The U.N. Security Council urged Sudan's warring parties on Friday to immediately halt hostilities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and allow aid to get to 25 million people in desperate need of food and other assistance. Ramadan is expected to begin on or around Monday, depending on the sighting of the crescent moon. The 15-member council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the British-drafted resolution, with 14 countries in support and only Russia abstaining. Sudan plunged into chaos in April, when long-simmering tensions between its military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo broke out into street battles in the capital, Khartoum. Fighting spread to other parts of the country, especially urban areas, but in Sudan's western Darfur region it took on a different form, with brutal attacks by the Arab-dominated Rapid Support Forces on ethnic African civilians. Thousands of people have been killed. U.N.
The Security Council is already set to discuss nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation in a meeting on March 18
Nine members of the United Nations Security Council condemned indiscriminate airstrikes by Myanmar's military against civilians before an envoy briefed the council Monday as part of regional efforts to implement a peace plan that has so far been largely ineffective. The plan, adopted in April 2021 shortly after the military seized power in a takeover that sparked a civil war, calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by a special envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties. Veteran diplomat Alounkeo Kittikhoun the special envoy to Myanmar from this year's ASEAN chair, Laos, and a former U.N. ambassador addressed a closed council meeting on behalf of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Kittikhoun committed to implementing ASEAN's five-point consensus for peace in
In a pivotal development, the International Court of Justice is set to deliver its highly awaited verdict on January 26 in response to South Africa's plea for an interim ruling against Israel
The remarks by Tesla CEO came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres raised concerns about the absence of any African nation from the list of permanent members of the UNSC
A spokesman for Yemen's Houthis said there was no justification for the US-British attack and said the Iran-backed group will continue targeting ships heading towards Israel
The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution Wednesday condemning and demanding an immediate halt to attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea area. The resolution, sponsored by the United States and Japan, says at least two dozen Houthi attacks are impeding global commerce and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security. The vote was 11-0 with four abstentions Russia, China, Algeria and Mozambique. Immediately before the vote, the council rejected three proposed Russian amendments. The Iranian-backed Houthis, who have been engaged in a civil war with Yemen's internationally recognized government since 2014, have said they launched the attacks with the aim of ending Israel's devastating air-and-ground offensive in the Gaza Strip. It was triggered by the Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct. 7 surprise attack in southern Israel which killed about 1,200 people and led to some 250 others being taken ...
The 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed is in the custody of Pakistan and serving a 78-year imprisonment sentence, the United Nations said in updated information
The resolution shows that the UNSC supports a "process by which Afghanistan is integrated into the international community only by meeting its international obligations," Miller said
The resolution calls for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and for a sustainable cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip
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The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday again delayed a vote on a new resolution about desperately needed aid to Gaza until the following day as the Biden administration struggles to change key wording in high-level negotiations seeking to avoid a U.S. veto. The United States seeks to change the text's references to a cessation of hostilities in the Israel-Hamas war, and the part about putting the United Nations in charge of inspecting trucks to ensure they are actually carrying humanitarian goods, which Israel opposes. Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, which sponsored the Arab-backed resolution, said very high-level discussions are taking place to try to reach agreement on a text that can be adopted. Everyone wants to see a resolution that has impact and that is implementable on the ground, she told reporters after the 15 council members held closed consultations. We believe today, giving a little bit of space for additional diplomacy, could yield positive ...
