PARIS, FRANCE -  Some 258 million people needed emergency food aid last year because of conflict, economic shocks and climate disasters, a UN report said Wednesday, a sharp rise from 193 million the previous year. "More than a quarter of a billion people are now facing acute levels of hunger, and...

The rise of disinformation and hate speech threatens truth, while journalists continue to face harassment, intimidation, and imprisonment, highlight UN officials and media outlets.

The fighting in Sudan has caused over 330,000 people to flee their homes within the country, with over 100,000 others escaping over the borders, the United Nations said. UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, is estimating that over 800,000 people could potentially flee to neighboring countries as the conflict continues in...

With projectiles crashing into residential buildings, supplies running short and daily life increasingly untenable for civilians, foreign nations have scrambled to evacuate their nationals by air, road and sea. But millions of Sudanese are still trapped in the country, where aid workers are among the dead and the UN said...

The London-based rights group said the Syrians were expelled following raids on their homes in various parts of the country, adding that those who had "entered the country irregularly or held expired residency cards" were deported. It cited the brother of one refugee as saying that the Lebanese armed forces...

Morocco is the world's largest producer of cannabis resin according to the United Nations, and police seized nearly 100 tonnes last year. Police in recent years have also made multiple large seizures of cocaine, with South American cartels using the North African nation as a smuggling transit hub for Europe.

Lebanese authorities have long pushed for Syrian refugees to return, and have made several repatriation efforts they describe as voluntary, but which rights groups say are forced. The United Nations' refugee agency said Friday it was "following up" on the reports, and that it "continues to advocate for the respect...

India's population will be 1.4286 billion compared to China's 1.4257 billion at mid-year, the United Nations Population Fund's State of World Population report showed. China's population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed earlier this year.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released on Tuesday a stark new assessment of 2022 data estimating 34 million Afghans were living below the poverty line. The figure is a staggering increase of 15 million on 2020, the last full year of rule by the Western-backed government that crumbled in...

Yemen faces its best chance to strike a peace deal since the country's civil war started over eight years ago, although much work remains to be done, UN envoy Hans Grundberg said. "The truce has continued to deliver well beyond its expiration six months ago. The parties are engaging on...

Sanaa, Yemen-- Yemeni rebels and government forces freed scores of prisoners Sunday on the last of a three day exchange of nearly 900 detainees, boosting hopes of ending their protracted civil war. Planes carrying detainees took off at the same time from the Houthi rebel-held capital of Sanaa and the government-controlled...

Rome, Italy -- Tackling gender inequalities in agrifood systems and empowering women reduces hunger, boosts the economy, and reinforces resilience to shocks like climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations said. The status of women in agrifood systems...

Russia delivered a new warning to the West over a grain deal with Ukraine, saying a number of conditions must be met for Moscow to extend it beyond May 18. Negotiated in July by Turkey and the United Nations, the agreement has given Ukrainian grain shipments a safe corridor in...

Nearly 900 prisoners, most of whom were fighting with Houthi rebels, will be flown between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which leads the military coalition fighting on behalf of the ousted government, the official said on Tuesday.

Nearly a decade of war in Yemen has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, both directly and indirectly, and triggered what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The Huthis seized the capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering the conflict with the government backed for eight years by...

The Russian foreign ministry said Lavrov, who last visited Turkey in June, will discuss the grain deal, which Moscow says it extended "as a gesture of goodwill for another 60 days". Turkey is pushing for a 120-day extension in compliance with the original agreement, which was negotiated by Ankara and...

TEHRAN, IRAN - Iran on Wednesday welcomed a US call to help end the long-running conflict in Yemen by backing a peace process, one year after a United Nations-brokered truce dramatically reduced fighting. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have multiplied since the Yemeni government's main foreign backer Saudi Arabia signed a...

Sunday's attack comes amid increased Israeli air strikes on Syria. The air strike near the western Syrian city of Homs was Israel's third since early Thursday, after the capital Damascus was targeted that morning and early Friday.

Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah Bin Thani Al-Thani of Qatar, who serves as a UNHCR advocate, has been the biggest contributor to the fund, providing more than $110 million to date, or more than half of total contributions.

Now displaced in the rebel-held countryside of northern Syria, she places on the bare ground of her shelter a few bags of bulgur, dates, rice and sweets for breaking the fast during the Muslim holy month which begins on Thursday. "Ramadan this year will not be like the year before,...

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on wealthy countries to move up their goals of achieving carbon neutrality as close as possible to 2040 in order to "defuse the climate time bomb." He made the remark while introducing a capstone report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the...

Beirut, Lebanon - Syria's conflict and attacks on hospitals have had a "disproportionate impact" on the reproductive health of women and girls in the rebel-held northwest, a report said Tuesday. "Twelve years of impunity for attacks on health care have exacerbated a sexual and reproductive health crisis in Syria," said Houssam...

Russia has agreed to extend the Ukraine grain export deal following talks with the United Nations - but only for a further 60 days. Moscow said it wanted to see "tangible progress" on a parallel agreement on Russian exports before the deal comes up for renewal again.

The price drop is seen as a direct response to cuts by Tesla.

The 47-year-old ship has not been serviced since Yemen's devastating civil war broke out in 2015 and was left abandoned off the rebel-held port of Hodeida, a critical gateway for shipments into the country heavily dependent on emergency foreign aid. UN officials have voiced fears that the ship would crumble,...

