Search results for

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that he welcomed "possibilities for increased military cooperation with North Korea.

Iraq accepts terms of a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at disarming Saddam Hussein, but a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan denies the regime has weapons of mass destruction. Hear from NPR's Vicky O'Hara, NPR's Lynn Neary and political writer Rami Khouri.

A U.N. panel looking into the conflict in western Sudan said the fighting did not constitute genocide. But it said the Sudanese government and its proxy militia, the Janjaweed, did commit crimes and should be tried for them. The question is how and where, and that's becoming a new source of conflict between the U.S. and the U.N.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says elections to choose a new Iraqi government are possible by the end of 2004 -- but only if work begins immediately. Annan, delivering the findings of a U.N. report prepared by envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, added that due to political strife in the country, Iraq might not be ready to hold elections until 2005. Hear NPR's Ivan Watson.

Whistleblowers say huge sums of money related to a United Nations development project are being lost to bribery and corruption, according to new reporting in the Guardian.

Angry civilians attacked U.N. offices in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, accusing U.N. peacekeeping troops of failing to protect them. Rebels are making gains against government troops in the region. Michael Kavanagh, a reporter trapped in a U.N. base in Goma, says the U.N. troops are too few in number to protect the vast area of 8 million people.

After last-minute revisions, and a push from Russia, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approves a U.S. resolution aimed at additional international help in Iraq. Resolution 1511 is expected to generate financial aid and peacekeeping troops from previously reluctant sources. It also clarifies the U.N. role in reshaping postwar Iraq. Hear NPR's Bob Edwards and NPR's Michele Kelemen.

The United States and France point to a positive response to a draft U.N. resolution calling for a halt to fighting and asking U.N. peacekeepers to monitor the Israeli-Lebanese border. But Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Siniora calls the text "inadequate." His government plans to press the Security Council to amend some of the wording.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi says he supports a prominent Shiite cleric's calls for direct elections for an interim authority in Iraq. The cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, wants elections before the transfer of power the U.S. wants to occur on July 1. U.N. officials say elections by that date are unlikely, though they could occur late this year or early next year. Hear NPR's Deborah Amos.

The Pentagon and U.N. human rights investigators are in a standoff over access to the more than 500 people being held at the Guantanamo Bay military detention center. Last week, the Defense Department invited the United Nations to visit the base, but under conditions that the investigators say they cannot accept.