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A family in their tent at the Balukhali makeshift, in Cox's Bazar.

Spring showers took on a whole new meaning Thursday in one of the coldest places on Earth when a plane carrying gold bars lost part of its cargo after taking off from an airport in Russia's eastern Siberia region.

Seven years ago, what began as a peaceful demonstration in the midst of the promise of the so-called Arab Spring quickly became a full-scale civil war in Syria that has left more than 400 000 people dead, more than 11 million displaced and close to 19 million Syrians in need of assistance. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey struggle to cope with the largest exodus in recent history.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday renewed its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan for another year and threatened an arms embargo if fighting continues.

UN Women, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on March 15, called for increased efforts to eradicate gender inequality in nationality laws, which is a key driver of statelessness.

The Assad regime, Russia and Iran must respect the 30-day ceasefire and bear the responsibility for the heinous crimes committed in Syria, MEPs said on Thursday.

Russians are expected to vote Sunday in a presidential election, but disqualified opposition candidate Alexei Navalny told VOA's Russian service that he expected the entire process to be a sham, even down to the European election observers.

The United Nations, through the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund, has allocated US$9 million to provide life-saving aid to some 60,000 children, women and men recently displaced by ongoing hostilities in Borno State, including $2 million in support of the UN Humanitarian Air Service for frontline responders in north-east Nigeria.

This is a war that has been waged almost exclusively against civilians, who have been bombed, gassed, besieged, starved, tortured and displaced, for seven interminable years, in the full gaze of the world. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives have been sacrificed to this senseless conflict.

Tens of thousands of students across the country — many chanting “Enough is Enough” — walked out of their schools Wednesday to protest Congressional failure to directly address gun violence.