UN News Centre

Following the awarding of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Peace to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that the award is a timely message to all who have strived hard for peace, and that it provides needed hope and encouragement to all Colombians.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) today announced a new partnership with the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM), aiming at adopting sustainable water bird hunting management to protect wetland resources in Africa’s Sahel region which are crucial for food security and economic development.

After deploying field teams to Caribbean countries affected by Hurricane Matthew, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) are today heading to Haiti, where they are preparing for a major upsurge in cholera.

Detailing the bloodshed in eastern Aleppo, where in the last two weeks, 376 people – half of them children – have been killed, 1,266 injured, hospitals destroyed, and “all sorts of ammunitions” and weapons used, the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria underscored today that this part of the iconic city may be totally destroyed in two months, leaving thousands dead and forcing countless more to flee.

Citing a lack of progress on the peace process in Mali, the United Nations peacekeeping chief today warned that the UN mission there would not be able to fully carry out its mandate as long as the signatories to the peace agreement do not resolutely engage in its implementation.

In the wake of the recent disclosure of leaked Bahamas tax haven data, United Nations human rights experts today urged governments to work together on liquidating offshore tax avoidance and establishing tougher financial regulations.

India today ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, bringing the treaty&#39s entry into force "tantalisingly" close.

Warning of an urgent humanitarian situation in Syria&#39s eastern Aleppo city, the United Nations humanitarian chief today reiterated a call for a cessation of violence, medical evacuation of hundreds of patients in critical conditions and safe, full, regular and unimpeded humanitarian access.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the link between non-violence, peace and nature as he observed the International Day of Non-Violence.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has condemned two improvised explosive device (IED) detonations on civilian vehicles that killed 19 people in Helmand and Badghis provinces in recent days.

The United Nations is marking the International Day of Older Persons by encouraging countries to draw attention to and challenge negative stereotypes and misconceptions about older persons and ageing, and to enable older persons to realize their potential to build a life of dignity and human rights.

The United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, expressed alarm today at public comments by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, in which he reinforced a campaign to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines and compared it to the massacre of millions of Jews by Hitler during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Several weeks before of the start of the new school year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), together with the Iraqi Ministry of Education, launched a nationwide ‘Back to School’ campaign in 10 governorates.

The UN refugee agency and delegations from African countries as well as the African Union (AU) agreed today on final steps to end the protracted Rwandan refugee situation after seven years of negotiations.

There are now less than 30 doctors working in Aleppo city, down from 35 several days ago, a senior official of the United Nations health agency said today, highlighting the deteriorating healthcare capacity in the war-battered area.

Nine representatives of the Government of Colombia, as well as nine members from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia&#8211People&#39s Army (FARC-EP) and 18 international observers from the UN mission in the country have started working together at the joint Monitoring and Verification Mechanism headquarters in Bogota.

The United Nations health agency today urged countries across the South-East Asia region to continue to take decisive action to prevent, detect and respond to Zika virus, following news that Thailand has confirmed two cases of Zika-related microcephaly.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will establish an internal United Nations Board of Inquiry to investigate the deadly 19 September incident involving a UN–Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) relief operation to Urum al-Kubra, a town in western Aleppo Governorate.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported that, along with its partners, the agency has completed a drive reaching more than 600,000 children under five years old and some 180,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in conflict-torn Yemen with critical health and nutrition services.

The United Nations refugee agency today called on authorities in Ukraine to help ease the plight of some 26,000 people who cross the dividing line between Government-controlled and non-Government-controlled areas of the crisis-gripped country daily.