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UN Security Council Adopts Neutral US Stance on War in Ukraine

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 24: Members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council listen as Ambassador Dorothy Camille Shea, chargé d’affaires ad interim of the United States, speaks during a meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations headquarters on February 24, 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 24: Members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council listen as Ambassador Dorothy Camille Shea, chargé d’affaires ad interim of the United States, speaks during a meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations headquarters on February 24, 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP
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UN Security Council Adopts Neutral US Stance on War in Ukraine

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 24: Members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council listen as Ambassador Dorothy Camille Shea, chargé d’affaires ad interim of the United States, speaks during a meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations headquarters on February 24, 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 24: Members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council listen as Ambassador Dorothy Camille Shea, chargé d’affaires ad interim of the United States, speaks during a meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations headquarters on February 24, 2025 in New York City. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP

The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a US-drafted resolution on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine that takes a neutral position on the conflict as US President Donald Trump seeks to broker an end to the war.
The short resolution reflects Trump's upending of US policy on Ukraine after taking office last month and his more conciliatory stance towards Russia, Reuters reported. In contrast, former president Joe Biden's administration led efforts at the United Nations to support Ukraine throughout the war.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia acknowledged "constructive changes" in the US position on the conflict. He told the council the resolution was "not an ideal one," but "a starting point for future efforts towards peaceful settlement."
The 15-member UN Security Council had been deadlocked throughout the war and unable to take any action because Russia holds a veto.
But the 193-member General Assembly has repeatedly supported Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and called for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in line with the UN Charter.
The US failed earlier on Monday to convince the General Assembly to pass the same three-paragraph resolution adopted by the Security Council.
The resolution mourns the loss of life in the "Russia-Ukraine conflict", reiterates the UN's purpose is to maintain international peace and security and peacefully settle disputes, and urges a swift end to the conflict and a lasting peace.
Security Council resolutions are considered binding, while General Assembly resolutions are not. However, General Assembly resolutions carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war.
The Security Council adopted the US resolution with 10 votes in favor, while France, Britain, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia abstained. Russia voted in favor after failing to amend it and vetoing European bids to add language supporting Ukraine.
"This resolution puts us on the path to peace. It is a first step, but a crucial one – one of which we should all be proud," acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the council. "Now we must use it to build a peaceful future for Ukraine, Russia and the international community."

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China Signals ‘New Normal’ with Coast Guard Patrols off Taiwan’s East

A handout photo from Taiwan Coast Guard taken and released on July 8, 2026 shows a Taiwan Coast Guard patrol vessel (R) sailing near a China Coast Guard ship in waters south of Kinmen, in Kinmen, Taiwan. (Handout / Taiwan Coast Guard / AFP)
A handout photo from Taiwan Coast Guard taken and released on July 8, 2026 shows a Taiwan Coast Guard patrol vessel (R) sailing near a China Coast Guard ship in waters south of Kinmen, in Kinmen, Taiwan. (Handout / Taiwan Coast Guard / AFP)
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China Signals ‘New Normal’ with Coast Guard Patrols off Taiwan’s East

A handout photo from Taiwan Coast Guard taken and released on July 8, 2026 shows a Taiwan Coast Guard patrol vessel (R) sailing near a China Coast Guard ship in waters south of Kinmen, in Kinmen, Taiwan. (Handout / Taiwan Coast Guard / AFP)
A handout photo from Taiwan Coast Guard taken and released on July 8, 2026 shows a Taiwan Coast Guard patrol vessel (R) sailing near a China Coast Guard ship in waters south of Kinmen, in Kinmen, Taiwan. (Handout / Taiwan Coast Guard / AFP)

China has signaled its intent to maintain a new coast guard patrol east of Taiwan, analysts say, as Beijing dials up pressure on the self-ruled island that it claims is part of its territory.

Tensions over Western Pacific waters off Taiwan spiked after the Chinese coast guard and other ships launched their first "law enforcement operation" in that area in June.

During the operation, the China Coast Guard for the first time radioed cargo ships passing Taiwan for information about their crew and destination.

Chinese state media said the operation was in response to talks between Japan and the Philippines to draw a boundary in those waters.

But Taipei branded it "expansionism in disguise" and several Western governments expressed concern over the "novel" activity.

