How can we build a fairer, more peaceful world while safeguarding the planet? That’s the powerful question at the heart of the United Nations Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.

Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities mark a dangerous new escalation in the Middle East, a top UN official told the Security Council during an emergency session convened on Friday.

Prisons have become a fragile link in many criminal justice systems, weakened by over-incarceration, overcrowding, poor conditions and chronic neglect – fuelling calls for urgent reform.

Escalating gang violence in Haiti has displaced a record 1.3 million people, UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Friday.

UN agencies on Friday continue to stress they must be allowed to deliver aid in the Gaza Strip as famine looms and a telecommunications blackout threatens lifesaving operations.

Ships in the port of Nice sounded their fog-horns on Friday, a brassy crescendo to a rare moment of global unity as the Third United Nations Ocean Conference drew to a close. Moments earlier, more than 170 countries had adopted by consensus a sweeping political declaration promising urgent action to protect the ocean.

As diplomatic efforts continue to end fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN development agency (UNDP) issued an appeal on Friday on behalf of people uprooted by the violence to help them rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

Secretary-General António Guterres condemned Israeli strikes in Iran late Thursday evening, urging ‘maximum restraint’ from Member States. The head of the UN-backed atomic watchdog also highlighted the risk of a wider conflict.

Jun 13 (IPS) - CIVICUS discusses struggles for historical justice with Graciela Montes de Oca, a member of Mothers and Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Uruguayans, a Uruguayan civil society organisation that seeks truth, justice and prevention of future crimes like those committed under dictatorship.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 13 (IPS) - The United States, a longstanding and unyielding Israeli ally, is threatening UN member states urging them to keep off an upcoming high-level meeting aimed at recognizing a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

The meeting, to be co-chaired by France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Saudi Arabia, a strong political ally of the US, is scheduled to take place June 17-20.