Mideast

The most comprehensive survey on the situation of women and children in Iraq shows that 32 per cent of children under the age of 18 are deprived of many basic services, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today.

United Nations agencies have welcomed the launch by the Government of Iraq of its first-ever national educational strategy, which will help to ensure quality education for the country's 33 million citizens, especially the most deprived children and youth.

The United Nations human rights chief today voiced alarm at the rising tension and recent deaths and injuries during protests related to Egypt’s draft constitution, while also drawing attention to a number of problems with the text.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon arrived in Baghdad on Thursday for talks with Iraqi leaders, state television said, after a visit to Kuwait in which he called for a new era in relations between the two countries.

The Syrian government is violating a 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. Syria is deploying military equipment and troops over the cease-fire line on the Golan Heights, Ban said in a report delivered Monday to the Security Council, and the violations could escalate Israel-Syria tensions and jeopardize the agreement.

An Israeli-Palestinian showdown over plans for new Jewish settlements around Jerusalem escalated on Wednesday. Israel pushed the most contentious of the projects further along in the planning pipeline, and the Palestinian president said he would seek U.N. Security Council help to block the construction.

The U.N. General Assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to quickly open its nuclear program for inspection and backing a high-level conference to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East which was just canceled.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that the Israeli government rejects the upgrade of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to a non- member observer state in the United Nations.

King Abdullah II of Jordan on Sunday congratulated the Palestinians over the UN voting that granted Palestine the status of a non-member observer state, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

The top United Nations human rights official today called on Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to reconsider a Constitutional Declaration he issued last week, saying parts of the measure conflict with international human rights law.