Category Archives: United Nations

Australia splits with US to back UN resolution demanding end to Israel occupation of Palestinian territories

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Vote marks a change to the nation’s official stance held for more than two decades

Australia has split with the US and voted with 156 other countries at the UN to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”.

The vote marks Australia’s return to the position for the first time in more than two decades.

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Unrwa suspends aid deliveries through main Gaza route after convoy attacked

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Agency says armed gangs looted several trucks carrying food supplies and urges Israel to ensure safe flows of aid

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has suspended aid deliveries through the main lifeline for the Gaza Strip after a fresh attack by armed gangs on a humanitarian convoy, amid a severe food crisis caused by more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

In a statement on Sunday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, said several trucks carrying food supplies were looted the day before on the road from Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel, now the main aid crossing point into the besieged Palestinian territory. The route had not been safe for months, he said on X, referring to the unprecedented hijacking of nearly 100 aid trucks last month.

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Huge election year worldwide sees weakening commitment to act on climate crisis

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Among sweeping rightwing electoral victories across the globe, the ‘big loser of the elections has been climate’

An unprecedented year of elections around the world has underscored a sobering trend – in many countries the commitment to act on the climate crisis has either stalled or is eroding, even as disasters and record temperatures continue to mount.

So far 2024, called the “biggest election year in human history” by the United Nations with around half the world’s population heading to the polls, there have been major wins for Donald Trump, the US president-elect who calls the climate crisis “a big hoax”; the climate-skeptic right in European Union elections; and Vladimir Putin, who won another term and has endured sanctions to maintain Russia’s robust oil and gas exports.

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Iran has offered to keep uranium below purity levels for a bomb, IAEA confirms

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UN inspectorate chief calls Tehran’s move a ‘concrete step in the right direction’, amid threat of restored sanctions

Iran has offered to keep its stock of uranium enriched up to 60% – below the purity levels required to make a nuclear bomb – the head of the UN nuclear inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, has confirmed amid the threat of restored European sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear activities.

“I think this is … a concrete step in the right direction. We have a fact which has been verified by us. It is the first time Iran has agreed to take a different path,” Grossi said in Vienna on Tuesday.

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Norway to ask ICJ for advisory opinion condemning Israel’s stance on Unrwa

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Draft resolution for UN general assembly seeks to protect the aid agency and allow it to keep functioning in Gaza

Norway is to seek an international court of justice (ICJ) advisory opinion condemning the Israeli government for ending cooperation with the UN Palestinian relief agency Unrwa.

The Israeli Knesset passed two bills last month banning Unrwa from Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli state contact with the agency, moves that would prevent it from delivering aid to Gaza, after allegations by Israel that members of Unrwa staff in Gaza were involved in the 7 October attacks by Hamas. The UN launched an investigation into the Israeli claims and fired nine Unrwa staff as a result.

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Gaza ministry says 20 killed in anti-‘gang’ operation after looting of aid convoy

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Hamas-run interior ministry says it carried out security operation after armed looters hijacked almost 100 trucks

Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry has said that at least 20 people have been killed in an operation targeting “gangs” accused of looting trucks bringing aid into the war-torn territory which is facing the threat of famine.

Gunmen attacked and looted about 100 trucks carrying desperately needed supplies over the weekend, the biggest such attack during 13 months of war in the territory and new evidence of the growing power of Gaza’s criminal gangs.

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Global plastic production must be cut to curb pollution, study says

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Analysis lays bare huge challenge of mismanaged waste on eve of UN plastic treaty talks in Busan

Global plastic production must be reduced to tackle the immense challenge of plastic pollution, according to an analysis published on the eve of crucial talks to hammer out the world’s first legally binding treaty on plastic waste.

Mismanaged plastic waste, which leaches into the environment and can be harmful to health, will double to 121m tonnes by 2050 if limits are not placed on the production of plastic, according to Samuel Pottinger, the lead author of the research.

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Conflict in Gaza an ‘Israeli terrorism creation factory’, warns Australian on UN inquiry

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Former human rights commissioner Chris Sidoti says ‘there is no end in sight’ as ongoing bombardment is sowing seeds for generations of hostilities

“Kids aren’t terrorists,” Chris Sidoti told the handful of journalists assembled in the quiet of the UN’s New York headquarters.

Thousands of kilometres from the conflict in Gaza he was documenting, Sidoti felt compelled to repeat it: “Kids aren’t terrorists.”

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Australia backs UN resolution recognising ‘permanent sovereignty’ of Palestinians in major departure

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Vote cast with 158 other countries to recognise ‘permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’

Australia has backed in a United Nations resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty” of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, marking a major departure from its previous position.

At a UN committee vote on Thursday, Australia voted with 158 other countries, including the UK and New Zealand, on a resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources”.

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Unrwa shutdown by Israel would add to Gaza suffering, says top official

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Sam Rose warns of severe consequences amid weakened US stance and points to ICJ demand to protect aid efforts

Israel’s plan to close the UN Palestinian relief agency, Unrwa, within three months is impossible and unrealistic without causing further untold suffering to the Palestinian people, its director of operations in Gaza has warned.

Just returned from Gaza, where he said he had seen levels of suffering unprecedented since the war started, Sam Rose warned that Unrwa could collapse, with severe implications for schools and hospitals not just in Gaza but in the West Bank if Israel went ahead with its plan.

