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NEW YORK, Jan 03 (APP): The United States should exercise its moral authority and help secure freedom for the people of Indian occupied Kashmir, now languishing under a repressive lockdown since August 5, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. Asad Khan has said.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Estonia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam began to assume responsibilities on Thursday as non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

The five countries hold a two-year term. Out of the five newly-elected members, Estonia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have never served on the Security Council.

Kuwait, Peru, Poland, Cote d'Ivoire and Equatorial Guinea have just left the Security Council.

NEW YORK (AP) — The man charged in the machete attack on a Hanukkah celebration north of New York City had been questioned by local authorities in connection with an earlier stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish man in the same town, police said Thursday.

Grafton Thomas faces state and federal charges in Saturday’s Hanukkah attack, which wounded five people at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York.

That attack came as police in the same town were investigating a Nov. 20 stabbing in which a man was critically injured while walking to a synagogue.

MONSEY, N.Y. (AP) — For years, ultra-Orthodox Jewish families priced out of increasingly expensive Brooklyn neighborhoods have been turning to the suburbs, where they have taken advantage of open space and cheaper housing to establish modern-day versions of the European shtetls where their ancestors lived for centuries before the Holocaust.

The expansion of Hasidic communities in New York’s Hudson Valley, the Catskills and northern New Jersey been accompanied by flare-ups of rhetoric aimed at new development that some say is cloaked anti-Semitism.

UNITED NATIONS, January 1. /TASS/: The United Nations Security Council will hold closed-dorr consultations on the situation in Syria’s Idlib later in the week, a UN source told TASS on Wednesday.

"Great Britain and France have requested a closed meeting before the end of the week. Vietnam as the Security Council chair in January has ruled to satisfy this request," the source said, adding that the exact day has not yet been appointed.

TASS, January 2: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is "deeply concerned" that North Korea has indicated it could resume nuclear and missile tests, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday.

"The Secretary-General very much hopes that the tests will not resume, in line with relevant Security Council resolutions. Non-proliferation remains a fundamental pillar of global nuclear security and must be preserved," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement, uploaded to the UN website.

NEW YORK, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.0 jolted 41 km SSW of Coquimbo, Chile at 16:51:32 GMT on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The epicenter, with a depth of 45.04 km, was initially determined to be at 30.2741 degrees south latitude and 71.564 degrees west longitude.

MONSEY, N.Y. (AP) — F or years, ultra-Orthodox Jewish families pushed out of increasingly expensive Brooklyn neighborhoods have been turning to the suburbs, where they have taken advantage of open space and cheaper housing to establish modern-day versions of the European shtetls where their ancestors lived for centuries before the Holocaust.

NEW YORK (AP) — When a machete-wielding attacker walked into a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, during Hanukkah and a gunman fired on worshippers at a Texas church 14 hours later, the two congregations in different regions of the country joined a growing list of faith communities that have come under attack in the U.S.

It is a group that crosses denominations and geography and has companions around the world. The frequency of attacks has faith leaders and law enforcement grappling with how to protect people when they are at their most vulnerable.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 01 (APP): The world will welcome more than 392,000 babies, including 16,787 in Pakistan, on New Year’s Day, according to estimates from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The agency believes 2020’s first baby will be born in Fiji and that globally, over half of all births on January 1 will take place, besides Pakistan, in 7 other countries: India ( 67,385), China (46,299), Nigeria (26,039), Indonesia (13,020), the United States of America )(10,452), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (10,247), and Ethiopia (8,493).