China Coast Guard vessels patrolling the waters since then have been replaced by a second group that will "continue law enforcement patrols", China Coast Guard spokesperson Jiang Lue said Saturday.

"China is essentially announcing a new normal," Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, which monitors China's maritime activities, told AFP.

China deploys fighter jets and navy ships around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, and Chinese coast guard ships regularly enter waters near Taiwan's outer islands, including those off China.

Until June, however, China Coast Guard's presence in waters east of Taiwan had been limited to "blockade-style military exercises", William Yang, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

The patrols were "beyond just political signaling", said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Beijing appears to be claiming vast law enforcement rights across its claimed exclusive economic zone that go far beyond what is allowed by international law," Poling told AFP.

Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said China's patrols were establishing "new operational norms".

"By conducting radio verification procedures for passing commercial vessels, China is effectively rehearsing the mechanisms required for a future blockade or quarantine," he said.

- 'Sashimi strategy' -

For years, China has been steadily expanding its military and coast guard activities in waters around Taiwan and the region.

Taiwan's National Security Bureau director-general Tsai Ming-yen said Monday that four Chinese formations including warships were operating in the Western Pacific, noting an "upward trend" in mobilization during China's peak maritime exercise season.

"We've tracked a record high of over 110 #PLAN & #CCG vessels" along the First Island Chain, National Security Council chief Joseph Wu said on X on Saturday.

Taiwan has responded to China's new coast guard patrol by deploying two of its own coast guard vessels to monitor the two Chinese ships.

The Chinese patrol has been generally operating between 74-124 nautical miles (137-230 kilometers) from Taiwan's shores, which Taiwanese officials say is within the island's exclusive economic zone.

During last month's operation, Taiwan heard for the first time China Coast Guard contacting three passing cargo ships for information about their crew numbers and port of destination.

One of the cargo ships -- a Singapore-flagged container ship -- complied with China's demands, a senior coast guard official has told AFP.

Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Deputy Minister Sung Chen-en said Wednesday that China had attempted to "establish a model where the shipping community feels the need to report to them", but failed.

Sung said China must be stopped "at the early stage" to ensure that it "never succeeds".

"We will make sure that (the patrols are) not permanent because they are not supposed to be here," Sung told AFP.

Chinese coast guard ships regularly patrol around the disputed Senkaku Islands, known as the Diaoyu in Chinese, which are administered by Tokyo but also claimed by Beijing, and the contested South China Sea, which China claims almost in its entirety.

"They seem to want people to understand that this is what they're doing here," Powell said of the patrols off Taiwan, describing them as "a step up the quarantine ladder".

"It's a very unsubtle signal that they intend to stay there for the long term."

Su said it fits into China's "methodical" approach to expanding patrols around the region as part of a "sashimi strategy".

China is "making extremely thin, almost imperceptible slices that individually appear insignificant but collectively produce substantial changes to the strategic status quo," he said.

World

Lawsuit Accuses Washington of Sharing Information with Iran About Asylum Seekers

A view of the La Salle ICE detention facility where Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student of Palestinian origin who was detained by US Department of Homeland Security agents, was transferred in Jena, Louisiana, US, March 12, 2025. REUTERS/Edmund D. Fountain
A view of the La Salle ICE detention facility where Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student of Palestinian origin who was detained by US Department of Homeland Security agents, was transferred in Jena, Louisiana, US, March 12, 2025. REUTERS/Edmund D. Fountain
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Lawsuit Accuses Washington of Sharing Information with Iran About Asylum Seekers

A view of the La Salle ICE detention facility where Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student of Palestinian origin who was detained by US Department of Homeland Security agents, was transferred in Jena, Louisiana, US, March 12, 2025. REUTERS/Edmund D. Fountain
A view of the La Salle ICE detention facility where Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student of Palestinian origin who was detained by US Department of Homeland Security agents, was transferred in Jena, Louisiana, US, March 12, 2025. REUTERS/Edmund D. Fountain

A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that the Trump administration’s immigration agencies have been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government, violating national immigration regulations and endangering countless Iranians, court filings argue.

The lawsuit depicts a coordinated campaign between the US and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and pressure them to return to Iran — a marked departure from decades of diplomatic hostility between the two governments and an ongoing war.

