A sharp escalation in fighting in Sudan’s El Fasher, along with ongoing clashes between rival military factions across the country, is heightening the risk of atrocities, including violence against women, and worsening the already dire humanitarian crisis, senior UN officials warned on Wednesday.

Regional directors from six UN agencies and three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) called on Wednesday for the immediate and unconditional release of scores of colleagues who have been arbitrarily detained in Yemen for 100 days.

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution that demands that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Concerns for women and the overall state of humanitarian rights in Afghanistan are growing following further legal clampdowns by the Taliban, the UN Security Council heard on Wednesday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for an end to the escalation in violence in the Middle East amid reports of a fresh wave of electronic device detonations in Lebanon which caused further deaths and injuries.

Countries must use a once-in-a-generation UN summit to address current and emerging global challenges and reform outdated international institutions, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday in New York.

Amid renewed warnings from leading climate scientists that global warming could reach 3C above pre-industrial levels this century, the head of the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) insisted on Wednesday that new technology and AI offer the opportunity to implement the drastic action needed to resist the existential crisis.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (IPS) - Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has delivered quality education to children in crisis "against all odds," ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif said at the United Nations today. "And you can imagine the odds. We are seeing more armed conflict, a growth of climate-induced disasters and the biggest refugee movement since World War 2." 

ATLANTA, Georgia, Sep 17 (IPS) - Today's weapons are capable of wiping out entire swaths of humanity, demolishing remaining shreds of culture along with them. News coverage of the one-sided Gaza campaign make it plain that's exactly what's happening. Destroying the past destroys the future too. The world must band together to make sure these atrocities stop.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 17 (IPS) - Today, the chief of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, confirmed that the first round of Gaza's polio vaccination campaign had ended successfully, reaching 90 percent coverage. The second round of this campaign is set to begin by the end of September, delivering Gaza's children with a critical second dose of the polio vaccine.