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UNITED NATIONS, Mar 20 (APP): The President of UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram, has called for urgent action to stop deforestation, saying forest restoration would bring gains for both livelihoods and the environment.

“The world’s forests are fast retreating,” Ambassador Akram warned during a virtual event to commemorate the International Day of Forests, observed annually on 21 March.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A current aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has accused him of ogling her body and subjecting her and a female colleague to a series of unwanted, sexually suggestive remarks, the New York Times reported on Friday.

Alyssa McGrath, 33, became the latest of at least eight women who have publicly alleged sexual misconduct by Cuomo and the first who is currently employed in the office of the third-term governor to do so.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The people of Myanmar have huge expectations from the United Nations and the international community following the Feb. 1 coup, with many calling for sanctions and some urging the U.N. to send peacekeepers to stop the killings of peaceful protesters seeking a return to democracy, the top U.N. official in the country said Friday.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 (APP): Pakistan has joined 161 countries that have co-signed a joint statement underscoring the importance of water amid the coronavirus pandemic in which cleanliness and hygiene are the first defence lines in the absence of a vaccine, particularly in many developing countries.

The cross-regional statement was issued as a high-level meeting deliberated on the “Implementation of the Water-related Goals and Targets of the 2030 Agenda” on Thursday.

NEW YORK, March 19. /TASS/: Donald Trump Jr. has blasted the refusal of US President Joe Biden’s administration to agree to hold a direct conversation as proposed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a sign of weakness of the United States.

"Putin just challenged Joe Biden to an unscripted live debate. The whole world knows that we have no leadership at the top just an empty suit with a teleprompter (and he can’t even get that right). They look at America’s weakness right now and are salivating," he wrote on Twitter.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The Security Council, yesterday, condemned the escalation in Yemen’s Marib governorate and called for a nationwide cease-fire.

In a press statement, members of the Security Council condemned the escalation in Marib, which places one million internally displaced persons at grave risk, and threatens efforts to secure a political settlement, when the international community is increasingly united to end the conflict.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 (APP): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Jean Arnault, a veteran French diplomat, as his personal envoy on Afghanistan and regional issues to help find a solution to the nearly two-decade-old conflict, his spokesman announced Wednesday night.

Arnault, 70, who has over 30 years of experience in international diplomacy, was Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) from 2004 to 2006, where he was also Deputy in 2002-2003.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 (NNN-XINHUA) – The United Nations is ready to facilitate an agreement between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, on the Nile dam, said a spokesman yesterday.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said, the world body has received a letter from the Sudanese Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, on the issue.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has agreed to an Ethiopian request for a joint investigation in the country’s northern Tigray region, where Bachelet says possible war crimes may have been committed.

Fighting between government troops and the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has killed thousands of people and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in the mountainous region of about 5 million.

UNITED NATIONS, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations is grateful for China's pledge to donate 300,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to UN peacekeepers, said a spokesman on Tuesday.

"It's a very generous offer, and we're very thankful for it," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told a press briefing.

China's permanent representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, on Monday notified Guterres of China's intention to donate 300,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to UN peacekeepers, said the Chinese mission.