United Nations

Israeli soldiers move on the top of a tank near the Israeli-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, March 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

US calls for vote Friday on UN resolution declaring that immediate Gaza cease-fire is `imperative’

The United States is calling for a vote Friday on a newly revised and tougher U.N. resolution declaring that “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war is “imperative” to protect civilians and enable humanitarian aid to be delivered to more than 2 million hungry Palestinians.

FILE - U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on maintenance of international peace and security nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, Monday, March 18, 2024, at U.N. headquarters. The General Assembly is set to vote Thursday, March 21, on what would be the first U.N. resolution on artificial intelligence. Thomas-Greenfield told The Associated Press last week that the resolution “aims to build international consensus on a shared approach to the design, development, deployment and use of AI systems,” particularly to support the 2030 U.N. goals. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)

The UN adopts a resolution backing efforts to ensure artificial intelligence is safe

Tom Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, speaks about the situation of human rights in Myanmar, during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)

As Myanmar’s army faces setbacks, it is stepping up attacks on civilians, a UN expert warns

A woman who scavenges recyclable materials for a living, center, walks past Marabou storks feeding on a mountain of garage amidst smoke from burning trash at Dandora, the largest garbage dump in the capital Nairobi, Kenya Wednesday, March 20, 2024. U.N. agencies have warned that electrical and electronic waste is piling up worldwide while recycling rates continue to remain low and are likely to fall even further. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

E-waste from trashed electric devices is piling up and recycling isn’t keeping pace, UN says

Celeste Saulo, World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General, speaks about the state of Global Climate 2023, during a press conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 19, 2024. The U.N. weather agency is sounding a “red alert” about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice, and warning that the world's efforts to reverse the trend have been inadequate. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)

UN weather agency issues ‘red alert’ on climate change after record heat, ice-melt increases in 2023

Overcrowded camps in Chad running out of aid as Sudanese refugees keep coming

Overcrowded refugee camps in eastern Chad are set to run out of aid, exacerbating a dire humanitarian crisis caused by the spillover from the war in Sudan, according to the United Nations. (AP video: Jsarh Ngarndey Ulrich)

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Aid trucks enter northern Gaza directly from Israel

UN adopts resolution to ensure AI is safe

E-waste from trashed electric devices is piling up

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Destroyed buildings stand in the Gaza Strip as seen from southern Israel, Monday, March 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israel urges UN court to reject South Africa’s request for more emergency orders in genocide case

Israel is urging the top United Nations court to reject the latest request by South Africa for interim orders to prevent starvation in Gaza.

FILE - Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 22, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. Wong said Friday, March 15, 2024, that Australia will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, weeks after the agency, known as UNRWA, lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support following Israeli allegations that some of its Gaza-based staff participated in the Oct. 7 attack. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

Australia resumes funding for UNRWA and pledges more Gaza aid

Australia says it will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians. Several weeks ago, the agency lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support because of Israeli allegations that some of its Gaza-based staff participated in the Oct. 7 attack.

FILE - This black-and-white image released by the U.S. military's Central Command shows the fire aboard the bulk carrier True Confidence after a missile attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. The longer the war in Gaza goes on and Yemen’s Houthi rebels keep attacking ships in the Red Sea the greater the risk that Yemen could be propelled back into war, the U.N. special envoy for the poorest Arab nation warned Thursday, March 14, 2024. (U.S. Central Command via AP, File)

UN envoy warns Gaza war and Red Sea attacks by Houthi rebels risk propelling Yemen back into war

The longer the war in Gaza goes on and Yemen’s Houthi rebels keep attacking ships in the Red Sea the greater the risk that Yemen could be propelled back into war, the U.N. special envoy for the Arab world’s poorest country is warning.

National Police patrol the area near the empty National Penitentiary after a small fire inside the jail in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Haiti, Thursday, March 14, 2024. This is the same prison that armed gangs stormed late March 2 and hundreds of inmates escaped. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

A plan to find new leadership for Haiti is moving forward, Caribbean officials say

Caribbean officials say a plan to create a transitional presidential council is moving forward after a majority of Haitian parties and coalitions submitted the names of those charged with finding new leaders for the country.

