About This Source - United Nations
The United Nations (UN) was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future wars. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states.
The UN’s chief administrative officer is the Secretary-General, currently Portuguese politician and diplomat António Guterres, who began his five year-term on 1 January 2017.
Recent from United Nations:
United Nations published this video item, entitled “COVID deaths pass 2 million, Vaccines for Refugees & other topics – Daily Briefing (15 January 2021)” – below is their description.
Noon briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
– Secretary-General/COVID-19
– Senior Personnel Appointments
– Libya
– Lebanon
– Mali
– Cameroon
– Yemen
– Central African Republic
– Ethiopia
– Indonesia
– Bosnia And Herzegovina
– COVID-19 Vaccines For Refugees
SECRETARY-GENERAL/COVID-19
In a video message today, the Secretary-General said that our world has reached a heart-wrenching milestone, with the COVID-19 pandemic having claimed two million lives.
The Secretary-General said that, in the memory of those two million souls, the world must act with far greater solidarity, stressing now is the time.
The United Nations is supporting countries to mobilize the largest global immunization effort in history and we are committed to making sure that vaccines are seen as global public good. This, the Secretary-General said, requires full funding for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and its COVAX facility.
He warned that we are seeing a vaccine vacuum. Vaccines are reaching high income countries quickly, while the world’s poorest have none at all.
While science is succeeding, the Secretary-General said that solidarity is failing.
He said that our world can only get ahead of this virus one way — together, and that global solidarity will save lives, protect people and help defeat this vicious virus.
SENIOR PERSONNEL APPOINTMENTS
Today, the Secretary-General is appointing Nicholas Haysom of South Africa as his Special Representative for South Sudan. He will lead the UN peacekeeping mission there, otherwise known as UNMISS.
He will succeed David Shearer of New Zealand to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his exemplary leadership of the UN Mission during the time of critical developments and challenges for South Sudan.
Currently the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Southern Africa, a position he has held since October of last year, Mr. Haysom is a lawyer with a long international career with a focus on democratic governance, constitutional and electoral reforms, reconciliation and peace processes.
The Secretary-General is also announcing the appointment of Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir of Iceland as his new Deputy Special Representative for Political Affairs and Electoral Assistance in the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI).
Ms. Gísladóttir succeeds Alice Walpole of the United Kingdom, who will complete her assignment at the end of February. The Secretary-General is grateful to Ms. Walpole for her dedicated service since 2017 for the UN in Iraq.
Ms. Gísladóttir brings a wealth of diplomatic and political experience to the position, including from her recent role as the Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and most recently as the Head of its Election Observation Unit.
LIBYA
The UN Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) says there has been significant progress made in the ongoing talks of the Advisory Committee for the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, which is underway in Geneva. The Mission hopes shortly they will be able to narrow down the major differences and reach near consensus on many of the contentious issues concerning the selection mechanism proposals.
Full Highlights: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/noon-briefing-highlight?date%5Bvalue%5D%5Bdate%5D=15%20January%202021
United Nations YouTube Channel
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In This Story: Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa and West Africa.
Cameroon is home to over 250 native languages spoken by nearly 25 million people. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 known as Kamerun. In 1960, the French-administered part of Cameroon became independent. The southern part of British Cameroons federated with it in 1961 to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The federation was abandoned in 1972. The country was renamed the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and the Republic of Cameroon in 1984.
The official languages of Cameroon are French and English. Its religious population consists of 70.7% Christians and 24.4% Muslims. It is governed as a Unitary presidential republic and has good relations with the major powers of France, the United Kingdom and China.
The largest cities in population-terms are Douala on the Wouri River, its economic capital and main seaport, Yaoundé, its political capital, and Garoua.
The country is well known for its successful national football team.
2 Recent Items: Cameroon
In This Story: Central African Republic
The Central African Republic, or Centrafrique, is a landlocked country in Central Africa.
It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest and Cameroon to the west. The CAR covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi) and had an estimated population of around 4.7 million as of 2018.
As of 2020, the CAR is the scene of a civil war, ongoing since 2012.
2 Recent Items: Central African Republic
In This Story: COVID-19
Covid-19 is the official WHO name given to the novel coronavirus which broke out in late 2019 and began to spread in the early months of 2020.
Symptoms of coronavirus
The main symptoms of coronavirus are:
- a persistent new cough (non productive, dry)
- a high temperature (e.g. head feels warm to the touch)
- shortness of breath (if this is abnormal for the individual, or increased)
Latest News about Covid-19
Below are stories from around the globe related to the 2020 outbreak of novel Coronavirus – since the WHO gave the Covid-19 naming. Most recent items are posted nearest the top.
5 Recent Items: COVID-19
In This Story: Ethiopia
3 Recent Items: Ethiopia
In This Story: Iceland
Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, with a population of 356,991 and an area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi), making it the most sparsely populated country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Reykjavík. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, and many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle.
Iceland’ gained independence in 1918 and founded a republic in 1944. Although its parliament (Althing) was suspended from 1799 to 1845, the island republic has been credited with sustaining the world’s oldest and longest-running parliament.
Hit hard by the worldwide financial crisis, the nation’s entire banking system systemically failed in October 2008, leading to an economic crisis and the collapse of the country’s three largest banks. By 2014, the Icelandic economy had made a significant recovery, in large part due to a surge in tourism.
Iceland has the smallest population of any NATO member and is the only one with no standing army, with a lightly armed coast guard.
2 Recent Items: Iceland
In This Story: Indonesia
2 Recent Items: Indonesia
In This Story: Iraq
Iraq has a coastline measuring 58 km (36 miles) on the northern Persian Gulf and encompasses the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain, the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation.
Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of 19 governorates, four of which make up the autonomous Kurdistan Region. Disputes over the sovereignty of Kurdistan Region continue.
Iraq is a founding member of the UN as well as of the Arab League, OIC, Non-Aligned Movement and the IMF.
2 Recent Items: Iraq
In This Story: Lebanon
The official language, Arabic, is the most common language spoken by the citizens of Lebanon. Its capital is Beirut.
Lebanon was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and is a member of the Arab League (1945), the Non-Aligned Movement (1961), Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (1969), and the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (1973).
2 Recent Items: Lebanon
In This Story: Libya
Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, Niger to the southwest, Algeria to the west, and Tunisia to the northwest.
The sovereign state is made of three historical regions: Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya and contains over three million of Libya’s seven million people. The second-largest city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya.
Libya became independent as a kingdom in 1951. A military coup in 1969 overthrew King Idris I. Parts of Libya are currently split between rival Tobruk and Tripoli-based governments, as well as various tribal and Islamist militias.
Libya is a member of the United Nations (since 1955), the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League, the OIC and OPEC. The country’s official religion is Islam, with 96.6% of the Libyan population being Sunni Muslims.
2 Recent Items: Libya
In This Story: Mali
2 Recent Items: Mali
In This Story: New Zealand
