VOA NEWS

April 7, 2015

From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Forrest reporting. Fighting raged Monday in southern Yemen.



Houthi rebels battled forces loyal to the country's president. Edward Yeranian reports.

Amateur video showed passers-by trying to help residents wounded by shrapnel in the street of one Aden neighborhood after a barrage of mortar shells hit the area.

Medical sources quoted by Arab media say that more than 50 people have been killed in Aden in the past 24 hours.

As fighting continued in scattered pockets across the country, Saudi-led coalition airstrikes hit security headquarters and another military compound used by Houthi rebels in the capital, Sana'a.

Edward Yeranian, Cairo.



The U.N. Security Council Monday called for the evacuation and protection of 18,000 Palestinian refugees trapped in a camp under siege by Islamic State fighters near Damascus.

One U.N. official described conditions in the Yarmouk camp as "beyond inhumane."



Kenyan warplanes attacked targets in neighboring Somalia. Those attacks came just days after the Somali militant group al-Shabab killed 148 people at a Kenyan university.

The Kenya Defense Forces says the airstrikes Sunday targeted two al-Shabab camps in southern Somalia.



Prosecutors and defense lawyers are representing their closing statements at the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The focus of the arguments is his penalty whether he will be executed for his part in the April 15, 2013 attack. If the jury finds him guilty, it will then hear additional evidence to decide his punishment.



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Malaysian authorities have arrested 17 people for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The local police chief there says the 17 were arrested Sunday.



French special forces have freed a Dutch hostage in Mali more than three years after he was kidnapped by Islamic militants.

The French military said Sjaak Rijke was freed in a predawn raid on Monday.



The Obama administration is making a push to sell the U.S. public on the recent framework Iran nuclear agreement before Congress returns from a holiday recess next week. Cindy Saine reports.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest was joined at the daily briefing by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who played a key role at the international negotiations with Tehran in Switzerland.

Moniz praised the preliminary deal, saying it would shut down all four pathways Tehran could have to produce a nuclear weapon, and he stressed that it is a forever deal with unprecedented access for inspectors to Iran's nuclear facilities.

Cindy Saine, at the White House.



Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko Monday said he is ready to hold a referendum on whether to give greater political power to the country's regions, though he said he was sure most Ukrainians would vote to maintain a "unitary state."



Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says his government will work with Kurdish authorities to liberate the northern province of Nineveh from Islamic State militants.

He did not lay out a timetable, though, for the plan to retake the area.



California Governor Jerry Brown is saying residents of his state must reduce their water consumption by 25 percent to cope with a major drought. Mike O'Sullivan takes a look.

This is the fourth year in a row of below average rainfall, which has created moderate to extreme drought conditions. Bill McDonald of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California says new restrictions should save a precious resource that is drying up.

"We rely on a lot of snow and rain, and that's not happening."

Analysts say there is no single solution to California's water shortage, but education, better planning and conservation will help the state get through its periodic droughts.

They say long-term solutions include using pricing to encourage more efficient water use and using technology to reduce waste.

Mike O'Sullivan, Los Angeles.



An Indonesian court has rejected a last-ditch challenge by two Australian drug convicts facing execution. Lawyers for the state and defense were divided over whether legal avenues remained for the two to avoid the death penalty.

Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were convicted in 2006 as the ringleaders of a plot to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia.



From the VOA news center in Washington, I'm David Forrest.

That's the latest world news from VOA.