UN experts call for political dialogue over Catalonia tensions UN experts are calling for "urgent dialogue" in an effort to diffuse tensions between Spanish authorities and the regional government of Catalonia, over the disputed independence referendum on Sunday. The president of the north-east region in Spain said on Wednesday that he would declare independence within [...]

Security operations conducted by UN Police (UNPOL) in South Sudan around sites set up to protect civilians are helping to create more security for women according to a senior police officer. The UN peacekeeping operation, UNMISS, has provided sanctuary to some 213,000 people in Protection of Civilians or POC sites around the conflict-affected country. Women [...]

There is no "silver bullet" to resolving the stark income disparities in sub-Saharan Africa. That's the view of the chief economist for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Africa, Ayoduele Odolusa, who points to the "Tree of Equity" in its latest report which outlines policy changes needed to promote income equality on the continent. The [...]

Listen to our daily bulletin of news and features from the United Nations, presented by Matt Wells and Dianne Penn. In today’s programme: an ambitious new strategy is launched by the UN and partners to cut cholera deaths by 90 per cent, by the year 2030…. we'll have the details from Geneva; and peacekeepers in [...]

Safe spaces for Rohingya women and girls seeking sanctuary in Bangladesh are already full to capacity. That's the first-hand account of Priya Marwah, Humanitarian Response Coordinator for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the country, who is helping create safe spaces for refugee survivors of gender-based violence. UNFPA estimates that over half of the [...]

A new strategy launched on Tuesday aims to reduce the number of deaths due to cholera worldwide by as much as 90 per cent by 2030. The programme is being spearheaded by the Global Task Force on Cholera Control, which is a diverse network of more than 50 UN and international agencies, academic institutions and [...]

Scale-up aid to Myanmar refugees in Bangladesh: UN officials Two senior UN officials are calling for scaled-up assistance to support thousands of people who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar over the past six weeks. Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock and the Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Anthony Lake, were in the [...]

The "unspeakable suffering" faced by refugees should be tackled head on by the international community, amid a sharp fall in available shelter spaces, the head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Monday. Filippo Grandi told Member States in Geneva that 1.2 million refugees need resettling globally but fewer than 100,000 places are available [...]

Rations for refugees in northern Kenya cut by 30 per cent: WFP Food rations for around 420,000 refugees living in the Dadaab and Kakuma camps in northern Kenya are to be cut by around 30 per cent, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Monday. WFP said that the cuts were due to a shortfall [...]

Technology built to explore the stars, is also having a dramatic impact in the more down-to-earth pursuit of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. That's according to the Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Simonetta Di Pippo, who was in Australia at the end of September, to attend the International Astronautical Congress. [...]