South Sudanese military police officers monitor the area during a South Sudanese Unified Forces deployment ceremony at the Luri Military Training Centre in Juba (AFP)
Sudan asked the United Nations on Thursday to "immediately terminate" the UN political mission in the country (UNITAMS), Sudan's acting Foreign Minister Ali Sadeq told the Security Council in a letter.
"(The) government of Sudan requested that the United Nations immediately terminate the UNITAMS mission. At the same time, we would like to assure you that the Government of Sudan is committed to engaging constructively with the Security Council and the Secretariat," he wrote in a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
"The purpose of establishing the mission (was) to assist the transitional government of Sudan after the December 2018 revolution," he wrote, adding that the mission's performance in implementing its objectives "was disappointing".
When asked about Sudan’s decision, Guterres spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the letter had been received and circulated to the Security Council.
A war erupted on April 15 between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces after weeks of rising tension between the two sides over a plan to integrate forces as part of a transition from military rule to civilian democracy.
The UN special envoy to Sudan announced in September that he was stepping down, more than three months after Sudan declared him unwelcome after disagreements between rival factions erupted into war.
A huge wall of mud and rock collapsed into a river on the Himalayan border of Nepal and China's Tibet on Wednesday, triggering catastrophic flooding on the Nepali side that killed at least 95 people and left hundreds of tourists missing.
At least 14 infants were killed in a fire at a state-run hospital in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Wednesday, the prime minister said, with the health minister attributing the tragedy to a blast in the nursery ward.
The United States said Wednesday that it had disrupted a Chinese hacking operation responsible for break-ins at the US Justice Department, NASA, the Federal Reserve, the US Senate, and other sensitive government agencies.
The US military said on Tuesday four people have been killed in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, the latest in a series of attacks that Washington says target "narco-terrorists" but human rights groups condemn as extrajudicial killings.
Canada on Tuesday announced retaliatory tariffs on C$27.6 billion ($19.94 billion) worth of United States goods, matching dollar-for-dollar new duties imposed by Washington, and unveiled financial support for Canadian businesses and workers caught in the escalating trade war.