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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jee Abbey Lee reporting.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says the United States must see "some sort of positive action" from North Korea before discussing ways to lower tensions on the peninsula. The comment follows an emergency closed-door briefing among members of the U.N. Security Council. Haley said the North's leader Kim Jong Un is irrational and that the Council isn't ruling anything out in its re-evaluation of the Communist country. Last Sunday, Pyongyang launched four ballistic missiles. European Union leaders voted to re-elect Donald Tusk as the bloc's president. "Thank you very much Joseph. And first of all, thank you for your trust in me, for your great support in these unusual circumstances. I am aware of this, but above all thank you for this show of solidarity." Poland, his home country, was only one of the 28-member states to vote against his reappointment. Tusk re-election is seen as a snap to the right-wing government there. North Korea allowed two Malaysian employees of the United Nations World Food Program to leave the country Thursday. They were among 11 Malaysians confined to their country's embassy in Pyongyang. The had gotten caught up in a dispute triggered by the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother Kim Jong Nam. The U.N. says the two Malaysians were "international civil servants, and not representatives of their government." Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak confirmed on Twitter that the pair had arrived safely in Beijing. This is VOA news. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accused the Central Intelligence Agency of "incompetence" after his organization was able to obtain and publish documents related to CIA hacking programs. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks published thousands of pages of what it says are confidential CIA documents that expose "the entire hacking capacity of the CIA." The documents allege that the CIA has the tools to hack into smart phones and some televisions, allowing the agency to remotely spy on people through microphones on the devices. The CIA said Wednesday that WikiLeaks is hurting American security interests. The United Nations says nearly two years since the election crisis in Burundi, the country is still at risk of a crisis. Margaret Besheer has more. Speaking to the U.N. Security Council, the secretary-general's special adviser, Jamal Benomar, reported a fragile security environment, soaring unemployment, especially among youth, and deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Burundi. He also underscored that the political impasse has only deepened in the two years since President Pierre Nkurunziza sought what many viewed as an unconstitutional third term in office. Perhaps most troubling is the worsening human rights situation. Margaret Besheer, the United Nations. In a victory for Republicans, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee have voted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Both committees voted along party lines. Republicans on the committees rejected a number of amendments offered by Democrats. Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi was having none of the Republicans' plan. "The Republican bill is one of the largest transfers of wealth from working families to the richest people in our country. Robin Hood in reverse." :Nancy Pelosi. International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney [contributed] continued to fight, rather, to hold ISIS responsible for a genocide. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has classified it as [is] Yazidi genocide. Clooney participated in an event organized by several nations to continue the campaign launched last year to bring ISIS to justice. The 39-year-old was accompanied by her client, Nadia Murad, and members of state from Belgium, Iraq and the United Kingdom. "ISIS is today the most ???lethal terror group in the world, representing what the Security Council has called 'an unprecedented threat to international peace and security.'" Four U.S. states are challenging President Donald Trump's revised executive order banning travel from six Muslim-majority countries. VOA news. That's the latest world news from VOA. |