News from the United Nations

• Security Council meets in emergency session over Iran-Israel conflict, amid strikes and counterstrikes June 13, 2025
  Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities mark a dangerous new escalation in the Middle East, a top UN official told the Security Council during an emergency session convened on Friday.
• Israel-Iran crisis: UN chief urges calm after overnight strikes June 13, 2025
  Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israeli strikes in Iran late Thursday evening, urging ‘maximum restraint’ from Member States. The head of the UN-backed atomic watchdog also highlighted the risk of a wider conflict.  
• UN ocean summit in Nice closes with wave of commitments June 13, 2025
  Ships in the port of Nice sounded their fog-horns on Friday, a brassy crescendo to a rare moment of global unity as the Third UN Ocean Conference drew to a close. Moments earlier, more than 170 countries had adopted by consensus a sweeping political declaration promising urgent action to protect the ocean.
• DR Congo crisis: Aid teams appeal for support to help displaced communities left with nothing June 13, 2025
  As diplomatic efforts continue to end fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN development agency (UNDP) issued an appeal on Friday on behalf of people uprooted by the violence to help them rebuild their lives and livelihoods.
• Humanitarians must be able to deliver aid in Gaza, UN agencies insist June 13, 2025
  UN agencies on Friday continue to stress they must be allowed to deliver aid in the Gaza Strip as famine looms and a telecommunications blackout threatens lifesaving operations. 
• World News in Brief: Rights abuses in Haiti, Sudan war sees exodus to Chad, food trade optimism June 13, 2025
  Escalating gang violence in Haiti has displaced a record 1.3 million people, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Friday. 
• Societies grappling with a ‘silent but growing’ prison crisis June 13, 2025
  Prisons have become a fragile link in many criminal justice systems, weakened by over-incarceration, overcrowding, poor conditions and chronic neglect – fuelling calls for urgent reform. 
• Shaping a better world at Expo 2025 in Japan June 13, 2025
  How can we build a fairer, more peaceful world while safeguarding the planet? That’s the powerful question at the heart of the United Nations Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.
• Global push to end plastic pollution gains ground in Nice June 12, 2025
  Behind closed doors, in a domed conference pavilion steps away from the historic port of Nice, more than 40 ministers gathered on Tuesday to tackle one of the planet’s fastest-growing environmental threats: plastic pollution. 
• ‘No Ocean Declaration without small islands’: Delegates push for inclusion as UN summit nears end June 12, 2025
  With one day remaining before the conclusion of the Third UN Ocean Conference, delegates in Nice are preparing for the adoption of the summit’s eagerly anticipated political declaration. Small island developing States, facing the direct effects of climate change and marine resource decline, are pushing to ensure their perspectives are reflected in global ocean policy.