Facing the most severe funding shortfall in the history of humanitarian aid, UN relief chief Tom Fletcher on Monday announced a “hyper-prioritised” appeal for $29 billion to meet urgent global needs.

After a weekend of massive strikes and counter-strikes between Tel Aviv and Tehran, the UN's human rights chief, Volker Türk on Monday condemned the violence and echoed wider calls for a negotiated end to the attacks. Meanwhile in Gaza, aid workers report that mobile communications networks continue to be cut in the shattered enclave. We'll be covering these developments and more across the UN system and beyond today, thanks for joining us. UN News app users can follow our live coverage here.

KABUL, Jun 13 (IPS) - Mehrangiz is a sixteen-year-old girl from Badakhshan, a province in the northeastern Afghanistan famed for its rubies, jewels, and a land of love and beauty.

TIMBO / FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil, Jun 13 (IPS) - In 2014, Santa Catarina became the first and only state free of open-air garbage dumps in Brazil. Now, 14 of its municipalities are seeking to also free themselves from landfills and make use of nearly all urban solid waste.

NICE, France, Jun 13 (IPS) - With the future of the world’s oceans hanging in the balance, global leaders, scientists, and activists gathered in the French Riviera city of Nice this week for the historic UN Ocean Conference, where France declared a new era of high seas governance and marine protection.

NICE, France, Jun 13 (IPS) - Just before dawn, a flotilla of wooden canoes drifts silently  through mangrove-tangled channels where roots sprout from the black mud of the lagoon. Here, at the edge between sea and forest, lies a story of restoration.

NEW YORK, Jun 13 (IPS) - Victims of Japan's costly Eugenic Protection Law took to the stage sharing their life stories, offering their tragedies of sterilization and mutilation, in return for the hopes of “a society without discrimination”. At a side event on International Sharing of the Experiences and Lessons of Japan's Former Eugenic Protection Law held on June 10th, The Conference of Parties on the Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities Discussed the struggle for Anti eugenic ideology. Hosted by the Japan Disability Forum along with several legal defence teams for the victims, an outline of ideology, policy, and retribution was displayed, in an attempt to fight against “eugenics-based discrimination”.

ALBERTA, Canada, Jun 13 (IPS) - Aid cuts could cost millions of lives and leave girls, boys, women and men without access to enough food, water, education, health treatment.

G7 countries are making deliberate and deadly choices by cutting life-saving aid, enabling atrocities, and reneging on their international commitments

NICE, Jun 13 (IPS) - At the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recognized three countries and regions for their large-scale programs to restore their native ecosystems.

NICE, France, Jun 13 (IPS) - As the curtains draw on the UN Ocean Conference, a flurry of voluntary commitments and political declarations has injected fresh impetus into global efforts to conserve marine biodiversity. With the world’s oceans facing unprecedented threats, high-level biodiversity officials and negotiators are sounding the alarm and calling for renewed momentum—and funding—to deliver on long-standing promises.