News from the United Nations
- Guterres calls for an end to ocean ‘plunder’ as UN summit opens in France June 9, 2025With the Mediterranean glittering in the background, UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the Third United Nations Ocean Conference on Monday, delivering a blunt indictment of humanity’s fractured relationship with the sea.
- Drifting architects: Plankton, climate, and the race to understand our changing ocean June 8, 2025They drift unseen, but everything depends on them. Plankton – the ocean’s lifeblood – regulate the climate, feed the seas, and shape life on Earth. Scientists along the French Riviera are in a race against time to unlock the mysteries of these tiny organisms before their decline reverberates across the planet.
- Gaza: Women and girls struggle to manage their periods amid crisis June 8, 2025Whether it’s their first time or a routine part of their life, menstruation has become a nightmare for women and girls in Gaza. The conditions they are forced to endure - displacement, overcrowded shelters, and lack of basic hygiene - have turned a natural biological process into a monthly ordeal.
- Stigmatised for being deaf: Zénabou's story June 7, 2025In the Central African Republic, disability carries a deep-rooted stigma, and persons with disabilities often find themselves excluded from almost every avenue of life. Zénabou, who is deaf and non-speaking, has suffered from prejudice, but a UN-backed educational programme offers a glimmer of hope.
- Humans can't survive without a healthy Ocean: UN envoy June 6, 2025The Ocean is in deep crisis. Factors such as acidification, declining fish stocks, rising temperatures and widespread pollution are contributing to a catastrophic decline in biodiversity: over half of marine species are at risk of extinction this century.
- Green gold beneath the waves: How seaweed – and one man’s obsession – could save the world June 6, 2025As world leaders gear up for the Third UN Ocean Conference in Nice, one policy expert is making waves with an ancient marine organism he believes could help feed the planet, clean the air, and transform coastal economies.
- US decision to sanction ICC judges ‘deeply corrosive’ to justice: UN rights chief June 6, 2025The US Government’s announcement of sanctions against four judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday has been condemned by Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as “deeply corrosive of good governance and the due administration of justice.”
- Number of aid workers killed in Gaza conflict, highest in UN history: Guterres June 5, 2025The United Nations paid tribute on Thursday to the 168 staff members who lost their lives in 2024. They include 126 personnel killed in Gaza, all but one of whom served with the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA.
- UN chief urges world leaders to keep two-State solution ‘alive’ June 5, 2025UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday urged world leaders to revive efforts toward a two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, warning that there is no alternative.
- World News in Brief: Women’s health in Sudan, childhood wasting, Belarus trade unions, Guatemala child rights violation June 5, 2025As hostilities rage in Sudan, access constraints and devastating funding cuts are isolating rape survivors and pregnant women from essential health services, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA said on Thursday.