DENVER — Earth’s protective ozone layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says. A once-every-four-years scientific assessment found recovery in progress, more than 35 years after every nation in the world agreed to...
UN Calls on Humanity to End ‘War on Nature,’ Go Carbon-Free
As an extreme year for hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves comes to an end, the head of the United Nations challenged world leaders to make 2021 the year that humanity ends its “war on nature” and commits to a future free of planet-warming carbon pollution. With new reports highlighting 2020’s...
Iran Strikes Defiant Tone at UN Under Crushing US Sanctions
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivered a defiant and fiery speech Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly as his nation grapples with the Middle East’s worst coronavirus outbreak and a weakened economy, but he insisted that it is the U.S. that will surrender to the resilience...
UN Chief: ‘Epochal’ Crisis as World Powers Meet Remotely
UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the U.N.’s first-ever virtual meeting of global leaders Tuesday that the world is facing an “epochal” health crisis, the biggest economic calamity and job losses since the Great Depression, threats to human rights and worries of a new Cold War between the U.S....
On 75th Anniversary of UN, Its Chief Appeals for Peace
UNITED NATIONS — Born out of World War II’s devastation to prevent the scourge of conflict, the United Nations marked its 75th anniversary Monday with an appeal from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to preserve the longest period in modern history without a military confrontation between the world’s most powerful nations. The...
Outcry in Somalia as New Bill Would Allow Child Marriage
JOHANNESBURG — An outcry is rising in Somalia as parliament considers a bill that would allow child marriage once a girl’s sexual organs mature and would allow forced marriage as long as the family gives their consent. The bill is a dramatic reworking of years of efforts by civil society...
Russia Approves Virus Vaccine as Global Cases Top 20M
ROME — The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide topped 20 million, more than half of them from the United States, India and Brazil, as Russia on Tuesday became the first country to approve a vaccine against the virus. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that one of his two adult daughters had...
AP Interview: US Envoy Calls for Iran Arms Embargo Renewal
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An expiring United Nations weapons embargo on Iran must remain in place to prevent it from “becoming the arms dealer of choice for rogue regimes and terrorist organizations around the world,” the U.S. special representative to Iran said Sunday. Brian Hook told The Associated Press...
UN Begins Home Food Drops for Gaza's Needy to Stem Virus
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A U.N. aid agency Tuesday began delivering food to the homes of impoverished Palestinians instead of making them pick up such parcels at crowded distribution centers — part of an attempt to prevent a mass outbreak of the new coronavirus in the densely populated Gaza...
UN: Thousands Fleeing Syrian Offensive, Kids Dying in Cold
UNITED NATIONS — Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing a Russian-backed Syrian offensive are being squeezed into ever smaller areas near Turkey’s border “under horrendous conditions” in freezing temperatures that are killing babies and young children, the U.N. humanitarian chief said Wednesday. Mark Lowcock told the U.N. Security Council that...