UN failing to stop wars amid Security Council ‘paralysis’ — but progressing on strengthening member states

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Updated 05 October 2024
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UN failing to stop wars amid Security Council ‘paralysis’ — but progressing on strengthening member states

  • Brian Katulis, Ephrem Kossaify discuss mixed outcomes of 79th UN General Assembly and the need for urgent reforms to safeguard the world body’s future

CHICAGO/LONDON: The 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, which concluded this week, highlighted the UN’s inability to prevent escalating wars, particularly in the Middle East. However, progress was made on other global issues, such as climate change and poverty.

Founded on Oct. 24, 1945, after the Second World War, the UN was created to maintain international peace, prevent conflict and promote friendly relations among countries. Yet, 79 years later, experts acknowledge that the UN remains hampered in achieving its core mandate, particularly due to the disproportionate power wielded by the five permanent members of the Security Council: The US, Russia, China, France and the UK.

Brian Katulis, senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Middle East Institute, highlighted this imbalance during an interview on “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” pointing out that while the UN is often blamed for failing to stop conflicts, major global powers have also fallen short in “arresting the spiral down into conflict and a regional war” that is breaking out in the Middle East.

“It’s fine to point a finger to the UN, but the US has not done that great of a job in stopping this,” said Katulis. “And I would also argue a lot of the regional powers and also other global powers like Russia and China haven’t been so good, and it’s for one reason: It’s that the combatants in these conflicts in the Middle East see fit to actually use force, military force, power in that way, in some cases terrorism and terror strikes, to advance their interests. And that’s the unfortunate consequence of the era we live in right now.”

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Despite these challenges, the UN continues to make strides in other areas, Katulis said, highlighting how the organization still plays a critical role in addressing societal issues, particularly through its humanitarian work with refugees and efforts in global health.

“They’re doing a lot at a popular level, if you ask Palestinian refugees that live in Jordan and Lebanon, and Gaza and other places,” said Katulis, who this week released his most recent analysis, “Strategic Drift: An Assessment of the Biden Administration’s Middle East Approach,” available from the Middle East Institute.

“Of course, there’s been justifiable criticisms of the quality of that education and what’s being taught, but there’s certain things that we, here in America, because we have such a great system and great economy, just take for granted.”

He argued that while the UN provides “a lot stopgaps, it does save lives.”

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Most recently, the UN launched a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children against polio in Gaza, following the enclave’s first confirmed case in 25 years.

To achieve this, the World Health Organization, the UN agency founded in 1948 to promote global health and safety, coordinated efforts using localized ceasefires between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters.

Despite the UN’s benign longstanding mission and its membership of 193 states, the body’s relationship with Israel has grown increasingly strained. This tension peaked earlier this week when Israel declared UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres persona non grata.

In recent years, experts have questioned the efficacy of the UN, a body originally designed to reflect postwar power structures. These concerns have intensified amid mounting conflict in the Middle East, and are reflected in a loss of confidence in the organization’s ability to mediate effectively.

However, despite rising tensions and an agenda dominated by wars in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, the UN General Assembly continued to push forward with its broader objectives. It focused on promoting reforms and advocating for greater equality between member states and the powerful Security Council.

“Even though Gaza and the war in Sudan and the war in Ukraine have again dominated the 79th session of the General Assembly, there still have been some positive headlines, or so the UN likes to say,” Ephrem Kossaify, Arab News’ UN correspondent, told “The Ray Hanania Radio Show.”

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Kossaify highlighted the adoption of key agreements at the session, including the Pact for the Future, which aims to revitalize the UN’s multilateral system. The General Assembly also adopted other significant declarations, such as one enhancing the role of youth in public decision-making and another addressing global governance of artificial intelligence.

“There’s been a pact that was adopted as well, a political declaration on antimicrobial resistance, which, as Dr. Hanan Balkhy, a Saudi regional chief of the WHO, told Arab News, is the ‘silent epidemic.’ So, at least if you want to see the glass half-full, you can look at these agreements. Even though it took very long, with intense weeks and months of negotiations led by Germany and Namibia, member states have finally been able to come together to sign these three big declarations,” Kossaify said.

Yet for many, including former UN special envoy for Yemen and UN under-secretary-general Jamal Benomar, the declarations are seen as “rehashed and recycled wording from previously agreed UN documents,” filled with “vague and aspirational language” lacking concrete, actionable steps.

A major obstacle remains: The Security Council’s veto power.

Kossaify highlighted the “paralysis” within the UN, highlighting the disconnect between the overpowered permanent members of the Security Council and the increasingly assertive General Assembly, which has amplified its support for Palestine in the face of Israeli violence against civilians in Gaza. Despite growing calls for a ceasefire, the US — one of the five permanent members — has repeatedly vetoed such proposals.

