UN Deputy-Secretary General Amina Mohammed has acknowledged the Chinese capital’s enduring association with the fight for women’s rights and gender equality, 30 years on from the adoption of the landmark Beijing Declaration, a foundational international treaty.

The UN is stepping up its emergency response in Gaza, releasing $11 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to meet urgent needs before winter – a move that underscores both the expanding humanitarian effort and the funding shortfall threatening to stall it.

As the humanitarian crisis continues to escalate in Haiti, the World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Monday that women, children and displaced families are disproportionately affected as malnutrition and hunger rise.

People around the world who are transforming food systems in their local communities are being recognised and supported by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

There is now “real hope” for a ceasefire which would pave the way for a lasting and definitive settlement of the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, Huang Xia, told the Security Council on Monday.

The world’s poorest are being squeezed by trade uncertainty, heavy debt burdens and falling investment, the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD warned a week before ministers gather in Geneva for its largest meeting in four years.

From 1970 until 2000, the costs of disaster averaged $70-$80 billion. Those mainly preventable costs doubled this century to average $180-$200 billion annually, according to a recent report published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Common infections are becoming harder – and sometimes impossible – to treat, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday, as new data show that one in six bacterial infections globally are resistant to standard antibiotics, endangering millions and straining health systems worldwide.

The escalating political crisis in South Sudan is driving renewed armed violence and making the already dire humanitarian and human rights situations there worse, UN investigators said on Monday.

Ramallah, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of the West Bank, is a bustling urban centre, but it is ringed by barriers and checkpoints which dominate every aspect of life. Speaking at the UN Forum of Mayors in Geneva, Issa Kassis, the mayor of Ramallah, says that the challenges faced by city leaders are amplified by conflict and occupation.

NEW YORK, October 13 (IPS) - On today’s International Day of the Girl Child, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and our strategic partners call for substantial new funding to ensure every girl impacted by crises is able to access 12 years of quality education.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, October 13 (IPS) - The United Nations turned 80 this year. What should have been a moment of pride and celebration at the high-level session of the UN General Assembly in September 2025 turned instead into an occasion of bitter irony.

TOKYO & JOHANNESBURG, October 13 (IPS) - Vulnerable children are being targeted online faster than parliamentarians and law enforcers can act, a conference convened by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) heard. Yet, with international cooperation and sharing of ideas, lawmakers believe the scourge of online abuse can be addressed.

BANGKOK, Thailand, October 13 (IPS) - The theme of this year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, “Fund Resilience, Not Disasters,” called for the urgent need to shift from reactive spending on recovery to proactive investment in disaster risk reduction.

ABU DHABI, October 13 (IPS) - As global conservation leaders gather in Abu Dhabi for the IUCN World Conservation Congress, communities in the hills of Darjeeling, thousands of kilometers away, are still counting their losses. In early October, heavy rains triggered deadly landslides that buried homes, blocked key roads, and left several people dead. The destruction has once again exposed how vulnerable India’s mountain regions are to extreme weather.

CIVICUS discusses enforced disappearances in Mexico with a member of the International Network of Associations of Missing Persons. The crisis of disappearances in Mexico has reached alarming proportions, with over 52,000 unidentified bodies in morgues and mass graves. On 1 July, the Mexican Congress approved controversial changes to the General Law on Disappearances, which promise to modernise the search process through a national biometric system, but which human rights organisations and victims’ groups claim could establish an unprecedented system of mass surveillance.

As the UN Secretary-General on Monday welcomed the release of all living hostages from Gaza, aid agencies said that lifesaving relief supplies are now flowing at scale into the shattered enclave.

A new figure has emerged at anti-ICE protests in Portland - a man wearing an inflatable frog costume

Cost of offshore wind increased by monopoly ownership of seabed, alleges campaign group

At least 17 children, including an infant just seven days old, have reportedly been killed in an attack on the Dar al-Arqam Displacement Centre in El Fasher, North Darfur, early on Saturday morning.