April 8th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C./WEST BANK — On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would provide $235 million in U.S. aid to the Palestinians, restarting funding for the United Nations agency supporting refugees and restoring other assistance cut off by former President Trump.
The package, including humanitarian, economic and...
April 6th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) joined Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) in leading 76 of their congressional colleagues to call for the Biden administration to publicly increase pressure on Saudi Arabia to lift the blockade on Yemen immediately, unilaterally and...
March 26th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Special Envoy Tim Lenderking was scheduled to travel to the Middle East on Thursday, to press a plan for a ceasefire in Yemen, talks on settling its civil war and an end to the humanitarian catastrophe that it has caused, the U.S. State Department announced.
Lenderking’s trip was expected to include...
March 1st, 20210SANAA — Unable to find work, Ahmed Farea has sold everything, including his wife’s gold, to feed and house two young daughters in one small room.
Elsewhere in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, widow Mona Muhammad has work, but struggles to buy anything more nutritious than rice for her four children amid high prices.
And in a nearby...
February 4th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, President Biden said he seeks to raise the annual refugee cap to 125,000, an increase that will take place in the beginning of October.
Biden made the announcement during a speech at the U.S. State Department.
Biden also said he would approve an executive order that would restore the U.S. refugee...
February 4th, 20210WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, President Biden declared a halt to U.S. support for a Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, demanding that the more than six-year war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, “has to end.”
Biden also named veteran U.S. diplomat Timothy Lenderking as the U.S. special...
August 18th, 20200LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands — On Tuesday, a U.N.-backed tribunal convicted Salim Jamil Ayyash, allegedly a member of the Hezbollah group, of conspiring to kill former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in a 2005 bombing that set the stage for years of confrontation between Lebanon’s political forces.
Hariri, a Sunni Muslim...
June 15th, 20200NEW YORK — On Monday U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres removed a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition from a U.N. blacklist. The coalition was condemned and was on the list for several years for killing and injuring children in Yemen.
Reuters reports that Guterres wrote in his annual report to the U.N. Security Council on...
May 6th, 20201WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a disappointing and surprising move, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has signed her name to a letter backed by the Israeli lobby AIPAC that demands an extension of the U.N.’s arms embargo on Iran.
Omar has joined 391 members of the House in signing the letter, which effectively bolsters the Trump...
December 8th, 20190BAGHDAD —Fears of infiltration by unknown groups grew in Iraq on Thursday after 13 people were stabbed in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. The stabbings caused no fatalities in the area of Iraq’s capital that has been the home of recent protests against the country’s government.
Protesters gathered in Tahrir shouting slogans in...
October 22nd, 20180The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, has made her post a “more glamorous” position than her predecessors — as President Trump described Haley’s 2-year term at the U.N., following her resignation announcement.
We may never know the nature of Haley’s purported “glamour” at the U.N., but we certainly know that,...
June 15th, 20181What is taking place in Palestine is not a "conflict." We readily utilize the term but, in fact, the word "conflict" is misleading. It equates between oppressed Palestinians and Israel, a military power that stands in violation of numerous United Nations resolutions.
It is these ambiguous terminologies that allow the likes of United...
June 12th, 20180GENEVA/BEIRUT ― The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR hopes the Lebanese foreign ministry will quickly reverse a decision to freeze residency applications the agency has submitted for its staff, its spokesman said on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil ordered the freeze last week after accusing UNHCR of hindering the return of...
May 8th, 20180BEIRUT ― The United States urged Lebanon to uphold a policy of staying out of regional wars and a U.N. Security Council resolution that sought Hezbollah’s disarmament, after the Iran-backed group and its allies won more than half the seats in Sunday’s election.
The United States views Hezbollah as a terrorist group and is...
April 26th, 20180BRUSSELS ― International donors raised $4.4 billion in emergency aid for Syria and its neighbors this year on Wednesday, but the total fell well short of the U.N. target for 2018 after the United States failed to submit a pledge.
Humanitarian agencies also pleaded for peace before the Syrian military and its Russian and Iranian...
April 16th, 20180PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday France will contribute 50 million euros ($61.9 million) toward urgent humanitarian aid for Syria following a meeting with a group of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Paris.
“This evening I brought together NGOs working on the ground in Syria. Faced with the...
March 9th, 20180March 8 is International Women's Day, a time to commemorate the movement for women's rights and raise awareness of some of the challenges confronted by women around the world.
By Rebecca Stead
Living under a 50-year-long Israeli military occupation, Palestinian women in the West Bank and Gaza face more challenges than most. Their...
March 2nd, 20180GENEVA — A Russian plan for a five-hour pause in fighting in Syria's eastern Ghouta needs to be expanded to allow aid deliveries to enter and civilians and urgent medical cases to leave, United Nations officials said on Thursday.
In one of the fiercest onslaughts of Syria's seven-year civil war, hundreds of people have died in 11...
February 16th, 20180UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council is considering a British proposal to praise Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for pledging nearly $1 billion to ease Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, even as U.N. experts accuse a Saudi-led military coalition of using “the threat of starvation as an instrument of war” in...
February 2nd, 20180UNITED NATIONS — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will address the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 20 during the body's monthly meeting on the Middle East amid tensions over the United States decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Since President Trump broke from decades of United States policy with his Dec....
February 2nd, 20180ISTANBUL — Syria's opposition will cooperate with proposals made at a Russia-hosted conference this week to rewrite the country's constitution as long as the process remains under U.N. auspices, the chief opposition negotiator said on Thursday.
Participants at Tuesday's meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in Russia - which is a...
January 26th, 20180By Mohamed Mohamed
It is regrettable that the most basic human needs of millions of Palestinian refugees are now being used as a weapon in the Trump administration's political assault on Palestinians.
On January 16, the administration decided to withhold $65 million of a planned $125 million in U.S. funding for the United Nations...
January 26th, 20180By Ramzy Baroud
On January 15, millions of Americans commemorated Martin Luther Kings Day. Dr. King's famous speech, "I Have a Dream", was repeated numerous times in media outlets as a reminder of the evil of racism, which is being resurrected in a most pronounced way in American society.
But that is only one version of Dr. King...
January 12th, 20180DOHA — Qatar has filed a complaint to the United Nations about an alleged violation of its airspace in December by an Emirati military aircraft, state news agency QNA reported on Friday.
The United Arab Emirates is one of four Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, that have imposed travel, diplomatic and trade...
January 5th, 20180UNITED NATIONS — President Trump said in tweets on Tuesday that the United States may withhold future aid payments to Palestinians, accusing them of being "no longer willing to talk peace" with Israel.
Trump said that Washington gives Palestinians "HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and gets no appreciation or respect. They don't...
December 22nd, 20170By Rashid Khalidi
The brilliant diplomacy over Jerusalem of the self-proclaimed master deal-maker has produced a situation where it is now D. Trump vs. almost the entire world. And in the face of what is likely to be a sweeping defeat for the U.S., Trump and his minions are not taking the reluctance of the world to go along with his...
December 22nd, 20171DEARBORN — This week, world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council voted to condemn President Trump for his decision to designate Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
On the grand stage, they reflected their respective countries' shared sentiments of solidarity with the Palestinian people and criticized Trump...
December 21st, 20170UNITED NATIONS — More than 120 countries defied President Trump on Thursday and voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that voted in favor. A total of 128...