"On World Autism Awareness Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to promote the full participation of all people with autism, and ensure they have the necessary support to be able to exercise their rights and fundamental freedoms." Secretary-General António Guterres 2018 World Autism Awareness Day observance "Empowering Women and Girls with Autism" Thursday, 5 April 2018 Economic and Social Council Chamber, United Nations Headquarters

The 2018 World Autism Awareness Day observance at United Nations Headquarters New York will focus on the importance of empowering women and girls with autism and involving them and their representative organizations in policy and decision making to address these challenges.

Girls with disabilities are less likely to complete primary school and more likely to be marginalized or denied access to education. Women with disabilities have a lower rate of employment than men with disabilities and women without disabilities. Globally, women are more likely to experience physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence than men, and women and girls with disabilities experience gender-based violence at disproportionately higher rates and in unique forms owing to discrimination and stigma based on both gender and disability. As a result of inaccessibility and stereotyping, women and girls with disabilities are persistently confronted with barriers to sexual and reproductive health services and to information on comprehensive sex education, particularly women and girls with intellectual disabilities including autism.

Through dynamic moderated discussions with experts and advocates, the observance will examine the particular challenges that women and girls with autism face in this context.

Other key issues to be addressed include challenges and opportunities in fully exercising rights in matters relating to marriage, family and parenthood on an equal basis with others, as underscored in Article 23 of the CRPD and in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders at the United Nations in 2015 (SDG 5.6).

“In our turbulent world, mine action is a concrete step towards peace” –- @antonioguterres ahead of Wednesday's Mine Awareness Day. More about #IMAD2018 👉 bit.ly/1hTRqbM

"I urge all Governments to provide political and financial support to enable mine action work to continue, wherever it is needed. In our turbulent world, mine action is a concrete step towards peace."

—— UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

2018 Theme: Advancing Protection, Peace and Development

On 8 December 2005, the General Assembly declared that 4 April of each year shall be observed as the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action.

It called for continued efforts by States, with the assistance of the United Nations and relevant organizations, to foster the establishment and development of national mine-action capacities in countries where mines and explosive remnants of war constitute a serious threat to the safety, health and lives of the civilian population, or an impediment to social and economic development at the national and local levels.

The theme Advancing Protection, Peace, and Development echoes the vision of the Secretary-General and his reforms of the peace and security architecture comprising the entire humanitarian, peace building and sustainable development continuum. For over 20 years, the work of the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) has been driven by the needs of affected people and tailored to the threat of explosive hazards faced by civilians, peacekeepers and humanitarians.

UNMAS works to save lives, to facilitate deployment of UN missions and the delivery of humanitarian assistance, to protect civilians, to support the voluntary return of the internally displaced and refugees, to enable humanitarian and recovery activities and to advocate for international humanitarian and human rights law.

Sport has historically played an important role in all societies, be it in the form of competitive sport, physical activity or play. But one may wonder: what does sport have to do with the United Nations? In fact, sport presents a natural partnership for the United Nations (UN) system.

Sport as a Fundamental Right The right of access to, and participation in, sport and play has long been recognised in a number of international conventions. In 1978, UNESCO described sport and physical education as a "fundamental right for all." But until today, the right to play and sport has too often been ignored or disrespected.

Sport as a Powerful Tool Sport has a unique power to attract, mobilize and inspire. Sport plays a significant role as a promoter of social integration and economic development in different geographical, cultural and political contexts. Sport is a powerful tool to strengthen social ties and networks, and to promote ideals of peace, fraternity, solidarity, non-violence, tolerance and justice.

Sport encourages:

Individual development. Health promotion and disease prevention. The promotion of gender equality. Social integration and the development of social capital. Peace building and conflict prevention/resolution. Post-disaster/trauma relief and normalisation of life. Economic development. Communication and social mobilisation. Sport and Peace Sport as a universal language can be a powerful tool to promote peace, tolerance and understanding by bringing people together across boundaries, cultures and religions. Its intrinsic values such as teamwork, fairness, discipline, respect for the opponent and the rules of the game are understood all over the world and can be harnessed in the advancement of solidarity, social cohesion and peaceful coexistence.

Sport programmes permit encounters on neutral territory and in an environment where aggression can be controlled, regulated and transformed and hence facilitates rapprochement and reconciliation between opposing parties.

Although sport alone cannot stop or solve an acute conflict, it represents a flexible and cost-effective medium for post-conflict relief work and peace building as well as conflict prevention.

Sport and Sustainable Development Sport has proven to be a cost-effective and flexible tool in promoting peace and development objectives. Since the inception of the MDGs in 2000, sport has played a vital role in enhancing each of the eight goals, a fact which has been recognized in numerous Resolutions of the General Assembly. In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sport’s role for social progress is further acknowledged:

"Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. We recognize the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and respect and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and of young people, individuals and communities as well as to health, education and social inclusion objectives." Facebook

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Annual Commemoration

On 26 January 2018, the United Nations General Assembly adopted draft resolution A/72/L.31, designating 7 April as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, recalling that Hutu and others who opposed the genocide were also killed. The new resolution amends the title of the annual observance, which was originally established on 23 December 2003 (A/RES/58/234) as International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.

The date, 7 April, marks the start of the 1994 genocide. Every year, on or around that date, the United Nations organizes commemorative events at its Headquarters in New York and at United Nations offices around the world.

Celebrating the beginning of the space era for mankind The General Assembly, in its resolution A/RES/65/271 of 7 April 2011, declared 12 April as the International Day of Human Space Flight “to celebrate each year at the international level the beginning of the space era for mankind, reaffirming the important contribution of space science and technology in achieving sustainable development goals and increasing the well-being of States and peoples, as well as ensuring the realization of their aspiration to maintain outer space for peaceful purposes.”

12 April 1961 was the date of the first human space flight, carried out by Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet citizen. This historic event opened the way for space exploration for the benefit of all humanity.

The General Assembly expressed its deep conviction of the common interest of mankind in promoting and expanding the exploration and use of outer space, as the province of all mankind, for peaceful purposes and in continuing efforts to extend to all States the benefits derived there from.

Chinese Language Day April 20

Language Days at the United Nations seek to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization. Under the initiative, UN duty stations around the world celebrate six separate days, each dedicated to one of the Organization's six official languages.

The date for the Chinese day was selected from Guyu ("Rain of Millet"), which is the 6th of 24 solar terms in the traditional East Asian calendars, to pay tribute to Cangjie. Cangjie is a very important figure in ancient China, claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes and four pupils, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained millet. From then on, Chinese people celebrate the day Guyu in honour of Cangjie. In the Gregorian calendar, it usually begins around April 20.

Chinese at the UN Chinese was established as an official language of the United Nations in 1946. However, in early years, Chinese was not commonly used in the work of the United Nations. The situation was improved after restoration of the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations in 1971. In 1973, the General Assembly included Chinese as a working language, which was followed by the Security Council in 1974. More and more UN offices and staff members work with Chinese language.

International Mother Earth Day is celebrated to remind each of us that the Earth and its ecosystems provide us with life and sustenance.

It also recognizes a collective responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity.

International Mother Earth Day provides an opportunity to raise public awareness around the world to the challenges regarding the well-being of the planet and all the life it supports.

The theme for 2017 is "Environmental & Climate Literacy".

Education is the foundation for progress. We need to build a global citizenry fluent in the concepts of climate change and aware of its unprecedented threat to our planet. We need to empower everyone with the knowledge to inspire action in defense of environmental protection.

Environmental and climate literacy is the engine not only for creating green voters and advancing environmental and climate laws and policies but also for accelerating green technologies and jobs.

23 April is a symbolic date for world literature. It is on this date in 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors, such as Maurice Druon, Haldor K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

It was a natural choice for UNESCO's General Conference, held in Paris in 1995, to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those, who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity. With this in mind, UNESCO created the World Book and Copyright Day.

World Book Capital for 2018: Athens, Greece Each year, UNESCO and the international organizations representing the three major sectors of the book industry - publishers, booksellers and libraries, select the World Book Capital for a one-year period, effective 23 April each year.

The city of Athens was chosen for the quality of its activities, supported by the entire book industry. The aim is to make books accessible to the city’s entire population, including migrants and refugees.

El 23 de abril se celebra el «Día de la lengua española» en las Naciones Unidas para concienciar al personal de la Organización, y al mundo en general, acerca de la historia, la cultura y el uso del español como idioma oficial.

