an extra effort to reduce emissions this decade in line with the 1.5-degree goal and ensure support for those who need it. There is no doubt that without it, the 1.5-degree goal will soon disappear. I have pulled no punches on the imperative for a

UN chief Antonio Guterres strongly hopes for Ukraine war to end in 2023

The United Nations chief expressed strong hopes that the Ukraine war will end in 2023 and on other global hotspots condemned the Iranian government's crackdown on demonstrators, urged all countries to fight terrorist threats from the extreme right and called on the international community to tell Israel's new right-wing government that there is no alternative to the two-state solution. In a wide-ranging end-of-year news conference on Monday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he sees no prospect of talks to end the war in Ukraine in the immediate future and expects the already escalating military conflict to continue. But he called for everything possible to be done to halt the most devastating conflict in Europe since World War II by the end of 2023 -- which he strongly hopes will happen. On other issues, Guterres urged Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to include all ethnic groups in the government, restore girls' rights to education at all levels and women's rights to work, and to

Pakistan at UN pleads for help with floods after 'cameras have gone'

Pakistan's unprecedented floods in the summer killed more than 1,700 people, inundated third of the nation and cut the nation's growth by half

Nobel Prize-winning UN World Food Program head to step down

The executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, which won the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago, says he will step down at the end of a six-year term heading the world's largest humanitarian organization. David Beasley, a Republican, served one term as South Carolina's governor from 1995 to 1999. In a statement Saturday, Beasley said he will exit his role at the conclusion of his term in April 2023. Serving in this capacity has been the greatest joy and deepest heartache of my life, Beasley said. Thanks to the generosity of governments and individuals, we have fed so many millions of people. But the reality is we have not been able to feed them all and the tragedy of extreme hunger in a wealthy world persists. Beasley was appointed to the U.N. post in 2017 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, and was recommended for the job by Nikki Haley, another former South Carolina governor. Haley also served as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Trump administration. ...

COP15 Montreal: India urges dedicated fund for biodiversity conservation

Says developing countries bear most of the burden of implementing targets; call comes as 196 parties to Convention on Biological Diversity finalise talks for a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

Pakistan could reconsider strategy for Afghanistan under Taliban: FM Bhutto

Pakistan could reconsider its strategy for dealing with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said, as he expressed disappointment over their failure to prevent the banned TTP from conducting cross-border terrorist attacks in his country. Addressing a UN event in New York Bilawal said: "Pakistan will not tolerate cross-border terrorism by the TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) or other terrorist groups, like the BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army). He said that Pakistan could reconsider its strategy for dealing with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, but it could not afford to disengage with Kabul, the Dawn newspaper reported. Separately, in his address to a commemoration event to honour the victims of the December 16, 2014, terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, Bilawal said that Kabul's Taliban rulers had failed Pakistan's hope and expectation of constraining the TTP from conducting cross-border terrorist attacks. The TTP militant

Thousands in West, Central Africa could face starvation, warns UN

More than 25,000 people could face starvation in conflict-plagued parts of West Africa next year, a United Nations official warned Friday. Federico Doehnert of the World Food Program said violence and the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine are largely driving the threat to people in Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso. "One of the most striking things is that where we already had issues with severe food insecurity last year, this year we're seeing a further deterioration Doehnert said in Dakar while presenting findings from the latest food security report by regional governments, the U.N. and aid groups. The cross-border region between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger is the epicenter of West Africa's escalating humanitarian crisis, which is compounded by climate change, severe floods and droughts placing more than 10 million people in need of assistance, the U.N. said in a statement this week. Doehnert said nearly 80% of people facing catastrophic hunger - som

Signs of Libya's partition grow, election needed, warns UN special envoy

The U.N. special envoy for Libya warned Friday that signs of partition are already evident in the troubled North African nation and urged influential nations to pressure Libya's rival leaders to urgently finalize the constitutional basis for elections. The first anniversary of the vote's postponement is coming up later in December, said Abdoulaye Bathily, who stressed that if there is no resolution, an alternative way should be found to hold elections. Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. In the chaos that followed, the county split into two rival administrations, each backed by different rogue militias and foreign governments. Bathily told the U.N. Security Council that the continuing disagreement between the two rivals specifically, the speaker of Libya's east-based parliament, Aguila Saleh, and Khaled al-Mashri, the president of the High Council of State based in the country's west, in the .