Israel has asked the United Nations to take action against Hizbullah after the party's secretary-general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said that his group was behind a blast that targeted Israeli troops last month.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that Nasrallah’s admission is further evidence that Hizbullah continues to operate south of the Litani River in violation of Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between the two sides.

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman has urged Syrian authorities to respect Lebanon’s sovereignty, expressing concern over the impact of the fighting in Syria on Lebanon.

Feltman briefed the Security Council on Tuesday on the latest suicide bombings which the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front has claimed responsibility for.

Russia vetoed a Western-backed resolution condemning the Crimea referendum at a U.N. Security Council emergency vote Saturday but China abstained, isolating Moscow further on the Ukraine crisis.

The draft resolution, which says Sunday's referendum would have no validity, got 13 votes in the 15-member council. But it was rejected when permanent member Russia exercised its veto.

Syria's exiled opposition will be barred from a presidential election to be held before July, virtually ensuring Bashar Assad's return to office three years into an uprising against his family's four-decade rule.

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the revolt, which began as peaceful protests calling for democratic change but deteriorated into an insurgency and then civil war after the regime brutally cracked down on dissent.

The U.N. Security Council urged Guinea-Bissau's transitional government Wednesday to abide by announced election plans, warning of sanctions against those opposing a return to constitutional order.

After several delays, Bissau announced April 13 presidential and parliamentary elections to end a period of political instability that began with a coup two years ago.

President Michel Suleiman has ordered that the necessary measures be taken in order to file a complaint to the United Nations Security Council over Israel's strike against a Hizbullah position on Monday.

He tasked Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil to gather all available information on the strike ahead of filing the complaint.

The United Nations and U.S. have “strongly condemned” the double suicide bombing that targeted an Iranian cultural center in Beirut's southern suburbs.

The 15-member Security Council “strongly condemned” Wednesday's attack in the Bir Hassan neighborhood and “reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.”

Russia said on Thursday that its own draft U.N. Security Council resolution on bringing aid to desperate Syrian civilians does not include the threat of sanctions on the Damascus regime.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had prepared two documents for U.N. Security Council discussion comprised of a draft on aid as well as a denunciation of "terror" sweeping the war-torn country.

Eleven top detainees held by South Sudan's President Salva Kiir must be involved in any negotiations following a ceasefire deal Thursday, U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said.

Ban and the U.N. Security Council both welcomed the accord reached in the Ethiopian capital but said Kiir and his arch-rival Riek Machar must now quickly move to a comprehensive agreement.

Four Hizbullah members go on trial in absentia this week at the U.N.-backed tribunal for the 2005 killing of former Premier Rafik Hariri in a case increasingly overshadowed by sectarian bloodshed at home.

Nine years after a massive Beirut car bombing killed Hariri, leading to the exit of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and three years into Syria's own bloody civil war, prosecutors are finally to open their case on Thursday in a suburb of The Hague.