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From Washington, this is VOA news. Hello, I'm Steve Miller.
Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri resigned on Saturday, saying he sensed a plot on his life. David Doyle reports. "I have sensed what is being plotted covertly to target my life," so said Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri as he announced his resignation on Saturday. In a televised statement, Hariri said he was stepping down because he feared his life, adding that the climate in Lebanon is the same as when his father, the late Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated in 2005. His statement also criticized Iran and its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Hariri visited Saudi Arabia, the political enemy of Iran and Hezbollah, twice in the past week. His statement was reportedly made from the Saudi capital, Riyadh. That was reporter David Doyle. A leader of one of Catalonia's largest separatist parties says that it will only participate in upcoming regional elections if Spanish authorities release jailed separatists from prison. Marta Rovira, secretary-general of the Republican Left party, said, "We cannot grant elections without the main political and social leaders with an option allowing debate inside a prison because this causes the same effect as making an electoral program illegal." Prosecutors are looking to charge all members of the dismissed government for their parts in pushing through a declaration of independence by Catalonia's parliament. Saudi Arabia's state media says it has intercepted a ballistic missile fired at its international airport northeast of Riyadh. The statement came Saturday after reports that a loud explosion had been heard in the area. Unconfirmed reports say the missile came from Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a military alliance against the Houthi movement, which claimed responsibility. This is VOA news. Martha O'Donovan was charged Friday with attempting to overthrow the Zimbabwean government, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in jail. Pascale Davies has that story. Police first accused her of insulting 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe with a tweet last month allegedly calling him "a selfish and sick man," and then accused her of setting up Magamba TV, which describes itself as Zimbabwe's leading producer of political satire, as well as setting up a Twitter account used for the sole purpose of "overthrowing the government through unconstitutional means." Lawyers for O'Donovan argued that police only informed her of her charge hours after her arrest, thereby violating the constitution. In a statement to police seen by Reuters, she denies the allegations as "baseless and Malicious." Reporter Pascale Davies. An oral cholera vaccination campaign, which is being led by the World Health Organization, is targeting nearly 180,000 Rohingya refugee children between the ages of one and five years. Lisa Schlein has more. WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says health workers also will give all children up to the age of five oral polio vaccines during the campaign to protect them against this crippling disease. He says so far, no confirmed cases of cholera have been reported. "But, there is a risk and this is why we are doing this oral cholera vaccination. And, WHO has set up a lab together with the ministry to do water-quality monitoring. And, the results show that this testing from drinking water that only 17 percent of the samples collected and tested from various settlements met Bangladesh and WHO standards." Jasarevic says there has been an outbreak of acute watery diarrhea. At present, though, none of the lab tested cases has been confirmed as cholera. He says the most serious health risks are acute respiratory infections and measles. Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva. Fraud by Red Cross workers and others wasted at least $6 million meant to fight the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The revelations follow an internal investigation of how the organization handled more than $124 million during the 2014 to 2016 epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people. The United States has ordered all non-essential employees of its mission to Somalia to leave the capital, Mogadishu, citing "specific threat information" to Mogadishu International Airport. For additional information on this story and others, visit voanews.com. I'm Steve Miller in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA. |