Category: Pacific

António Guterres was addressing the Council of The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the world’s largest regional security body in terms of landmass and population which currently includes China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and new member Iran. The UN has had a cooperation agreement with the Asia-focused SCO since 2010, which also partners with multiple UN agencies. This… Read More

Since then, as international funding has stalled amid skepticism about the Taliban’s return, the UN has been acting as the world’s “eyes and ears” in Afghanistan. After shifting mainly to humanitarian work, UN agencies and partners are finding ways to help the long-suffering population meet basic needs and preserve hard-won development gains.  UN News was recently in the Afghan capital Kabul… Read More

The trainee police officers are part of a network of law enforcement specialists in Thailand, but also across the region, who are cooperating across borders to stem trafficking operations by international crime syndicates. They are collaborating under the border liaison office (BLO) network, supported by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Lt. Colonel Amonrat Wathanakhosit is based at… Read More

“The challenges are many and they are serious”, Amina Mohammed said, highlighting the plight of the planet. “Almost all our indicators on the climate and ecological crises are pointing in the wrong direction.” She praised China’s role in being an innovator and believer in the power of multilateralism to overcome challenges through collection action, pointing out that over half of… Read More

The effort is centred on the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet and from where illicit items including drugs are trafficked to lucrative markets across Southeast Asia. UN News spoke with Jeremy Douglas, the Regional Representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, on a mission to… Read More

“I first started taking drugs when I was 15,” says 49-year-old Prapat Sukkeaw. “I smoked marijuana, but it was laced with heroin. I felt like I was floating, and it meant that I could forget about all the problems that I faced as a teenager. It was a beautiful feeling.” Prapat Sukkeaw is one of an estimated 57,000 people who… Read More

Afghanistan, one of the world’s largest producers of heroin and methamphetamine – most of it smuggled abroad – is home to nearly 4 million drugs users, according to the UN. The worsening crisis has left most of the country’s drug treatment and rehabilitation centers struggling to cope. A walk through what is considered in Kabul to be a ‘gold standard’… Read More

UN Special Representative Roza Otunbayeva was briefing the Security Council on the dire situation facing the country and the international aid effort, with UN women workers among those now prevented by Taliban edicts from working. “We will not put our national staff in danger and therefore we are asking them not to report to the office” she said, adding that the… Read More

Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed similar concerns on the opening day of the Council’s summer session, adding that the de facto authorities had “dismantled the most fundamental principles of human rights, particularly for women and girls”.  In a joint report presented to the Council by the Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan and the Working Group on discrimination… Read More

The agency has been working with village security units in communities in Thailand as part of its border management programme. UNODC says that the supply of synthetic drugs through the region “remains at extreme levels.” UN News spoke to UNODC’s Regional Representative, Jeremy Douglas, and Eakkachai Suphan, a village security volunteer in the village of Sop Ruak in Thailand, which… Read More