VOA NEWS

May 25, 2015

From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Forrest reporting. A controversy over Iraq.



U.S. officials on Sunday blamed Iraqi forces for Islamic State advances in the country in recent days. In an interview that aired Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CNN the IS takeover of Ramadi one week ago shows Iraqi forces do not have the "will to fight."

National Security Adviser Susan Rice echoed Carter's concerns in an interview on CBS.

Military and paramilitary forces are mounting a counteroffensive against IS insurgents in Anbar province.



Syrian observers say Islamic State militants have executed 217 people, including children, in the eastern region of Homs since the capture of the city of Palmyra more than a week ago.

The British-based Syrian Observatory also says more than 600 people have been taken prisoner.



Incumbent Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, facing a surprisingly strong electoral challenge from conservative Andrzej Duda, conceded defeat on Sunday. His concession came a short while after voting ended and a key exit poll showed him trailing by a 53-47 percent margin.



Ethiopians voted in elections Sunday that are expected to give the ruling EPRDF party another five-year term in office. There were no reports of election-related violence and African Union observers said the voting was "orderly."

Opposition parties say the elections were not free and fair because officials routinely suppressed dissent through harassment and arrests.



This is VOA news.



People in the United States will honor those who died in military service with the annual Memorial Day holiday Monday.

While many communities across the country will honor the war dead with parades, patriotic concerts and ceremonies, others will mark the day with quiet reflection on those who have lost their lives in military service.

A ceremony was held Sunday in the Netherlands honoring the war dead from World War II.

Here is Prime Minister Mark Rutte: "Today, we, the people of the Netherlands, say thank you. We say it with the deepest of respect and from the bottom of our heart. We say thank you to our liberators."

Also celebrating the holiday, thousands of motorcycle riders rolled Sunday through Washington for the annual Rolling Thunder rally. It is done to call attention to prisoners of war and those missing in action.



Somalia's government says a parliament member killed in Mogadishu Saturday was shot by mistake by government soldiers.

The Somali Defense Ministry says soldiers opened fire on the car of lawmaker Yusuf Dirir because they thought he might be involved in a suicide bombing.

A ministry spokesman says the soldiers got suspicious because Dirir's driver had blocked the soldiers' vehicle from passing and ignored signals to stop the car.



Burundi's opposition said it is quitting U.N.-sponsored peace talks with the government after one of its leaders was gunned down in a drive-by shooting.

Zedi Feruzi of the Union for Peace and Development party was buried Sunday, a day after he and a bodyguard were shot to death in the capital, Bujumbura.



A bus carrying 30 international women activists, including American feminist Gloria Steinem, crossed the border into South Korea from the North on Sunday to mark International Women's Disarmament Day.

The group called Women Cross DMZ arrived in North Korea Tuesday and held what they called Peace Symposium.

They marched with North Korean women during their six-day visit.



Malaysian authorities say police have found 30 mass graves containing the remains of people believed to be Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants.

Home Minister Zahid Hamidi told reporters on Sunday that the graves have been found along the border with Thailand near villages that had been used by human traffickers.



A total of 71 people have been arrested in the U.S. city of Cleveland, Ohio, during protests that followed the acquittal of a white policeman in the shooting deaths of two blacks in 2012.

[The streets] The city's streets were calm early Sunday after the Saturday night protests.



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

That's the latest world news from VOA.