The Trump administration has cut funding to the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees, calling the organization “irredeemably flawed.” The U.S. State Department ended decades of support to the organization Friday, saying “the administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA (United Nations ReliefRead more
U.S. President Donald Trump notified Congress on Friday of his intent to sign a trade agreement with Mexico after talks with Canada broke up earlier in the day with no immediate deal to revamp the tri-nation North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said U.S. officials would resume talks with their Canadian counterparts next Wednesday with the aimRead more
A media rights group is condemning what it calls “harsh sentences” that Iranian authorities imposed on at least seven journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Friday that the reporters were jailed this summer for their coverage of protests in February by the Gonabadi Dervish religious order. The New-York based group said Iranian courts inRead more
Poland says it lost more than 5 million citizens and over $54 billion dollars (46.6 billion euros) worth of assets under the Nazi German occupation of the country during World War II. A parliamentary commission announced the numbers as part of the current Polish government’s declared intent to seek damages from Germany. Poland spent decadesRead more
The government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is expelling a United Nations human rights team two days after the body published a critical report blaming it for the violent repression of opposition protests. Guillermo Fernandez Maldonado, chief of the U.N.’s human rights mission in Nicaragua, said Friday that he and his team were leaving theRead more
The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) warns asylum seekers and migrants who came ashore on the Greek islands are living in conditions unfit for human habitation. The agency is urging the Greek government to speed up the transfer of these individuals to the mainland so they can receive proper care. According to UNHCR, thousands of asylumRead more
An Iranian police officer has deserted his post and fled Iran, saying his life was in danger for refusing orders to suppress anti-government protests that have swept the country this year. Fariborz Karamizand, a member of Iran’s ethnic Kurdish minority, spoke to VOA’s Kurdish Service on Thursday. In an exclusive Skype video interview, he saidRead more
U.N. and international aid agencies are working to move refugees and migrants out of harm’s way in Libya as local militia and tribal leaders, vying for control of the capital, clash for a fifth day. Libyan authorities report 30 people, many of them civilians, have been killed and 96 wounded during the fighting. The charityRead more
Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of Russian-backed separatists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic was killed on Friday in a blast at a cafe in downtown Donetsk. The official media arm of the unrecognized republic confirmed Zakharchenko’s death — along with injuries to at least one other rebel government official — in an explosion it labeledRead more
Two officials say the Philippines has notified China about a Philippine navy frigate that ran aground in the South China Sea to avoid any misunderstanding because the incident happened near a hotly disputed region. The Philippine military said the BRP Gregorio del Pilar ran aground during a routine patrol Wednesday night in the vicinity ofRead more
Pope Francis was described Thursday by a top aide as ‘serene’ in the face of the unprecedented public skirmishing breaking out among Catholic prelates over an explosive charge that the pontiff knew about sexual misconduct allegations against a U.S. cardinal but chose to ignore them. The Vatican’s secretary of state said Francis is maintaining hisRead more
German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrapped up a tour of three African nations Friday. She said her goals during the visit were two-fold: to promote business ties with Germany and to curb the wave of migration from the continent to Europe. But Merkel faces many other issues on the continent, analysts say: the rise of China,Read more
Syrian opposition fighters blew up bridges Friday linking areas they control to government-held territories in northwestern Syria in anticipation of a military offensive against their last stronghold in the country, activists and a war monitor said. The explosions rocked the area in al-Ghab plains, south of Idlib and came after rebels detected government troop movementRead more
Police in the Dutch capital shot and wounded a suspect Friday following a stabbing at Amsterdam’s busy central railway station. Amsterdam police said in a series of tweets that two people were injured in the stabbing and the suspect was then shot by officers. All three people were taken to a hospital. Police said thatRead more
The U.S. Navy says it has interrupted a weapons smuggling operation in the Gulf of Aden, amid the ongoing war in Yemen. “The guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham, deployed to U.S. 5th Fleet, seized an illicit shipment of arms from a stateless skiff in the international waters of the Gulf of Aden,” the Navy saidRead more
The United Nations expressed concern for civilians in the Idlib area in northwestern Syria, where government forces, backed by Russia, plan to launch a major offensive to reclaim the last rebel stronghold. U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura warned Thursday that chemical weapons use would be unacceptable. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the U.N. officialRead more
Floating Chinese nuclear power plants stationed in the South China Sea would help Beijing fortify its claims in a decades-old maritime sovereignty dispute, but come with environmental risks, scholars say. China plans to power some of its claimed islets with nuclear energy, the U.S. Department of Defense recently told Congress in an annual report onRead more
Russia said Thursday that it was holding up release of a report by U.N. experts who said North Korea is violating U.N. sanctions by not stopping its nuclear and missile programs and by engineering “a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products.” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters after a closed SecurityRead more