VOA NEWS

November 14, 2018

VOA news. I'm Christopher Cruise reporting.



Palestinian groups in Gaza say they've accepted a cease-fire after Hamas fired hundreds of rockets at southern Israel, killing a Palestinian man, and Israel launched dozens of airstrikes on Gaza.

Palestinians say at least seven people were killed.

Egyptian mediators are due in the region Wednesday after the worst cross border violence in years.

Correspondent Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.

In a statement, all the organizations in Gaza said they had accepted a cease-fire mediated by Egypt. "Egypt's efforts have been able to achieve a cease-fire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy," the statement reads. "The resistance will respect this declaration as long as the Zionist enemy respects it."

Israeli officials did not comment, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had repeatedly said that Israel does not want a war in Gaza.

Analysts say that neither side wants war, but previous cease-fires have been derailed by events on the ground.



Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was stopped at the border on Tuesday and barred from leaving Russia as he was about to travel to a hearing at the European Court for Human Rights in France.

He stood in a Russian airport and posted his travel problems on Instagram.

He said, "Behind me, there are happy passengers at the airport whose tickets haven't disappeared. My ticket has disappeared. I'm not allowed to travel abroad."

The hearing in Strasbourg could prove a major embarrassment for the Kremlin, which routinely dismisses Navalny, arguably Russia's most popular opposition figure.



President Trump used Twitter on Tuesday to strongly criticize France and its President Emmanuel Macron. He noted Macron's low approval ratings and attacked French tariffs on U.S. wine exports as well as its failure to meet NATO's defense spending goal.



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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis plans to visit American troops at the southern border Wednesday.

Associated Press Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports from the White House.

The Pentagon says Mattis will meet with troops at McAllen, Texas. About 1,000 of the 5,800 active duty troops assigned to the border mission are on or near the border in south Texas.

President Trump ordered troops to the border in response to a migrant caravan slowly moving through Mexico toward the U.S. but the lead caravan is no longer heading that way, with most migrants appearing to move toward Tijuana.

This does not change the military's mission. "We'll have to see what the future holds. But right now, that's the only mission I have."

Mattis says the Pentagon is still calculating how much the mission will cost.



Rohingya community leaders said refugees on the list who are set to be repatriated to Myanmar this week have fled camps in Bangladesh. Seven hundred thousand Rohingya fled a crackdown by security forces that the U.N. has likened to ethnic cleansing, including massacres, burned villages and gang rapes.

This is the country's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Periodically, trouble has broken out there between the Muslim community and Rakhine community. And we have inherited this very complex problem and we have to deal with it, we have to resolve it. So obviously, it's not something that we can do overnight and it's not something that we can find simple answers to."



Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is on trial in a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, amid intense security and public scrutiny.

Associated Press correspondent Julie Walker reports.

El Chapo's lawyer, Eduardo Balarezo, told reporters as he walked into court he's ready to defend his client and has nothing to prove.

Guzman's wife, a former beauty queen, entered without answering questions. He had requested to hug her but is barred from contact out of concerns he could pass messages to his associates that way.

The defendant's history of violence has prompted patrols by heavily armed officers inside and outside the courthouse. Jurors remain anonymous for their own protection.

If convicted, El Chapo could face life in prison.



The number of hate crime incidents reported in the United States jumped by 17 percent last year. That's the largest increase since 2001 when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 fueled a surge in attacks on Americans of Muslim and Arab ancestry.

The report showed a doubling of anti-Arab hate crimes and a double digit increase in anti-Semitic incidents.



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.