The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday decried increasing restrictions on women's rights in Afghanistan, urging the country's Taliban rulers to reverse them immediately. The Security Council “reiterated its deep concern of the suspension of schools beyond the sixth grade, and its call for the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan,” it said in a press statement. Read more: 4 NGOs suspend work in Afghanistan after Taliban bar women U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk pointed to “terrible consequences” of a decision to bar women from working for non-governmental organizations. Last week, Taliban authorities stopped university education for women, sparking international outrage and demonstrations in Afghan cities. On Saturday, they announced the exclusion of women from NGO work, a move that already has prompted four major international aid agencies to suspend operations in Afghanistan. “No country can develop — indeed survive — socially and economically with half its population excluded," Türk said in a statement issued in Geneva. "These unfathomable restrictions placed on women and girls will not only increase the suffering of all Afghans but, I fear, pose a risk beyond Afghanistan’s borders.” “This latest decree by the de facto authorities will have terrible consequences for women and for all Afghan people,” Türk said, adding that banning women from working for NGOs will deprive them and their families of incomes and of the right to “contribute positively” to the country's development. Read more: Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan “The ban will significantly impair, if not destroy, the capacity of these NGOs to deliver the essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend," he said. Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women and minorities when they took power last year, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms. “Women and girls cannot be denied their inherent rights," Türk said. “Attempts by the de facto authorities to relegate them to silence and invisibility will not succeed — it will merely harm all Afghans, compound their suffering, and impede the country’s development.”

U.N. member nations elected five countries to join the powerful U.N. Security Council on Thursday with no suspense or drama because all were unopposed -- Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland. Winning a seat on the 15-member Security Council is considered a pinnacle of achievement for many countries because it gives them a strong voice on issues of international peace and security. Today, the war in Ukraine is at the top of the list. Although Russia’s veto power has prevented the council from taking action, it has held numerous meetings since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion that have seen contentious exchanges between top diplomats from both countries and their supporters. But many other conflicts are also on its agenda from Syria and Yemen to Mali and Myanmar as well as international security issues from the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran, and attacks by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida. The results of the secret ballot vote in the 193-member General Assembly were Ecuador 190, Japan 184, Malta 184, Mozambique 192, and Switzerland 187. Even if a country is running unopposed, it must obtain the votes of two-thirds of the member states that voted in order to win a seat on the council. Also Read: UNGA chief calls for shift to green economies on Mother Earth Day General Assembly President Abdalla Shahid announced the results of the secret-ballot vote and congratulated the winner. It will be Mozambique and Switzerland’s first time serving on the council, Japan’s 12th time, Ecuador’s third time and Malta’s second time. The five new council members will start their terms on Jan. 1, replacing five countries whose two-year terms end on Dec. 31 -- India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway. They will join the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council -- the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France -- and the five countries elected last year: Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and United Arab Emirates. The 10 non-permanent seats on the council are allotted to regional groups, who usually select candidates, but sometimes cannot agree on an uncontested slate.