FILE - Nunay Mohamed, 25, who fled the drought-stricken Lower Shabelle area, holds her one-year old malnourished child at a makeshift camp for the displaced on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia on June 30, 2022. A U.N. report says many countries are bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the poorest are not and a significant number are seeing conditions in their country deteriorating. But it says development in half of the world’s poorest countries remains below 2019 pre-pandemic levels. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File)

Many countries are bouncing back from the pandemic but the poorest are not, UN says

A U.N. report says many countries are bouncing back from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the poorest are not and a significant number are seeing their conditions deteriorate.

People displaced by the ongoing fighting between Congolese forces and M23 rebels gather in a camp on the outskirts of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Wednesday, March 13, 2024, as OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) head and representative Ramesh Rajasingham, carries out a working visit to the region. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

Congo faces unprecedented crisis as violence displaces 250,000 in the last month, a UN official says

A senior United Nations official says intensifying violence in Congo’s eastern region has pushed a humanitarian crisis in the region to “unprecedented” levels.

A woman cooks at shelter for families displaced by gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday, March 8, 2024. The violence as anti-government gangs battle police in the streets has crippled Haiti’s economy and made it extremely difficult for many of the country's most vulnerable to feed themselves.(AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

4 million people face ‘acute food insecurity’ in troubled Haiti, says UN food agency official

The U.N. food agency’s director in Haiti says that 4 million people face “acute food insecurity” and one million of them are one step away from famine.

FILE - The symbol of the United Nations is displayed on the main gate outside UN headquarters, Feb. 24, 2022, in New York. The United States is spearheading the first United Nations resolution on artificial intelligence, aimed at ensuring the new technology is “safe, secure and trustworthy” and that all countries, especially those in the developing world, have equal access. The draft General Assembly resolution aims to close the digital divide between countries and make sure they are all at the table in discussions on AI. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, file)

US spearheads first UN resolution on artificial intelligence — aimed at ensuring equal access

The United States is spearheading the first United Nations resolution on artificial intelligence, aimed at ensuring the new technology is “safe, secure and trustworthy” and that all countries, especially those in the developing world, have equal access.

Pramila Patten, right, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, addresses a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the war in Gaza, Monday, March 11, 2024, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

UN envoy: Finding that some hostages were victims of sexual violence doesn’t justify Israeli attacks

The U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict is warning Israel that the finding of “clear and convincing information” that some hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel were subjected to sexual violence “does not in any way legitimize further hostilities.”

FILE - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 19, 2023. The U.N.’s preeminent global body promoting equality for women and girls opened its annual meeting Monday, March 11, 2024, with five male speakers in a row...a lineup that made some of the men uneasy and left the hundreds of women in packed General Assembly chamber somewhat baffled. Guterres, the second speaker, told the meeting that women and girls are suffering most “from wars waged by men,” singling out Gaza. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

A meeting of the UN body promoting equality for women starts with 5 male speakers

The U.N.’s preeminent body promoting equality for women and girls has opened its annual meeting with five male speakers in a row.

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)

UN-backed commission says 30,000 children are suffering rights abuses in northeastern Syria

A U.N.-backed commission says five years after the Islamic State group lost the last sliver of land it once controlled in Syria, nearly 30,000 children of militants and their supporters from various nationalities are suffering abuses in camps, prisons and rehabilitation centers in the war-torn count

FILE - Jimmy Cherizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue who now runs a gang federation, walks hand in hand with children as he visits La Saline district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 24, 2023. Internationally, Cherizier is known as Haiti's most powerful and feared gang leader, sanctioned by the United Nations for "serious human rights abuses," and the man behind a fuel blockade that brought the Caribbean nation to its knees in late 2022. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph, File)

Why is Haiti so chaotic? Leaders used street gangs to gain power. Then the gangs got stronger

It’s easy to blame the latest spasm of violence in Haiti on longstanding poverty, the legacy of colonialism, and European and U.S. interference with the West’s first free Black republic.

United States Air Force drops humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, on Saturday, March 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Essa)

Another top donor says it will resume funding the UN agency for Palestinians as Gaza hunger grows

Another top donor to the U.N. agency aiding Palestinians says it will resume its funding. Sweden’s decision on Saturday comes weeks after more than a dozen countries halted hundreds of millions of dollars in response to Israeli allegations against the organization.

