VOA NEWS

October 14, 2014

From Washington, this is VOA news. U.S. and Saudi Arabia launch more airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria. North Korean leader reportedly appears in public. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.



The United States and Saudi Arabia launched more airstrikes Monday on Islamic State targets near Kobani, Syria, as Kurdish fighters and the insurgents engaged in fierce fighting for control of the town.

The U.S. military command says American and Saudi fighter jets carried out four airstrikes southwest of Kobani, hitting IS units, damaging a staging location and destroying a heavy machine gun position.

Three other airstrikes hit militant targets northeast of Kobani including two buildings controlled by the jihadists.



The parents of an American hostage threatened with beheading by IS militants say they are unable to meet the demands of their son's captors.

Paula and Ed Kassig said during a pair of interviews broadcast Monday that they've doing all they can to free Abdul-Rahman Kassig since he was captured last October in Syria.

The 26-year-old former U.S. Army ranger was taken captive while he was doing humanitarian work in war-torn Syria. His family says he converted to Islam while in captivity and changed his first name from Peter.



The head of the World Health Organization says Ebola poses a threat to the governments and societies of West Africa.

Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, warns the number of cases is "rising exponentially" in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, saying the outbreak shows how the world is ill-prepared for a severe and sustained public health emergency.

In Liberia Monday, most health workers reported to work, ignoring calls for a strike to demand extra hazard pay for potentially exposing themselves to the Ebola virus.

More than 4,000 people in West Africa have died.



This is VOA news.



Health authorities in the United States are advising the nation's hospitals to reevaluate their approach in providing care to Ebola patients.

Speaking Monday in Atlanta, Georgia, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden urged hospitals to watch for patients with fever or symptoms of Ebola who have traveled from the three worst-affected West African nations in the past 21 days.



North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly made his first public appearance in more than 40 days.

The official news agency KCNA reports that Kim "gave field guidance" at a residential district and a science institute, ending speculation over his health and grip on power in the secretive country.

The reported is dated Tuesday, but it did not specify on which day he made the visits.

Mr. Kim, who succeeded his father Kim Jong Il in 2011, was last seen September 3rd at a concert by his favorite pop group, the Moranbong Band, a group consisting of five young women, all handpicked by Mr. Kim.



Hundreds of people, some of them wearing masks, have clashed with protesters in central Hong Kong who have spent weeks demonstrating for democratic reforms in the Chinese territory.

The demonstrations began in late September, with the protesters, many of them university students, calling for the semi-autonomous city's leader to resign and for the Chinese government to let Hong Kong voters elect their own without restrictions on candidates.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying says he will not step down.



There has been more deadly violence in Afghanistan as we hear from Ayaz Gul.

Afghan authorities say a convoy of national army and police forces was traveling through a valley in northern Sar-e-Pul province when Taliban militants attacked it from the surrounding mountains.

Provincial Governor Abdul Jabar Haqbeen gave details of the ambush in the Laghman valley. He says the raid left 22 security personnel dead, eight wounded and seven were taken captive. The governor said up to six convoy vehicles were destroyed.

In another attack claimed by the Taliban, at least one Afghan civilian was killed and three foreign troops wounded when a suicide car bomber rammed a NATO military convoy along a major road out of the Afghan capital, Kabul, early Monday.

Ayaz Gul, for VOA news, Islamabad.

Another attack in the eastern border province of Nangarhar killed two people.



The Roman Catholic Church is signaling that it soon may ease its stance on homosexuality and the sanctity of marriage.

Senior bishops handpicked by Pope Francis suggested in Rome Monday that the Church adopt a more positive perspective on gay couples, unmarried couples and civil marriages, in which one or both of the partners is divorced.

The bishops offered their reviews in an interim report. They expect to issue a final one next week.



I'm Ray Kouguell in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.