Independent Online News
When the Taliban surged back into power in August 2021, Afghanistan was virtually cut off from the rest of the world, and decisions by the de facto authorities to further restrict human rights have only deepened the country’s isolation.
Since then, as international funding has stalled amid skepticism about the Taliban’s return, the UN has been acting as the world’s “eyes and ears” in Afghanistan.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed deep concern about the developments in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli airstrikes have hit the densely populated refugee camp there.
In a statement from his spokesperson on Monday, Mr. Guterres affirmed that all military operations must be conducted with full respect for international humanitarian law.
In Port-au-Prince on Saturday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed solidarity with the Haitian people “facing a terrible and mutually reinforcing cycle of… crises”, and urged deployment of an international force to assist the National Police in combating gang violence.
The UN chief expressed deep concern at the extreme vulnerability faced by the Haitian people – especially women and girls – because of brutally violent and “predatory” armed gangs, like those encircling the capital, blocking main roads and controlling access to water, food, health care.
Myanmar’s military is killing civilians, destroying food and homes, and keeping the most vulnerable from receiving lifesaving aid, according to a new report from the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
The chief of OHCHR’s Myanmar team, James Rodehaver, explained that since their February 2021 coup, the country’s military rulers have been instilling a “climate of fear” to subjugate the civilian population, restricting aid access and using “all means” at their disposal to clamp down on civil society.
With over 18,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs) lurking beyond the stratosphere, 2,000 of which are classified as potentially hazardous, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is using Friday’s International Asteroid Day to raise awareness across the planet.
NEOs are asteroids or comets that come relatively close to the Sun, to about 50 million kilometres from Earth’s orbit.