Latest United Nations News

UN Security Council rejects Russia-backed resolution on banning weapons in space

May. 21, 2024 01:06 AM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States said Monday that Russia last week launched a satellite that could be part of weaponizing space, a possible future global trend that members of the United Nations Security Council condemned even as they failed to pass a measure against it. The...

Independent UN experts urge Yemen’s Houthis to free detained Baha'i followers

May. 20, 2024 07:07 AM EDT

CAIRO (AP) — Human rights experts working for the United Nations on Monday urged Yemen’s Houthi rebels to release five people from the country’s Baha'i religious minority who have been in detention for a year. The five are among 17 Baha’i followers detained last May when the...

Botanists are scouring the US-Mexico border to document a forgotten ecosystem split by a giant wall

May. 19, 2024 01:45 AM EDT

JACUMÉ, México (AP) — Near the towering border wall flanked by a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle, botanist Sula Vanderplank heard a quail in the scrub yelp “chi-ca-go,” a sound the birds use to signal they are separated from a mate or group. Then silence. A quail on...

Dead or alive? Parents of children gone in Sri Lanka's civil war have spent 15 years seeking answers

May. 18, 2024 15:02 PM EDT

MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka (AP) — For 15 years, Rasalingam Thilakawathi has been trying to find out what happened to her daughter at the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war. Or if she might still be alive. The last evidence she has is a photo from a newspaper that shows her daughter,...

It was once a center of Islamic learning. Now Mali's historic city of Djenné mourns lack of visitors

May. 18, 2024 03:49 AM EDT

DJENNE, Mali (AP) — Kola Bah used to earn a living as a tour guide in Mali's historic city of Djenné, once a center of Islamic learning known for the sprawling mud-brick mosque that has been on the UNESCO World Heritage in Danger list since 2016. The Grand Mosque of Djenné —...

Trucks are rolling across a new US pier into Gaza. But challenges remain to getting enough aid in

May. 17, 2024 21:24 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip rolled across a newly built U.S. pier and into the besieged enclave for the first time Friday as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hindered the delivery of food and other supplies. The...

UN experts say South Sudan is close to securing a $13 billion oil-backed loan from a UAE company

May. 17, 2024 18:41 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. experts say South Sudan is close to securing a $13 billion loan from a company in the United Arab Emirates, despite the oil-rich country’s difficulties in managing debts backed by its oil reserves. The panel of experts said in a report to the U.N....

For the children of Gaza, war means no school — and no indication when formal learning might return

May. 17, 2024 01:11 AM EDT

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — Atef Al-Buhaisi, 6, once dreamed of a career building houses. Now, all he craves is to return to school. In Israel's war with Hamas, Atef's home has been bombed, his teacher killed and his school in Nuseirat turned into a refuge for displaced people. He...

UN resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia sparks opposition from Serbs

May. 16, 2024 22:59 PM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A U.N. resolution sponsored by Germany and Rwanda to establish an annual day to commemorate the 1995 genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs has sparked protests and a strong lobbying campaign against its adoption by Serbia’s president and the Bosnian...

South Africa urges UN's top court to order cease-fire in Gaza to shield citizens in Rafah

May. 16, 2024 21:18 PM EDT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — South Africa urged the United Nations’ top court on Thursday to order a cease-fire in Gaza during hearings over emergency measures to halt Israel’s military operation in the enclave’s southern city of Rafah. It was the third time the...