In an attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, classrooms have been shuttered across the world, causing a record number of students to miss school, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said on Tuesday.

Several heat records have been broken in recent years and decades: the report confirms that 2019 was the second warmest year on record, and 2010-2019 was the warmest decade on record.

Scientists and most governments agree that the world is facing an unprecedented environmental crisis with huge numbers of species on the brink of extinction and global temperatures continuing to rise.

The number of young people around the world who are neither employed, studying or in some kind of training, is on the rise.

Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy $1 trillion in 2020, the UN’s trade and development agency, UNCTAD.

It is nightfall in the village of Char Baghutia in Manikganj district in central Bangladesh.

The global number of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has surpassed 100,000, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Saturday.

In his daily briefing to the press on Friday, World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that supplies of medicine are at risk of disruption due to the epidemic, given that China – the worst hit nation so far – is a major producer of pharmaceutical ingredients.

As the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread globally, the UN’s top human rights official appealed on Friday to put rights “front and centre” when implementing preventative measures.

Generation Equality is focussing on issues facing women across generations.