The international community must take immediate action to end the wave of sexual violence being carried out against women and girls in Sudan, two senior UN officials said on Thursday.

The ongoing crisis in Haiti is having a “massive” and “devastating” impact, with over half the population acutely food insecure and more than one million staring at emergency levels of hunger, a senior UN World Food Programme (WFP) official said on Thursday.

The General Assembly designated 22 April as International Mother Earth Day through a resolution adopted in 2009, but the roots of the Day go back to the 1970s.

Digital technologies and algorithm-driven software - especially social media - present high risks of privacy invasion, cyberbullying and distraction from learning to young girls, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) latest Global Education Monitor (GEM) report released on Thursday.

The war in Gaza continues to cast a dark shadow over the wider Middle East region, in particular Syria where a series of strikes and attacks are exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation, the UN Special Envoy for the country said on Thursday.

Unexpected blistering temperatures across Gaza have added to the daily misery faced by the enclave’s people and sparked new fears of disease outbreaks amid a lack of sufficient clean water and waste disposal, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.

Across the United States, “heads are rolling” at the top of some Ivy League universities amid a campus-wide crackdown on students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, shining a spotlight on the question of freedom of expression worldwide, said UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan.

A top Human Rights Council-appointed expert has welcomed the decision by all health authorities in the United Kingdom to halt the routine use of puberty-blockers offered to children as part of gender transition services, amid a sharp increase more widely in the number of teenage girls seeking such treatment and concerns that it might disrupt brain development.

On 25 April 1974, military officers overthrew the nearly 50-year dictatorship in Portugal in a largely peaceful coup known as the Carnation Revolution.

Smoking and drinking is on the rise among teenagers in Europe, Central Asia and Canada, and girls now match or even exceed boys when it comes to substance use, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a new report on Thursday.

Plastic pollution blocks rivers, chokes oceans and makes its way into the food chain as microplastics. It’s a global environmental crisis, and Small Island Developing States are especially vulnerable, having to cope with detritus washing up on their beaches, as well as the waste they generate themselves. 

A new mechanism for getting lifesaving aid into Gaza will start in the coming days, UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator Sigrid Kaag announced in a briefing to the Security Council on Wednesday.

Russia used its veto to quash a draft resolution aimed at keeping weapons out of outer space.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is offering medical care, food, shelter and psychosocial support to 33 migrants who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Djibouti on Monday, as local authorities continue search and rescue operations. 

Two UN agencies alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the global vaccine alliance Gavi launched on Wednesday a campaign to scale up programmes to save lives, marking the start of World Immunisation Week, celebrated annually during the last week of April.

The UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, launched a $1.2 billion appeal on Wednesday to address the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip and to respond to needs in the West Bank as violence there increases. 

Dangerous levels of acute hunger affected a staggering 281.6 million people last year – the fifth year in a row that food insecurity has worsened – heightening growing fears of famine and “widespread death” from Gaza to Sudan and beyond, UN agencies warned on Wednesday.

Top UN officials launched a fresh global campaign to tackle the climate emergency on Tuesday, with social media influencers, Indigenous leaders and corporate giants showing what they’ve done and what’s to come.

The head of the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, on Tuesday reiterated that he welcomed the recommendations of a much-awaited report on its efforts to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they arise. 

The UN acknowledges assurances from the South Sudanese government that the recent imposition of taxes on fuel and supply trucks does not apply to the Organization. Still, concerns remain regarding humanitarian aid efforts in the region since some of the UN’s fuel and supply trucks are being held at many depots and the border. 

Following the United Kingdom Parliament’s passage of the “Safety of Rwanda” bill, two top UN officials sounded an alarm on Tuesday about its harmful impact on global responsibility-sharing, human rights and refugee protection.

The UN verified 3,688 cases of rape and other sexual violence committed in war in 2023, a “dramatic increase” of 50 per cent over the previous year, the Security Council heard on Tuesday. 

The General Assembly on Tuesday debated veto power in the Security Council on the eve of the second anniversary of a special measure adopted to monitor its use, following on the heels of the United States vetoing Palestine’s bid last week for full UN membership.

Asia remained the world’s most disaster-affected region in 2023 due to weather, climate and water-related hazards. Storms and floods have hit the hardest, a new report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Tuesday reveals.

Book by book and page by page, Türkiye’s booklovers are bringing life back to cities ravaged by the deadly 2023 earthquakes through the power of reading, with help from cash grants from the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

Becoming a successful international fashion photographer is hard for anyone, but it’s particularly difficult if you grow up in Dominica, a small Caribbean country regularly hit by hurricanes. This hasn’t deterred Josiah Johnson, an aspiring photographer who is taking advantage of digital technology training to find new opportunities well beyond the borders of his home.

As gang violence increases in Haiti, the international community must continue to stand in solidarity with the population, the UN Special Representative for the country told the Security Council on Monday.

The UN Middle East envoy has expressed concern about increased levels of violence in the West Bank, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists in New York on Monday.