If you smoke, burn fossil fuels like coal or drive a vehicle, chances are, you're polluting the air and harming the health of those around you, the World Health Organization (WHO) is warning. Every year, according to the agency, 1.7 million children die from indoor and outdoor pollution because their developing organs and small bodies [...]

  Haiti recovery plan needs strong support Countries are being urged to support a nearly US$3 billion plan to help Haiti recover from Hurricane Matthew, the deadly storm which hit the island nation last October. The appeal was made on Monday by the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction. Robert Glasser said the [...]

Listen to a bulletin of news and features from the United Nations, with Dianne Penn and Jocelyne Sambira. In today's programme: stop polluting the future, the World Health Organization urges; and a regional action plan for the Americas to reduce the risks posed by disasters will be top of the agenda in the Canadian city of Montreal [...]

Collaborating on space ventures such as exploring the solar system and galaxy can help promote peace and prosperity on Earth, according to the Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). Simonetta Di Pippo told Elena Vapnitchnaia that the UN and its Member States could build a platform for what she called [...]

The United Nations is "working overtime" to avert another disaster in Somalia like the one that claimed 260,000 lives six years ago. That's what Joseph Contreras, the Spokesperson for the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), said following media reports that 110 people starved to death in a single region in the southwest of the [...]

Members of the UN Security Council are in Niger to witness the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the country and to help find long-term solutions, the head of the delegation said. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, the president of the Council for the month of March, made the remarks during a briefing to the press in [...]

The humanitarian crisis in South Sudan is rapidly escalating, and hunger and malnutrition have reached new disturbing levels, the UN relief chief has warned. Stephen O'Brien made the remarks after concluding a two-day visit to Africa's newest nation. He called for "immediate and unhindered access" to people in need of aid as well as funding [...]

Members of the UN Security Council are visiting the Lake Chad Basin to "shine a spotlight" on the ongoing humanitarian challenges in the region, the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the UN has said. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft made the remarks in Chad, one of the four West African countries affected by the security [...]

Over five per cent of the world's population is living with hearing loss, but preventing the condition is "infinitely easier" than treating it. That's according to Dr Shelly Chadha, an expert on hearing loss and deafness prevention from the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr Chadha added that over one billion adolescents and young people are [...]

Sri Lanka's slow progress on justice for past crimes "risks derailing peace" A lack of progress in bringing to justice those responsible for gross human rights crimes in Sri Lanka risks derailing a lasting peace there. The UN Human Rights Office, OHCHR, issued the warning on Friday, saying that police abuse and torture are still [...]