|
From Washington, this is VOA news. Kurdish forces in Syria getting reinforcements. Ebola cases in Liberia slowing down. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington. Kurdish fighters in northern Syria are getting a boost in their battle with Islamic State militants in the town of Kobani. A group of about 50 rebels from the Free Syrian Army arrived Wednesday in Kobani after crossing into Syria from Turkey. A group of Iraqi Kurdish fighters flew into an airport in southeastern Turkey Wednesday and then proceeded toward the Syrian border under escort by Turkish security forces. A senior official at the World Health Organization says the number of new cases of Ebola in Liberia, the worst affected country, is starting to go down. Lisa Schlein reports. After months of near-futile battle with Ebola, a glimmer of hope is beginning to emerge in Liberia. WHO Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward says he is cautiously optimistic that the tide may be turning. He says there has been a huge effort to inform the population about how Ebola is transmitted in order to get people to change the behaviors that are putting them at risk. Most notably, he says, safe burial practices are being more widely adopted. Dr. Aylward says progress is being made in trying to build up clinical care and treatment capacity. Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva. President Obama says the United States may continue to see individual cases of Ebola until the outbreak in West Africa is contained. At the White House Wednesday, Mr. Obama honored U.S. health workers who have returned from West Africa and those planning to go. He called them heroes who are serving with skills and courage, putting themselves in the heart of the Ebola epidemic for no other reason than the sense of duty. This is VOA news. Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, says 91 people "in positions of leadership" have been fired from the ministry, including 8 generals found to have links to past pro-Russian governments. He says the dismissals targeted department heads, including the ministry's regional directorates in Kyiv and Donetsk. NATO says it detected "unusual" activity in European airspace over the past two days. A NATO military spokesman in Brussels says that four groups of Russian warplanes have been "conducting significant military maneuvers" over the Baltic Sea, North Sea and the Black Sea. Norwegian, British, Portuguese, German and Turkish fighters were sent up to intercept and identify the Russian planes. Russia successfully launched an unmanned rocket with supplies for the International Space Station from Kazakhstan on Wednesday just hours after a catastrophic explosion destroyed a similar mission in the United States. On Tuesday, an unmanned commercial rocket with supplies and equipment for the space station burst into fiery fragments just seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island in the U.S. state of Virginia off the Atlantic coast. The cause of the mishap is under investigation. No one was hurt. Egypt is evacuating hundreds of families from their homes along its border with the Gaza Strip. Egyptian authorities are trying to stop "terrorist operations" they believe are originating in the Palestinian territory through tunnels under the border. Edward Yeranian has more. Al Jazeera TV showed live webcam footage of a bulldozer knocking down a cement- and cinder-block building in the northern Sinai border town of Rafah. The report said Egyptian authorities had ordered 600 families in one area of Rafah to leave their homes. Egyptian media report that local army commanders spoke with affected residents, giving them 48 hours to remove their belongings. Egypt declared a state of emergency in the northern Sinai following a terrorist attack last Thursday that killed more than 30 Egyptian soldiers. Edward Yeranian, Cairo. Pakistani military officials say eight soldiers have been killed in an operation against militants in the country's Khyber tribal region. The clash Wednesday also left 21 militants dead. A landslide in hilly south-central Sri Lanka buried scores of homes, raising fears that hundreds of people may have been killed. Heavy rains triggered the wave of mud. A 50-meter-wide river of lava crossed one residential property and is now headed for the main road in the seaside town of Pahoa in the U.S. island state of Hawaii. The molten stream from Kilauea volcano is threatening dozens of homes and businesses. I'm Ray Kouguell in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |