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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Byrd reporting. Scores of people are killed when a crane collapses on the great mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi officials say at least 107 people were killed and 238 others injured when the crane crashed through the mosque's ceiling. A sound technician at the mosque, Mohammed Tahir, told VOA's Urdu service it was raining heavily with strong gusty winds when a master crane became unbalanced and fell inside the inner area of the grand mosque. Work has been underway at the site to expand the mosque compound. The incident occurred as Muslims gather from all over the world for the annual hajj pilgrimage set to begin in Mecca later this month. The foreign ministers of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia have refused requests to accept mandatory quotas in the EU's plan for distributing 160,000 migrants among member countries. Denmark also announced Friday that it will not absorb any of the 160,000 asylum seekers. Meanwhile, thousands of migrants were hiking to Vienna from the border with Hungary in their quest for asylum. Peter Bouckaert is Human Rights Watch's emergencies director: "They get blocked here at the border. The police takes them to these holding centers where they live in horrible conditions. They are put in tents like animals. They get very little food. The food gets thrown at them sometimes." Hungary has been widely criticized for its treatment of the refugees, compared to the warmer response from Germany and Austria. European Council President Donald Tusk said that he will call a summit of EU leaders this month unless ministers can agree by Monday on how the bloc should cope with the migrant surge. This is VOA news. The United States marked the 14th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on Friday. In New York, the families of the victims gathered for a tolling of bells and the reading of the names of those killed in the terrorist attack. President Barack Obama, along with the first lady and the White House staff, observed a public moment of silence Friday morning on the White House South Lawn at the time when the first hijacked airliner slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Later, Mr. Obama told U.S. troops that fighting the threat of terrorism requires constant vigilance. "Although we have made enormous strides in degrading the core al-Qaeda, including bin Laden himself that had helped to direct the plot on 9/11, we are well aware of the fact that those threats still exist out there." At the Pentagon, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said despite the tragedy of the attacks the United States has come back stronger. There was also a moment of silence to mark when one of the planes crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all aboard. In all, nearly 3,000 people died when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners in coordinated suicide attacks. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to reject the international deal with Iran to curb its nuclear weapons program Friday after a morning of emotional debate. House Speaker John Boehner said that Republicans will continue to oppose the plan even though the vote was largely symbolic. "So our fight to stop this bad deal frankly is just beginning. We will not let the American people down." The U.S. Senate held a decisive vote blocking a disapproval measure on Thursday. The House vote was intended to send a message to President Obama and his administration who have pushed hard for the deal over the past 18 months. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says his country hopes to avoid what he called "unintended incidents" in Syria by "coordination" with the United States. Lavrov defined "coordination" as cooperating with the Syrian government and military, something that Washington is not likely to support. President Obama said Friday afternoon that Russia's policy is "doomed to fail" and could cause problems in the fight against the Islamic State. At the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York, unseeded Italian Roberta Vinci ended defending champion Serena Williams's bid for a calender year Grand Slam. Vinci beat the top seeded Williams in three sets. No one has held all four major titles in a single year since Steffi Graf in 1988. I'm David Byrd in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |