Obama aide’s take on how government can help rather than hinder is worthy, says Kyran Fitzgerald.

Ten buses carrying civilians from two Shiite villages besieged by rebels in northern Syria are on their way to government-controlled areas, a Syrian activist group and a Lebanon-based TV station have said.

France has struck a compromise with Russia on a United Nations resolution that it said would prevent "mass atrocities" in besieged areas of Aleppo, Syria, where thousands of trapped civilians and rebel fighters await evacuation in freezing temperatures.

The pullout of Syrian rebels and civilians from their last holdout in the city of Aleppo has been delayed today, though the cause was not immediately known.

A ceasefire "surrender deal" allowing civilians and opposition fighters to be evacuated from eastern Aleppo has begun as Russia declared all military action had stopped and the Syrian government assumed control of the former rebel enclave.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen South Carolina governor Nikki Haley as US ambassador to the United Nations, the first woman he has selected for a top-level administration post during his White House transition.

Irish-born UN ambassador Samantha Power’s trip to Cameroon was mired in controversy last night after a truck in her entourage hit and killed a young boy.

The number of women diplomats at the United Nations has always been low and for the last 70 years only a few have gotten seats on the Security Council.

The UN Security Council condemned North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket that world leaders called a banned test of ballistic missile technology.

They looked a right Charlie but there just weren’t enough of them to break the world record.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted his address to the US Congress will not disrespect president Barack Obama, even as he assailed the US leader’s bid for a nuclear deal with Iran as a threat to his country’s survival.

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a Russian-drafted resolution that endorses the new ceasefire agreement on Ukraine and calls on all parties involved to carry it out.

Deadly rocket attacks on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol that “knowingly targeted civilians” broke international humanitarian law and could amount to war crimes, the United Nations’ political chief has said.

Stung by a resounding defeat at the UN Security Council, the Palestinians have joined the International Criminal Court to pursue war crimes charges against Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas has said the Palestinians will join the International Criminal Court – a move that sets the stage for filing a war crimes case against Israel.

America’s ambassador to the UN, Dublin-born Samantha Power, has spoken of how her father may have drank himself to death out of heartbreak at her departure for the US as a child.

Palestinians are asking the UN Security Council to set a deadline of November 2016 for an Israeli withdrawal from all Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 including East Jerusalem.

Recent days have seen a significant increase in the global response to the Ebola crisis: China and Cuba are sending doctors, the World Bank approved a $105-million grant, and the United States pledged 3,000 troops and training for hundreds of health care workers.

Pressure is mounting on Russia after it was accused of sending tanks, artillery and troops into Ukraine and Western powers said Moscow “outright lied” about its role and dangerously escalated the conflict.

President Barack Obama is ruling out the possibility that the US will take military action to address growing violence in Ukraine.

The shooting down by missile last week over the Ukraine of a commercial passenger flight from Amsterdam international airport to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, with some of the passengers en route to Australia, is serious for the safety of international flights as the airline believed it was safe to fly on the usual route over the Ukraine and the plane was 1,000 feet above the danger zone.

The UN Security Council is considering a draft resolution to condemn the "shooting down" of a Malaysian passenger plane in Ukraine, demand armed groups allow access to the crash site, and call on states in the region to co-operate with an international investigation.

If Ukrainian rebels shot down the Malaysian jetliner, killing 298 people, it may have been because they didn’t have the right systems in place to distinguish between military and civilian aircraft, experts said at the weekend.

Ukraine has accused Russia of helping separatist rebels to destroy evidence after a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down with 298 people on board.

World leaders are demanding that pro-Russia rebels who control the eastern Ukraine crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 give immediate, unfettered access to investigators to determine who shot down the plane.

The United States said it could not rule out Russian help to separatists in Ukraine in firing an SA-11 surface-to-air missile that likely downed a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine with 298 people on board.

World leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and demanded speedy access for international investigators to the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner shot down over the country’s battlefields.

A US envoy has told the UN the missile that downed a Malaysian airliner is likely to have been fired from a separatist-held area in eastern Ukraine.

Representatives of some of the world’s biggest corporations and institutions are among Ireland’s most powerful women, according to an awards ceremony organised by the Women’s Executive Network.

People in eastern Ukraine are waiting to see if action will be taken against pro-Russian militants occupying government buildings in the region.

Ukraine’s United Nations ambassador has asked an emergency session of the world body’s Security Council “to do everything possible now” to stop Russian “aggression” as troops took over the strategic Crimea region.

United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos blamed the Syrian government and opposition for failing to protect civilians and said a Security Council resolution would help if it ensured the delivery of aid to millions trapped by the fighting.

The five permanent members of the deeply-divided United Nations Security Council have agreed on a resolution to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.

Renowned financial magazine Forbes has apologised to the President for publishing an article which described him as gay.

Irishwoman Samantha Power faces strident opposition from elements of the Israeli lobby to be confirmed as the US ambassador to the UN.

Dan Buckley traces the career thus far of Dublin-born Samantha Power who has just been appointed US ambassador to the UN by President Obama

President Barack Obama defied Republican critics and named outspoken diplomat Susan Rice as his national security adviser, despite accusations that she misled the nation in the aftermath of the deadly attack on Americans in Libya.

A Dublin-born Pulitzer prize winner has been selected by President Barack Obama as nominee for US ambassador to the UN.

US President Barack Obama has nominated a Dublin-born academic to serve as his country's ambassador for the United Nations.

President Barack Obama has named long-time foreign policy aide Denis McDonough as his next White House chief of staff.

US PRESIDENTIAL contender Barack Obama needs Senator Hillary Clinton in some capacity, his former Irish-born foreign policy adviser said yesterday.