Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations
- Despite the efforts made by the United Nations over the past year to help create safeguards for all communities in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, it is clear that conditions are still not suitable for the safe, voluntary, and sustainable return of Rohingya refugees to their home, Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.
- The rapid onset of the deadly African Swine Fever (ASF) in China has been detected in areas a thousand kilometres apart – posing an imminent threat to other Asian countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned on Tuesday.
- Top military commanders in Myanmar should be investigated and prosecuted for the “gravest” crimes against civilians under international law, including genocide, United Nations-appointed investigators said on Monday.
- Significant progress has been made in protecting hundreds of thousands Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh in the 12 months since they fled violence in Myanmar, but lives “will once again be at risk” if funding is not urgently secured, UN officials said on Friday.
- The refugee crisis in Bangladesh sparked by the mass exodus of people from Myanmar almost a year ago risks creating a “lost generation” of Rohingya children who lack the life skills they will need in future, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
- The decision to allow scores of people from the Republic of Korea (ROK) to reunite with their relatives north of the border has been welcomed by the UN Secretary-General.
- After a surge in hostilities in Afghanistan over the past weeks, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) welcomed on Monday the Government’s announcement of a conditional ceasefire for the Eid al-Adha holiday and called on warring parties to use this “momentum” to put an end to the conflict.
- The city of Ghazni in Afghanistan is still too dangerous for aid workers to reach, after a week of “intense” fighting and reports that traumatized children are turning up at hospitals looking for their parents, UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said on Friday.
- A group of United Nations rights experts are urging the Japanese government to urgently protect tens of thousands or workers hired to help decontaminate the Fukushima nuclear plant, who are reportedly being exploited and exposed to toxic nuclear radiation.
- The perpetrators of Wednesday’s “heinous” suicide bombing that killed students at an education centre in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, must be brought to justice, the UN Secretary-General has said.
- After days of intense fighting for the Afghan city of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul, the United Nations Secretary-General and the Head of the UN mission in the country (UNAMA) have denounced the toll that the almost 20-year conflict has taken on civilians, and called on warring parties to lay down their arms and seek a political solution to the conflict.
- António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, has welcomed the historic signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which took place on Sunday, marked by a ceremony which brought together the leaders of the five countries bordering its coastline.
- An “invasive pest” that devours more than 80 different plant species, including many staple crops, could threaten the food security and livelihoods of millions of small-scale farmers in Asia, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned on Tuesday.