Mexico is joining the fight for gender equality with the #HeForShe campaign. The Mexican Interior Ministry announced their commitment to NosotrosPorEllas campaign at a launch event with UN Women Mexico on February 22. The international initiative encourages men and boys to participate in creating a gender equal world. 

The United States turned to cultural diplomacy on Tuesday to push gay rights at the United Nations by taking 15 U.N. ambassadors, including those from Russia, Gabon and Namibia, to see an award-winning lesbian musical on Broadway.

Over 600 high school and undergraduate students attended the Model United Nations (AUSMUN) conference at the American University of Sharjah last week. The three-day conference, now in its ninth year, allowed student delegates to simulate the various United Nations committees and develop a sound understanding of international relations and diplomacy.

Istanbul is set to host a global meeting focused on humanitarian aid to Somalia, which is scene to persistently high and alarming levels of food insecurity and malnutrition, with an estimated 4.7 million people - nearly 40 per cent of the Somali population - in need of humanitarian assistance.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has managed to send food supplies inside areas under siege in the central Yemeni city of Taiz where residents have been suffering in dire conditions with very little food.

Israel seems to be backing off an effort to appoint settler-advocate Dani Dayan as ambassador to Brazil. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly announced that he was naming Dayan—who has “devoted” much of his life to “expanding the Jewish presence in…disputed historic places across the West Bank”—in a Tweet in early August. 

As research fellow at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Shoshan has focused on the progressive way that the Netherlands contributes to UN peacekeeping missions.  [...] By linking cultural research to architectural research, the Dutch submission to Venice aims to make visible the spatial challenges and opportunities of this complex situation.

The Guardian highlighted UN High Commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres, who recently responded to anti-Muslim and anti-refugee rhetoric pushed by Donald Trump and other conservatives, stating that "[t]hose that reject Syrian refugees, and especially if they are Muslim, are the best allies of the propaganda and the recruitment of extremist groups."