En 2010, la Organización decidió celebrar su diversidad cultural y multilingüismo a través del establecimiento de los «Días de las lenguas» para sus seis idiomas oficiales. Las fechas se eligieron por su simbolismo o importancia histórica para cada uno de los idiomas.

20 de marzo - Día de la lengua francesa, coincidiendo con el Día Internacional de la Francofonía.

20 de abril - Día de la lengua china, dedicado a Tsan Chieh, creador de la escritura china.

23 de abril - Día de la lengua inglesa, que coincide con el aniversario de la muerte de William Shakespeare, el más célebre dramaturgo y poeta de la literatura inglesa.

23 de abril - Día del idioma español, fecha en que se conmemora la muerte del gran genio de las letras españolas, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

6 de junio - Día de la lengua rusa, en el aniversario del nacimiento de Alexander Pushkin, fundador de la literatura rusa moderna.

18 de diciembre - Día de la lengua árabe, que conmemora la aprobación en 1973 del árabe como idioma oficial y de trabajo de la Asamblea General y sus Comisiones Principales.

Se anima a las sedes y las oficinas de las Naciones Unidas repartidas por todo el mundo a que celebren los Días de las Lenguas y organicen actos culturales que muestren la importancia del multilingüismo y la riqueza de cada una de estas lenguas a través de la música, el arte, la poesía, la gastronomía, el teatro y el cine.

Secretaría de las Naciones Unidas Secretaría de las Naciones Unidas

La humanidad entrará en el tercer milenio bajo el imperio de las palabras [...] La lengua española tiene que prepararse para un oficio grande en ese porvenir sin fronteras. Es un derecho histórico. No por su prepotencia económica, como otras lenguas hasta hoy, sino por su vitalidad, su dinámica creativa, su vasta experiencia cultural, su rapidez y su fuerza de expansión....

• Gabriel García Márquez - ¿Para qué sirven los Días Internacionales?

Si quieres ayudar, dona

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." — William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"

English, along with French, is one of the two working languages of the United Nations Secretariat, and one of the Organization's six official languages.

Because it is so widely spoken, English is often referred to as a "world language", or the lingua franca of the modern era.

Language Days at the UN

English Language Day at the UN is celebrated on 23 April, the date traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare. The Day is the result of a 2010 initiative by the Department of Public Information, establishing language days for each of the Organization's six official languages. The purpose of the UN's language days is to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity as well as to promote equal use of all six official languages throughout the Organization.

Under the initiative, UN duty stations around the world celebrate six separate days, each dedicated to one of the Organization's six official languages.

The days are as follows: Arabic (18 December) Chinese (20 April) English (23 April) French (20 March) Russian (6 June) Spanish (23 April)

Language Days at the UN aim to entertain as well as inform, with the goal of increasing awareness and respect for the history, culture and achievements of each of the six working languages among the UN community.

An explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 spread a radioactive cloud over large parts of the Soviet Union, now the territories of Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Nearly 8.4 million people in the three countries were exposed to the radiation.

The Soviet Government acknowledged the need for international assistance only in 1990. That same year the General Assembly adopted resolution 45/190, calling for “international cooperation to address and mitigate the consequences at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.” That was the start of the United Nations' involvement in the Chernobyl recovery. An Inter-Agency Task Force was established to coordinate the Chernobyl co-operation. In 1991 the UN created the Chernobyl Trust Fund - currently under the management of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Since 1986, the UN family of organizations and major NGOs have launched more than 230 different research and assistance projects in the fields of health, nuclear safety, rehabilitation, environment, production of clean foods and information.

In 2002 the United Nations announced a shift in the Chernobyl strategy, with a new focus on a long-term developmental approach. UNDP and its regional offices in the three affected countries took the lead in the implementation of the new strategy. There is still a great deal of work that needs to be done in the affected region. To provide support to international, national and public programmes targeted at the sustainable development of these territories, in 2009 UN launched the International Chernobyl Research and Information Network (ICRIN).

On 8 December 2016 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution designating 26 April as International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day. The General Assembly recognized that, “three decades after the Chernobyl disaster, the still-persistent serious long-term consequences thereof, as well as the continuing related needs of the affected communities and territories,” and invited “all Member States, relevant agencies of the United Nations system and other international organizations, as well as civil society, to observe the day.”