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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David DeForest reporting.
The U.S. stops Syria talks with Russia. A State Department spokeswoman, Elizabeth Trudeau, cited continued military attacks against civilian targets by Russian and Syrian forces. "Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments, including its obligations under international humanitarian law and UNSCR 2254, and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed." The U.S. move to pull out of the Syria talks came just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending an agreement with the U.S. on disposing [weapons-made] weapons-grade plutonium, citing what was called "unfriendly actions" by the U.S. The Pentagon says it has targeted a "prominent al-Qaeda leader" in an airstrike in Syria. A spokesman says the strike Monday targeted a "core al-Qaeda" member. Media reports in the region say the target was Abu al Faraj al Masri, a former companion of now-deceased al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. Also, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says a suicide bomber killed 14 people Monday at a wedding near Hasakeh, Syria. Colombia's leaders are trying to figure out what to do following the unexpected voter rejection of a peace agreement with FARC rebels. President Juan Manuel Santos planned meetings Monday with political party leaders and ordered negotiators to go back to Havana, Cuba, for talks with the FARC. The president and FARC leaders are vowing to push ahead with the peace process. Voters narrowly rejected the accord by just 54,000 votes. This is VOA news. Taliban insurgents are said to have overrun a sizable section of the Afghan city of Kunduz after staging a multi-pronged offensive. Residents say fighting is raging in the central part of the provincial capital. They say Afghan security forces are trying to defend the regional police headquarters and the office of the governor. Heavy rains from the outer bands of Hurricane Matthew pelted Jamaica and Haiti Monday, flooding streets and sending many people to emergency shelters as the Category 4 storm moved through the Caribbean. Jamaica's government has discontinued a hurricane warning and replaced it with a tropical storm warning. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the center of the storm would pass just east of Jamaica Monday night and approach Haiti's southwestern tip before heading for eastern Cuba Tuesday. Three deaths are being blamed on the storm. Officials in the U.S. state of North Carolina have declared a state of emergency for the central and eastern parts of the state where the hurricane is expected to hit. The focus of the U.S. presidential campaign remains on, stays, rather, on The New York Times report Sunday. The Republican candidate Donald Trump lost so much money in 1995 that he was able to legally avoid paying taxes for nearly two decades. Democrat Hillary Clinton is accusing Trump of getting rich at taxpayers' expense. She spoke today in Ohio. "The whole story tells us everything we need to know about how Trump does business. After he made all those bad bets and lost all that money, he didn't lift a finger to help and protect his employees. Or all the small businesses and contractors he'd hired, or the people of Atlantic City. They all got hammered. While he was busy with his accountants trying to figure out how to keep living like a billionaire." :Democrat Hillary Clinton Meanwhile, Donald Trump spoke Monday in Colorado. "I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible." But Mr. Trump had some more problems. New York state's top legal official Monday ordered the charitable foundation he heads to immediately stop soliciting contributions. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says the Trump Foundation is not registered to seek public donations. He says unless the foundation files the required paperwork in the next 15 days, it will consider it to be (quoting now) "a continuing fraud upon the people of New York." In Washington, I'm David DeForest. That's the latest world news from VOA. |