UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 12  — The 9th African Union-United Nations annual conference will take place at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, announced Tuesday.

The high-level meeting will be co-chaired by Chairperson of the AU Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Haq said at a daily briefing.

The meeting will focus on progress in the implementation of cooperation frameworks between the two organizations, as well as on the joint action and challenges linked to peace, security, development, human rights and climate action, he said.

The annual conference will conclude with a joint press conference by the UN secretary-general and the chairperson of the AU Commission, Haq stated.

The first AU-UN annual conference was held in New York in April 2017, during which the two organizations signed a joint framework for an enhanced partnership in peace and security. (Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 12 — The situation in Sudan’s North Darfur state remains volatile following the Rapid Support Forces’ takeover of El Fasher on Oct. 26, UN humanitarians said Tuesday.

While major clashes have subsided, sporadic fighting and drone activity continue, leaving civilians vulnerable to looting, forced recruitment and gender-based violence, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

“Nearly 89,000 people have fled El Fasher and surrounding areas since late October, with many arriving in the locality of Tawila after walking for days under threat of violence,” OCHA said.

It added that the United Nations, together with local partners and international non-governmental organizations, is providing them with food, water, sanitation, health care and psychosocial support, though needs continue to outpace resources.

The office said that UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher arrived on Tuesday in Port Sudan, in the country’s far northeast, where he met with authorities, humanitarian partners and the diplomatic community.

Fletcher plans to press for stopping the atrocities in the Kordofan and Darfur regions, and will also work to back the peace efforts, uphold the UN Charter and push for humanitarian teams to get the access and funding needed to save lives across battle lines.

Humanitarian partners reported that more than 12,000 people have sought refuge in the eastern White Nile state since late October, an average of 700 people each day, OCHA said.

Displaced families face severe shortages of food, shelter and water, while host communities are overstretched trying to accommodate the new arrivals, it noted.

OCHA reiterated that civilians must be protected and that aid workers must be granted safe and sustained access to deliver assistance across the front lines. (Xinhua)

BRASILIA, Nov. 12 — Cities, businesses and civil society are playing a central role in implementing strategies to mitigate climate change, according to a UN report released Tuesday at the 30th United Nations climate change conference (COP30) being held in the Brazilian Amazon.

The 2025 Yearbook of Global Climate Action, presented in COP30’s host city Belem, finds that these non-state actors, or “non-Party stakeholders,” are essential in advancing global efforts to curb global warming.

The report offers an overview of global climate action and highlights both the progress and challenges in the 10 years since the landmark Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015.

This year’s edition “demonstrates that the Global Climate Action Agenda has matured from a platform for mobilization into an instrument for implementation,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in the foreword.

“It provides evidence that systems transformation is underway, and highlights where momentum must now accelerate,” he added.

At the opening ceremony of COP30, Stiell stressed that the implementation of the Paris Agreement has made real progress, noting that for the first time, the curve of emissions that raise the planet’s temperature is decreasing.

The yearbook, published by the UNFCCC, shows that the number of individual actors involved in climate action, as registered on the Global Climate Action Portal, has more than doubled from 18,000 in 2020 to over 43,000 in 2025.

The number of registered climate initiatives has also grown from 149 to 243 during the same period, demonstrating a growing global commitment to climate action.

The document says progress is visible in all areas, notably in renewable energy capacity and forest financing. The data also shows greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practice are decreasing and that disaster mortality rates have fallen.

However, the UNFCCC noted that significant challenges remain, including insufficient investment, worsening deforestation and increased emissions in the construction sector, calling for greater collective efforts to close these gaps. (Xinhua)

TRIPOLI, Nov. 11 — The coast guard unit in the western Libyan city of Zuwara, 120 km west of Tripoli, announced on Tuesday that the Zuwara fishing port and the Abu Kammash area were hit by new airstrikes on Monday evening.

In a brief statement posted on its official Facebook page, the unit said the strikes targeted sites in the port and the nearby coastal area, offering no further details.

The development comes days after the Ministry of Defense of the Government of National Unity announced that it had carried out airstrikes against sites allegedly used for “smuggling activities” in northwestern Libya, including ports in Zuwara.

Zuwara is home to one of Libya’s most active fishing ports, which has often been accused by authorities in Tripoli of being used for fuel and human smuggling. (Xinhua)

MOSCOW, Nov. 11 — The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday it had thwarted a Ukrainian-British plan to hijack a Russian MiG-31 fighter jet equipped with the Kinzhal missile system.

The FSB press office said that the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and “its British handlers” attempted to recruit Russian pilots with an offer of 3 million U.S. dollars to fly the MiG-31 to a NATO base in Constanta, Romania.

The airbase is NATO’s largest one in southeastern Europe, where the aircraft could be shot down by air defense systems, although the pilots were promised citizenship of a Western country, it said.

“As a response to the provocation, on November 9-10 of this year, the Russian Aerospace Forces struck, using hypersonic ‘Kinzhal’ missiles, the main electronic intelligence center of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry in the city of Brovary, the Kiev region, and the Starokonstantinov airfield in the Khmelnytskyi region, where the so-called F-16s are deployed,” the FSB said in a statement.

Dmitry Belik, a Russian State Duma deputy from Sevastopol and a member of the Committee on International Affairs, told the RIA Novosti news agency that Ukraine’s hijack attempt is evidence of its intention to drag NATO into an open military conflict with Russia. (Xinhua)