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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Michael Lipin reporting. The U.S. and Russian militaries begin cooperation on fighting the Islamic State militant group in Syria.
The Pentagon says Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has directed his staff to communicate with Russia about U.S.-led coalition operations targeting Syria's IS militants. It says the U.S.-Russia military communication is aimed at avoiding any mistaken encounter between coalition and Russian forces in Syria. The Pentagon says Russia has sent fighter jets and hundreds of troops to northwestern Syria in recent weeks. U.S. President Barack Obama says an American-led global movement to destroy the Islamic State group has gained three new members. Obama was speaking on Tuesday at the United Nations in New York, where he chaired a summit on countering violent extremism. The U.S. president announced that Nigeria, Tunisia and Malaysia have joined the more than 60-member U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He also told the summit that the campaign against ISIL will have setbacks as well as successes. "I have repeatedly said that our approach will take time. This is not an easy task. We have ISIL taking root in areas that already are suffering from failed governance in some cases, in some cases civil war or sectarian strife. And as a consequence of the vacuum that exists in many of these areas, ISIL has been able to dig in." Obama said the Islamic State continues to hold the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Ramadi, but has lost a third of its Iraqi territory. This is VOA. North Korea is threatening to cancel an inter-Korean family reunion planned for October 20. Tuesday's threat by a North Korean state body is in response to criticisms from South Korea's president of Pyongyang's nuclear program and human rights record. The two Koreas have agreed last month to hold a reunion at a North Korean mountain resort for families separated by the Korean War six decades ago. The U.N. refugee agency says fighting among rival militias in the Central African Republic has killed at least 37 people and wounded more than 100 others in recent days. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has condemned the violence that was triggered by the murder of a young Muslim man in the capital, Bangui. Lisa Schlein has more on the situation in the CAR. U.N. refugee agency spokesman Leo Dobbs says the situation remains tense with shooting in central Bangui. "We fear that the violence that we are seeing in Bangui is a return to the dark days of late 2013 and 2014 when thousands were killed and tens of thousands had to flee their homes. We are particularly concerned about getting access to the thousands of people who have fled their homes since Saturday." U.N. agencies say people displaced by the violence are in urgent need of basic aid. Several international organizations including the UNHCR and International Organization for Migration have had their compounds looted. Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva. The U.S. Congress has just over one day remaining to approve a short-term federal spending bill and send it to President Barack Obama's desk for his signature. The U.S. federal government's spending authority expires at midnight Wednesday Washington time. Unless both houses of Congress act to approve the short-term spending extension to December 11, a partial shutdown of the federal government will begin. Fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has made his debut on the social network website Twitter. Snowden is a former National Security Agency contractor, who leaked details of U.S. surveillance programs and now lives in exile in Russia. On Tuesday, he sent out his first tweet saying, "Can you hear me now?" Twitter quickly verified Snowden's account, which is amassed 698,000 followers in just eight hours. But Snowden has only followed only one account so far, that of his former employer, the National Security Agency. Snowden left the U.S. in May, 2013. He is wanted by U.S. authorities on charges of espionage. I'm Michael Lipin in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |