The United Nations has released $110 million from an emergency fund to help neglected crises around the world, including Sudan, after donors like the United States ordered major cuts.

Thirty years after world leaders adopted a historic blueprint to achieve gender equality, a new United Nations report says women’s and girls’ rights are under attack and gender discrimination is deeply embedded in economies and societies.

A failure by the executive to appoint commissioners for the Irish language and Ulster-Scots has been criticised by a United Nations (UN) committee. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) also criticised "inadequate funding" for cultural and language rights.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's influential sister said Tuesday that the deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier to South Korea would prompt Pyongyang to bolster its nuclear arsenal and ramp up military provocations.

In response, the U.S. has intensified joint military drills and expressions of support for Seoul, actions that have drawn the ire of Kim's regime. The North accuses Washington and its ally, South Korea, of aggression, claiming such moves justify moving forward with its nuclear ambitions.

Armed men are raping and sexually assaulting children as young as one during Sudan's civil war, says the UN children's agency, Unicef. So traumatised are the survivors that some say they have attempted to end their lives. Mass sexual violence has been widely documented as a weapon of war in the country's nearly two-year conflict.