Jul 05 (IPS) - When the United Nations renovated its building at a cost of over $2.1 billion, as part of a seven-year refurbishing project back in 2014, the seating in the cavernous General Assembly hall was increased from 193 to 204—primarily in anticipation of at least 11 new member states joining the world body sooner or later.

The UN chief on Monday extended his condolences to the families of those who died in a landslide, which struck the Japanese coastal city of Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture, over the weekend.

Belarus has witnessed an unprecedented human rights crisis over the past year, the independent expert appointed to monitor the country said on Monday, calling on authorities to immediately end their policy of repression and fully respect the legitimate aspirations of their people.

LONDON, Jul 05 (IPS) - For well over a century Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, has been known to the world as the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’ for its multifaceted attractions. That is until blurb writers ruined it all with hyperbolic epithets that obscured the country’s magnetic charms, which attracted visitors from around the globe.

Jul 04 (IPS) - Few people want to buy products that involve the exploitation or enslavement of the workers who make them – but that’s exactly what most of us do on a daily basis.

After spending years living in UN-supported camps in Kenya, some 220 former refugees from Somalia now work as farmers in the US state of Maine, growing crops ranging from beets to broccolini.

As a witness to the impacts of Syria’s internal conflict over the last decade, Bassel Al-Madani, a young engineer and former volunteer with the UN, was inspired to set up Entrepioneers 2030, a group that rallies youth to get involved in shaping the future of their country. 

Some 4.4 million people in Nigeria are facing what the UN humanitarian office, OCHA, is describing as “catastrophic food conditions”.

SAN SALVADOR, Jul 02 (IPS) - The pain that María Estela Guevara feels over the disappearance of her niece Wendy Martínez remains as intense as it was four years ago, when she learned that the young woman, then 31, had vanished without a trace in eastern El Salvador.

Senior UN officials appealed on Friday for immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access to Tigray – and for an end to deadly attacks on aid workers - as the Security Council held its first open meeting on the conflict in the restive northern Ethiopian region.