United Nations

Gangs Advance on the Seat of Haitian Government Power: ‘Haitians Are Hostages’

Gangs are increasing their chokehold on Haiti’s capital, using bulldozers to raze entire neighborhoods, overwhelming poorly armed police and taking their violence to within blocks of the seat of government. While Haitians have endured relentless bloodshed and tragedy for years, the escalation of lawlessness in recent weeks and the government’s inability to exert control has […]

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Mission Impossible? Officials Wrangle to Free Ukraine’s Grains

BRUSSELS — Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are scheduled to meet Wednesday in Istanbul, in the increasingly desperate effort to release huge amounts of grain from Ukraine’s ports and ship it to a world facing rising hunger. Officials have tried for months to break the impasse without triggering an escalation in the war or, worse, a […]

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Russia Votes to Shut Down Last U.N. Aid Route Into Syria

WASHINGTON — Russia vetoed a measure on Friday that would have allowed the last U.N. aid route into Syria to remain open for another year, in a vote that diplomats and critics said endangered the lives of millions of people already suffering after more than a decade of war. Foreign officials and international aid workers […]

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Afghanistan Tries to Stamp Out Opium Again

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — For years, opium has been the monster too big to slay. One Afghan government after another has pledged to stamp out opium production and trafficking, only to prove unable to resist billions of dollars in illicit profits. The Taliban government of the 1990s ultimately managed to reduce opium cultivation. But after the […]

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Head of U.N. Agency Resigns After Questions Arise About Loans

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, asked a top official at a U.N. agency to resign on Saturday, shortly after The New York Times published an article describing how the agency had given out $61 million in loans and grant money to a single British family, according to a senior U.N. official. The United […]

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Why Did a U.N. Agency Give a Family $61 Million?

At the United Nations, two officials had a problem. The little-known agency they ran found itself with an extra $61 million, and they didn’t know what to do with it. Then they met a man at a party. Now, they have $25 million less. In between was a baffling series of financial decisions, in which […]

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Using Weapons From the West, Ukraine Seeks to Drive Back Russian Troops

KRAKOW, Poland — Ukrainian troops, emboldened by sophisticated weapons and long-range artillery supplied by the West, went on the offensive Friday against Russian forces in the northeast, seeking to drive them back from two key cities as the war plunged more deeply into a grinding, town-for-town battle. After weeks of intense fighting along a 300-mile-long […]

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In Ukraine War, a Long Journey Begins in Prosecuting Rape

She is appealing to other countries that are party to the international court to consider opening their own prosecutions into allegations of Russia’s sex crimes by claiming universal jurisdiction — the legal principle that some violations are so odious they are an affront to humanity at large, and therefore can be tried by any nation’s […]

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