The Security Council's adoption of a new UN resolution to spur desperately needed aid to Gaza has been bogged down by two issues important to the United States: a reference to a cessation of hostilities and putting the UN in charge of inspecting trucks to ensure they are actually carrying humanitarian goods. A vote on the Arab-sponsored resolution, first postponed from Monday, was pushed back again until Wednesday as council members continued intense negotiations to avoid another veto by the United States. We're still working through the modalities of the resolution, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday afternoon when the vote was still set for 5 p.m. It's important for us that the rest of the world understand what's at stake here and what Hamas did on the 7th of October and how Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats. It was cancelled as the US asked for more time and is now scheduled to take place after an open council briefing follow
UN Security Council members were in intense negotiations Tuesday on an Arab-sponsored resolution to spur desperately needed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza during some kind of a halt in the fighting, trying to avoid another veto by the United States. US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told reporters Tuesday morning that negotiations were still underway. Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the 15-member council, said she hoped the council could vote on a resolution early Tuesday afternoon. The council had scheduled a vote late Monday afternoon, but it was postponed to try to get the US to support the resolution or abstain. The US vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by almost all other council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. The 193-member General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a similar resolution on Dec 12 by a vote of 153-10, with 23 abstentions. The draft resoluti
The UN Security Council delayed until Tuesday morning a vote on an Arab-sponsored resolution calling for a halt to hostilities in Gaza to allow for urgently needed aid deliveries to a massive number of civilians as members intensified negotiations to try to avoid another veto by the United States. The council said Monday's 5 p.m. EST vote would not take place, and diplomats said negotiations were taking place to get the United States, Israel's closest ally, to abstain or vote yes on the resolution. A key issue is how to implement and sustain a desperately needed aid operation. Human Rights Watch accused Israel earlier Monday of deliberately starving Gaza's population by blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, a method of warfare that it described as a war crime. The United Nations' food agency reported on December 14 that 56 per cent of Gaza's households were experiencing severe levels of hunger, up from 38 per cent two weeks earlier. The draft on the table on Monday morning
The UNSC members, in a meeting on Thursday, approved Resolution 2716, requesting the Sanctions Monitoring Team to support the committee established by Resolution 1988
In a scathing criticism, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj has said the UN Security Council of yesterday is always late today and questioned whether 1945's security plumbing will work in the year 2023. If the trillion dollar question is to ensure peace, do we have a peace infrastructure representative of the current times and contemporary realities? Kamboj asked. Speaking at the Security Council open debate on Threats to International Peace and Security: Transnational Organised Crime, Growing Challenges, and New Threats' on Thursday, Kamboj questioned whether 2023 is the new 1945, referring to the year when the powerful UN body came into existence. Will 1945's security plumbing work today? The UNSC of yesterday is always late today! she said. India, the world's most populous country, has been at the forefront of the years-long efforts to reform the Security Council, saying it rightly deserves a place as a permanent member at the UN high table, whi
The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency closed meeting Friday at the request of Guyana following Venezuela's weekend referendum claiming the vast oil- and mineral-rich Essequibo region that makes up a large part of its neighbor. In a letter to the council president, Guyana's foreign minister, Hugh Hilton Todd, accused Venezuela of violating the UN Charter by attempting to take its territory. The letter recounted the arbitration between then-British Guiana and Venezuela in 1899 and the formal demarcation of their border in a 1905 agreement. For over 60 years, he said, Venezuela accepted the boundary, but in 1962 it challenged the 1899 arbitration that set the border. The diplomatic fight over the Essequibo region has flared since then, but it intensified in 2015 after ExxonMobil announced it had found vast amounts of oil off its coast. The dispute escalated as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held a referendum Sunday in which Venezuelans approved his claim of sovereignty o
Financial sanctions against entities named by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for their links to terrorism and terror financing should be imposed "without delay" and within 24 hours under the UAPA and a law against use of weapons of mass destruction, the government has directed regulatory and probe agencies. The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the federal agency tasked to detect money laundering and black money in the country's economic channels, has been made the nodal agency for identifying, notifying and initiating legal action against such entities under section 12A of The Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005, also known as the WMD Act. India, as per official records, enacted the law as per its commitment to the country specific efforts under UNSC resolution 1718 (2006) and 2231 (2015), and their successor resolutions, as mandated under section 2 of United Nations (Security Council) Act, 1947. The ...
India has said it shares the collective angst of countries of the Global South that they have no voice at the UN Security Council high-table on core issues concerning them, as it joined nations in stressing that a representative UNSC is required to deal with the proliferation of global crises. Several aspects of the United Nations system urgently require reform. Among these, the reform of the UN Security Council was identified as a critical and immediate priority, India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj said. "In spite of that collective call, we have had no results to show so far. Why? Kamboj asked. Addressing the annual UN General Assembly Plenary Thursday on Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council', Kamboj said "as a member of the Global South, we share its collective angst that on issues of core concern to the South, we have no voice at the high table. She noted that 164 member states have joine