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

Following the magnitude 7 earthquake which rocked the Indonesian island of Lombok at the weekend, more than 130 aftershocks have been felt with some villages being turned into “ghost towns”, journalists at the UN in Geneva heard on Tuesday.

The world needs the continued moral leadership of the people of Hiroshima, the top United Nations disarmament official said on Monday, commemorating the 73rd anniversary of the atomic bombing that devastated the city while lamenting that after decades of momentum towards a nuclear-free world, “progress has stalled.”

Following the magnitude 7 earthquake that hit Indonesia's East Lombok on Sunday, the United Nations Secretary-General said he was “saddened by the devastating loss of life, injuries and damage caused”, in a statement issued on Monday.

A deadly attack on one of the last functioning hospitals in Yemen in the key port city of Hudaydah has put hundreds of thousands of people at risk and damaged efforts to prevent a third cholera epidemic in the war-torn country, top UN officials warned on Friday.

The death of a local United Nations staff member in a suicide attack on Wednesday in the city of Jalalabad, has highlighted the tragic and relentless effects of terrorist attacks targeting civilians across Afghanistan.

Ongoing violence and attacks on civilian infrastructure in Hudaydah directly threaten hundreds of thousands of children and their families in Yemen, according to the head of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in a statement released on Wednesday

As part of a recent pattern of attacks in Afghanistan, at least 13 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded on Tuesday in Jalalabad, drawing “outrage” and condemnation “in the strongest terms” from the United Nations Assistance Mission in the country, UNAMA.

The Sundarbans forest, a which is the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world and home to several endangered species, is being threatened by “heedless industrialization”, according to a UN rights expert, who on Tuesday, called on the Government of Bangladesh to halt the process. 

The UN Secretary-General on Friday welcomed a new law which grants extra autonomy to Muslim communities living in the Southern Philippines, describing it as a “landmark achievement on the road to lasting peace”.

The United Nations Secretary-General has congratulated the people of Pakistan for “exercising their constitutional right to vote” on Wednesday, thereby reaffirming “their commitment to a democratic Pakistan.”

As Cambodians prepare to vote in general elections on Sunday, the United Nations Secretary-General issued a statement on Friday calling for “an inclusive and pluralistic political process” saying that it “remains essential for safeguarding the progress made by Cambodia in consolidating peace.”

The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, on Wednesday condemned the killing of dozens of people near a polling station in the western city of Quetta due to a suicide attack, as voters headed to the polls in Pakistan’s general elections.  

India must revise its planned new legislation to tackle trafficking in persons so that the measures proposed are in line with international human rights law, said two independent UN human rights experts on Monday.