UNITED NATIONS: A United Nations Security Council committee considering an application by the Palestinian Authority to become a full UN member “was unable to make a unanimous recommendation” on whether it met the criteria, according to the committee report seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Authority is still expected to push the 15-member Security Council to vote — as early as this week — on a draft resolution recommending it become a full member of the world body, diplomats said.
Such membership would effectively recognize a Palestinian state. The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the 193-member UN General Assembly in 2012.
But an application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council, where Israel ally the United States can block it, and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.
The United States said earlier this month that establishing an independent Palestinian state should happen through direct negotiations between the parties and not at the United Nations.
The UN Security Council has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in 1967.
Little progress has been made on achieving Palestinian statehood since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s.
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes six months into a war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Security Council committee on the admission of new members — made up of all 15 council members — agreed to its report on Tuesday after meeting twice last week to discuss the Palestinian application.
“Regarding the issue of whether the application met all the criteria for membership ... the Committee was unable to make a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council,” the report said, adding that “differing views were expressed.”
UN membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in the founding UN Charter and are able and willing to carry them out.
UN committee unable to agree on Palestinian bid for full membership
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UN committee unable to agree on Palestinian bid for full membership
- An application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council, where Israel ally the United States can block it
UK says it respects ICC independence as court issues arrest warrants
LONDON: Britain respects the independence of the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said on Thursday, after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his ex-defense chief and a Hamas leader.
“We respect the independence of the International Criminal Court, which is the primary international institution for investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes of international concern,” the spokesperson told reporters.
“There is no moral equivalence between Israel, a democracy, and Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, which are terrorist organizations. We remain focused on pushing for an immediate ceasefire to bring an end to the devastating violence in Gaza.”
Russia fires what appears to be intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Kyiv says
- Western officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, later told Reuters their initial analysis showed it was not an intercontinental ballistic missile
- Regardless of its classification, the latest strike highlighted rapidly rising tensions in the 33-month-old war
KYIV: Ukraine said Russia fired what appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile at the city of Dnipro on Thursday, in what would be the first use in war of a weapon designed to deliver long-distance nuclear strikes.
Western officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, later told Reuters their initial analysis showed it was not an intercontinental ballistic missile, though they left open the possibility that conclusion could change.
Regardless of its classification, the latest strike highlighted rapidly rising tensions in the 33-month-old war.
Ukraine fired US and British missiles at targets inside Russia this week despite warnings by Moscow that it would see such action as a major escalation.
Security experts said that if Thursday’s strike involved an intercontinental ballistic missile, it would be the first use of such a missile in war. ICBMs are strategic weapons designed to deliver nuclear warheads and are an important part of Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
“Today there was a new Russian missile. All the characteristics – speed, altitude – are (of an) intercontinental ballistic (missile). An expert (investigation) is currently underway,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video statement.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry urged the international community to react swiftly to the use of what it said was “the use by Russia of a new type of weaponry.”
The Ukrainian air force said the missile was fired from the Russian region of Astrakhan, more than 700 km (435 miles) from Dnipro in central-eastern Ukraine. It did not specify what kind of warhead the missile had or what type of missile it was. There was no suggestion it was nuclear-armed.
Asked about the air force statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters to contact Russian military for comment.
Ukrainska Pravda, a Kyiv-based media outlet, cited anonymous sources saying the missile was an RS-26 Rubezh, a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,800 km, according to the Arms Control Association.
The RS-26 was first successfully tested in 2012, and is estimated to be 12 meters (40 ft) long and weigh 36 tons, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). It said the RS-26 can carry an 800-kg (1,765-pound)nuclear warhead.
The RS-26 is classified as an ICBM under a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia, but it can be seen as an intermediate-range ballistic missile when used with heavier payloads at ranges below 5,500 km, CSIS said.
At least 38 killed as gunmen open fire on vehicles carrying Shiites in northwest Pakistan
- No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack
- Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said at least 38 people were killed in the “terrorist attack“
PESHAWAR: Gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Shiite Muslims in Pakistan’s restive northwest on Thursday, killing at least 38 people, including six women, and wounding 20 others in one of the region’s deadliest such attacks in recent years, police said.