The Department of Homeland Security denied that it is sharing asylum application records with the Iranian government, according to The Associated Press.

Roughly 600 Iranians were put in immigration detention last year, according to public records obtained by the National Iranian American Council.

In June, an Iranian woman was among the two dozen migrants the US deported to the Central African Republic — in a marked departure from a decades-long practice by the US of welcoming Iranian dissidents, exiles and others since the 1979 Iranian Revolution forced a large number of Iranians to flee.

The US government is allowed to work with government officials of foreign countries to coordinate deportation logistics.

However, federal regulations passed in the late 1990s prohibit the government from sharing information that could reveal that the individual getting deported applied for asylum.

“Congress made these confidentiality protections mandatory precisely because lives depend on them, and no agency and no administration, of either party, may set them aside,” said Ali Rahnama, the interim executive director of Iranian American Legal Defense Fund.

Starting in March 2025, the US State Department arranged monthly meetings with Iranian officials, using the Pakistani embassy as an intermediary, in which US officials shared detailed, sensitive information about detained Iranian immigrants who the US government hoped to deport, lawyers for the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund and the Public Citizen Litigation Group wrote in a complaint.

The information included details about asylum applications filed by people who say they were persecuted for converting to Christianity, for their sexuality or for participating in the Women, Life, Freedom protests against the Iranian government in 2022, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in US District Court in Washington, DC.

ICE forced Iranian asylum applicants who had been detained in numerous facilities, mostly southern states, to meet with an Iranian government official who had extensive and specific knowledge about their applications, according to the complaint.

The information was shared even after the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran started the Iran war in February 2026.

“Despite the US’s ongoing war with Iran, the administration seems more committed to mass deportation than protecting human lives,” Michael Kirkpatrick, attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group said in a statement.

The complaint names the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and the Department of State as some of the defendants.

The allegations come amid President Donald Trump’s ambitious and aggressive immigration crackdown that involved over 600,000 deportations and causing roughly 1.9 million immigrants to voluntarily leave in 2025 alone, according to an announcement made by DHS.

Iranian officials acknowledged in September 2025 that as many as 400 Iranians could be returned under an agreement with the Trump’s administration.

That month, the first of three deportation flights brought dozens of Iranians back to Iran.

The second deportation flight was in December 2025, and the final recorded deportation flight departed at the end of January 2026, roughly a month before the war on Iran started, and just weeks after the Iranian government killed thousands of citizens as part of a brutal crackdown on protests.

The New York Times reported at the time that some of those deported in the flights in September, December and January were asylum seekers.

World

US Strikes Iran after Attacks on Ships in Strait of Hormuz

Smoke rises at an unknown location following what US Central Command says is a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday in this still image taken from video released July 7, 2026. US Central Command/Handout via REUTERS
Smoke rises at an unknown location following what US Central Command says is a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday in this still image taken from video released July 7, 2026. US Central Command/Handout via REUTERS
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US Strikes Iran after Attacks on Ships in Strait of Hormuz

Smoke rises at an unknown location following what US Central Command says is a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday in this still image taken from video released July 7, 2026. US Central Command/Handout via REUTERS
Smoke rises at an unknown location following what US Central Command says is a new wave of strikes against Iran on Tuesday in this still image taken from video released July 7, 2026. US Central Command/Handout via REUTERS

The US military attacked Iran early Wednesday after it said Tehran struck three ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The attacks on shipping and the resulting strikes came during the dayslong funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed Feb. 28 in the war’s first moments at age 86.

The funeral, which ends Thursday, had been thought to be a period of lower tensions — though mourners have repeatedly called for the killings of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Negotiations to reach a final deal had been due to start after Khamenei’s burial and focus on the toughest matters, including fully reopening the strait and rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program. But the new attacks threw that into question.

The US military’s Central Command said American forces launched the strikes “to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.”

It said it hit Iranian targets including air defense systems, radars and over 60 small boats used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Those boats have been key in harassing ships in the strait.

The US military remains “postured and prepared to hold Iran accountable when the agreement is not adhered to or obeyed,” it added, saying this round of attacks had ended.

Iran acknowledged the strikes, but offered no word on any losses. Iranian state media reported the sound of explosions in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm and Sirik.