U.N. Security Council diplomats and Muslim foreign ministers convened emergency weekend meetings to demand a stop to civilian bloodshed as Israeli warplanes carried out the deadliest single attacks in nearly a week of Hamas rocket barrages and Israeli airstrikes. President Joe Biden gave no signs of stepping up public pressure on Israel to agree to an immediate cease-fire despite calls from some Democrats for the Biden administration to get more involved. His ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told an emergency high-level meeting of the Security Council that the United States was “working tirelessly through diplomatic channels” to stop the fighting. Read:Israeli warplanes stage more heavy strikes across Gaza City But as battles between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers surged to their worst levels since 2014 and the international outcry grew, the Biden administration — determined to wrench U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East and Afghanistan — has declined so far to criticize Israel’s part in the fighting or send a top-level envoy to the region. Appeals by other countries showed no sign of progress. Thomas-Greenfield warned that the return to armed conflict would only put a negotiated two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict even further out of reach. However, the United States, Israel’s closest ally, has so far blocked days of efforts by China, Norway and Tunisia to get the Security Council to issue a statement, including a call for the cessation of hostilities. In Israel, Hady Amr, a deputy assistant dispatched by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to try to de-escalate the crisis, met with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who thanked the U.S. for its support. Blinken himself headed out on an unrelated tour of Nordic countries, with no announced plans to stop in the Middle East in response to the crisis. He made calls from the plane to Egypt and other nations working to broker a cease-fire, telling Egypt that all parties “should de-escalate tensions and bring a halt to the violence.” Rep. Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, urged Biden on Sunday to step up pressure on both sides to end current fighting and revive talks to resolve Israel’s conflicts and flashpoints with the Palestinians. “I think the administration needs to push harder on Israel and the Palestinian Authority to stop the violence, bring about a cease-fire, end these hostilities, and get back to a process of trying to resolve this long-standing conflict,” Schiff, a California Democrat, told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” And Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, the senior Republican on the foreign relations subcommittee for the region, joined Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the subcommittee chairman, in asking both sides to cease fire. “As a result of Hamas’ rocket attacks and Israel’s response, both sides must recognize that too many lives have been lost and must not escalate the conflict further,” the two said. Biden focused on civilian deaths from Hamas rockets in a call with Netanyahu on Saturday, and a White House readout of the call made no mention of the U.S. urging Israel to join in a cease-fire that regional countries were pushing. Thomas-Greenfield said U.S. diplomats were engaging with Israel, Egypt and Qatar, along with the U.N. Read:Israeli strikes kill 42, topple buildings in Gaza City Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City flattened three buildings and killed at least 42 people Sunday, medics said, bringing the toll since Hamas and Israel opened their air and artillery battles to at least 188 killed in Gaza and eight in Israel. Some 55 children in Gaza and a 5-year-old boy in Israel were among the dead. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis in a televised address Sunday that Israel “wants to levy a heavy price” on Hamas. That will “take time,” Netanyahu said, signaling the war would rage on for now. Representatives of Muslim nations met Sunday to demand Israel halt attacks that are killing Palestinian civilians in the crowded Gaza strip. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan called on “the international community to take urgent action to immediately stop military operations.” The meeting of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation also saw Turkey and some others criticize a U.S.-backed push under which the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and other Islamic nations signed bilateral deals with Israel to normalize their relations, stepping over the wreckage of collapsed international efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians long-term. “The massacre of Palestinian children today follows the purported normalization,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said. t At the virtual meeting of the Security Council, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the U.N. was actively engaging all parties for an immediate cease-fire. Returning to the scenes of Palestinian militant rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes in the fourth such war between Israel and Hamas, “only perpetuates the cycles of death, destruction and despair, and pushes farther to the horizon any hopes of coexistence and peace,” Guterres said. Eight foreign ministers spoke at the Security Council session, reflecting the seriousness of the conflict, with almost all urging an end to the fighting. Read:AP PHOTOS: Fear and grief grip Gaza anew amid familiar glare Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had thrown U.S. support solidly behind Israel, embracing Netanyahu as an ally in Trump’s focus on confronting Iran. Trump gave little time to efforts by past U.S. administrations to push peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, instead encouraging and rewarding Arab nations that signed two-country normalization deals with Israel. Biden, instead, calls Middle East and Central Asia conflicts a distraction from U.S. foreign policy priorities, including competition with China. He’s sought to calm some conflicts and extricate the U.S. from others, including ending U.S. military support for a Saudi-led war in Yemen, planning to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and trying to return to a nuclear deal with Iran that Israel opposes.

To the outside world, the scenes of rocket fire, bombing raids and angry protests in the Middle East this week may have looked familiar. To the people of Israel and especially the Gaza Strip, they were anything but routine. Families once again fled or found themselves homeless, anguished parents mourned dead children and journalists evacuated offices before they were destroyed as the Islamic militant group Hamas and the Israeli military sought to inflict as much damage on the other as they could this week - before the fighting intensified further or they were pressured into a cease-fire. Read:The Latest: China calls for UN council action, slams US The Gaza side, which is controlled by Hamas, absorbed the overwhelming brunt of the death toll: 145 people, including 41 children and 23 women, as of Saturday night, according to the Health Ministry of the narrow, crowded territory where 2 million Palestinians live. Those killed included a family of six on Friday and 10 members of the same family on Saturday.

