Middle East, United Nations | featured news

The U.N. is deploring the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria and calling on authorities to grant "unhindered access" for aid workers.

Crimes against humanity were continuing in Syria and must not go unpunished, the United Nation's human rights chief said on Monday.

As U.N. diplomats make another attempt to condemn Syria's massacre of civilians, one resident in the besieged city of Homs pleaded for President Bashar al-Assad's regime to have mercy.

After two days of rare and intensive talks in Tehran, senior U.N. nuclear officials may have felt they were finally making headway towards getting Iran to address suspicions that it is bent on developing the ability to make atom bombs.

Russia and China veto a draft resolution calling for Syria's president to leave power. The move came as activists said more than 200 people were killed in the city of Homs.

Last year was the deadliest on record for civilians in the Afghan war, with 3,021 killed as insurgents ratcheted up violence with suicide attacks and roadside bombs, the United Nations said Saturday....

Syria is now in a state of civil war with more than 4,000 dead and increasing numbers of defecting soldiers taking up arms against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, the top United Nations human rights official said on Thursday.

A U.N. investigation released Monday accused Syrian forces of killing and torturing children and other crimes against humanity.

UNESCO voted overwhelmingly Monday to accept the Palestinian Authority as a member, setting the cultural agency on a confrontational path with the U.S. due to American law that prohibits funding of U.N. entities that grant state status to Palestinians.

The United Nations' top human-rights official assailed the Syrian government Friday for a campaign of "ruthless repression and killings" and called for the international community to take steps to prevent the nation from plunging into "full-blown civil war."