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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting.
A U.S. drone strike has killed at least seven Islamic State militants in central Yemen, according to security sources. The strikes hit two cars carrying armed individuals in al-Bayda province. U.S. forces have repeatedly launched drone and airstrikes in the province as well as in southeastern Shabwa province where dozens of al-Qaeda and IS members are believed to be based. Two Somali civilians, an African Union soldier from Uganda and four al-Shabaab militants were killed in an ambush early Wednesday on the outskirts of Mogadishu. Gunfire followed the explosion of an improvised explosive device that targeted an AU military vehicle. The U.S. House of Representatives has approved bipartisan legislation to block the flow of illegal funds to [Iran-backed] Iran-backed, that is, Hezbollah militants, and also to sanction Hezbollah for using civilians as human shields. The measures were approved by voice vote Wednesday in a blow to the group, which is designated a terrorist organization, and lawmakers say it has close ties to the government of Iran. The bill that targets Hezbollah funding places sanctions on people and businesses engaged in fundraising and recruitment for the group. An undocumented 17-year-old had an abortion Wednesday morning, ending a weeks-long legal battle that had been escalated to a U.S. federal appeals court. The girl had been detained in a refugee shelter in Brownsville, Texas, since September 11, when she was attested at the U.S.-Mexico border. This is VOA news. The World Food Program is warning of a humanitarian catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai region unless urgent assistance arrives. There is widespread severe hunger gripping the conflict-ridden province. Correspondent Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva. The World Food Program has declared the Kasai region a level 3 emergency, which signifies a large scale humanitarian crisis. The agency accordingly is ramping up its emergency response in hopes of averting a disastrous outcome. WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher says in the worst off communities, nine out of ten people are hungry. "Our number one concern is in many places of course the condition of young children, pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers because the conflict is really exacerbating the malnutrition rates in Greater Kasai." Luescher says WFP plans to reach nearly half a million people with food aid by the end of December and accelerate the surge early next year. Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued a stern warning to South Sudan's president on Wednesday, telling him "the hate and the violence that we are seeing has to stop" or the U.S. will reconsider its financial support for the country. Haley spoke to reporters after meeting with President Salva Kiir. She said, "It was a very honest conversation. I basically said the United States had invested well over $11 billion into South Sudan and into him, and that we were now questioning that investment. I told them that he couldn't deny the stories about his military." A top U.S. State Department official on Wednesday urged Kosovo officials to ratify a border demarcation agreement with Montenegro - the last remaining criteria to be fulfilled before Kosovo can benefit from visa-free travel to the European Schengen zone. And, thousands of pages of long-classified documents about the investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy are to be released on Thursday. The documents are contained in more than 3,000 files. They will be released automatically under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Record Collections Act of 1992 unless President Donald Trump decides to stop them. But that is unlikely. On Saturday, he tweeted that he would allow the release of the documents. There is more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Jonathan Jones reporting from the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |