Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to warn of the potential nuclear threat in the Ukraine conflict amid rising tensions surrounding the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
- More than 60 per cent of Ukrainian refugee mothers in Poland are experiencing high or severe levels of distress, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday, Mental Health Action Day, highlighting the psychological impact of the war in their homeland.
- Roughly 90 per cent of the population in Afghanistan is on the brink of poverty “and children bear the brunt of it,” the Representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the country, Fran Equiza, told journalists in New York on Thursday.
- The Myanmar military has imported at least $1 billion in arms and raw materials to manufacture weapons since generals staged their coup in February 2021, according to a new report released on Wednesday by the UN-appointed independent expert monitoring and investigating human rights abuses in the country.
- Humanitarians expressed deep concern on Tuesday for Myanmar’s most vulnerable communities after the “nightmare scenario” created by the passage of Cyclone Mocha.
- Cyclone Mocha was one of the strongest cyclones to ever hit Myanmar, the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) in the country reported on Monday, leaving a “trail of devastation” as it moved overland from the Bay of Bengal, particularly in the city of Sittwe, capital of Rakhine State.
- UN agencies spent Friday buckling down with communities across Bangladesh and Myanmar, bracing for Cyclone Mocha, which is expected to hit the region by the weekend.
- “Brutal and undignified” forms of punishment in Afghanistan and the use of capital punishment coupled with a lack of fair trial guarantees, violate international law and must stop immediately, a group of UN-appointed independent human rights experts said on Thursday.
- A “large-scale” outbreak of the Moroccan Locust, one of the world’s most damaging plant pests, across eight provinces in Afghanistan’s wheat basket, could cause massive crop losses and “dramatically” worsen food insecurity.
- The UN Secretary-General on Wednesday, called for an end to the violence that has continued across parts of Pakistan, following the arrest a day earlier of former Prime Minister, Imran Khan.
- The “frightening” number of executions carried out this year in Iran prompted the UN human rights chief Volker Türk on Tuesday, to call on the country’s authorities to abolish the death penalty or halt all executions.
- The use of corporal punishment by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan runs counter to international law and must stop, the UN Assistance Mission in the country (UNAMA), said on Monday.
- Following a systematic crackdown on the rights of Afghan women and girls by the Taliban – from attending school to working at the UN – “the stage may be set for multiple preventable deaths that could amount to femicide” unless restrictions are reversed rapidly, independent UN human rights experts announced on Friday, following an eight-day visit to the country.