Diplomacy & Crisis News

Washington was also trying to protect Tunisia — and help keep the Arab Spring’s only success story from going off the rails.

Addressing billions of illicit financial outflows from Africa is imperative as the continent needs domestic resources for its development, said the former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, who chairs a United Nations panel on the issue, urging the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and partner institutions to elaborate relevant action plans.

Following a humanitarian breakthrough in delivering aid to a Syrian town inaccessible for more than 18 months, the United Nations food relief agency is now planning possible air-drops for 200,000 people in the Deir ez-Zor area besieged by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL/Da’esh.

With senior United Nations officials warning of escalating inter-communal violence and rampant human rights violations in South Sudan, the Security Council today strongly condemned all attacks and provocations against civilians and the UN by armed actors, and called for calm on all sides.

The fracturing of Afghanistan’s body politic looms. Can anyone stop it?

Two unnamed complainants asked a German court to reverse a ban on animal sex. The court threw out the claim.

A court order compelling Apple to help the FBI unlock one of its phones has sparked a heated debate over privacy and national security.

The United States' criticisms of China in the South China Sea are misleading -- likely intentionally so.

These obscure Kurdish fighters just took responsibility for the this week's Ankara bombing.

Once dismissed as an out-of-touch technocrat, Alain Juppé has reinvented himself as France's voice of moderation — and the French love him for it.

Xi Jinping continues to emphasize the need for Party control of Chinese media -- a worrying sign for journalists.

Turkish authorities have released Rami Jarrah, a Syrian journalist based in Gaziantep, but have not yet provided a reason for his arrest.

Wrong movie, wrong focus group, wrong century.

Following a mission to Afghanistan, the United Nations envoy dealing with children and armed conflict issues, has welcomed the Government's recommitment to fully implementing its plan to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children in the national security forces.

From climate change to the Islamic State, from Russia to China, we asked scholars who they want tackling America's biggest problems.

The Carter administration had to make sure Taiwan didn't renege on a 1976 nuclear pledge.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today highlighted the publication of a new study that quantifies, for the first time, how much crop yields depend on the work of bees that unknowingly fertilize plants as they move from flower to flower.

Plus, updates to previous reports on Ling Wancheng, Cornwallis Reef, and Liu Xiaobo Plaza. Friday China links.

The list of health conditions that can be linked to environmental pollution and degradation is long and growing, including skin cancer, lung cancer, asthma, lead poisoning, mercury poisoning, malaria, Ebola and Zika, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In a recent discussion, Noah Tucker argues that religious freedom--as a policy--is simply the best counter to ISIS messaging efforts.