Middle East

The Food and Agriculture Organization said it is working to bolster the global response to the Fall Armyworm, considered one of the top 10 devastating plant pests, which places at risk up to 80 million metric tons of maize worth $18 billion per year in Africa, Asia and the Near East.

The United Nations official on Middle East peace updated the Security Council today on developments in the region, highlighting continued violence, including against civilians and children, as well as Israel’s ongoing settlement-related activity in the occupied West Bank.

A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that if greenhouse gas emissions are not drastically reduced, all of the world’s coral reefs will bleach by the end of the century, and calls for even more urgent action to limit ocean temperature rise.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Tor Wennesland of Norway as his new Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority.

The Security Council, acting through its temporary silence procedure today amid the ongoing COVID‑19 pandemic, decided to renew for six months the mandate of its long‑standing disengagement mission in the Golan Heights.

The 2020 International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East concluded today, with a vibrant online panel discussion exploring how trends in the systematic spread of untruths have changed the way traditional news outlets cover the Israel-Palestine conflict, and created avenues for citizen journalists to quickly push out stories to express their lived realities.

Journalists, media experts, policymakers and scholars within academic and faith communities in Palestine, Israel and elsewhere gathered for the opening of the twenty‑seventh annual International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East today, held for the first time in virtual format, amid the ongoing COVID‑19 pandemic.

The annual United Nations International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East will be held virtually on Tuesday, 8 December, from 10 a.m. to 11:45 a.m.EST, and Wednesday, 9 December from 10:30 a.m. to noon EST.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) today launched its largest ever humanitarian appeal, $818 million, to fund critical assistance for 54 million women, girls and young people in 68 countries, including for sexual and reproductive health care as well as services to prevent gender-based violence.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said carbon dioxide continues to be at record highs, despite COVID-19 lockdowns around the world.  According to the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, carbon dioxide levels saw a growth spurt in 2019 and the annual global average breached the significant threshold of 410 parts per million.