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VOA news. I'm Christopher Cruise reporting.
China said Tuesday it will retaliate against President Trump's decision to raise tariffs on some of its imports, intensifying the trade war and likely increasing prices for American companies and consumers. China now says it will increase tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods in retaliation for President Trump's new U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Jacob Parker with the U.S.-China Business Council says companies are concerned. "The American tariffs unfortunately are not only a tax on the America consumer, but they are also making U.S. companies less competitive." Mats Harborn, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, says trade wars don't work. "We think that what the U.S. is doing right now is economic madness." Trump says the move is designed to force China to change a range of unfair trade practices. The new tariffs affect a range of goods from purses to bicycles. I'm Julie Walker. President Trump has ordered the Justice Department to declassify documents related to the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Information to be made public includes FBI surveillance warrants of a former Trump campaign adviser and FBI interviews with a high-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Justice. That official had been in contact with ex-British spy, Christopher Steele, who wrote a report that alleged Russia may be blackmailing Trump with incriminating and embarrassing information. The Russian Defense Ministry says "hostile" actions by Israeli fighter jet pilots led to Syrian air defense systems shooting down a Russian military reconnaissance plane. Bur Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to downplay the involvement of Israel on Tuesday. This is VOA news. The storm system that struck southeastern American states over the weekend is now soaking parts of the northeast with heavy rain. Flash flood watches and warnings are posted from Virginia into Vermont and New Hampshire through Tuesday. But about 1,100 roads in North Carolina remain impassable and hundreds of thousands of homes remain without power. The U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar says the country's top military command should be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State. Correspondent Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva. Members of the fact-finding mission have drawn up a list of senior military commanders who, they say, must be investigated and prosecuted for genocidal acts. The eruption of violence in August 2017 triggered a mass-exodus of three-quarters of a million Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh. The chief prosecutor of The Hague's International Criminal Court announced Tuesday she would launch an investigation into the allegedly forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh back to Myanmar. In a written statement, Fatou Bensouda said she will investigate "the forced displacement of the Rohingya people, including deprivation of fundamental rights, killing, sexual violence, enforced disappearance, destruction and looting." Thousands of parents are withdrawing their children from schools in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon after armed men attacked and wounded dozens of people in the schools. Correspondent Moki Edwin Kindzeka has this report from the southwestern part of the country. At least 70 schools have been torched since crisis began in Cameroon English-speaking regions in 2016 when teachers and lawyers protested overbearing use of the French language in the bilingual country. Separatists took over and requested the creation of an English-speaking state and the government declared war on them. At least 300 people including 130 soldiers and the police have been killed. South Africa's top court has legalized the use of marijuana for private, personal use. The South African Constitutional Court announced its unanimous judgement on Tuesday. A lower court had earlier decriminalized the use of cannabis by adults in their homes. The ruling was opposed by several government agencies, including the Health and Justice Ministries, which said the drug has "harmful effects." The court ordered parliament to write new laws to reflect its ruling, which also allows people to grow cannabis for personal use. You can find 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 Christopher Cruise, VOA news. |