VOA NEWS

November 29, 2017

From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Richard Sheehe reporting.



North Korea has fired another ballistic missile. That's according to the South Korean military joint chiefs of staff and verified by the U.S. as well.

The missile reportedly flew eastward from South Pyongan province and South Korean military and U.S. are still analyzing the trajectory.

The launch is the first since September 15 when North Korea fired an intermediate ballistic missile.



France's president is in the middle of a trip to West Africa. We get details from Bram Posthumus in Ouagadougou.

President Emmanuel Macron spent three hours on Tuesday at the University of Ouagadougou, discussing migration, climate change and terrorism.

He is the first French president in three decades to visit Burkina Faso.

Security was a key concern during Macro's visit. Police and army patrolled around all the main arteries, including the Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, scene of two major terrorist attacks in the past.

Macron will head to Ivory Coast on Wednesday for a European Union-African Union summit expected to address migration. The French president will then wrap up his trip to the region Thursday in Ghana.



Bram Posthumus, for VOA news, Ouagadougou.



The U.S. military says it has carried out an airstrike against the Islamic State group in northeastern Somalia that killed one extremist.

A statement from the U.S. Africa Command says the airstrike was carried out Monday afternoon in coordination with Somalia's government.

The United States statement called a small but growing presence the issue (of )the Islamic State group in Somalia. The Trump administration earlier this year approved expanded military efforts against extremists in the Horn of Africa nation, primarily the homegrown and al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab.

Many Islamic State group fighters are said to number around 200 in the region.



This is VOA news.



Forgiveness or retribution. That's the choice as Zimbabwe moves forward after nearly four decades of chaotic rule under Robert Mugabe. So says Anita Powell in this report from Harare.

For 37 years, Zimbabwe has been battered by human rights abuses, endemic corruption, and mismanagement that sank the economy and reduced the nation's once-strong agricultural sector to ruins.

The nation's new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, sees only one way forward for his wounded nation: forgiveness.

"I thus humbly appeal to all of us that we let bygones be bygones."

But just a day later, the state jailed former Mugabe-era minister Ignatius Chombo on massive corruption charges. He is one of several Mugabe cronies to face what some critics are saying is political retribution, not true justice.

Anita Powell, VOA news, Harare.



Kenya's new leader has been sworn in. We get details from Jill Craig.



Actually, U.S. prosecutors have charged three Chinese nationals linked to a cyber security company in China with hacking into the systems of three companies to steal business secrets.

Soo Song is acting U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh.

"The cyberattacks resulted in the theft of internal financial analytical communications from Moody's Analytics, the theft of user names and passwords as well as approximately 407 gigabytes of data from Siemens, and the January, 2016, theft of global positioning technology that was under development at Trimble Corporation."



Victoria state police in Australia have arrested a 20-year-old man suspected of planning to use an automatic rifle for a mass shooting on New Year's Eve in Melbourne.

Shane Patton is the police deputy commissioner. "The male is one of our high risks persons of interest, we have been monitoring him for a very lengthy period of time. He is an Australian citizen and he is of Somalian parents."

The police said the man was intending to act alone and not yet acquired the firearm.

In 2014, a lone gunman took nearly 20 hostages in a Sydney cafe in a 16-hour standoff with police before being killed. Two hostages also died in that attack.



Myanmar's state councilor Aung San Suu Kyi in talks with Pope Francis Tuesday acknowledged an erosion of trust and understanding among communities in Rakhine state but declined to mention Rohingya Muslims, who have fled security crackdown there.



A shutdown in Bali's airport continues thanks to ongoing hazard from the volcanic ash. Airlines bracing for millions of dollars of loss revenue per day are scrambling to minimize damage by offering travel to other destinations. It happened after an eruption of Mount Agung volcano.



I'm Richard Sheehe in Washington.

That's the latest world news from VOA.