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UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 (APP): Pakistan, in an obvious reference to India, told a UN panel Thursday that a deliberate campaign of hatred in the region was targeting adherents of a particular religious group that led to state-sponsored violence against them and stepped up attacks on their places of worship.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 (APP): Young people “are not invincible”, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stressed, warning of growing evidence that patients with mild coronavirus disease can have long-term health issues. “Evidence suggests that spikes in cases in some countries are being driven in part by younger people letting down their guard during the northern hemisphere summer,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news briefing in Geneva on Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- In response to U.S. President Donald Trump's intention to attend this year's General Assembly General Debate in person, a German diplomat said on Thursday that it makes no sense for world leaders to be physically present given the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We have been looking at developments in the United States on COVID. We have been looking at the situation in New York. And we know what the high-level week means when you have 190 delegations coming into the city," said Christoph Heusgen, Germany's permanent representative to the United Nations.

NEW YORK (AP) — While deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. are mounting rapidly, public health experts are seeing a flicker of good news: The second surge of confirmed cases appears to be leveling off.

Scientists aren’t celebrating by any means, warning that the trend is driven by four big, hard-hit places — Arizona, California, Florida and Texas — and that cases are rising in close to 30 states in all, with the outbreak’s center of gravity seemingly shifting from the Sun Belt toward the Midwest.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 30 (APP): A third of the world’s children are poisoned by lead, a potent neurotoxin that can cause irreparable damage to the brain, according to a new report published by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the and international non-profit organization focused on pollution issues, Pure Earth.  The study warns that “lead poisoning is affecting children on a massive and previously unknown scale.”

UNITED NATIONS, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Wednesday urged the United States to stop politicizing the Syrian humanitarian issue and immediately lift unilateral sanctions against Syria.

China has always adopted a constructive and responsible approach in dealing with the issue of cross-border humanitarian mechanism for Syrians. In fact, it is the United States that should reflect on its actions, said Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations.

NEW YORK, July 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden tied in Georgia, a state that typically votes for Republican nominees in presidential elections, in a poll cited by U.S. media Wednesday.

Trump and Biden each won 47 precent of support, while another 3 percent went to Libertarian Jo Jorgensen, and the remaining 3 percent remained undecided, according to the survey released by Monmouth University.

NEW YORK, Jul 29 (APP): Pakistan’ Prime Minister Imran Khan’s debt relief initiative was designed to provide adequate fiscal space for the developing countries to manage and recover from the grave crisis set off by the coronavirus pandemic, Ambassador Munir Akram said Tuesday, while speaking at a webinar in which noted international experts took part.

UNITED NATIONS, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The prolonged UN-brokered peace talks between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels might fail, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths warned on Tuesday.

"There is a real risk that these negotiations will slip away, and that Yemen will enter a new phase of prolonged escalation, of the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19, and of severe and threatening economic decline," Griffiths told the Security Council in a briefing.

He said he still has hopes, but does not want to "sugarcoat things."

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28 (APP): United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic presented an opportunity to reshape urban areas.

“Cities are bearing the brunt of the crisis, many with strained health systems, inadequate water and sanitation services, and other challenges,” Guterres said in a video message, adding that the crisis had “exposed deeply rooted inequalities.”

“Now is the time to rethink and reshape the urban world … And now is our chance to recover better, by building more resilient, inclusive and sustainable cities.”