FILE - A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on May 23, 2023. Human Rights Watch said Monday, Feb. 12, 2024 that Afghanistan’s public health system has been hit hard following a sharp reduction in foreign assistance, coupled with serious Taliban abuses against women and girls, jeopardizing the right to healthcare of millions of Afghans. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

UN chief: Legal equality for women could take 300 years as backlash rises against women’s rights

The United Nations chief says legal equality for women could take centuries as the fight for gender equality has become an uphill struggle against rank discrimination and gross human human rights abuses.

UNICEF: 230 million females are circumcised globally, 30 million more than in 2016

Over 230 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation, most of whom live in Africa, according to a report issued on Friday by the United Nations children’s agency.

FILE - A woman holds a placard with a picture of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini during a protest against her death, in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 28, 2022. Iran is responsible for the "physical violence" that led to the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 and sparked nationwide protests against the country's mandatory headscarf, or hijab, laws and its ruling theocracy, a U.N. fact-finding mission said Friday, March 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Iran is responsible for the ‘physical violence’ that killed Mahsa Amini in 2022, UN probe finds

A U.N. fact-finding mission says Iran is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 and sparked nationwide protests against the country’s mandatory headscarf laws and its ruling theocracy.

FILE - Residents displaced from a surge of violent attacks squat on blankets and in hastily made tents in the village of Masteri in west Darfur, Sudan, on July 30, 2020. Paramilitary forces and their allied militias fighting to take power in Sudan carried out widespread ethnic killings and rapes while taking control of much of western Darfur that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a new report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, by The Associated Press. (Mustafa Younes via AP, File)

UN chief urges Sudan’s warring parties to halt hostilities during Muslim holy month of Ramadan

The United Nations chief is urging Sudan’s warring parties to halt hostilities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, warning that the nearly year-long conflict threatens the country’s unity and “could ignite regional instability of dramatic proportions.”

FILE - In this image made from video, a woman with children watch as Rwandan soldiers patrol in the village of Mute, in Cabo Delgado province, Mozambique Monday, Aug. 9, 2021. A surge of new attacks by an Islamic State-affiliated group in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province has left more than 70 children missing, with fears they may have drowned in a river or been kidnapped by militants as thousands of families fled the violence, local authorities and a group of aid agencies said. (AP Photo/Marc Hoogsteyns, File)

UN raises alert for 780,000 people displaced in Mozambique, most due to violence in north

The United Nations’ refugee chief has raised a new alert over 780,000 displaced people in Mozambique.

A government official says Canada will restore funding to embattled UN agency in Gaza

Canada will restore funding to the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, a government official tells The Associated Press, weeks after the agency lost hundreds of millions of dollars in support following Israeli allegations against some of its staffers in Gaza.

FILE - Sudanese displaced people gather at the Zam Zam refugee camp outside the town of El-Fashir in the Darfour region of Sudan, during a visit by U.N. officials, on July 1, 2004. The U.N. humanitarian aid and refugee agencies appealed Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, for $4.1 billion in international support for embattled civilians in Sudan amid signs that some may be dying of starvation after nearly a year of war there between the forces of rival generals. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)

Sudan’s conflict risks creating the world’s largest hunger crisis, the top UN food official warns

The top U.N. food official has warned that the ruinous conflict raging for about a year between rival generals in Sudan risks creating the world’s largest hunger crisis.

FILE - The site of a music festival near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. The U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict said in a new report Monday, March 4, 2024, that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture,” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)

A UN envoy says there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe Hamas committed sexual violence on Oct. 7

The U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict says there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture,” and other cruel and inhuman treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 that left about 1,200 people dead and some 250 othe

Soldiers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping force (UNFICYP) in ethnically-divided Cyprus stand during a parade marking the 60th anniversary of the force's inception, inside a U.N. controlled buffer zone that separates breakaway Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the internationally recognized south, on Monday, March 4, 2024. More than 150,000 peacekeepers from 43 countries have served with UNFICYP since 1964 with 187 soldiers and staff losing their lives while serving with the mission. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

In ethnically split Cyprus, buffer zone tensions persist after decades, a UN official says

The head of the United Nations peacekeeping force in ethnically divided Cyprus says more than five decades on, tensions persist along a 180-kilometer (120 mile) buffer zone that separates breakaway Turkish Cypriots from Greek Cypriots in island’s internationally recognized south.

