Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations
- One of the strongest storms to batter India in decades made landfall near the northeastern coastal city of Puri on Friday morning. UN agencies are monitoring Cyclone Fani’s movements closely and taking measures to protect families living in refugee camps in Bangladesh, which is on alert.
- More than 10 million North Koreans are suffering “severe food shortages” after the worst harvest in a decade, according to a United Nations food security assessment released on Friday.
- False claims levelled at the UN expert on the rights of indigenous peoples by her own Government in the Philippines, “are without grounding in fact or law” and must cease immediately, said a statement issued by a group of her fellow experts on Wednesday.
- The critical needs of 1.2 million mostly Rohingya refugees in south-eastern Bangladesh were top of the agenda for a fact-finding mission to the region by three senior United Nations officials, who called for continuing support on Friday for them from the international community.
- More than 200 have been killed and hundreds injured by a series of explosions inside churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, as Christians gathered for services to celebrate Easter. In a statement, UN chief António Guterres said he was "outraged by the terror attacks" and called for the perpetrators to be "swiftly brought to justice".
- The United Nations Security Council has condemned the announcement by Taliban militants in Afghanistan of its spring offensive, saying it will result in more “unnecessary suffering and destruction for the Afghan people”.
- More than 19 million children in Bangladesh are at risk from devastating floods, cyclones and other environmental disasters linked to climate change, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday in a new report.
- New criminal laws in Brunei that impose the death penalty for same-sex relationships, adultery and childbirth out of marriage, “breach international human rights norms”, and should be suspended or repealed said the heads of two United Nations agencies on Thursday.
- Proposed changes to Brunei’s penal code to incorporate punishments under a strict interpretation of Islamic law - including death by stoning - should be halted, the UN’s top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, said on Monday.
- Nations across Asia and the Pacific need to take bold action to ensure empowerment, inclusiveness and equality if the region is to realize the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a major UN conference has heard.
- The UN’s top rights official on Wednesday rejected claims by Sri Lankan officials that she distanced herself from a report on the country and instructed her staff to be more “cautious” in future, before stressing her commitment to justice for victims of grave abuses during the civil war.
- In the wake of a horrific mass shooting at two New Zealand mosques, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has announced his intention to launch a UN action plan for the safeguarding of religious sites, declaring that “mosques and all places of prayer and contemplation should be safe havens, not sites of terror.”
- The Fall Armyworm pest is continuing to sweep across the globe, having moved eastwards from their native Americas, onto Africa, before arriving in Asia only last summer, where they now threaten to cost farmers from India to Thailand, billions of dollars in lost production.