More than 200 global organizations urged the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, saying the time for statements has passed and immediate action is needed to help protect peaceful protesters against military rule and other opponents of the junta. A statement by the non-governmental organizations said the military “has demonstrated a callous disregard for human life” since their Feb. 1 coup, killing at least 769 people including 51 children as young as six years old and detaining several thousand activists, journalists, civil servants and politicians. Hundreds of others have disappeared, it said. Also Read: Pro-democracy forces in Myanmar create "People's Defence Force" “No government should sell a single bullet to the junta under these circumstances,” the NGOs said. “Imposing a global arms embargo on Myanmar is the minimum necessary step the Security Council should take in response to the military’s escalating violence.” The organizations urged the United Kingdom, the Security Council nation in charge of drafting resolutions on Myanmar, “to begin negotiations on a resolution authorizing an arms embargo as soon as possible.” This “will demonstrate to the junta that there will be no more business as usual,” they said. Myanmar for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country. The coup took place following November elections, which Suu Kyi’s party won overwhelmingly and the military contests as fraudulent. The 15-member Security Council has issued several statements since the coup demanding the restoration of democracy and the release of all detainees including Suu Kyi, strongly condemning the use of violence against peaceful protesters and the deaths of hundreds of civilians and calling on the military “to exercise utmost restraint” and “on all sides to refrain from violence.” It has also stressed “the need to fully respect human rights and to pursue dialogue and reconciliation,” and backed diplomatic efforts by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and U.N. special envoy Christine Schraner Burgener to find a solution. “The time for statements has passed,” the NGOs said. “The Security Council should take its consensus on Myanmar to a new level and agree on immediate and substantive action.” They said a U.N. global arms embargo against Myanmar should bar the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of “all weapons, munitions, and other military-related equipment, including dual-use goods such as vehicles and communications and surveillance equipment.” Training, intelligence and other military assistance should also be banned, they said. Amnesty International’s Senior U.N. Advocate Lawrence Moss told a virtual news conference launching the statement that many countries supply weapons to Myanmar. Citing Amnesty’s research and information from other trusted sources, he said Russia has been supplying combat aircraft and attack helicopters to Myanmar while China has been supplying combat aircraft, naval weapons, armored vehicles, surveillance drones and aiding Myanmar’s indigenous naval industry. In addition, he said, Chinese weapons, small arms and armored vehicles have been diverted to ethnic armed groups, especially the Kachin Independence Army. Also Read:Myanmar’s military disappearing young men to crush uprising Moss said Ukraine has also supplied Myanmar’s military with armored vehicles and is involved in the joint production of armored vehicles in Myanmar, Turkey has provided shotguns and shotgun cartridges, India has provided armored vehicles, troop carriers and naval equipment including a submarine with torpedoes, and Serbia has recorded transfers of small quantities of artillery systems and small arms. Israel had supplied frigates and armored vehicles to Myanmar along with police training but that stopped in 2017 though it may still be providing surveillance equipment, Moss said. South Korea transferred an amphibious assault system in 2019 but announced a halt to further military exports after the coup. Human Rights Watch’s U.N. Director Louis Charbonneau said: “This is the beginning of what we hope will be an escalation of advocacy to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Security Council, wringing its hands, sticking with inaction and the occasional statement of concern.” But getting the Security Council to adopt a resolution authorizing an arms embargo faces an uphill struggle, especially with China and Russia’s general opposition to sanctions. China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun, whose country holds the council presidency this month, told a news conference Monday that China is “a friendly neighbor of Myanmar” and is putting more emphasis on diplomatic efforts. It is “not in favor of imposing sanctions” which may hinder diplomacy and lead to suffering of ordinary people, Zhang said. Amnesty’s Moss countered that an “arms embargo would not hurt the ordinary people of Myanmar in any way, shape or form... and I hope that China will consider that.” Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, said Myanmar’s “murderous, military-led regime” shouldn’t be allowed to buy bombs or even “camouflage underwear” and “should be treated like the pariahs that they are.” “I think all of us share concern that the country could become a failed state, armed conflict could intensify, and so an arms embargo now is also a kind of preventive against a refugee crisis that flows across borders in the region, and an armed conflict which serves nobody’s interests,” Adams said. Also Read: UN calls for return to democracy in Myanmar, end to violence Myra Dahgaypaw, managing director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma who recalled fleeing from past military airstrikes, said an arms embargo won’t solve all the country’s problems but “it will significantly increase the safety of the people on the ground, including the ethnic and the religious minorities.” “Today I just want to tell the U.N. Security Council that the people of Burma need your help, and they need it urgently,” she said. “Please don’t let the efforts, the struggle and the resilience of the people on the ground who are trying to survive go in vain.”

