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

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

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

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

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