Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations

Threats, unlawful surveillance and harassment by the authorities, are just some of the concerns facing journalists in Iran, prompting a group of independent UN human rights experts on Wednesday, to once again sound the alarm.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Tuesday afternoon welcoming recent steps towards ending the conflict in Afghanistan. All 15 members supported the resolution, tabled by the United States, which endorses a joint US-Afghan declaration on peace and an agreement signed between Washington and the Taliban.

There can be no sustainable peace in Afghanistan if women are not at the negotiating table, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ambassadors and activists at UN Headquarters on Tuesday. 

The world will not be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) if half the planet is left behind, the UN Deputy Secretary-General said in Papua New Guinea on Sunday: International Women’s Day.

The United Nations has underscored its solidarity with Afghanistan following a deadly attack in the capital, Kabul, on Friday.

Prosecutors have been given the green light to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan - and beyond its borders – linked to Afghan, Taliban and US troops, the International Criminal Court said on Thursday. 

More than 10,000 civilians in Afghanistan were killed and injured last year, according to a new United Nations report that details record-high levels of civilian harm in the ongoing conflict.

Independent UN human rights experts on Tuesday voiced grave concern over the killing and displacement of civilians in north-west Myanmar during the intensifying conflict between the military and an armed group, the Arakan Army, amid an information blackout in some parts of Rakhine and Chin states. 

In one of the last bastions of polio on the planet, millions of children are being given a fighting chance against the paralyzing and potentially fatal disease. 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday said he had been moved by the show of religious unity he had witnessed in Pakistan after paying visits to a mosque, a gurdwara and Kartarpur Corridor, the visa-free crossing which allows Sikhs to travel between nearby holy sites on each side of the India-Pakistan border.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday began a three-day visit to Pakistan, recognizing the country’s decades of “outstanding generosity and solidarity” as one of the world’s largest hosts of refugees, and highlighting its commitment to climate action.  

In a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday, Secretary-General António Guterres underlined the value of cooperation between the UN and the 10-member regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

Against the backdrop of India’s famed “pink city” of Jaipur, the world’s largest literature festival hosted the UN’s top representative in the country on Monday, who told audience members attending a special session on the climate emergency, that the Organization is working flat out to slow the pace of damaging climate change.