New York

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 02 (APP): United Nations Special Envoy Martin Griffiths on Friday condemned as “despicable” the attack on Yemen’s newly formed government as they arrived at the country’s Aden airport on Wednesday, saying it may amount to a war crime.

“Targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law”, Griffiths said on Friday. “A transgression of such magnitude potentially amounts to a war crime”.

NEW YORK, Jan 02 (APP): A Pakistani-American doctor has given nearly 200 patients a Christmas gift that he hoped would make their lives “a little bit easier”, erasing their more than half a million dollars in medical debt, according to media reports.

Dr. Omar Atiq, who founded a cancer clinic in 1991 in Pine Bluff in the U.S. state of Arkansas, sent out a notice to his patients just days before Dec. 25 saying “the clinic has decided to forego all balances owed to the clinic by its patients,” according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Thursday approved 3.231 billion U.S. dollars to fund the world body's regular budget for 2021.

The UNGA's body dealing with UN administrative and budgetary matters, the Fifth Committee, discussed and approved the budget Thursday afternoon before the plenary voted in favor of the financial plan.

Back in October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed a program budget of 2.99 billion dollars - a net reduction of 2.8 percent from 2020.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 31 (APP): Pakistan’s key objective at the U.N. in 2020 remained highlighting the continued military siege and massive human rights violations in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Ambassador Munir Akram has said, calling his mission’s intensive, year-long efforts “successful.”

“In line with the direction and guidance of our leadership, we played a leading role in different multilateral process in New York,” he said in summing up the role played by Pakistan at the UN in 2020.

(Reuters) - Oil prices are unlikely to mount much of a recovery in 2021 as a new coronavirus variant and related travel restrictions threaten already weakened fuel demand, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.

The poll of 39 economists and analysts conducted in the second half of December forecast Brent crude prices would average $50.67 per barrel next year.

That is up from a poll last month that forecast a 2021 average price of $49.35 per barrel but little changed from Brent trading at around $51 on Thursday. [O/R]

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- More than 10 million children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), northeast Nigeria, the Central Sahel, South Sudan and Yemen will suffer from acute malnutrition in 2021, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

All of these countries and regions are experiencing "dire humanitarian crises" while also grappling with intensifying food insecurity, the coronavirus pandemic and, with the exception of the Central Sahel, "a looming famine," the UNICEF said.

NEW YORK, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed 340,000 on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national case count topping 19.6 million, the death toll across the United States rose to 340,586 as of 2:22 p.m. local time (1922 GMT), according to the CSSE data.

New York, Dec 30 (PTI) A US court has ordered the permanent shut down of a technical-support fraud scheme, masterminded by an American citizen and operated through call centres in India, that allegedly defrauded hundreds of elderly and vulnerable Americans.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Volkan Bozkir, president of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), on Tuesday expressed his disappointment at the world body's failure to adopt the budget and plan for 2021.

"I would like to express my concern and disappointment that the United Nations' budget and plan for 2021 have still not been adopted. We are facing an unprecedented situation, in which we are still continuing discussions that have traditionally been finalized before Christmas," the UNGA president said in a statement.

(AP) --- American Airlines flew a Boeing 737 Max with paying passengers from Miami to New York on Tuesday, the plane’s first commercial flight in U.S. skies since it was grounded after two deadly crashes.

American flight 718 carried 87 passengers on the 172-seat plane, and the return flight from LaGuardia Airport to Miami International Airport held 151 passengers, according to an airline spokeswoman.