UNITED NATIONS, March 12 (Reuters) – The United States and
Russia traded swipes at the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday
over proposed statements about peace progress in Sudan and South
Sudan, with Russia’s U.N. envoy accusing the U.S. ambassador of
bizarre behavior and making outlandish claims.

It was the latest in a series of tense public exchanges
between Moscow and Washington, whose relations have become
increasingly frosty in recent months because of disagreements
over how to deal with Syria and human rights in Russia.

PARIS/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – France and its African allies want a heavily armed force able to counter any resurgent Islamist threat in Mali as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, diplomats said.

The United Nations is considering setting up a 10,000-strong force in the former French colony before presidential and legislative elections in July, a deadline a European diplomat described on Tuesday as “a race against time”.

BEIRUT/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations hopes to retrieve 21 peacekeepers from Syrian rebels on Saturday during a two-hour truce agreed to by Syrian troops and opposition groups after a release bid was abandoned on Friday, the United Nations and an opposition group said.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said the Filipino peacekeepers were being held in the basements of four houses in the village of Jamla, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which was being subjected to intense shelling by Syrian troops.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has threatened to stop supporting two Congolese army battalions unless soldiers accused of raping scores of women in an eastern town are prosecuted, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

The United Nations said 126 women were raped in Minova in November after Congolese troops fled to the town as so-called M23 rebels briefly captured the nearby provincial capital of Goma.

UNITED NATIONS, March 7 (Reuters) – In response to North
Korea’s third nuclear test, the U.N. Security Council voted on
Thursday to tighten financial restrictions on Pyongyang and
crack down on its attempts to ship and receive banned cargo in
breach of U.N. sanctions.

The U.S.-drafted resolution, approved unanimously by the
15-nation council, was the product of three weeks of
negotiations between the United States and China after North
Korea’s Feb. 12 test.