Washington blocks security council resolution supported by 12 member countries, with two abstentions including UK
The US has vetoed a Palestinian request to the United Nations security council for full UN membership, blocking the world body’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
The vote in the 15-member security council was 12 in favor, the US opposed and two abstentions, the UK and Switzerland.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak’s authority suffers blow as several Conservatives vote against bill, which clears first Commons hurdle with 383 votes to 67
At 12.30pm a transport minister will respond to an urgent question in the Commons tabled by Labour on job losses in the rail industry. That means the debate on the smoking ban will will not start until about 1.15pm.
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is one of the Britons speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels starting today. The conference, which features hardline rightwingers from around the world committed to the NatCons’ ‘faith, flag and family’ brand of conservatism, is going ahead despite two venues refusing to host them at relatively short notice.
The current UK government doesn’t have the political will to take on the ECHR and hasn’t laid the ground work for doing so.
And so it’s no surprise that recent noises in this direction are easily dismissed as inauthentic.
Any attempt to include a plan for ECHR withdrawal in a losing Conservative election manifesto risks setting the cause back a generation.
Continue reading...UN human rights office expresses concern over escalating violence after deaths near Nablus over weekend
The UN and the UK have voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory.
The comments came hours after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus in the latest violent attack involving settlers in the increasingly tense West Bank.
Continue reading...Ecuadorian police forced their way inside embassy in Quito to arrest former vice-president who was seeking asylum in Mexico
Mexico is demanding that the United Nations expel Ecuador from the world body as part of a complaint to the top UN court over a police raid last week on the Mexican embassy in Quito.
Tensions between Mexico and Ecuador have soared since late last week when Ecuadorian authorities forced their way into the diplomatic mission to arrest Ecuador’s former vice-president Jorge Glas who had been holed up there seeking asylum in Mexico.
Continue reading...Repealing ban would mean return of ‘one of the most pernicious forms of violence committed against women and children’
A team of UN experts has urged Gambian lawmakers not to repeal a ban on female genital mutilation, saying such a move would set a dangerous global precedent.
In a letter dated 8 April and made public on Thursday, the experts, led by Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said allowing the unchecked return of “one of the most pernicious forms of violence committed against women and children” would violate their right to freedom from torture.
Continue reading...Comments by Sam Rose, of the UN body for Palestinian refugees, come amid fears Israel plans to squeeze agency out of Gaza
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees must remain “the backbone of any humanitarian response” for the 2 million people in Gaza if mass starvation is to be avoided, the Unrwa director of planning, Sam Rose, says.
Israel is continuing to impede Unrwa convoys to northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are facing famine, he said. “Our space is continuing to be squeezed at a time when the international community urgently needs to get as much assistance as possible to people in the north.”
Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East
On Tuesday 30 April, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast-developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live
Doctors describe rise in infections and amputations among dangerously malnourished patients
Every morning, starving mothers arrive at the doors of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza desperately seeking baby formula. Many mothers of newborns are unable to breastfeed, the head of the hospital said, because they are so underfed.
Inside the hospital, where doctors are undergoing treatment for malnutrition alongside their patients, surgeons say they are carrying out increasing numbers of amputations owing to the effects of acute hunger.
Continue reading...António Guterres voices ‘alarm’ as Latin American governments sharply criticise Quito’s move to arrest former vice-president
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has added his voice to a torrent of criticism of Ecuador’s decision to storm the Mexican embassy in Quito in order to arrest the former vice-president Jorge Glas.
“The secretary general is alarmed at the forced entry of Ecuadorian security forces into the premises of the Mexican embassy,” Guterres said through his spokesperson on Sunday, adding that violations of the sanctity of diplomatic and consular property “jeopardise the pursuit of normal international relations”.
Continue reading...While the US flounders in a conflict it did not foresee, emerging powers see a chance for new voices to join the top table
Not long ago a picture circulated from inside Gaza showing smoke billowing from the explosion of a US-supplied bomb, and discernible in the background was the outline of eight black parachutes dropping US aid in precisely the same neighbourhood. It was suggested that the picture would make an ideal cover for any book about the confused world disorder that the six-month war in Gaza have spawned – a disorder that as yet has no dominant player, value system or functioning institutions.
The great powers compete, coexist or confront one another across the region but none, least of all at the UN, is able to impose its version of order any longer. “Forget talk of unipolarity or multipolarity,” the journalist Gregg Carlstrom recently wrote in Foreign Affairs. “The Middle East is nonpolar. No one is in charge.”
