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

Recent developments concerning North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes are “deeply troubling”, the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific said on Wednesday, briefed the Security Council.

Seventy people have now died from Samoa’s measles outbreak, UN humanitarians confirmed on Tuesday, as the organization released emergency funding to help the authorities step up efforts to eradicate the preventable disease.

Authorities in Myanmar and social media companies are being urged to take greater action to protect activists in the south-east Asian country who are fighting for justice and accountability for crimes committed against the minority Rohingya population in 2016 and 2017. 

UN teams are on the ground in Samoa as the country combats a deadly measles epidemic. So far, there have been more than 4,200 cases and 62 deaths, mainly babies, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency on 15 November and launch a mass vaccination campaign five days later.

The recycling of plastic waste in India is boosting the incomes of impoverished women and helping build roads and fire cement furnaces, thanks to support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

Improving understanding of the nexus between terrorism, transnational organized crime and drug trafficking is essential, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday in his address to a high-level meeting involving the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a leading player in diplomacy in Eurasia.

Over the last three months (August to October 2019), around one-third of the Afghan population required urgent humanitarian action, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Alert, released on Monday, which declares that some 10.23 million people are living in a state of “severe acute food insecurity”.

More than $39 million in funding was approved on Wednesday for a project that will build resilience and mitigate the effects of climate change, benefitting nearly one million Nepalis, according to the Board of the UN-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF).

As Australia’s “catastrophic” and deadly wildfire emergency continues, UN weather experts on Tuesday echoed Government warnings for people to remain vigilant in the face of the fast-moving threat and tinderbox conditions.

A UN human rights expert is calling on the Cambodian Government to respect its citizens’ rights of freedom of opinion, expression and assembly, amid concerns over escalating tensions and a political crackdown across the country.

Four of the 10 countries most affected by climate change are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Sunday, urging the ASEAN-UN Summit in Bangkok to “confront the world’s climate emergency”.

In Thailand for the ASEAN Summit, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited a climate mitigation project in Bangkok's new Centenary Park on Saturday where he told journalists that “coal addiction must be overcome”.

The people of Indian-administered Kashmir continue to be deprived of numerous basic freedoms, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday, before urging the Indian authorities “to unlock the situation”.