The trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump enters a new stage Monday when opening remarks begin. Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden will make a campaign stop in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday to talk about reproductive rights. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
WASHINGTON — The U.N. World Food Program has agreed to help deliver aid for the starving civilians of Gaza once the U.S. military completes a pier for transporting the humanitarian assistance by sea, U.S. officials said Friday. The involvement of the U.N. agency could help resolve one of the major obstacles facing the U.S.-planned project — the reluctance of aid groups to handle on-the-ground distribution of food and other badly needed goods in Gaza absent significant changes by Israel. An Israeli... Читать дальше...
Washington — TikTok on Sunday raised free speech concerns about a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would ban the popular social media app in the U.S. if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its stake within a year. The House passed the legislation on Saturday by a margin of 360 to 58. It now moves to the Senate where it could be taken up for a vote in the coming days. President Joe Biden has previously said he will sign the legislation. The step to include TikTok in... Читать дальше...
PHNOM PENH — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Cambodia on Sunday for a three-day official visit to reaffirm ties with Beijing’s closest ally in Southeast Asia. His visit is the last stop on a three-nation regional swing that also took him to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. He is visiting amid foreign concerns about two big Chinese-funded projects in Cambodia — a planned canal and a naval base — that critics allege could aid Beijing’s strategic military interests in Southeast Asia. ... Читать дальше...
ISLAMABAD — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will arrive in neighboring Pakistan on Monday for official meetings with the host nation's leaders amidst Iran-Israel tensions. An announcement from Islamabad's foreign ministry Sunday stated that the talks will provide an “important opportunity” to strengthen bilateral ties and cooperation in trade, connectivity, energy, and agriculture. It said Raisi’s high-level delegation would include the Iranian foreign minister, other Cabinet members, and business representatives. Читать дальше...
Colombo — The United Nations on Sunday urged Sri Lanka to bridge its "accountability deficit" and ensure justice as the country commemorated the 279 victims of its worst-ever attack against civilians five years ago. The U.N.'s top envoy to the country, Marc-Andre Franche, told a remembrance service in Colombo that there should be a "thorough and transparent investigation" to uncover those behind the Easter carnage in 2019. Islamist bombers hit three churches and three hotels in the island's deadliest suicide attack aimed at civilians... Читать дальше...
Kabul — One person was killed and three others wounded by an explosion in Kabul on Saturday evening, Afghan police said, with the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the sticky bomb attack. The improvised explosive device was detonated in the Kot-e-Sangi neighborhood, near an enclave of the historically persecuted Shiite Hazara community, which has been targeted by the militant group in the past. "The sticky bomb was planted on a minibus," Kabul police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said in a statement late Saturday. Читать дальше...
HONOLULU — A single mother of two, Amy Chadwick spent years scrimping and saving to buy a house in the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. But after a devastating fire leveled Lahaina in August and reduced Chadwick's home to white dust, the cheapest rental she could find for her family and dogs cost $10,000 a month. Chadwick, a fine-dining server, moved to Florida where she could stretch her homeowners insurance dollars. She's worried Maui's exorbitant rental prices, driven in part... Читать дальше...
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — As the sun sets, a burly man bellows into a megaphone while a curious crowd gathers around him. Next to him is a small cardboard box with several banknotes worth 10 Haitian gourdes — about 7 U.S. cents. "Everyone give whatever they have!" the man shouts as he grabs the arms and hands of people entering a neighborhood in the capital of Port-au-Prince that has been targeted by violent gangs. The community recently voted to buy a metal barricade and install it themselves... Читать дальше...
WASHINGTON — A ancient giant snake in India might have been longer than a school bus and weighed a ton, researchers reported Thursday. Fossils found near a coal mine revealed a snake that stretched an estimated 11 meters to 15 meters. It's comparable to the largest known snake at about 13 meters that once lived in what is now Colombia. The largest living snake today is Asia's reticulated python at 10 meters. The newly discovered behemoth lived 47 million years ago in western India's swampy evergreen forests. Читать дальше...