FILE - Ulrika Richardson, deputy special representative of the Secretary General of the U.N., speaks to the press in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 15, 2023. Indiscriminate violence in Haiti is escalating — especially in the capital and surrounding region — with armed gangs carrying out killings and acts of sexual violence, Richardson, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the conflict-wracked Caribbean nation said Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph, File)

UN appeals for $674 million as gang violence in Haiti escalates with killings and sexual violence

Indiscriminate violence in Haiti is escalating, especially in the capital and surrounding region. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the conflict-wracked Caribbean nation says armed gangs are carrying out killings and acts of sexual violence.

United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan pack their base in Kamanyola, Democratic Republic of the Congo Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, as it is being handed over to local security forces as part of an eventual UN withdrawal after decades of operating in the country. The handover comes as violence soars in the conflict-riddled region. (AP Photo/Ruth Alonga)

UN hands over 1st military base in Congo to begin its drawdown after decades in the country

United Nations peacekeepers have handed over their first military base to security forces in eastern Congo as part of an eventual withdrawal after decades of operating in the country, and as violence soars in the conflict-riddled region.

Families of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip gather in Re'im, southern Israel, as they begin their march to Jerusalem calling for the release of hostages, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. They began the four-day march at the site where hundreds of revelers at the Nova music festival were killed or captured by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Food aid reaches north Gaza for first time in weeks. Israeli hostages’ families push for release

Aid convoys carrying food reached northern Gaza this week, Israeli officials said. The delivery on Wednesday is the first major one in a month to the devastated, isolated area, where the U.N. has warned of worsening starvation.

This image made available on the official Telegram channel of Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic shows Alexander Korshunov, Chairman of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic's Supreme Council, addressing delegates during a session in Tiraspol, the capital of the breakaway region of Transnistria, in Moldova, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Legislators in Moldova's Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria used a rare meeting on Wednesday to appeal to Moscow and the European Union and other international bodies for help amid mounting socio-economic pressure they blame on Moldova's pro-Western government. (Supreme Council of the PMR telegram channel via AP)

Moldovan breakaway region appeals to Russia as a spat with the pro-Western government worsens

Officials in Moldova’s Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria have appealed to Moscow for protection as tensions escalate with the pro-Western government.

People gather at Israel's Nitzana border crossing with Egypt in southern Israel, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, protesting against the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip until all hostages held by Hamas militants are released. Israel inspects international aid bound for Gaza before it is delivered into the territory. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

The Latest | Families of hostages held in Gaza launch a 4-day march to demand their freedom

The families of hostages held in Gaza and their supporters are launching a four-day march from southern Israel to Jerusalem to demand their loved ones be set free.

FILE - Palestinians wait for humanitarian aid on a beachfront in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024. Israel and Hamas are inching toward a new deal that would free some of the roughly 130 hostages held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for a weeks-long pause in the war, now in its fifth month. A deal would bring some respite to desperate people in Gaza, who have borne a staggering toll in the war, as well as to the anguished families of hostages taken during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Essa, File)

A quarter of Gaza’s population is one step from famine and aid trucks are looted, UN says

At least one quarter of Gaza’s population – 576,000 people – are one step away from famine and virtually the entire population desperately needs food resulting in some aid trucks being shot at, looted and overwhelmed by hungry people, top U.N. officials say.

FILE - Afghan women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on May 23, 2023. Afghan women feel scared or unsafe leaving their home alone because of Taliban decrees and enforcement campaigns on clothing and male guardians, according to a report from the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

Most UN Security Council members demand Taliban rescind decrees seriously oppressing women and girls

More than two-thirds of the U.N. Security Council’s members have demanded that the Taliban rescind all policies and decrees oppressing and discriminating against women and girls, including banning girls education above the sixth grade and women’s right to work and move freely.

Women and children gather outside a police station after fleeing their homes in Cite Soleil due to gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)

US reiterates support for a Haiti deployment as it meets with Caribbean leaders

The U.S. government has reiterated its support to help restore peace and calm to Haiti and says it will provide money, equipment and logistical support to a multinational force whose deployment remains uncertain.