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US climate envoy says fight against climate crisis does not end under Trump

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Even if president-elect rolls back climate progress, John Podesta reaffirms commitment to a clean planet at Cop29

The US climate envoy John Podesta said the fight “for a cleaner, safer” planet will not stop under a re-elected Donald Trump even if some progress is reversed, speaking at the Cop29 UN climate talks on Monday as they opened in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“Although under Donald Trump’s leadership the US federal government placed climate-related actions on the back burner, efforts to prevent climate change remain a commitment in the US and will confidently continue,” said Podesta, who is leading the Biden administration’s delegation at the annual talks.

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‘Almost unparalleled suffering’ in Gaza as UN says nearly 70% of those killed are women and children

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Head of the Norwegian Refugee Council calls for peace process to begin as new figures reveal civilians have borne the brunt of the war

Nearly 70% of the people killed in the war in Gaza are women and children, according to a UN analysis of verified deaths that highlights the heavy civilian toll of the ongoing conflict.

In a new report, the most detailed analysis of its kind yet, the UN human rights office said it had verified 8,119 of those killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza. Of the fatalities, 3,588 were children and 2,036 were women. The youngest victim was a one-day-old boy and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman.

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2 million at risk of starvation in Myanmar state amid ‘total economic collapse’

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Exclusive: a UN report will accuse the military of imposing ‘collective punishment’ on Rakhine state, more than three years after seizing power in a coup

Two million people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state could face starvation within months because fierce conflict and trade blockades have led to a “total economic collapse” and the imminent risk of famine, a senior UN official has warned.

Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh in the west, is on the brink of disaster, as people’s incomes crater, rice cultivation plummets, and military-imposed trade restrictions lead to severe food shortages and hyperinflation, according to forthcoming research from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which accuses the military of inflicting “collective punishment” on civilians.

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North Korea tells UN it is speeding up nuclear weapons programme

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Pyongyang’s envoy to the United Nations says buildup is to counter threat from ‘hostile nuclear weapons states’

North Korea’s UN envoy has said Pyongyang will accelerate a buildup of its nuclear weapons programme just days after it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time this year at a moment of rising tensions with the west.

Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN, said during a security council meeting on Monday that Pyongyang would accelerate the programme to “counter any threat presented by hostile nuclear weapons states”.

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Israel formally tells UN of intent to sever all ties with Unrwa relief agency

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Country’s allies and aid workers say move could cripple services for Palestinians who increasingly depend on them

Israel has formally informed the United Nations of its intention to sever ties entirely with the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees in a move the country’s allies and aid workers warn will deepen the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.

The Knesset passed two bills last week banning Unrwa from Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli state contact with the agency on the basis of allegations that Hamas had infiltrated it.

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UK says it voted against UN nuclear war panel because consequences already known

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Foreign Office argues scientific study into modern effects of nuclear war not needed

The UK was one of three countries to vote against creating a UN scientific panel on the effects of nuclear war because, the Foreign Office argued, the “devastating consequences” of such a conflict are already well known without the need for a new study.

The UK, France and Russia were the only countries to vote on Friday night against a UN general assembly committee resolution drafted by Ireland and New Zealand to set up an international scientific inquiry to take a fresh look at the multifaceted impact of nuclear weapons use.

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Vaccination centre and aid official’s car bombarded in Gaza, says UN

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Unicef director says three children injured after polio clinic came under fire despite promised humanitarian pause

A polio vaccination centre and the car of a UN aid official involved in this weekend’s vaccination campaign came under fire despite a promised “humanitarian pause” in Israeli bombardment, the UN has said.

Catherine Russell, the executive director of the UN child support and protection agency, Unicef, said: “At least three children were reportedly injured by another attack in the proximity of a vaccination clinic in Sheikh Radwan while a polio vaccination campaign was under way.”

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Spain’s apocalyptic floods show undeniable truths: the climate crisis is getting worse and Big Oil is killing us | Jonathan Watts

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The devastating flooding should spur this month’s Cop29 climate conference to press for immediate action, not look away

Move on. Nothing to see here. Just another ordinary, everyday apocalypse.

If past experience is any guide, the world’s reaction to the floods in Spain last week will be similar to that of motorway drivers at a crash scene: slow down, take in the horror, outwardly express sympathy, inwardly give thanks that fate picked someone else – and foot on the accelerator.

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Israeli assault has caused ‘apocalyptic’ situation in northern Gaza, UN warns

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Key officials say entire population of northern Gaza ‘at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence’

The situation in the northern Gaza Strip is “apocalyptic” as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants in the area, top United Nations officials have warned.

“The entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence,” they said in a statement on Friday signed by the heads of UN agencies, including the UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Food Programme, and other aid groups.

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UN should consider suspending Israel over ‘genocide’ against Palestinians, says special rapporteur

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Francesca Albanese, who was stopped from appearing at US Congress this week, said Israel defied UN resolutions

The UN should consider suspending Israel as a member state due to its continuing “genocide” against the Palestinians, the divisive special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories has said.

Francesca Albanese was speaking to a UN committee on the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in New York the day after she published her latest report alleging that Israel was not just committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in Gaza, but a genocide.

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