February 9, 2026 Matthew Taylor The Guardian The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres  has warned. Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster. António   Guterres called for economies to ‘

February 7, 2026 UN News Service In a statement issued as the treaty expired at midnight GMT Thursday, he said the world was entering uncharted territory, with no remaining legally binding constraints on the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Russia – the two countries that together hold the vast majority of the world’s nuclear weapons. “ For the first time in more than half a century, we face a world without any binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals ” o

January 20, 2026 Damian Carrington  Environment editor The Guardian The world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy” that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared. The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report’s lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion. All life depends on water but the report found many societies had long been using water faste

© UNRWA The UNRWA headquarters in East Jerusalem is demolished by heavy machinery. January 20, 2026 UN News Service Responding to the dramatic development, head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees Philippe Lazzarini described it as an “unprecedented attack” against the UN, whose premises are protected under international law. The move represents “a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law, including of the privileges and immunities of the United Nati

January 17, 2026 UN News Service DAKAR, Senegal -- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warns that without urgent resources and action, the most vulnerable people in West and Central Africa are headed for yet another dire year. A staggering 55 million people in the region are expected to endure crisis levels of hunger, or worse, during the June-August 2026 lean season. Over 13 million children are also expected to suffer from malnutrition in 2026. © WFP/Arete/Damilol

January 16, 2026 UN OHCHR GENEVA  – UN experts* today said that the only way to restore democracy in Venezuela following the recent violation of its sovereignty and years of authoritarian rule, is to respect the will of the Venezuelan people, ensure accountability and self-determination, and guarantee the sovereign and sustainable use of their natural resources in line with international law. Demonstrators march in support of abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro durin

© UNRCO Iran Tehran, the capital of Iran. January 11, 2026 UN News Service In a statement issued on Friday, Volker Türk said he was “deeply disturbed” by the violence reported over nearly two weeks of demonstrations, stressing that those responsible for any violations must be held to account in line with international human rights standards.

Jannuary 9, 2026 Prof. Juan Cole The UN Office of Human Rights, headed by Volker Türk, on Wednesday issued an  extensive report on the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank in which it for the first time described Israeli policies there as Apartheid. The executive summary says, “The report warns that Israel is violating international law requiring States to prohibit and eradicate racial segregation and apartheid.” Photo of predominantly Palestinian Silwan

January 9, 2026 By Vibhu Mishra Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed regret over the decision by the United States to withdraw from a number of UN entities, while underscoring that the system will continue to deliver on all its mandates.

December 3, 2025 UNHCR GENEVA – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is gravely concerned as intensifying attacks on villages and the rapid spillover of the conflict into previously safe districts force tens of thousands of people to flee across northern Mozambique, with close to 100,000 displaced in the past fortnight alone. As needs rise at unprecedented speed, the capacity of humanitarian and government actors is not keeping pace, and collective efforts remain insufficient to mee

December 3, 2025 UN News Service The President of the UN General Assembly called on Tuesday for greater action to uphold the rights of the Palestinian people and a two-State solution with Israel.        Annalena Baerbock was speaking at an Assembly plenary meeting where countries debated a resolution that affirms the UN’s responsibility for the question of Palestine. “For 78 years the Palestinian people have been denied their inalienable rights – in particular, their right to

November 12, 2025 Hanifa Girowal There is growing international recognition that impunity for grave human rights violations in Afghanistan cannot be tolerated. In September, I briefed the United Nations Security Council , carrying with me the voices of thousands of Afghan women whose hopes and futures have been extinguished in silence. What I told the Council remains true today: Afghanistan faces one of the most profound human rights, humanitarian, environmental, and politica

November 11, 2025 Philippe Lazzarini After two years of brutal warfare in Gaza, a fragile ceasefire – the first phase of US president Donald Trump’s 20-point plan – offers some respite to an exhausted population. For my Unrwa colleagues on the ground in Gaza, the constant fear of being killed by bombs and guns may have abated, but there is still much to worry about – access to shelter, food and clean water remains challenging, and winter is approaching fast. Palestinians rid

November 11, 2025 Patrick Wintour   A coalition of states is needed to stop the international legal order falling apart, a distinguished international academic has warned. Oona Hathaway, the president-elect of the American Society of International Law and a former Pentagon legal adviser, said the core of the postwar global order – the prohibition on taking land by force – was under unprecedented challenge in a “scary moment” for the world. Oona Hathaway, a Yale professor, sai

November 10, 2025 Olivier de Frouville  and Julian Fernandez Published on November 7, 2025 Over the course of the war in Gaza, the press often portrayed international lawyers as “divided” when it came to what was going on inside the Palestinian territory. In response to this misleading depiction, a group of academics specializing in international law and international criminal law decided to organize a letter this summer that would outline the legal analysis upon which the i

November 8, 2025 Isabelle Jones The United States joined with the likes of Russia, North Korea, Belarus, and Israel in voting against the resolution on autonomous weapons.

November 7, 2025 UN News Service From Gaza to Ukraine and beyond, conflict has caused widespread death and destruction, but it has also devastated natural resources such as water systems, farmland and forests.         The impacts affect livelihoods, and fuel displacement as well as ongoing instability.  Moreover, they can linger even after the fighting has ended. © IOM/Raber Aziz Members of a family displaced by drought and conflict rest outside their tent.

November 7, 2025 Joëlle Gergis As world leaders gather in Brazil this year for Cop30 – the first Amazonian Cop  – it’s worth doing a quick reality check on how we are collectively tracking to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite 30 years of UN climate summits, about half of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution has been emitted since 1990. Incidentally, 1990 was the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the

November 6, 2025 Rachael Mellor Dr. Norbert Stute Building on the legacy of the first summit held in Copenhagen in 1995, the primary goal of the second World Summit for Social Development is to advance global social development and bolster much-needed momentum for the Sustainable Development Goals  set out in the 2030 Agenda. This high-stakes event will be held November 4-6, 2025 in Doha, Qatar , and Better World Info  has carried out thorough research on the event. With just

September 9, 2025 Jessica Corbett As global outrage  over Israel's attack targeting Hamas ceasefire negotiators in Qatar began to mount...