UN member states have adopted the UN's controversial migration compact at a conference in Morocco. A number of countries have refused to sign the nonbinding accord, among them the US.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have not met in UN-sponsored talks since 2016. The meeting will focus on building confidence between the two parties.

In a bid to eliminate violence against women and girls globally, the UN and the WHO have called for a scrap of virginity test. Virginity testing is a long-standing tradition that has been documented in at least 20 countries spanning all regions of the world.

The pledge comes ahead of a major UN climate conference. Donations to the UN Green Climate Fund are only a fraction of the $100 billion annual goal countries had pledged to reach by 2020.

The UN has called on the Syrian government to provide information about thousands of detained and missing people. "Now is the moment" to provide the information, not after the war ends, a UN official said.

The UN's cultural agency said reggae music has contributed to "international discourse on issues" such as injustice and resistance. Kingston has described the music tradition as "uniquely Jamaican."

According to the UN, Lebanon is hosting more than a million Syrian refugees. Many are young people who fled the war before finishing their education. The German charity Kiron hopes to help them by providing them with opportunities to learn online.

Children represent an unusually high proportion of people affected by the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN children's agency, UNICEF has said.

The UN Human Rights Office is concerned about a spike in inter-communal violence in Mali which has led to serious human rights abuses by militia groups

Winners of essay competition were rewarded with cash prizes at an annual memorial lecture for late Babatunde Osotimehin. The overall winner went home with N500,000 and first and second runners-up got N300,000 and N200,000 respectively.

A first-ever UN human rights report on Kashmir calls for international inquiry into multiple violations. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein on "a conflict that has robbed millions of their basic human rights, and continues to this day to inflict untold suffering."

French judge Catherine Marchi-Uhel is the head of the UN entity investigating serious crimes in Syria, the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM). As the panel presents its first report to the UN General Assembly, Marchi-Uhel granted an interview to FRANCE 24 in New York. She explained the panel's working methods and expressed hope that crimes committed during Syria's war will one day be referred to the International Criminal Court, or to an ad hoc tribunal.