U.N. Security Council

Taliban hard-liners, who came to power last August, have turned back the clock in Afghanistan to their harsh rule from 1996 until December 2001.

Russia accused the West of “whipping up tensions” over Ukraine and said the U.S. had brought “pure Nazis” to power in Kyiv as the U.N. Security Council held a stormy debate Monday on Moscow’s troop buildup near its southern neighbor

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Saturday began a long-delayed withdrawal of forces from the port facility in the key city of Hodeida, the group said, following the terms of a December cease-fire aimed at alleviating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the rebels’ Supreme Revolutionary Committee, said the pullout from Hodeida, as well as the two...

Iran appears to have attempted a second satellite launch despite U.S. criticism that its space program helps the country develop ballistic missiles, satellite images released Thursday suggest. Iran did not immediately acknowledge conducting such a launch. Images released by the Colorado-based company DigitalGlobe show a rocket at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Iran’s Semnan province on Tuesday. Images from...

The U.N. system’s chief scientist on weather and climate warned Friday that climate change has “a multitude of security impacts” and is increasingly regarded as a national security threat — with global warming records broken in 20 of the last 22 years. The Maldives’ foreign minister, Abdulla Shahid, told a U.N. Security Council meeting on “the impacts of climate-related disasters...

Iran on Tuesday conducted one of at least two satellite launches it plans despite criticism from the United States, but the satellite failed to reach orbit, an official said. The rocket carrying the Payam satellite failed to reach the “necessary speed” in the third stage of its launch, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said. Jahromi said the rocket had...

Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that nothing prepared her for “the extent and depth of suffering” she saw when she visited camps in Bangladesh for Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled a violent crackdown by Myanmar’s military.

The first aid delivery in weeks to reach the besieged eastern suburbs of Damascus was cut short after Syrian government forces began shelling the area while aid workers were still inside, a local council said Tuesday, amid a renewed escalation in the government’s deadly aerial and ground campaign. Aid trucks had to leave before they could finish unloading supplies on...

Syrian opposition activists and residents of Damascus say the city and its embattled eastern suburbs are relatively calm following the U.N. Security Council’s unanimous approval of a resolution demanding a 30-day cease-fire across Syria. The activists reported few violations, including some clashes, on the southern edge of the rebel-held suburbs, known as eastern Ghouta, and two airstrikes late on Saturday,...

The U.N. Security Council is welcoming talks between the two Koreas saying they can open “possibilities for confidence building and trust building on the Korean peninsula.”
The council expressed hope in a statement that dialogue between North Korea and South Korea will reduce tensions and lead toward denuclearization of the peninsula.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions against North Korea on Friday in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says is capable of reaching anywhere on the U.S. mainland. The resolution adopted by the council includes sharply lower limits on North Korea’s refined oil imports, the return home of all North Koreans working...

The Trump administration said Thursday that Iran is violating United Nations resolutions, revealing what the U.S. said was proof Iran was arming Houthi rebels in Yemen, NBC News reported. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley spoke while standing before parts of a ballistic missile that she said Iran gave to Houthi rebels in Yemen, who then fired it at an...

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday including a ban on coal and other exports totaling more than $1 billion — a huge bite in its total exports, valued at $3 billion last year. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley praised the new sanctions, telling council members after the vote that it is “the single...

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to impose sanctions against eight individuals and businesses linked to the Islamic State extremist group and al-Qaeda in a wide-ranging resolution aimed at stepping up international efforts “to counter terrorism and terrorist financing.” The eight additions to the U.N. sanctions blacklist include ISIS leaders in Southeast Asia, ISIS-affiliated extremist groups in Syria, foreign...

Emmanuel Macron was inaugurated Sunday as France’s new president at the Elysee Palace in Paris, and immediately launched into his mission to shake up French politics, world economics and the European Union. The 39-year-old Macron is the youngest president in the country’s history and the 8th president of France’s Fifth Republic, which was created in 1958. A former economy minister...

A North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch Saturday, South Korea and the United States said, the third test-fire flop just this month but a clear message of defiance as a U.S. supercarrier conducts drills in nearby waters....
North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they’re seen as part of the North’s push...

The U.N. humanitarian chief says the world faces the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945 with more than 20 million people in four countries facing starvation and famine. Stephen O’Brien told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that “without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death” and “many more will suffer and die from disease.”

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney is urging Iraq and the world’s nations not to let the Islamic State extremist group “get away with genocide.” The wife of actor George Clooney, who represents victims of IS rapes and kidnappings, told a U.N. meeting Thursday that what’s “shocking” is not just the group’s brutality but the “passive” response by the world’s nations...

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, with the Japanese and South Korean ambassadors, spoke Wednesday after the U.N. Security Council’s meeting to discuss North Korea’s recent missile launches, warning that “the world needs to be focused on” the issue.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned the latest North Korean missile launches, calling them “a grave violation” of its sanctions resolutions. The United Nations’ most powerful body said it deplored all North Korean ballistic missile activity, which contributes to improving its missile delivery systems and increases tensions in the region and beyond.