CHICAGO — The closure of Wadsworth Elementary School in 2013 was a blow to residents of the majority-Black neighborhood it served, symbolizing a city indifferent to their interests. So when the city reopened Wadsworth last year to shelter hundreds of migrants without seeking community input, it added insult to injury. Across Chicago, Black residents are frustrated that long-standing needs are not being met while the city's newly arrived are cared for with a sense of urgency, and with their tax dollars. Читать дальше...
vancouver, british columbia — A new, digestible mini-robotic camera, about the size of a multivitamin pill, was demonstrated at the annual TED Conference in Vancouver. The remote-controlled device can eliminate invasive medical procedures. With current technology, exploration of the digestive tract involves going through the highly invasive procedure of an endoscopy, in which a camera at the end of a cord is inserted down the throat and into a medicated patient’s stomach. But the robotic pill... Читать дальше...
ROSARIO, Argentina — The order to kill came from inside a federal prison near Argentina's capital. Unwitting authorities patched a call from drug traffickers tied to one of the country's most notorious gangs to collaborators on the outside. The criminals proceeded to hire a 15-year-old hit man, sealing the fate of a young father they didn't even know. At a service station on March 9 in Rosario, the picturesque hometown of soccer star Lionel Messi, 25-year-old employee Bruno Bussanich was whistling... Читать дальше...
HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM/WASHINGTON — While this month’s death sentence in a multibillion-dollar Vietnamese fraud case may show the power of Hanoi’s antigraft campaign, interviews in recent days showed continuing concerns over political impunity in Vietnam and vulnerability and corruption in the country’s poorly paid public sector. Meanwhile, two of those interviewed expressed doubts the sentence would actually be carried out. On April 11, Truong My Lan, the 68-year-old chairwoman of real-estate... Читать дальше...
TEPOTZOTLAN, Mexico — Dozens of women and men searched a garbage dump outside Mexico's capital Friday looking for signs of missing loved ones, working without the protection of authorities as part of a nationwide effort to raise the profile of those who risk their lives to find others. Under a blazing sun and amid foul odors, they picked through the dump and other sites in the town of Tepotzotlan in Mexico state, which hugs Mexico City on three sides. Hundreds of collectives across Mexico are... Читать дальше...
HONG KONG — Apple said it had removed Meta's WhatsApp messaging app and its Threads social media app from the App Store in China to comply with orders from Chinese authorities. The apps were removed from the store Friday after Chinese officials cited unspecified national security concerns. Their removal comes amid elevated tensions between the U.S. and China over trade, technology and national security. The U.S. has threatened to ban TikTok over national security concerns. But while TikTok... Читать дальше...
Sydney — Australian researchers have built an electrical generator that consumes carbon dioxide, generates electricity and admits no exhausts. They say the technology could create a new industrial-scale carbon capture method. Scientists say too much carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the atmosphere is main driver of warming temperatures. Researchers at the University of Queensland have created a generator that consumes carbon dioxide and produces electricity. The carbon-negative “nano-generator”... Читать дальше...
Male, Maldives — The Maldives votes Sunday in a parliamentary election likely to test President Mohamed Muizzu's tilt toward China and away from India, the luxury tourism hotspot's traditional benefactor. Primarily known as one of the most expensive holiday destinations in South Asia, with pristine white beaches and secluded resorts, the strategic Indian Ocean island nation has also become a geopolitical hotspot. Global east-west shipping lanes pass the nation's chain of 1,192 tiny coral islands... Читать дальше...
Cap-Haitian, Haiti — They call it Okap, home to Haiti's kings, emancipated slaves and revolutionaries. Sitting on the shimmering north coast, the city of Cap-Haitien was abandoned as a capital during the waning years of the French colonial era and again when the Kingdom of Haiti fell after its king died by suicide and his teenage son was slain. It was once known as the Paris of the Antilles, and now it is on the brink of becoming what some say is Haiti's de facto capital as Port-au-Prince crumbles under the onslaught of powerful gangs. Читать дальше...
Tokyo — Two Japanese navy helicopters carrying eight crewmembers were believed to have crashed in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo during a night-time training exercise, and rescuers were searching for the missing, Japan’s defense minister said. The two SH-60K choppers belonging to the Maritime Self Defense Force and carrying four crew each, lost contact late Saturday near Torishima island in the Pacific about 600 kilometers (370 miles) south of Tokyo, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters. Читать дальше...
