Category: World

President Donald Trump says he is very concerned about the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who disappeared last week while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. But the president said he is reluctant to suspend a $110 billion U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the …

Read more “Trump Reluctant to Suspend Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia Over Disappeared Journalist”

Warfare exercises in the disputed South China Sea over the past two months reveal a sustained, long-term escalation of Japanese activity in a region where Tokyo has strategic interests that include keeping Beijing in check. In September a Japanese submarine, helicopter carrier and two destroyers explored the sea contested by six governments, with China the …

Read more “Japan Dials Up Pressure on China Over Southeast Asian Sea”

Bosnian Muslim wartime commander Atif Dudakovic and 16 members of his unit were charged on October 11 with carrying out atrocities against Serbs in western Bosnia during the 1992-95 war. …

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says Pakistan has formally requested financial assistance from the lender to help address the country’s economic challenges. Pakistani Finance Minister Asad Umar submitted the request to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde during a meeting on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank annual conference in Bali, Indonesia. “An IMF …

Read more “IMF: Pakistan Submits Request for Emergency Lending”

The head of the International Monetary Fund said she is sending a team to Pakistan in the coming weeks after the government requested emergency bailout loans. …

Russia’s exclusive role ferrying astronauts from around the world to and from the International Space Station has been suspended pending an investigation into an aborted launch and emergency landing of the latest Soyuz mission. …

President Donald Trump is having lunch Thursday with rapper Kanye West, who he calls a longtime friend.   Trump told “Fox and Friends” Thursday: “He’s a different kind of guy and that’s OK with me.”   The White House has said they will talk about manufacturing, prison reform, preventing gang violence and reducing violence in …

Read more “Trump, Kanye West to Have White House Lunch”

The Israeli military said Thursday it discovered and destroyed a Hamas tunnel dug out from Gaza into Israeli territory, the 15th such tunnel threat it has thwarted over the past year. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the tunnel was 1 kilometer (about half mile) in length, stretching from the southern Gaza region of …

Read more “Israel Says it Destroyed a Hamas Tunnel Stretching From Gaza”

The Obama Foundation is launching an initiative aimed at boosting educational opportunities for girls around the world. Former first lady Michelle Obama on Thursday announced the launch of the Global Girls Alliance that will work with organizations worldwide to increase public awareness and action. Obama says the alliance aims to lifting up grassroots leaders all …

Read more “Obama Foundation Aims to Boost Girls Education Worldwide”

At least 15 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in a Taliban assault in the northern province of Kunduz, reports say, as the militants escalate their offensive ahead of this month’s general elections. …

The leader of the Russian North Caucasus region of Chechnya has condemned the behavior of a young Chechen man who appeared in a video assaulting a teenager in a bus. …

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Yerevan for a francophone summit bringing together some 40 countries, including Kosovo — which Armenia does not recognize. …

Russian website fontanka.ru says a GRU military intelligence operative whose name is Sergei Fedotov is allegedly the third Russian agent involved in trying to kill former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain earlier this year. …

A look at the best news photos from around the world. …

The White House said Wednesday that top Trump administration officials have spoken to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about the mysterious disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom Turkish officials say they believe was murdered last week inside Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul. National security adviser John Bolton and senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Donald …

Read more “Top Trump Officials, Saudi Crown Prince Talk About Missing Journalist”

Australia is rejecting the latest U.N. report on climate change, insisting coal remains critical to energy security and lowering household power bills. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its report released Monday that global greenhouse gas emissions must reach zero by the middle of the century to stop global warming …

Read more “Australia to Stick with Coal Despite Dire UN Climate Warning”

Richard Pinedo, a man accused by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office of operating an online auction service for stolen identities, was sentenced to one year in prison on October 10. …

It was supposed to end tensions between Chechnya and Ingushetia that date back to the collapse of the Soviet Union. But a land-swap agreement reached by the two Russian republics has had the opposite effect. …

Russia’s Gazprom next year will resume imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan that it stopped three years ago, the energy giant’s chief executive has said. …

An Iranian diplomat who is the suspected mastermind of an attack that allegedly was planned on Iranians living in exile in France has been extradited from Germany to Belgium, security officials said. …

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on Tuesday he saw different options for Washington’s strained relationship with Venezuela, after making a rare visit by a top U.S. official to Caracas. Senator Bob Corker met with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other Venezuelan officials as well as opposition groups on Sunday and …

Read more “Corker Sees ‘Options’ for US-Venezuela Relations After Visit”

Turkey is threatening to eradicate the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in Syria. But such a move would put it on a collision course with the United States, which backs the Syrian Kurdish group as a key ally in the war against Islamic State and curtailing Iran’s influence. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey’s army …

Read more “Turkey ‘Saber-Rattling’ on US-Backed Militia in Syria”

Hurricane Michael has strengthened into a major Category 3 storm as it takes direct aim at the Florida Panhandle. Forecasters expect Michael, with its top winds of 195 kilometers per hour, to make landfall along the Gulf Coast Wednesday morning. Hurricane warnings have been issued for the Alabama-Florida border eastward. Tornadoes and as much as …

Read more “‘Monstrous Hurricane’ Michael Takes Aim at Florida Panhandle”

A powerful explosion hit the oil refinery in Brod, in northern Bosnia, near the Croatian border on October 9 and eight workers were injured, authorities said. …