UN News Today 22 September 2026 |

Guterres urges respect for international law 

In his final address as UN chief to the General Assembly on Tuesday, António Guterres urged the world’s nations to work together to resolve multiple challenges, from wars to AI.

At the end of nearly 10 years at the helm of the United Nations, Mr. Guterres described a decade where international law had been “cast aside”. 

Trust between nations has frayed and global insecurity risks are on the rise amid increasing transactional politics, he said:

“In many respects, that is the trajectory we are on today. But there is another path. A path towards networked multipolarity. A world built on interdependence – and sustained by a dense web of economic, political, social and technological connections.”

Mr. Guterres renewed his calls for compliance with International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders on Gaza. 

These call on Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide, to punish public incitement to genocide and immediately ensure the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian aid to the devastated enclave.

The UN chief also reiterated that settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank threatens to extinguish the two-State solution, before condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a clear violation of the UN Charter.

Renewing longstanding calls for Security Council reform, Mr. Guterres said to applause that the continued absence of permanent African representation was “unjust and indefensible”.

Displacement still rising in Yemen as fighting continues 

Hostilities continue to worsen in Yemen linked to the US-Iran war and more people have been fleeing their homes, further intensifying the humanitarian crisis within the region.

That’s the latest from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) which said that fighting in Yemen “is expanding across multiple frontlines”, driving more than 130,000 people to flee their homes since the beginning of September.

Here’s UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch speaking in Geneva:

“Taiz remains the epicentre of the crisis, accounting for more than 60 per cent of overall displacement, with many families remaining within the governorate itself, unable to move to safer locations due to fighting, blocked roads or lack of transportation fuel.”

The humanitarian emergency follows the Iran-backed Houthi fighters’ rapid advance down Yemen’s western coast to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in recent weeks, in clashes with Saudi-backed Yemeni Government forces. 

Displacement is also being reported from Al Jawf, Marib and Hudaydah governorates. 

According to UNHCR, the vast majority of those displaced are women and children, and many have already been forced to flee several times.

Nicaragua: democracy ‘dismantled’, political opponents disappeared

To Nicaragua, where Human Rights Council-appointed independent investigators insisted on Tuesday that democracy has been “dismantled” while political opponents have been detained and died in State custody.

In a new report, the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua highlight more than 150 cases of enforced disappearances since 2018, including almost 30 people still missing today. 

Enforced disappearances have been weaponized to crush dissent and control the population, said lead investigator, Jan-Michael Simon.

Speaking in Geneva, he noted that two months ago, Nicaragua’s Co-President Daniel Ortega announced the end of competitive elections…

“The announcement was not the story; the story was that the foundations of democratic governance had already been dismantled. This should have been the headlines.”

The report by the independent experts details “disastrous” detention conditions, a lack of health care and the vulnerability of many victims held arbitrarily. 

They included Brooklyn Riviera, who fought for the collective rights of indigenous communities in Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast until the authorities “came for him”, detaining him until his death in May this year, said independent expert Reed Brody. 

Daniel Johnson, UN News