News from the United Nations
- Syria: Children among the dead amid reports of mass killings and looting March 10, 2025Children are feared to be among more than 1,000 people reportedly killed in fierce fighting over the weekend in Syria’s coastal northwest, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said.
- World’s largest conference on women calls for equality amid gender backlash March 10, 2025Gender equality is a critical goal at a time when the demand for rights faces a global backlash, top UN officials told thousands of diplomats, business and civil society delegates gathered at UN Headquarters in New York on Monday for the world’s largest annual conference focused on women’s issues.
- Nine out of 10 Gazans unable to access safe drinking water: UNICEF March 10, 2025Severe water shortages in Gaza have reached critical levels, with only one in 10 people currently able to access safe drinking water, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Monday.
- Drug traffickers running routes through war zones, top UN official warns March 10, 2025A “new black market” for synthetics and drug trafficking through war zones are fuelling instability around the world, the chief of the UN drugs and crime office said on Monday.
- Afghanistan: Top UN envoy calls for ‘a moment of realism’, as Taliban’s isolation grows March 10, 2025The top UN envoy for Afghanistan on Monday underscored the need for realistic engagement with the country as humanitarian and human rights crises deepen amid growing international isolation.
- UN rights chief raises alarm over escalating violence in Syria March 9, 2025The killing of civilians in coastal areas in northwest Syria must cease immediately, the UN rights chief said on Sunday following a series of coordinated attacks reportedly launched by elements of the former government and other local armed men.
- Ukraine reels from one of the deadliest days of war March 9, 2025Attacks across Ukraine on Friday reportedly left 21 civilians dead and scores injured, making it one of the deadliest days this year, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country said in a statement issued on Saturday night.
- Explainer: The Commission on the Status of Women and why it matters March 9, 2025Ever since former US First Lady and human rights champion Eleanor Roosevelt inspired the first UN sub-commission on the status of women in the 1940s, thousands of women around the world meet at UN Headquarters in New York every March to take the pulse of the planet and make their voices heard.
- Online ‘manosphere’ is moving misogyny to the mainstream March 7, 2025A decline in democracy and harmful content spread on social media platforms are helping to drive a backlash against feminism, and the growth of misogynistic and retrograde ideas about the roles of men and women and society.
- DR Congo crisis leaves mothers with newborns fleeing to Burundi March 7, 2025The aid response in Burundi to the crisis in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) “is literally buckling”, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warned on Friday, as it relayed dramatic testimonies from people forced to flee the unchecked advance of Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.