“Out of the 80 vetoes that the US has cast over the past decades, at least 40 of them have been cast to prevent any action against Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and to prevent any action on the ground,” said Kossaify, adding that five of those vetoes have been cast within the past year alone.

“As we saw, the US has vetoed every ceasefire resolution. And even when the Security Council adopted the three resolutions, one having to do with humanitarian relief for the people in Gaza, the US abstained to let it pass, but also undermined it further by saying that Security Council resolutions are non-binding.”

Kossaify said that this created a “huge controversy,” and that the Security Council “is supposed to have the force of international law behind it.

“It is even allowed to use chapter seven to use force in order to implement its resolution. But it has been paralyzed because these five big powers have the prerogative of the veto. They can block any action that doesn’t suit their geopolitical position.”

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Kossaify highlighted his interview with Kuwait’s ambassador to the UN, who said that “one or two countries cannot be allowed anymore to block the path of peace when the whole, when so many — the majority of member states want the path to peace.”

Highlighting Arab unity in demanding an end to the Israeli aggression in Gaza and the conflict’s expansion, Kossaify added: “On Gaza, it’s not just the humanitarian suffering that we’re seeing and how it’s really weighing on the conscience of the world. It’s also the ways in which Gaza has shown the real weaknesses of the UN system with its Security Council, the dangers of keeping this veto power without any challenge, and the dysfunction, basically, that it is causing in this multilateral institution, the only one we have in the world.

“Yet despite all the challenges and disagreements and geopolitical divisions, the General Assembly was able to adopt the Pact for the Future, a declaration on the role of youth and a commitment to reform the Security Council, even if it’s just in words.”

Katulis and Kossaify made their comments during tapings of “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” which is broadcast Thursday on the US Arab Radio Network and sponsored by Arab News.

The show is broadcast live on WNZK AM 690 Radio in Michigan Thursday at 5 p.m. EST, and again the following Monday at 5 p.m. It is available by podcast at ArabNews.com/rayradioshow or at Facebook.com/ArabNews.


Ukraine blames Russian strike for power cut to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Updated 05 July 2025
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Ukraine blames Russian strike for power cut to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

  • Ukrainian minister says Russian shelling caused the outage
  • Ukrainian energy distribution company says it restored power

VIENNA: All external power lines supplying electricity to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine were down for several hours on Friday, the UN nuclear watchdog said, but the station’s management later said power had been restored.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, acknowledged that power had been restored after 3 1/2 hours. But he added in a statement on X that nuclear safety “remains extremely precarious in Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s energy minister blamed Russian shelling for severing the last power line to the plant and its six reactors. The country’s power distribution operator said its technicians had taken action to restore it.
Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, which is not operating but still requires power to keep its nuclear fuel cool, switched during the outage to running on diesel generators, the IAEA said.
The organization has repeatedly warned of the risk of a catastrophic accident at Zaporizhzhia, which is located near the front line in the war in Ukraine. Its reactors are shut down, but the nuclear fuel inside them still needs to be cooled, which requires constant power.
The plant’s Russia-installed management issued a statement on Telegram saying the high-voltage line to the plant had been restored.
The statement said there had been no disruptions to operations at the plant, no violations of security procedures and no rise in background radiation levels beyond normal levels.
The IAEA had earlier said that the plant had lost all off-site power for the ninth time during the military conflict and for the first time since late 2023. “The ZNPP currently relies on power from its emergency diesel generators, underlining (the) extremely precarious nuclear safety situation,” it said.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galuschenko wrote on Telegram that a Russian strike had cut off the plant.
“The enemy struck the power line connecting the temporarily occupied (Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant) with the integrated power system of Ukraine.”
Ukrenergo, the sole operator of high-voltage lines in Ukraine, said its specialists had brought it back into service.
“Ukrenergo specialists have brought back into service the high-voltage line which supplies the temporarily occupied power station,” it said on Telegram.
Neither the IAEA nor the plant’s Russian-installed management initially cited a cause for the cut-off. Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia station in the first weeks of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Each side regularly accuses the other of firing or taking other actions that could trigger a nuclear accident.


