The ocean is key to food security as the main source of protein for more than a billion people. Some 600 million worldwide depend on fisheries and aquaculture for their livelihoods.

As hunger continues to spread around the world, urgent efforts are needed to safeguard the ocean and ensure that it continues to provide food for a growing global population, in a sustainable way.

Ahead of Thursday’s World Oceans Day, Manuel Barange, Director of the Food and Aquaculture Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), has been talking to FAO’s Michele Zaccheo about the promise of aquaculture, or farming in water, and how the ocean is an essential part of the solution to the interlinked issues of poverty, malnutrition, food security and climate change.

UN humanitarians are ramping up assistance in the aftermath of the Kakhovka dam disaster in Ukraine, as some 17,000 people find themselves in the critical zone at risk of flooding, and clean water has become scarce.  

Health and security concerns are mounting fast, with flooding and the lack of clean water multiplying the risk of disease, while unexploded ordnance is being displaced by floodwater into new areas.

IOM’s spokesperson in Kyiv, Olivia Headon, has been talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer about the emergency response and the impact of the disaster on Ukraine’s future recovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rolled back progress in development but collaboration between countries of the Global South could help get the world back on track. 

This exchange of technology and skills is known as South-South cooperation, and triangular cooperation, when supported by developed countries or partner agencies. 

The UN’s High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation met this week to examine how the process can help accelerate recovery from the pandemic and achieve a more sustainable future for all. 

Dima Al-Khatib is the recently appointed Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), which is hosted by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). 

She spoke to UN News’s Dianne Penn about some of the key issues discussed at the meeting, including the need for increased funding. 

The cooperation of governments in Southeast Asia is helping the region to address the “enormous” challenge of tackling transnational organized crime, according to a senior representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, (UNODC).

The trafficking of people and illicit goods, especially synthetic drugs like methamphetamine, from the Golden Triangle, an area which includes Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, has enriched criminal networks and flooded the region and beyond with addictive narcotics.

UNODC has brought governments together to collaborate through border liaison officers who share information about trafficking. Daniel Dickinson spoke to UNODC’s Chief of Border Management, Alan Cole on a trip to the Golden Triangle and began by asking him about the role of these officers.

This week the UN hosts the 2nd Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent – the human rights platform which brings together institutions at the UN, civil society and others, to advance equality and fight racism.  

The Forum’s Chair, Epsy Campbell Barr, said it was vital to boost investment to help the poorest of the poor, and meet “elemental demands” for basic services like clean water.

She spoke to UN News’s Pauline Batista in our studio at UN Headquarters in New York.

Torture, conflict and low COVID-19 vaccination rates have all been the results of increasing levels of disinformation and misinformation in Papua New Guinea, according to the UN Resident Coordinator in the country, Richard Howard.  

Speaking on the line to UN News’s Julia Dean in Australia, he stressed that these consequences were very worrying, and in some cases “horrifically wrong”, calling for strong and rapid measures to counter the scourge.  

Mr. Howard began by describing the prevalence and intensity of misinformation and disinformation being spread across the Pacific Island nation.

While more than 300 million people around the world face acute food insecurity, tobacco continues to be grown in 124 countries, diverting land and resources away from food crops – even in places where people are starving.

Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday 31 May, the World Health Organization (WHO) has released new findings about tobacco’s disastrous health impact on development in low and middle-income countries.

WHO’s Director for Health Promotion, Dr. Rüdiger Krech, also busts the myth of tobacco as a lucrative crop, before explaining how the UN system helps farmers embrace alternatives that are better for their health and food security. Here he is, talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer in Geneva.

The arrest of one of the last remaining fugitives from the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda has been hailed as a commitment to ensuring that justice is served, no matter how long it takes. 

Fulgence Kayeshima is alleged to have orchestrated the killing of approximately 2,000 Tutsi refugees at a Catholic Church in April 1994. 

He had been on the run for more than 20 years, hiding in East African countries, including among refugee populations.    

Mr. Kayeshima was arrested in South Africa on Wednesday by the UN tribunal for war crimes in Rwanda, known as the IRMCT, and local authorities. 

This marked the culmination of an intense year-long process, as IRMCT Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz tells UN News’s Anold Kayanda.  

The bamboo homes of Myanmar’s most vulnerable communities were no match for Cyclone Mocha which has left people with nothing, UN humanitarians warned on Friday.

With the latest from the country and neighbouring Bangladesh, here’s the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Anthea Webb, Deputy Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

Since the launch of Chat GPT in November 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) has been dominating headlines, sparking excitement but also concern over the pace at which the technology is developing and driving misinformation.

The UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, Amandeep Gill, is busy working on a Global Digital Compact to be adopted at the UN’s Summit of the Future in 2024 – a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity for leaders to agree on common principles for addressing tech challenges.

Ahead of Wednesday’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, he has been talking to UN News’s Dominika Tomaszewska-Mortimer about using AI for good, why it’s not too late to regulate, and how getting AI governance right will be important for multilateralism itself.