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UN Security Council to decide fate of peacekeeper mandate in Lebanon

The UN Security Council is set to vote Thursday on the future of the blue helmet peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon, which has faced US and Israeli opposition.Some 10,800 peacekeepers have been acting as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon since 1978. But the usual renewal of their mandate, which expires Sunday, is facing hostility this year from Israel and its American ally, who want them to leave.The Council is debating a French-drafted compromise that would keep the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in place until the end of next year while it prepares to withdraw.France, which oversees the issue at the Security Council and has the support of Beirut, had initially considered a one-year extension and referred simply to an “intention” to work towards a withdrawal of UNIFIL.But faced with a possible US veto, and following several proposals and a Monday postponement of the vote, the latest draft resolution seen by AFP unequivocally schedules the end of the mission in 16 months.The Council “decides to extend for a final time the mandate of UNIFIL as set out by resolution 1701 (2006) until 31 December 2026 and to start an orderly and safe drawdown and withdrawal from 31 December 2026 and within one year,” the text says.At that point the Lebanese army will be solely responsible for ensuring security in the country’s south.With US envoy Tom Barrack saying Tuesday that Washington would approve a one-year extension, it remained unclear what the US position would be come Thursday.Under a truce that ended a recent war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Beirut’s army has been deploying in south Lebanon and dismantling the militant group’s infrastructure there. As part of the ceasefire, and under pressure from Washington, the plan is for Hezbollah’s withdrawal to be complete by the end of the year.Last week Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called for the UN peacekeepers to remain, arguing that any curtailment of UNIFIL’s mandate “will negatively impact the situation in the south, which still suffers from Israeli occupation.”The latest draft resolution also “calls on the Government of Israel to withdraw its forces north of the Blue Line” — the UN-established demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel — “including from the five positions held in Lebanese territory.”

AI giant Nvidia beats earnings expectations but shares fall

AI powerhouse Nvidia reported quarterly earnings Wednesday that beat expectations, but shares slipped amid concerns about an AI chip spending bubble and the company’s stalled business in China.The California-based firm posted profit of $26.4 billion on record revenue of $46.7 billion in the recently ended quarter, driven by intense demand for chips from major tech …

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NGO says starving Gaza children too weak to cry

The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not cry.Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine — declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza — is not just a dry technical term.”When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” said Ashing.She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger over the course of several weeks, as the body first consumes its own fat to survive and when that is gone, literally consumes itself as it eats muscles and vital organs.”Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” said Ashing.She said aid groups have been warning loudly that famine was coming as Israel prevented food and other essentials from entering Gaza over the course of two years of war triggered by the Hamas attack of October 2023.”Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity,” said Ashing.The United Nations officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming what it called systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.A UN-backed hunger monitor called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City.The IPC projected that the famine would expand to cover around two-thirds of Gaza by the end of September.Israel on Wednesday demanded that the IPC retract the report, calling it “fabricated.”After Wednesday’s Security Council meeting 14 members — all but the United States, Israel’s main ally — issued a joint declaration expressing “profound alarm and distress” over the declaration of famine and saying they trusted the IPC’s work and methodology.”The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law. Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately,” the declaration says.

Iran says return of IAEA inspectors not full resumption of cooperation

Iran said Wednesday that the return of UN nuclear inspectors did not represent a full resumption of cooperation, which was suspended in the aftermath of June attacks by Israel and the United States.Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency began work at the key nuclear site of Bushehr in southwestern Iran, the nuclear watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi said, the first team to enter the country since Tehran formally suspended cooperation with the UN agency last month.”No final text has yet been approved on the new cooperation framework with the IAEA and views are being exchanged,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, quoted by state television.The agency’s inspectors left Iran after Israel launched its unprecedented attack on June 13, striking nuclear and military facilities as well as residential areas and killing more than 1,000 people.Washington later joined in with strikes on nuclear facilities at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz.Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks that killed dozens in Israel. A ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in place since June 24.Iran subsequently suspended its cooperation with the IAEA, citing the agency’s failure to condemn the Israeli and US attacks.But on Wednesday Grossi said the inspectors were “there now”, adding: “Today they are inspecting Bushehr.”Under the law suspending cooperation, inspectors may access Iranian nuclear sites only with the approval of the country’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council.Tehran has said repeatedly that future cooperation with the agency will take “a new form”.The spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said the IAEA inspectors would oversee the replacement of fuel at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.He made no mention of whether inspectors would be allowed access to other sites, including Fordo and Natanz, which were hit during the war.- ‘Litmus test’ -Grossi, on a visit to Washington, said discussions about inspecting other sites were underway with no immediate agreement.”We are continuing the conversation so that we can go to all places, including the facilities that have been impacted,” he said.He said that Iran cannot restrict inspectors only to “non-attacked facilities.””There is no such thing as a la carte inspection work.”The return of inspectors came after Iranian diplomats held talks with counterparts from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva on Tuesday.Their second round of talks since the Israeli attacks included discussion of European threats to trigger the reimposition of UN sanctions against Iran before they are permanently lifted in mid-October.The window for triggering the so-called “snapback mechanism” of a moribund 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers closes on October 18.During their previous meeting with Iran in July, the three European powers suggested extending the snapback deadline if Tehran resumed negotiations with the United States and cooperation with the IAEA, the Financial Times reported.Iran later dismissed the Europeans’ right to extend the deadline, and said it was working with its allies China and Russia to prevent the reimposition of sanctions.Iran’s deputy foreign minister Karim Gharibabadi on Wednesday said that if the snapback is triggered, “the path of interaction that we have now opened with the International Atomic Energy Agency will also be completely affected and will probably stop.”On Tuesday, Russia circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution aimed at pushing back the deadline for triggering snapback sanctions by six months, according to the text seen by AFP.The Russian proposal does not set preconditions for the deadline extension.Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said that the updated proposal was designed to “give more breathing space for diplomacy”, adding that he hoped it “will be acceptable”.”It will be kind of a litmus test for those who really want to uphold diplomatic efforts, and for those who don’t want any diplomatic solution, but just want to pursue their own nationalist, selfish agendas against Iran,” he told media.