South Africa addressed the UN's highest court on Thursday in a bid to end the mass killing of civilians in Gaza, accusing Israel of carrying out genocide against Palestinians there – a claim that Israel has strongly denied as "baseless".

The profile of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was raised in January, following South Africa’s decision to bring proceedings against Israel for violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention. Here is a primer on the ICJ, and what it d...

Repeated refusals by Israeli authorities to allow UN aid teams to deliver desperately needed humanitarian relief inside Gaza have effectively cut off five hospitals in the north from access to “lifesaving medical supplies and equipment”, the UN aid coo...

Global unemployment is expected to rise this year, with growing inequality and stagnant productivity also a cause for concern on the economic horizon, the UN labour agency ILO said on Wednesday.

The new year has brought no respite to Ukraine, with recent weeks seeing some of the worst attacks of the nearly three-year war, the UN political affairs chief told the Security Council on Wednesday. 

The UN remains concerned about the fate of personnel travelling on one of its helicopters in Somalia that reportedly was seized on Wednesday by al-Shabaab militants, though no details were provided. 

The UN Security Council on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning “in the strongest terms” the multiple attacks by Houthi rebels off the coast of Yemen which have disrupted global trade and raised fears of further spillover from the war in Gaza.

With no let-up in fighting across Gaza, the UN health agency pleaded on Tuesday for better access across the enclave, where relief is arriving “too little...too late” to help civilians caught up in the ongoing conflict. 

The immediate priority in Gaza must be saving civilian lives said the President of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, as Member States gathered to debate the use of the veto by the United States in the Security Council last month. 

The European climate agency on Tuesday reported that record global heat last year showed an overall increase of 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels – just a fraction below the 1.5-degree threshold laid out by the historic Paris Agreement on climate chan...

On day 93 of the war in Gaza, amid reports of relentless and heavy Israeli bombardment, UN humanitarians issued new reports of “significant casualties, particularly among women and children” and pleaded for overwhelmed medical teams to be allowed to co...

The UN human rights chief on Monday called on the newly elected Government of Bangladesh to take steps to renew the country’s commitment to democracy and human rights.

Shiraz, a 23-year-old trans woman from Alexandria, Egypt, attempted suicide when she was not accepted by her family. Today, with support from the UN migration agency (IOM), she sees a brighter future in her new home in Izmir, Türkiye.

The UN’s relief chief on Friday warned that “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable” and demanded Israeli forces and Palestinian militants start meeting their obligations under international law to protect civilian lives.

Hospitals and other vital medical infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked nearly 600 times since war erupted in the enclave in response to the Hamas-led terror attack in southern Israel, the UN health agency said on Friday.

Amid reports of continued Israeli airstrikes overnight in southern and central Gaza and more rocket fire into Israel from the enclave, UN teams said on Thursday they have been unable to deliver urgently needed aid to civilians beyond central areas and ...

In Ukraine, there was no respite from war over the holiday period, neither for the country’s citizens, nor the UN workers attempting to deliver aid and support, a senior official for the UN migration agency (IOM) told UN News.

The UN’s World Economic Situation and Prospects report for 2024 projects a slowdown in global growth from an estimated 2.7 per cent in 2023 to 2.4 per cent in 2024.

Music legend Stevie Wonder had a strong and powerful message marking the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the UN back in 2016: “We need to have equal access to education and to knowledge and information,”...

The international community must take “decisive and immediate action” to bring nearly nine months of brutal civil war in Sudan to an end and boost humanitarian relief, the UN relief chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday.

Continuing airstrikes were reported across Gaza on Wednesday and “intense ground battles” between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in refugee camps in central areas that have reportedly left many dead.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday strongly condemned an attack in Iran which has reportedly killed more than 80 people taking part in a commemoration for a former top military general in the eastern city of Kerman.

Two children have reportedly been killed and at least 15 injured in a wave of deadly new year attacks across Ukraine, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative said on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council on Wednesday held its first open meeting on the continuing attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, which are becoming an increasing threat to global trade and the stability of the entire region as the intense fighting between I...

The UN is tasked with tackling many urgent issues of global importance, from humanitarian crises to peacekeeping operations and the climate crisis. This all comes at a cost, but not as much as you might think. With the 2024 budget recently approved, we...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ripe to help resolve certain major problems in Africa, from farming to the health sector, but Senegalese expert Seydina Moussa Ndiaye is warning of a new “colonization” of the continent by this new technology if foreign ...

UN humanitarians repeated dire concerns for civilians caught up in the war in Gaza on Tuesday, amid reports of continued Israeli bombardment of the southern towns of Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, direct clashes on the ground and the firing of r...

Major aerial attacks causing widespread death and destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure have rained down on Ukraine in the first days of 2024 due to an intense new Russian offensive.

Critical food aid support is to be stepped up for many hundreds of thousands of Myanmar refugees sheltering in neighbouring Bangladesh, the UN World Food Programme, WFP, announced on Tuesday.

The UN peacekeeping operation in Mali is poised to complete its drawdown on Sunday following a decade of multifaceted efforts to support the West African nation and its people after Malian authorities requested earlier this year to end the mission by 3...

The UN Secretary-General praised the hard work of judges and staff of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which closed on Sunday following efforts to try those responsible for a 2005 attack that killed 22 people, including former Lebanese Prime Minister ...

A senior UN political affairs official condemned attacks against the Russian city of Belgorod, located near the Ukrainian border, as he briefed the Security Council at an emergency meeting convened on Saturday afternoon.

The UN Secretary-General on Friday condemned in the strongest terms a massive aerial attack by Russia on Ukrainian towns and cities, which left at least 30 civilians dead and over 160 injured.

Halting unsustainable consumption and production which have contributed to the decline of biodiversity and the health of the world’s marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems was central to the establishment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel...

In the second half of 2024, the UN will look to a brighter future, with a major summit devoted to forward thinking in September, and the fight against the climate change in November.

In 2024, the UN will once again be at the heart of international efforts to tackle the world’s most urgent challenges, from bolstering the global economy, to supporting climate action and keeping the peace in conflict hotspots. 

The global push for a safer, greener and more just world, as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, has reached its halfway mark, but what progress has been made so far?

In Gaza, at least 100,000 displaced people have poured into Rafah in recent days, UN humanitarians said on Friday, worsening already dire conditions in the southernmost part of the enclave.