At least 13 dead in Texas floods and more than 20 children missing from a girls summer camp

Updated 20 min 11 sec ago
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At least 13 dead in Texas floods and more than 20 children missing from a girls summer camp

  • Missing girls were among 750 attending summer camp at Camp Mystic in Kerr County
  • Flooded site is in an area of Texas known as “flash flood alley”

KERRVILLE, Texas: Months worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours on Texas Hill Country, leaving at least 13 people dead and many more unaccounted for Friday, including about 20 girls attending a summer camp, as search teams conducted boat and helicopter rescues in fast-moving floodwaters.
Desperate pleas peppered social media as loved ones sought any information about people caught in the flood zone. At least 10 inches  of rain poured down overnight in central Kerr County, causing flash flooding of the Guadalupe River.
Authorities stressed that the situation was still developing and that the death toll could change, with rescue operations ongoing for an unspecified number missing. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said six to 10 bodies had been found so far. Around the same time, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha reported that 13 people had died in the flooding.
“Some are adults, some are children,” Patrick said during a news conference. “Again, we don’t know where those bodies came from.”
Judge Rob Kelly, the chief elected official in Kerr County, said authorities were still working to identify those who died.
“Most of them, we don’t know who they are,” Kelly said during a news conference.

Pleading for information after flash flood
On the Kerr County sheriff’s office Facebook page, people pleaded for help finding loved ones and posted pictures of them. Patrick said at least 400 people were on the ground helping in the response. Nine rescue teams, 14 helicopters and 12 drones were being used in the search, and Patrick said some people were being rescued from trees.
About 23 of the roughly 750 girls attending Camp Mystic were among those who were unaccounted for, Patrick said.
Search crews were doing “whatever we can do to find everyone we can,” he said.
At Hunt, where the Guadalupe forks, a river gauge recorded a 22 foot rise  in about two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Austin/San Antonio office. Fogarty said the gauge failed after recording a level of 29 and a half feet .
“The water’s moving so fast, you’re not going to recognize how bad it is until it’s on top of you,” Fogarty said.
‘Pitch black wall of death’
In Ingram, Erin Burgess woke to thunder and rain at 3:30 a.m. Just 20 minutes later, water was pouring into her home directly across from the river, she said. She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree and waiting for the water to recede enough so they could walk up the hill to a neighbor’s home.
“My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,” she said.
Of her 19-year-old son, Burgess said: “Thankfully he’s over 6 feet tall. That’s the only thing that saved me, was hanging on to him.”
Matthew Stone, 44, of Kerrville, said police came knocking on doors at 5:30 a.m. but that he had received no warning on his phone.
“We got no emergency alert. There was nothing,” Stone said. Then: “a pitch black wall of death.”
Stone said police used his paddle boat to help rescue a neighbor. Stone said he and the rescuers thought they heard someone yelling “help!” from the water but couldn’t see anyone.
At a reunification center set up in Ingram, families cried and cheered as loved ones got off vehicles loaded with evacuees. Two soldiers carried an older woman who could not get down a ladder. Behind her, a woman in a soiled T-shirt and shorts clutched a small white dog.
Later, a girl in a white “Camp Mystic” T-shirt arrived. Standing in white socks in a puddle, she sobbed in her mother’s arms.

‘No one knew this kind of flood was coming’
The forecast had called for rain, with a flood watch upgraded to a warning overnight for at least 30,000 people. But totals in some places exceeded expectations, Fogarty said.
Patrick noted that the potential for heavy rain and flooding covered a large area.
“Everything was done to give them a heads up that you could have heavy rain, and we’re not exactly sure where it’s going to land,” Patrick said. “Obviously as it got dark last night, we got into the wee morning of the hours, that’s when the storm started to zero in.”
Asked about how people were notified in Kerr County so that they could get to safety, Kelly said, “We do not have a warning system.”
When reporters pushed on why more precautions weren’t taken, he responded: “Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.”
“We have floods all the time,” he added. “This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”
Popular tourism area prone to flooding
It’s in an area of Texas known as “flash flood alley” because of the hills’ thin layer of soil, said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which was collecting donations to help nonprofits responding to the disaster.
“When it rains, water doesn’t soak into the soil,” Dickson said. “It rushes down the hill.”
River tourism industry is a key part of the Hill Country economy, said Dickson. Well-known, century-old summer camps bring in kids from all over the country, he said. Between Hunt and Ingram are many river homes and cabins for rent.
“It’s generally a very tranquil river with really beautiful clear blue water that people have been attracted to for generations,” Dickson said.
Deaths in New Jersey blamed on thunderstorms
The flooding in Texas occurred as severe weather moved through central New Jersey, where thunderstorms were blamed for at least three deaths.
Among them were two men in Plainfield who died after a tree fell onto their vehicle, according to a city Facebook post.
The city canceled its July Fourth parade, concert and fireworks show.


IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on

Updated 05 July 2025
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on

  • Tehran has passed law to suspend cooperation with IAEA
  • Iran’s stock of near-bomb-grade uranium unaccounted for

VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.

IAEA wants talks
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“(Grossi) reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tons of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60 percent purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that .... the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week. 