Continue reading...Former Australian foreign minister named as secretary general António Guterres’ special envoy to country gripped by civil war
The former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop has been appointed the United Nations secretary general António Guterres’ special envoy on Myanmar, the world body has said.
Bishop, the Australian National University’s chancellor, will take up the UN role that has been vacant since June last year, when Singaporean diplomat Noeleen Heyzer stepped down.
Continue reading...Human rights council adopts resolution as Israel opens new routes into Gaza after Biden-Netanyahu phone call
The UN human rights council has adopted a resolution calling for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.
The resolution came as Israel finally succumbed to unprecedented US pressure and opened new food corridors into Gaza.
Continue reading...German’s appointment to head Convention on Biological Diversity follows global failure to meet any targets on protecting ecosystems
The next UN biodiversity chief will be Astrid Schomaker, an EU civil servant who will be entrusted with helping the world confront the ongoing catastrophic loss of nature.
Schomaker has been a career official with the EU commission for 30 years. A surprise appointment, she will be tasked with corralling governments to make good on their commitments to protect life on Earth – something they have not done in more than 30 years since the UN biodiversity convention was created.
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features
Continue reading...Exclusive: Aid officials warn that transferring Unrwa’s functions to other bodies with famine looming would be disastrous
Israel has given the UN a proposal to dismantle Unrwa, its relief agency in the Palestinian territories, and transfer its staff to a replacement agency to make large-scale food deliveries into Gaza, according to UN sources.
The proposal was presented late last week by the Israeli chief of the general staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, to UN officials in Israel, who forwarded it to the organisation’s secretary general, António Guterres, on Saturday, sources familiar with the discussions said.
Continue reading...António Guterres expresses ‘grave concern’ over ongoing clashes at border after a shell exploded near the observers
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has condemned an explosion that left three UN military observers and a Lebanese interpreter wounded when a shell exploded near them while they were patrolling the southern Lebanese border.
The blast came as clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah militants escalated in recent weeks.
Continue reading...Judges issue unanimous decision and say Palestinians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance
The international court of justice has ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where sections of the population are facing imminent starvation, in a significant legal rebuke to Israel’s claim it is not blocking aid deliveries.
A panel of judges at the UN’s top court, which is already considering a complaint from South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, issued the ruling after an emergency measure in January obliging Israel to admit emergency aid.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s foreign minister calls veto ‘guilty plea’ amid claims Pyongyang is aiding Moscow’s war against Kyiv
Russia has blocked the renewal of a UN panel monitoring sanctions against North Korea, weeks after the body said it was investigating reports of arms transfers between Moscow and Pyongyang.
The move was met with a flurry of criticism, including by Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who took to social media to call the veto “a guilty plea” amid allegations that Pyongyang is aiding Moscow in its war against Kyiv.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Dfat official said there was ‘precious nothing in the public domain’ on claims against aid agency hours before pause announced
Australian officials scrambled to “understand what the allegations are” against Unrwa staff and complained of “precious nothing in the public domain” hours before the government suspended funding to the “vital” aid agency.
New documents obtained by Guardian Australia show how the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade rushed to gather information after Israel alleged 12 Unrwa staffers were involved in the 7 October Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.
Continue reading...Israeli PM cancels White House visit by two ministers and says US ‘abandoned its policy in the UN’ after abstaining on vote
The UN security council has voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after the US dropped a threat to veto, bringing Israel to near total isolation on the world stage.
The vote result sets up the strongest public clash between the US president, Joe Biden, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, since the war began.
Continue reading...Opposition leader David Crisafulli says LNP would rewrite Youth Justice Act ‘to put victims first’ if it wins October election
The Queensland Liberal National party opposition has vowed to remove the principle of detention as a last resort from the Youth Justice Act before year’s end if it wins the state election.
Speaking in Townsville on Tuesday, the LNP leader, David Crisafulli, revealed more detail about the party’s “Making Queensland safer laws” and accused Labor of having a “conga line of crises”.
Continue reading...Special rapporteur will tell human rights council Israel’s actions ‘reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group’
A UN human rights expert will deliver a report on Tuesday saying that Israel has carried out acts of genocide in Gaza and should be placed under an arms embargo.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel was carrying out three of the five acts defined as genocide: killing Palestinians, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction” of the population in whole or in part.
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