The U.N. special envoy for Myanmar warned Wednesday that the country faces the possibility of civil war “at an unprecedented scale” and urged the U.N. Security Council to consider “potentially significant action” to reverse the Feb. 1 military coup and restore democracy. Christine Schraner Burgener didn’t specify what action she considered significant, but she painted a dire picture of the military crackdown and told the council in a closed briefing that Myanmar “is on the verge of spiraling into a failed state.” “This could happen under our watch,” she said in a virtual presentation obtained by The Associated Press, “and failure to prevent further escalation of atrocities will cost the world so much more in the longer term than investing now in prevention, especially by Myanmar’s neighbors and the wider region.” Schraner Burgener urged the council “to consider all available tools to take collective action” and do what the people of Myanmar deserve — “prevent a multidimensional catastrophe in the heart of Asia.  A proposed press statement from the council was not issued after the meeting because China, a close neighbor of Myanmar, asked for additional time to consider its contents, likely until Thursday, several council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed. Also read: Freed Polish journalist urges pressure put on Myanmar junta Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun warned the council in remarks distributed by China’s U.N. Mission that “one-sided pressure and calling for sanctions or other coercive measures will only aggravate tension and confrontation and further complicate the situation, which is by no means constructive.” He urged all parties to find a solution through dialogue that de-escalates the situation and continues “to advance the democratic transition in Myanmar,” warning that if the country slides “into protracted turbulence, it will be a disaster for Myanmar and the region as a whole.” The coup reversed years of slow progress toward democracy in Myanmar, which for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country. In the virtual meeting, Schraner Burgener denounced the killing and arrest of unarmed protesters seeking to restore democracy. She cited figures from Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners that as of Wednesday, some 2,729 people have been arrested, charged or sentenced since the coup and an estimated 536 have been killed. Also read: Myanmar junta deepens violence with new air attacks The Security Council adopted a presidential statement -- one step below a resolution -- on March 10 calling for a reversal of the coup, strongly condemning the violence against peaceful protesters and calling for “utmost restraint” by the military. It stressed the need to uphold “democratic institutions and processes” and called for the immediate release of detained government leaders including Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. The statement is weaker than the initial draft circulated by the United Kingdom, which would have condemned the coup and threatened “possible measures under the U.N. Charter” -- U.N. language for sanctions -- “should the situation deteriorate further.” Stressing the urgency of action, Schraner Burgener told council members she fears that serious international crimes and violations of international law by the military “will become bloodier as the commander-in-chief seems determined to solidify his unlawful grip on power by force.” Also read: Thailand denies forcing fleeing villagers back to Myanmar “Mediation requires dialogue, but Myanmar’s military has shut its doors to most of the world,” she said at the virtual meeting. “It appears the military would only engage when it feels they are able to contain the situation through repression and terror.” “If we wait only for when they are ready to talk,” Schraner Burgener warned that “a bloodbath is imminent.” The U.N. envoy called on those with access to the military, known as the Tatmadaw, to let them know the damage to Myanmar’s reputation and the threat it poses not only to its citizens but to the security of neighboring countries. “A robust international response requires a unified regional position, especially with neighboring countries leveraging their influence towards stability in Myanmar,” Schraner Burgener said, adding that she plans to visit the region, hopefully next week. Schraner Burgener said intensification of fighting in Kayin State has sent thousands fleeing to neighboring Thailand and Conflict in Kachin State with the Kachin Independence Army near the Chinese border intensified “to its highest point this year.” Armed ethnic groups on Myanmar’s eastern and western borders are also increasingly speaking out against “the brutality of the military,” she said. The opposition of ethnic armed groups to “the military’s cruelty ... (is) increasing the possibility of civil war at an unprecedented scale,” Schraner Burgener warned. “Already vulnerable groups requiring humanitarian assistance including ethnic minorities and the Rohingya people will suffer most,” she said, “but inevitably, the whole country is on the verge of spiraling into a failed state.” Democratically elected representatives to Myanmar’s National Assembly who formed a committee known by its initials CRPH sent a letter to Guterres and to Britain’s U.N. ambassador Wednesday urging the Security Council to impose “robust, targeted sanctions that freeze the assets of not only military leaders but also military enterprises and the junta’s major sources of revenue, such as the oil and gas sector.” CRPH also urged the council to impose an arms embargo against the military, facilitate humanitarian assistance including cross-border aid, refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court “to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes committed by the military, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and consider whether there is a need to protect Myanmar’s people from such crimes. British Ambassador Barbara Woodward, who called for the council meeting, said afterward that “we will continue to discuss next steps with other council members” to prevent the military “from perpetuating this crisis.” “We want to consider all measures that are at our disposal,” she said, which include sanctions. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters before the council meeting that if the military don’t go back to their barracks and continue to attack civilians “we can’t just step back and allow this to happen.” “Then, we have to look at how we might do more,” she said. Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, told reporters Tuesday that all council members want the violence to stop and a restoration of dialogue and national unity. But he accused some countries and media outlets of “inciting the protesters to continue their protests,” which amounts to interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs.   “Russia is not a big fan of sanctions” and “punitive measures,” Polyansky said, “We shouldn’t overstep this very thin line between trying to help and interfering into the internal affairs of sovereignty.”

YouTube removed five channels run by Myanmar’s military for violating its guidelines, it announced Friday, as demonstrators defied growing violence by security forces and staged more anti-coup protests ahead of a special U.N. Security Council meeting on the country's political crisis.

Demonstrators in Myanmar protesting last month's military coup returned to the streets Thursday, undaunted by the killing of at least 38 people the previous day by security forces.

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, the president of the U.N. General Assembly, has warned that a vaccine for COVID-19 must be made available to everyone who needs, reports AP.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted four resolutions on Monday, with its 15 members voting by email for the first time because of the coronavirus pandemic.