The attack happened in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where sectarian clashes between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites have killed dozens of people in recent months.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest attack. It came a week after authorities reopened a key highway in the region that had been closed for weeks following deadly clashes.
Local police official Azmat Ali said several vehicles were traveling in a convoy from the city of Parachinar to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, when gunmen opened fire. He said at least 10 passengers were in critical condition at a hospital.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said at least 38 people were killed in the “terrorist attack.” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, and Sharif said those behind the killing of innocent civilians will not go unpunished.
A witness, 35-year-old Mir Hussain, said he saw four gunmen emerge from a vehicle and open fire on buses and cars.
“I think other people were also firing at the convoy of vehicles from nearby open farm field,” he said. “The firing continued for about 40 minutes.” He said he hid until the attackers fled.
“I heard cries of women, and people were shouting for the help,” he said.
Baqir Haideri, a local Shiite leader, denounced the assault and said the death toll was likely to rise.
Shop owners in Parachinar announced a strike on Friday to protest the attack.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million population of Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although they live together largely peacefully, tensions have existed for decades in some areas, especially in parts of Kurram, where Shiites are the majority. Nearly 50 people from both sides were killed over a land dispute in July when clashes between Sunni and Shiites erupted in Kurram.
Pakistan is tackling violence in the northwest and southwest, where militants and separatists often target police, troops and civilians. Most of the violence in these areas has been blamed on the Pakistani Taliban and the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army.
WHO chief released from hospital in Rio de Janeiro
- According to the hospital, Tedros was admitted on Wednesday afternoon
- He “underwent all the necessary tests, which confirmed clinical indicators with no signs of seriousness”
SAO PAULO: World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been released from Rio de Janeiro’s Hospital Samaritano Barra da Tijuca after spending the night under observation, the hospital said.
According to the hospital, Tedros was admitted on Wednesday afternoon and “underwent all the necessary tests, which confirmed clinical indicators with no signs of seriousness, and was discharged from hospital this morning.”
Local newspaper O Globo had reported earlier on Thursday that Tedros sought medical attention at the facility with “symptoms of labyrinthitis and an hypertensive crisis,” after showing signs of being unwell earlier this week on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
According to the report, Tedros was examined on Monday by health professionals on duty at the G20 summit and given medicine for high blood pressure, but was released once he was stable.
The G20 summit in Rio ended this week with calls for cooperation on climate change, poverty reduction and tax policy.
Sri Lanka’s new president to keep predecessor’s controversial IMF bailout program
- During election campaign, Dissanayake promised to renegotiate IMF deal because austerity measures burdened ordinary people
- In new policy statement he vows to increase welfare programs without derailing the IMF program
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka plans to finalize a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said during the first sitting of the new Parliament on Thursday, maintaining the bailout program secured by his predecessor.
A delegation from the IMF is in Colombo for the third review of its $2.9 billion program ahead of releasing a new tranche of funds to Sri Lanka’s battered economy.
The IMF loan was negotiated by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe early last year. It required the Sri Lankan government to introduce austerity measures that led to price increases in food and fuel and caused hardship to millions of Sri Lankans.
Dissanayake, who assumed the top job in September and further consolidated his grip on power after his National People’s Power alliance won a majority in the legislature last week, had earlier promised to renegotiate the targets set in the IMF deal, because it placed too much burden on ordinary people.
But in his first speech to the inaugural session of Parliament, the president said the economy was “hanging by a thread” — too fragile to take risks.
A country of 22 million, Sri Lanka was hit by the worst economic crisis in its history in 2022, when its defaulted economy shrank by 7.8 percent and 2.3 percent last year.
“The reality in front of us now is that we have no time to check whether these agreements are beneficial or harmful to us, as these are the results of nearly two years of discussions,” he said.
“We cannot go forward if we continue through another two years to study and renegotiate the previous agreement.”
The agreement would allow the release of $337 million to Sri Lanka under the IMF’s four-year loan program. Dissanayake said he expected the agreement to be signed on Friday.
As he outlined his government policy to legislators, he vowed to keep his key election pledges of reducing taxes and increasing welfare programs without derailing the IMF program.
His government is scheduled to present the interim 2025 budget in February.
