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VOA news. I'm Christopher Cruise reporting.
An angry U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that sexual misconduct allegations against him have destroyed his family and reputation. Associated Press Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports. With his Supreme Court date in danger, Kavanaugh's lashing out at what he calls a confirmation process turned "national disgrace." The lasting Democratic senators he says have orchestrated a political hit job. "You have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy." Alternating between raising his voice and choking up, Kavanaugh said he will not be intimidated into quitting and again strongly denied allegations raised earlier in the same hearing by Christine Blasey Ford and also by two other women. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday accused Iran of hiding nuclear-related material at a warehouse. He used pictures and diagrams in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, showing where he said about 15 kilograms of radioactive material had been stored. He demanded that the U.N.'s atomic agency head to the locations immediately with instruments designed to measure radiation. Netanyahu praised the Trump administration for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and said it has cost Iran dearly. "We will act against you in whenever and wherever. We must act to defend our state and to defend our people." Netanyahu said Israel will move against Iran in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said "Jerusalem is not for sale" and "Palestinians' rights are not up for bargaining." He spoke Thursday at the U.N. He also called President Trump "biased" in favor of Israel. This is VOA news. At the United Nations, Russia and China called for international sanctions to be eased on North Korea as an incentive for the isolated nation to denuclearize. VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer says if sanctions are eased it could jeopardize the international consensus on the pressure campaign. The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously on several rounds of increasingly tough and targeted sanctions against North Korea since its first nuclear test in 2006. But Thursday, Russia and China appeared to signal they could break that unity by choosing a position opposite to that of the United States and to many Western and other countries. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who chaired Thursday's Security Council meeting, maintained it was international pressure that had paved the way for diplomacy and it must continue. The U.N. Human Rights Council agreed Thursday to document alleged crimes committed by the Myanmar government against the country's Rohingya minority. The 47-member council voted 35-3 to create what it called an "independent mechanism" that will follow up on a previous fact-finding commission. More than 700,000 members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh from Rakhine state since the largely Buddhist government of Myanmar began a widespread crackdown across the region in 2017. The crackdown came in response to a series of attacks committed by Rohingya militants. Dutch police said Thursday that they had arrested seven men suspected of plotting a "major terror attack in the Netherlands." The arrests were the result of a months-long investigation based on intelligence suggesting that a 34-year-old man of Iraqi descent was planning an attack on a large event that could cause major casualties. The suspects allegedly had planned to use bomb vests and assault rifles to attack one site and a car bomb to attack another. Adultery is no longer a crime in India. On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down a British colonial-era law. Chief Justice Dipak Misra said, "It's time to say that a husband is not the master of his wife." He said, "Legal sovereignty of one sex over the other sex is wrong." Under the previous law, a man who had sex with a married woman without her husband's blessing could be sentenced to up to five years in prison. The law gave the husband the right to bring charges against his wife's lover but failed to grant a wife power to do the same. 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. |