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...
December 8th, 20170On Wednesday, Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East condemned the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital as an incendiary move in a volatile region and Palestinians said Washington was abandoning its leading role as a peace mediator.
The European Union and United Nations also voiced alarm at President Trump's decision to...
November 23rd, 20170DEARBORN — Lebanese American student Nadine Jawad, 21, might be the first Arab American from Dearborn to receive one of the most prestigious fellowship awards in the world, the Rhodes scholarship.
Jawad, a senior at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, is one of 32 American Rhodes scholars chosen for...
September 19th, 20170UNITED NATIONS ― President Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge on Tuesday, threatening to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people and mocking its leader, Kim Jong Un, as a “rocket man.”
In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump offered a grim portrait...
GENEVA — Syria peace talks hosted by the United Nations in Geneva spawned a new series of meetings on Thursday with no hint of tangible progress toward a deal to end the six-year-old civil war.
U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura had promised a refreshingly brisk pace of business-like meetings over a short four-day round, with new...
April 2nd, 20170NEW YORK CITY — On a cold, snowy Sunday morning, more than 100 Arab Americans gathered outside the United Nations headquarters to protest the United States' support for Saudi Arabia, which they say is the culprit responsible for extreme devastation and famine in Yemen.
Dozens of Yemeni, Lebanese and Iraqi American demonstrators met...