Trump signs ‘big, beautiful’ bill on US Independence Day

Updated 29 min 34 sec ago
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Trump signs ‘big, beautiful’ bill on US Independence Day

  • The passage of the unpopular bill caps two weeks of significant wins for Trump

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed his flagship tax and spending bill into law Friday, capping a pomp-laden White House Independence Day ceremony featuring a stealth bomber fly-by.
“America is winning, winning, winning like never before,” Trump said at the event where he signed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” flanked by Republican lawmakers.
The party fell into line and pushed the bill through a reluctant Congress on Thursday, in time for Trump to sign the bill as he had hoped on the Fourth of July holiday marking America’s 249th birthday.
Two B-2 bombers of the type that recently struck Iranian nuclear sites roared over the White House at the start of the ceremony, accompanied by fighter jets on their wingtips.
Pilots who carried out the bombing on Iran were among those invited to the White House event.
The passage of the unpopular bill caps two weeks of significant wins for Trump, including an Iran-Israel ceasefire that was sealed after what he called the “flawless” US air strikes on Iran.

Ever the showman, Trump melded his various victory laps into one piece of political theater at the ceremony marking 249 years of independence from Britain.
The sprawling mega-bill honors many of Trump’s campaign promises: extending tax cuts from his first term, boosting military spending and providing massive new funding for Trump’s migrant deportation drive.
Trump glossed over deep concerns from his own party and voters that it will balloon the national debt, while simultaneously gutting health and welfare support.
“The largest spending cut,” Trump said with First Lady Melania Trump at his side, “and yet you won’t even notice it.”
Trump forced through the “big beautiful bill” despite deep misgivings in the Republican Party — and the vocal opposition of his billionaire former ally, Elon Musk.
It squeezed past a final vote in the House of Representatives 218-214 after Republican Speaker Mike Johnson worked through the night to corral the final group of dissenters.
Trump thanked Johnson at the White House event.
The legislation is the latest in a series of big wins for Trump that also included a Supreme Court ruling last week that curbed lone federal judges from blocking his policies, and a NATO deal to increase spending.
But the bill is expected to pile an extra $3.4 trillion over a decade onto the US deficit.
At the same time it will shrink the federal food assistance program and force through the largest cuts to the Medicaid health insurance scheme for low-income Americans since its 1960s launch.
Up to 17 million people could lose their insurance coverage under the bill, according to some estimates. Scores of rural hospitals are expected to close as a result.
Democrats hope public opposition to the bill will help them flip the House in the 2026 midterm election, pointing to data showing that it represents a huge redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.


US judge briefly pauses deportation of 8 migrants to South Sudan

Updated 04 July 2025
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US judge briefly pauses deportation of 8 migrants to South Sudan

  • US District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington made the ruling at an emergency hearing on July 4
  • The administration has detained the men for six weeks on a military base in Djibouti

WASHINGTON: A federal judge briefly halted the Trump administration on Friday from placing eight migrants on a plane destined for conflict-ridden South Sudan, to give lawyers for the men time to make their argument to a court in Massachusetts.

US District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington made the ruling at an emergency hearing on July 4, when courts are otherwise closed for the Independence Day holiday.

The group of migrants had filed new claims on Thursday after the Supreme Court clarified that a federal judge in Boston could no longer require US Department of Homeland Security to hold them.

The administration has detained the men for six weeks on a military base in Djibouti rather than bring back to the United States.

The order stops the US government from moving the men until 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time. They were scheduled to be removed to South Sudan on a 7 p.m. flight.

The case is the latest development over the legality of the Trump administration’s campaign to deter immigration by shipping migrants to locations other than their countries of origin pursuant to deals with other countries.

A lawyer for the US said during the hearing that court orders halting agreed-upon deportations pose a serious problem for US diplomatic relations and would make foreign countries less likely to accept transfers of migrants in the future. The group of men have been convicted of various crimes, with four of them convicted of murder, the US Department of Homeland Security has said.

South Sudan has long been dangerous even for locals. The US State Department advises citizens not to travel there due to violent crime and armed conflict. The United Nations has said the African country’s political crisis could reignite a brutal civil war that ended in 2018. The eight men, who their lawyers said are from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Burma, Sudan and Vietnam, argue their deportations to South Sudan would violate the US constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment.

Moss said that he would transfer the case to Massachusetts rather than hear it himself, but remarked that if they proved their allegations about the motives of US authorities, they would likely have a valid claim.

“It seems to me almost self-evident that the United States government cannot take human beings and send them to circumstances in which their physical well-being is at risk simply either to punish them or send a signal to others,” Moss said during the hearing.