|
VOA news. I'm Christopher Cruise reporting.
A day after his state funeral in Washington, Texas has said goodbye to George H.W. Bush. Associated Press Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports from the White House. In the Houston church where the Bush family worships, there were personal touches. "Amazing grace." After years of praying for the president, the Oak Ridge Boys performed in his honor. There were the hymns the president himself chose and a tribute from his eldest grandson, George P. Bush, the man he called "Gampy." "George Herbert Walker Bush is the most gracious, most decent, most humble man that I will ever know." Houston sports legends Nolan Ryan and J.J. Watt were among those paying their respects before the ex-president's body was driven to the train that would carry him to his final resting spot, his library in College Station. The U.S. military said Thursday that one Marine was killed and five others are missing after two Marine Corps aircraft collided in midair off the Japanese coast and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. The Marine Corps said the dead Marine was one of two crew members who were recovered after the collision. It said rescue operations continued for those who are still missing. The accident happened early Thursday about 320 kilometers off Japan's southwestern coast. It happened during a routine refueling training mission when a KC-130 and a fighter jet apparently collided. The U.S. and its allies flew a military aircraft over Ukraine Thursday in a show of support after Russia attacked Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea last month. The Pentagon said [Ukraine] the plane flew over Ukraine with U.S., Canadian, German, French, British, Romanian and Ukrainian observers aboard. This is VOA news. China is demanding the immediate release of a key executive of telecom giant Huawei Technologies, whose arrest in Canada could threaten the recent truce in the trade war between the United States and China. Canadian authorities announced Wednesday that Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer and the daughter of the company's founder, had been detained in Vancouver last Saturday on suspicion of trying to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. The U.S. trade gap has reached its highest level in a decade. Associated Press correspondent Mike Hempen reports. Record imports drove the U.S. trade deficit to $55 billion in October, the fifth straight increase. The Commerce Department says that's the highest it has been since October, 2008. The gap is the difference between what the United States sells and what it buys from foreign countries. President Trump campaigned on a pledge to slash the trade deficit. However, despite his import taxes on steel, aluminum and Chinese goods, the deficit so far this year is running 11 percent above what it was from January to October of last year. Two senior Somali military commanders and several soldiers were killed Thursday when a roadside bomb blast hit their vehicle south of Mogadishu. The attack (was) immediately claimed by the al-Shabab militant group. Yemen's warring factions are in Sweden now to participate in a new round of peace talks aimed at ending the four-year-old war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. Zimbabwe has started the process of compensating white commercial farmers displaced from their properties during the country's land reform in the early 2000s. But as correspondent Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare for VOA news, farmers say the $53 million set aside for the purpose will not go far. Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers' Union says it is waiting for details from the government on how it will compensate farmers whose property was seized during the country's land reform program beginning in 2000. The program seized property from about 3,500 white commercial farmers and gave the land to blacks. Then-President Robert Mugabe said the reform was necessary to correct injustices of the colonial period. Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno said Thursday "the road is clear" for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to leave Ecuador's embassy in London, where he has lived for six years to avoid being arrested by British police and possibly extradited. 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. |