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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Forrest reporting. A high-level visit to Iraq.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter made an unannounced visit to Iraq, saying he wanted a first-hand look at U.S. and Iraqi efforts to thwart the advances of Islamic State militants. At the first stop of a day-long visit, the American defense chief observed and praised Iraqi counterterrorism troops. Top Obama administration officials face tough questioning in the first Senate hearing on the Iran nuclear agreement. Congress has to accept or reject the accord by mid-September. Secretary of State John Kerry urged members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to accept the agreement which he says will prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb. "It will ensure that Iran's nuclear program remains under intense scrutiny forever, and we will know what they are doing." :John Kerry. U.S. President Barack Obama leaves Thursday on a trip to Ethiopia and Kenya. On the trip, Mr. Obama will promote the growth in American economic links with sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya's foreign secretary says the coming visit is a strong endorsement for his country. Gabe Joselow has more. In an interview with VOA's Vincent Makori in Nairobi Thursday, Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed said President Obama's visit with the government shines a positive light on Kenya and the administration of President Uhuru Kenyatta. "I think his coming now is his recognition of the kind of leadership that we have." Kenya's relations with the United States have been strained at times, especially when President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were facing charges at the International Criminal Court for their alleged roles in violence that followed the 2007 presidential election. But now, the tensions appear to be in the past. Gabe Joselow, Nairobi. This is VOA news. FBI Director James Comey says the Islamic State group's online attempts to recruit Americans pose a bigger terrorist threat to the U.S. than al-Qaeda. Speaking late Wednesday at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Comey warned of the extremist group's intensifying social media campaign. "If you can imagine a nationwide haystack, we're trying to find needles in that haystack. And a lot of those needles are invisible to us either because of the way in which they're communicating or because they haven't communicated or touched a place where we can see them." Comey said Islamic State-linked Twitter accounts have about 21,000 English-language followers, hundreds or thousands of which are in the U.S. Amnesty International warns in a new report that Burundi is on the verge of conflict after police used heavy-handed tactics to suppress months of anti-government demonstrations. Mohammed Yusuf has more. The report, Braving Bullets, says authorities repressed demonstrations as if they were an insurrection, punishing protesters for expressing their political views. Amnesty's Deputy Regional Director Sarah Jackson says a police response has inflamed tensions. "They used lethal, excessive force." The U.N. monitors have documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of protesters in detention, as well as dozens of killings of demonstrators and human rights defenders by members of the Imbonerakure militia group and security forces. Mohammed Yusuf, Bujumbura. The European Union has opened an antitrust case against six major U.S. film studios and Sky UK of Britain charging that they unfairly restrict access to their content to European Union customers. The EU's commission's statement of objections has named Disney, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers. The statement says Sky UK's licensing agreement with those companies require to allow viewers access to their films only in Britain and Ireland and not in the rest of the European Union. A Russian Soyuz capsule has landed at the International Space Station after a two-month delay. The delay was caused by the earlier failure of an unmanned Russian cargo ship. Officials said the capsule reached the orbiting laboratory Thursday less than six hours after its launch from the Baikonur base in Kazakhstan. U.S. and Turkish media report that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to let U.S. fighter planes use an air base in Turkey. The base will be used by the U.S. to launch attacks on Islamic State militants inside Syria. The U.S. government has not publicly discussed details of the new cooperation between the two countries. From the VOA news center in Washington, I'm David Forrest. That's the latest world news from VOA. |