Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations
- Afghanistan has undertaken significant reforms which the international community will continue to support long after peace is secured in the war-torn country, a top UN official pledged on Wednesday.
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged countries to fund a new initiative designed to reduce vulnerability, advance sustainable development and create decent living conditions for millions of people living around the Aral Sea, whose basin encompasses Uzbekistan, and six other countries in Central Asia.
- The United Nations Security Council has condemned “in the strongest terms” Friday’s terrorist attacks in Pakistan’s Karachi city and in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that claimed dozens of lives and left many more injured.
- United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned terrorist attacks in the Pakistani city of Karachi and at a market in the north-west province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and expressed hope that those behind the acts will be swiftly brought to justice.
- Gathered at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Organization’s development wing in the region, countries have highlighted how new technologies – especially smart devices – are making transport systems safer and greener.
- United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has “strongly condemned” the terrorist attack targeting a religious gathering in the Afghan capital, Kabul, which claimed dozens of civilian lives.
- The United Nations migration agency said on Tuesday that it has upgraded structures in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps as temporary accommodations for emergency situations.
- Farmers in the mountain kingdom of Bhutan are being helped by the UN to boost their livelihoods using their traditional knowledge while protecting the country’s varied biodiversity.
- Friday’s historic conviction by a United Nations-backed international tribunal of two former Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia on genocide charges has been welcomed by the UN Special Adviser on the issue.
- UN Children’s Fund UNICEF on Friday welcomed confirmation from the Bangladesh authorities that Rohingya refugees will not be returned to Myanmar against their will, amid reported ongoing rights violations there.
- A new generation of green infrastructure which boosts the local economy, ensures water supplies and protects the environment is being built in Timor-Leste thanks to the support of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
- A range of international sanctions imposed against Eritrea nearly a decade ago, were unanimously lifted by the Security Council on Wednesday, four months after the signing of an historic peace agreement with Ethiopia in July.
- The United Nations and the organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games have signed an agreement to highlight the important contribution that sport makes in the race to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), by the ambitious deadline of 2030.