VOA NEWS

April 9, 2016

From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Byrd reporting. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says that the Islamic State is losing ground rapidly in Iraq.



Kerry said Islamic State's leaders and fighters are being eliminated and the group's rank-and-file members are losing hope.

As VOA's Jeff Caster reports, Kerry made the statement during a quick visit to Baghdad Friday for talks with Iraqi leaders.

Kerry traveled to Iraq from Bahrain on a previously unannounced trip that marks his first visit to Baghdad 2014. He will talk with Iraqi leaders including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Later during a news conference, Kerry pledged continued U.S. support for the Iraqi government. He also told reporters that U.S.-led multinational coalition efforts to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq are, in his words, unequivocal working.

IS forces are losing ground, he said, and the coalition will not let up.

"In the coming weeks and months, the coalition will work with Iraq to turn up the pressure even further. We will continue targeting and taking out Daesh's leaders, and we will train local forces to take and hold more ground."

Kerry's visit comes as Iraqi-led forces pushed to retake the northern city of Mosul, which fell to Islamic State militants more than two years ago.

Jeff Caster, VOA news, Washington.



Belgian authorities have arrested a fugitive suspect wanted in connection with November's attacks in Paris who is also linked to the deadly bombings in Brussels last month.

Thirty-one-year-old Mohamed Abrini, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, was arrested Friday. He is believed to be the mysterious "man in the hat" who escaped the explosion at Brussels airport.

If true, that would mean that Abrini had a key role in both attacks carried out by an Islamic State cell that left a total of 162 people dead.



This is VOA news.



Pope Francis says that the world's Catholics should look to their own conscience more than to hard and fast rules when it comes to sex, marriage and family life.

In a major church document entitled "The Joy of Love", the pope did not issue a new law or regulation guiding Catholic marriage.

Francis urged Catholic clergy to avoid what he called "cold bureaucratic morality" and instead look for God's grace in wonderfully complicated family situations.

Father Robert Gahl is an Associate Professor of Ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. "The main thing that's new is that the pope emphasizes how the families in crisis, in marriages crisis, we need to rediscover the truth of marriage and family, and therefore discover the joy that is in family and human love and in sexuality, speaks about the love between husband and wife as being expression of joy, even of divine joy, that we can find God in the love between husband and wife."

Pope Francis also said that gay should be respected but did not change the church's position on same-sex unions.



Wyoming holds its Democratic caucus Saturday, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders hoping to score his ninth straight win over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Both candidates spent Friday campaigning in New York, with Sanders visiting his home of Brooklyn and Clinton stomping outside Buffalo.

Clinton said that Sanders' proposals for such things as paying for college are not realistic.

"So, I do believe in deathbed conversions. But I think it will take a pretty big change of heart for Republican governors like some of the ones we've got in our country right now to put money into free college."

Sanders told a cheering crowd in his hometown of Brooklyn that his campaign is about giving everyone a voice in government, not just wealthy special interests.

"And our trope in this campaign is to create an economy that works for all of us, not just the one precinct."

Only 14 delegates are at stake Saturday in Wyoming.

The next primary for both the Democrats and the Republicans is April 19 in New York.



A SpaceX cargo rocket made history Friday when it blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and then successfully landed its first stage upright on a barge in the Atlantic.

The launch was largely routine but the real excitement came when the Falcon 9 rocket touched down on a barge named "Of Course I Still Love You."

The rocket is a supply mission for the International Space Station. The launch marked SpaceX's first mission to the ISS since last June when a Falcon 9 blew apart just about two minutes after launch.



I'm David Byrd in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.