UN-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan has urged Syria's government to allow the UN unhindered access to the more than one million people left in need of humanitarian aid after 15 months of conflict.
International envoy Kofi Annan said Thursday he expected the Syrian government and the opposition to agree to a ceasefire by April 12. The UN Security Council endorsed the deadline, warning Syria of "further steps" if it did not comply.
As Mali descends into chaos, Annette Young talks to the number two at the US Agency for International Development about the effectiveness of American aid in the West African nation. Ambassador Donald Steinberg tells her that current events will force Washington to rethink its approach in its aid strategy.
International envoy Kofi Annan told the United Nations Security Council on Monday that Syria has agreed to halt violence against anti-government protesters on April 10, as part of a six-point peace plan hoped to end the country's year-long crisis.
Gulf states are creating a multimillion-dollar fund to pay Syrian opposition soldiers and army defectors, participants at the "Friends of Syria" summit in Istanbul announced on Sunday. Syria has called the meeting an "international conspiracy".
UN-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government Friday to immediately halt fighting as a “gesture of good faith” that it will honour its commitment to bring an end to more than a year of violence.
The World Bank and the African Development Bank said Thursday they were suspending aid to Mali after a military coup this week ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure. The UN Security Council, the African Union and ECOWAS have condemned the coup.
Four more members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, representing the Gulf Arab states, announced the closure of their embassies in Damascus Friday, slamming the Syrian regime's continued "killing and tormenting of the unarmed Syrian people".
The United Nations said Thursday that it will be dispatching a "government-led", supervised humanitarian mission to Syria this weekend but repeated demands for "unhindered access" to Syrian cities to provide urgent care and supplies.
Syrian government troops shelled the city of Rastan for the second day straight Monday, activists said. The renewed assault came as the Arab League and United Nations announced they would send envoys to the embattled country later in the week.