The World Bank estimated last week that the devastating quake, which flattened entire cities, had caused damage worth more than $34 billion in Turkey, with recovery likely to double that sum. But Louisa Vinton of the UN Development Program said the Turkish government had calculated far higher damage.

The UN announced that it had taken a significant step towards trying to fill a key gap in the fight against climate change: standardized, real-time tracking of greenhouse gases. The UN's World Meteorological Organization has come up with a new Global Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Infrastructure that aims to provide better...

At the moment just 36 percent of the 1.25 billion people in the world's 46 poorest countries can plug into the internet, the International Telecommunication Union said. By comparison, more than 90 percent have access in the European Union. The ITU condemned the "staggering international connectivity gap".

“And we need much bolder actions now to cut emissions, accelerate renewables, and build climate resilience,” he adds. “Throughout, we need to place the voices of local communities and indigenous people – our world’s most effective guardians of biodiversity – front and centre.”

Lebanon is navigating a devastating economic crisis that has plunged more than 80 percent of the population into poverty. Strikes and absenteeism have paralyzed public services, the state is barely able to provide a few hours of mains electricity a day, and the local currency has lost most of its...

In the aftermath of the quake, activists and emergency teams in the rebel-held northwest decried the UN's slow response, contrasting it with the planeloads of humanitarian aid that have been delivered to government-controlled airports.

The Security Council has an obligation to find ways to "provide protection" for Palestinian civilians, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations pleaded Tuesday after Israeli settlers attacked a town in the occupied West Bank. "We believe that the Security Council has a responsibility to shoulder, especially with regard to...

Children in Iraq work as apprentice mechanics and rubbish collectors, in shisha cafes or hair salons, and washing car windows and selling paper tissues by the roadside. Employing children is punishable by prison time or a fine, but "with many families left without a breadwinner, mothers have been forced to...

Dozens of Israeli settlers set homes and cars ablaze in the northern town of Huwara overnight Sunday, after a day of Israeli-Palestinian talks in neighbouring Jordan aimed at quelling escalating unrest in the Palestinian territory. More than 350 Palestinians were injured, most suffering from tear gas inhalation, the Palestinian Red...

NASIRIYAH, IRAQ - Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers have witnessed a sharp decrease in their levels in the south of the country, officials said Sunday, pledging to take urgent measures to ease water shortages. In Nasiriyah, capital of the southern province of Dhi Qar, an AFP photographer saw the river bed...

A more than eight-year-long war between Saudi-backed government forces and pro-Iran Houthi rebels has devastated Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula. The war has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths both directly and indirectly, and pushed the nation to the brink of famine.

Israeli media reported the crowds were again in the tens of thousands, after lawmakers this week took a step towards approving the reforms which are a cornerstone of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's latest administration, which took office in December. Critics have condemned the reforms as an assault on the independence...

Jordan will host a "political-security" meeting between Israel and the Palestinians to try and restore calm to the occupied Palestinian territories after deadly violence, a Jordanian government official said. The meeting to be held in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba will also be attended by United States and Egyptian...

The massive 7.8-magnitude tremor on February 6 has killed more than 42,000 people in Turkey and more than 3,600 in Syria, while the WHO said more than 125,000 have been injured. Damascus has been hit by more than a decade of economic sanctions, and while they were not designed to...

Top Palestinian official Hussein Al Sheikh decried the incursion as a "massacre" and called for "international protection for our people". The Palestinian health ministry said those killed "as a result of the occupation's aggression on Nablus" were aged between 16 and 72.

More than four million people live in areas outside government control in Syria's north and northwest, 90 per cent of whom depend on aid to survive. Yet the first UN aid convoy crossed into the area on February 9 -- three days after the quake struck -- and carried tents...

Lebanon's cash-strapped banks have imposed strict restrictions on withdrawals, barring depositors from accessing their savings, especially those in US dollars.

Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan "has ordered the provision of an additional US$50 million as relief aid for quake-affected people in Syria", reports said.

Supplies have been slow to arrive in Syria, where years of conflict have ravaged the healthcare system, and parts of the country remain under the control of rebels battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is under Western sanctions. A 10-truck UN convoy crossed into northwest Syria via the...

Vegetable oil prices fell 2.9 percent, stemming from subdued global import demand for palm and soy oils and ample export availabilities of sunflower seed and rapeseed oils.

The EU has already imposed sanctions on more than 60 Iranian officials and entities over the crackdown on protestors, including the "morality police", Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders and state media. But the 27-nation bloc has so far stopped short of blacklisting the Revolutionary Guards themselves as a terror group despite...

"There's no doubt that our 53rd annual meeting in Davos will happen against the most complex geopolitical and geoeconomic backdrop in decades. So much is at stake," said Borge Brende, a former Norwegian foreign minister who is now president of the meeting.

"The position of the EU is clear: There can be no impunity for corruption. Zero tolerance," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said after a meeting with Morocco's Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita. "We need to wait for the result of the investigations currently underway," Borrell added, saying he expected "everybody's...

Erdogan's hopes for talks with Assad follow calls from Turkey's main opposition party as it is pressing Erdogan to speed up the "voluntary" return of nearly four million Syrians who fled the fighting to Turkey.

Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group has handed over a man suspected of killing an Irish United Nations peacekeeper earlier this month, a security official said. Private Sean Rooney, 23, was killed and three others injured on December 14 when their UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) vehicle was attacked near the...