Middle East, United Nations | featured news

The United Nations gave its starkest warning yet on Friday that it would soon run out of cash to cope with the vast influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan and other neighboring countries.

An inquiry will begin “as soon as practically possible” over allegations that the weapons were used in Aleppo Province, said the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

CIA drone strikes on Pakistani targets violate Pakistan’s national sovereignty and have resulted in far more civilian casualties than the U.S. government has recognized, a special U.N. human rights envoy reported after a secret investigation in Pakistan this week.

Civilian deaths in the war in Afghanistan dropped in 2012 for the first time in six years, a sign of lessening hostilities, but insurgents dramatically expanded their campaign of assassinating government supporters, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Lebanon should consider setting up transit centers to absorb the waves of refugees fleeing neighboring Syria and may have to establish formal refugee camps if the influx continues, a United Nations refugee official said.

The United Nations’ human rights chief said Wednesday that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the bloody conflict in Syria, a figure that far exceeds even estimates given by opposition groups after nearly two years of fighting.

Israel said on Sunday it was withholding this month's transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, after the United Nations' de facto recognition of a Palestinian state.

The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state, a victory decades in the making for the Palestinians after years of occupation and war. It was a sharp rebuke for Israel and the United States....

The United States set a March deadline on Thursday for Iran to start cooperating in substance with a U.N. nuclear agency investigation, saying it would otherwise urge reporting the issue to the U.N. Security Council.

The ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, said Tuesday that she incorrectly described the attack on the American mission in Libya but said she based her statement on the available intelligence.