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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David DeForest reporting.
Three of the gunmen who attacked a Mogadishu hotel Wednesday were killed today in a shootout with authorities. A fourth attackers was killed the day before. Security forces rescued 57 hostages being held by the gunmen at the Ambassador Hotel. The death toll in the incident has been put at 24. The Somali militant group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it targeted the hotel because it was used by Somali government officials. Efforts to get aid to the victims of Syria's civil war are being hampered by the Syrian government. The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has yet to agree on a broad opening of certain areas to humanitarian convoys. The government is also continuing a siege on regions held by opposition groups. U.S. officials say nearly 20 towns have been deprived of food and humanitarian shipments. The United Nations is appealing to the international community to come to the aid of millions of civilians in Yemen. Lisa Schlein reports. U.N. Coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick calls Yemen an invisible crisis, a war waged in the shadows of the war being fought in nearby Syria. "The scale of the emergency is tremendous. The scale of the needs is massive." McGoldrick says it appears as though the fighting in Yemen has gone down since U.N.-mediated peace negotiations started a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, he says conditions continue to deteriorate because people have to contend with the country's shattered infrastructure and broken economy. Lisa Schlein, Geneva. The U.S. government has announced a near-total ban on domestic sales of elephant ivory. It's intended to protect the endangered animal. This is VOA news. The U.S. State Department says the global terrorism threat is becoming increasingly decentralized with groups such as the Islamic State spreading its reach into regions including Southeast Asia, Russia's North Caucasus and Africa. It released its annual report on terrorism Thursday. While al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, all terrorist groups continue to launch destabilizing attacks, the department said IS remained the greatest threat globally. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton called Republican rival Donald Trump dangerous and unqualified for the presidency. She spoke at a major policy speech Thursday in San Diego, California. "He is not just unprepared. He is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility." California holds its presidential primary election next week. Clinton faces a stiff challenge within her own party from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. House Speaker Paul Ryan has formally backed Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump in an effort to unify the party ahead of November's election. Ryan, the country's top elected Republican official, last month said he was not yet ready to endorse Trump. Ryan now says the two "have more common ground than disagreement" and he will be voting he says for Trump. "You know, I had people on both sides of it. I had friends wishing I wouldn't support him. I had people saying wishing I would. I really didn't feel any pressure other than my goal is to make sure that we're unified." :Paul Ryan. A U.S. Navy pilot was killed Thursday in one of two crashes of military jets. The Navy flier died when he failed to eject from his Blue Angels F-18 fighter jet during a practice flight for an air show near Nashville, Tennessee. President Barack Obama met with the pilot of a U.S. Air Force Thunderbird jet that crashed shortly after a flyover for the president's Air Force Academy graduation speech in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The pilot in that case ejected from the plane and was not seriously hurt. German lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize the World War I-era killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the action will have a serious impact on relations between Germany and Turkey. Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries failed Thursday to reach an agreement to curb oil production. They have been trying to find a way to reduce production in an effort to boot prices. Taking a brief look at markets, on Wall Street, U.S. stock indexes were up at the close of trade today. European markets were mixed. In Washington, I'm David DeForest. That's the latest world news from VOA. |