UN Interviews

An estimated 160,000 people in Gaza now face going hungry as the escalation of violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and across the border into Israel, continues into its second week, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

In addition to seeing that they get enough to eat, another priority for the agency’s Country Director in Palestine, Samer AbdelJaber, is making sure that his aid team stays safe – because they’re inside the enclave where airstrikes are continuing too, as he explains to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

As India confronts a devastating second wave of COVID-19 infections, with some 300,000 cases a day, securing essential oxygen equipment is “the need of the hour”. 

That’s the message from Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque, Representative of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, in the country. 

The UN agency has been supporting pandemic response in India for more than a year, where it has been “all hands on deck”, she said. 

Amid the current crisis, Dr Haque has been highlighting the importance of vaccination, but also the need to continue “social vaccination”, her term for practices such as proper handwashing and wearing masks in public. 

Dr Haque spoke to our colleague Anshu Sharma in Delhi.

The United Nations has deployed all the personnel and resources at its disposal to help Indians deal with the deadly surge in COVID-19 that has seen more than 300,000 reported new cases per day, for almost two weeks now, and left many hospitals overwhelmed.

That’s according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) India Representative, Dr. Roderico Ofrin, speaking exclusively to UN News, who told Anshu Sharma that tried and trust methods of bringing down the numbers would surely work, if India can get “ahead of the game”.

With vaccination now open to all over 18, and 165 million already inoculated, he said that shots were only part of the solution, to bringing the multiple factors that have fuelled the surge, under control.

Press freedom should be seen as the “by-product of healthy political society", according to an exiled journalist from Myanmar, where the crisis following the military coup, is now in its fourth month.

Near daily pro-democracy protests are being held across the country, which have been met with a crackdown by security forces. There are reports that hundreds have been killed and countless more wounded, including media workers and journalists.

Just ahead of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, Julia Dean from the UN Country Team in Australia, spoke to Swe Win, Editor-in-Chief of the news agency Myanmar Now. She started by asking him how vital press freedom is for democracy.

Media which serves the public interest, not only provides vital information communities need to take informed action, it also dispels misinformation, strengthens democratic accountability and boosts sustainable development.

That’s the view of Sheetal Vyas, Founding Executive Director of International Fund for Public Interest Media, who says that amidst COVID-19, accurate and timely information is also a lifesaving public good.

But the pandemic has hit journalism hard, drying up revenue and putting its very existence into question – something that many fear may prove to be a so-called “media extinction event”.

UN News’ Vibhu Mishra spoke to Ms. Vyas, whose fund has a bold, billion dollar rescue plan to help save journalism for the public good, and he began by asking why public service journalism matters.  

A shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea that claimed the lives of 130 migrants last week, has reignited the debate about why more can’t be done to protect these vulnerable people who’ve risked everything.

With the details about this latest tragedy which happened just off the Libyan coast, here’s Safa Msehli, from the UN migration agency, IOM, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

Latest research from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that climate change has not slowed down during the pandemic – and that action to reverse increasing greenhouse gas emissions, is more urgent than ever.

Ahead of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate convened by the United States on Thursday, here’s WMO meteorologist Laura Paterson, outlining the main findings of the UN agency’s State of the World Climate 2020 report, speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

There will be “no damage whatsoever” to the environment from the discharge of seawater used to cool the broken reactors at Fukushima nuclear plant, the head of the UN atomic energy agency, Rafael Grossi, has insisted. 

Although people’s concerns are totally justified, it is also worth bearing in mind that the filtering process used to strip the water of radioactive elements is used at nuclear power stations all around the world – as Mr. Grossi tells UN News’s Daniel Johnson. 

Fighting is ongoing in Ethiopia’s Tigray, where the level of cruelty against women and children is “incomprehensible” and likely vastly under-reported.

That’s the disturbing assessment of the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, which is deeply concerned for the more than million people displaced by six months of violence.

Just back from the conflict zone, here’s the latest from UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, who’s been talking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

The Saami people have lived in northern Europe long before borders divided the region up into the Member States we know today.