Middle East, United Nations | featured news

Resisting American pressure, President Mahmoud Abbas formally requested United Nations membership on Friday.

A last-ditch American effort to head off a Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations faltered. President Obama tried to qualify his own call, just a year ago, for a Palestinian state.

The United States pressed ahead Monday with intensive talks aimed at averting a showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations this week, asking key Muslim ally Turkey not to allow its rift with Israel to grow wider and hoping to coax cooperation from a noncommittal Russia....

The Palestinian president said Friday that he will ask the U.N. Security Council next week to endorse his statehood bid, a step that would risk a threatened U.S. veto in the council.

At least 2,600 people have died in the six months of unrest that has swept Syria, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Monday, as a panel was named to investigate abuses in the Arab country....

Washington has launched an effort to avoid a clash stemming from plans by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing senior US officials and foreign ...

Taliban bombers attacked offices belonging to the British Council and the United Nations in the center of the Afghan capital Friday. At least three people were killed, police said.

Serbian authorities have arrested Goran Hadzic, the last remaining fugitive sought by the U.N. war crimes court, TV station B92 reported Wednesday.

After more than a thousand reported deaths from a government crackdown on dissidents and chilling videos of violence on social media, the unrest in Syria has drawn international attention -- albeit no response from the United Nations Security Council.

In a major turnaround, Syria is pledging full cooperation with U.N. attempts to probe strong evidence that it secretly built a reactor that could have been used to make nuclear arms, according to a confidential document shared with The Associated Press on Sunday....