Latest news on the Asia-Pacific region from the United Nations
- Australia and Timor-Leste on Tuesday signed a bilateral maritime boundaries treaty, which United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres hailed as a ground-breaking event that could inspire other countries to peacefully settle disputes through mediation.
- Welcoming the progress in the latest talks between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, the United Nations Secretary-General has highlighted the need to utilize the opportunities it offers to find a peaceful path forward.
- The “frenzied” scale of unspeakable violence against the minority Muslim Rohingya community in Myanmar has shifted to a “lower intensity campaign of terror and forced starvation,” seemingly intended to drive the remaining Rohingyas from their homeland, a senior United Nations human rights official has warned.
- The United Nations mission in Afghanistan on Wednesday welcomed the Government’s renewed call for unconditional peace talks with the Taliban and expressed strong support for its vision for peace.
- Against the backdrop of the fast approaching wet season in Bangladesh, United Nations relief agencies are working flat out to strengthen vital infrastructure and boost resilience among hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in rudimentary shelters as well as for local communities hosting them.
- More than 10,000 civilians have lost their lives or suffered injuries during 2017, according to the latest report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documenting the impact of the armed conflict on civilians in Afghanistan.
- At a high-level United Nations regional consultation in Bangkok, senior government representatives from Asia and the Pacific committed to empower rural women and girls, to lift their standard of living and combat structural barriers impacting their human rights.
- Rohingya children are facing threats either from severe weather approaching Bangladesh where hundreds of thousands are sheltered in squalid, overcrowded refugee camps, or by ongoing violence in their Myanmar homeland, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday, calling urgently for scaled-up assistance ahead of the region’s storm season and to address the root causes of the crisis.
- Critical health services must be scaled up for nearly 1.3 million people – Rohingyas and their surrounding host communities – in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where vulnerable populations in crowded settlements and ‘mega camps’ are at risk of a host of waterborne diseases, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) warned Tuesday.
- Nearly six months after an outbreak of violence drove almost 700,000 minority Rohingyas from Myanmar to seek safety in Bangladesh, senior United Nations officials on Tuesday said it is time to address the root causes – including decades of repression inside Myanmar – so those who fled feel safe enough to return to their homeland.
- Denouncing the detention of two Supreme Court judges in the Maldives, United Nations human rights experts warned that the independence of the judiciary is under “serious threat” in the country, as is the principle of separation of powers between the State and the courts.
- Denouncing the detention of two Supreme Court judges in the Maldives, United Nations human rights experts warned that the independence of the judiciary is under “serious threat” in the country, as is the principle of separation of powers between the State and the courts.
- United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday highlighted the importance of engagement and empowerment to transform the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into benefits for all people worldwide and called on all sectors of the society to actively involve themselves in this endeavour.