VOA NEWS

February 22, 2015

From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Vincent Bruce reporting.



News reports say Boko Haram may have taken a major hit in Nigeria.

Nigeria's military says it has reclaimed the strategical border town of Baga from Boko Haram, the militant group, as the two sides struggle for territory in Nigeria's northeast.

According to a tweet by the military Saturday, the town was retaken. Baga is the site of a horrific massacre of villagers at the militants' hands earlier in the year, with an estimate of as many as 2,000 dead.

The military said the town was retaken using Nigerian forces backed by airstrikes.



The new U.S. defense secretary, Ashton Carter, says the United States is rethinking details of its counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, including whether to slow down the withdrawal [of troops] of U.S. troops whose mission is changing from combat to training as Afghan troops take on responsibility for the fight against the Taliban.

This is his first trip abroad since becoming Pentagon chief earlier this year. Carter made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan Saturday, where he told reporters the United States is reassessing counterterrorism needs in the country.

"Our priority now is to make sure this progress sticks. That is why President Obama is considering a number of options to reinforce our support for President Ghani's security strategy, including possible changes to the timeline for our drawdown of U.S. troops."



U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says there are still "significant gaps" in negotiations on Iran's nuclear program.

Kerry is scheduled to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Sunday to see if the two sides can iron out remaining differences.



This is VOA news.



Secretary of State Kerry says President Barack Obama will evaluate the choices on possible new sanctions on Russia in the next few days and make a decision on what the United States' next step may be.

Kerry spoke in London Saturday after talks with British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond focusing on Russia's backing of an armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine.



In a small but significant ceremony Saturday, Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan signed a memorandum of understanding with an elite Pakistani university, Lahore University of Management Sciences, or LUMS. Ayesha Tanzeem has more from Lahore.

This is the first publicly funded program to send Afghan students abroad since the Taliban's tight grip on the country was broken more than 13 years ago.

Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan, Janan Mosazai, said President Ashraf Ghani is eager to broaden this to other areas.

"We want to use the scholarship program as another bridge between Afghanistan and Pakistan."

The first batch of five to ten Afghan students are expected to arrive on the LUMS campus as early as this summer.

Ayesha Tanzeem, VOA news, Lahore.



Yemen's ousted president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Saturday rejected the Shiite rebel takeover of his country's capital and government, in a statement read on television channel al-Jazeera after he left the capital, Sana'a.

Mr. Hadi issued the statement under the title of president in an apparent retraction of his resignation last month after the Houthi rebels seized the presidential palace.

In the statement, Mr. Hadi declared all steps taken by the Houthis "illegitimate" and called on them to release top officials in the government from house arrest.



A U.N. commission on rights violations in Syria says it is considering publishing some of the names of suspected perpetrators of war crimes in that country's civil war. VOA's Margaret Besheer has more details.

The four-person Commission of Inquiry had an informal closed-door meeting with Security Council members on Friday.

"What we shared with the Security Council is ..." Lead commissioner Paulo Pinheiro said afterward that in a bid to end impunity in Syria, the panel will decide by mid-March whether to publish some of the names. "... just to release names without any follow-up, we don't think that is very constructive."

The commission has previously compiled four confidential lists of alleged perpetrators.

Margaret Besheer, VOA news, the United Nations.



U.S. Secretary of State Kerry says the Palestinian Authority's financial plight could hurt security for both Palestinians and Israelis.

Israel has been withholding tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority since last month to retaliate for the group's efforts to join the International Criminal Court.



I'm Vincent Bruce in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.