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Hi, I'm VOA Christina Menenti with your worldwide news update.
The U.S. military says two U.S. Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea on Sunday in an apparent friendly fire incident. Both pilots were rescued, with one suffering minor injuries. The incident came as the U.S. military conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels, though Central Command did not elaborate on what their mission was at the time. Prosecutors in Germany have pressed charges against the suspect in a deadly car-ramming attack at a Christmas market. Diane To from Reuters reports. The memorial in Magdeburg continued to grow two days after the car-ramming attack killed several people and injured more than 200. In a statement, police said the suspect is now held in pre-trial custody after prosecutors pressed charges of murder as well as attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. Police did not name the suspect, who is a 50-year-old Saudi man with a history of anti-Islam rhetoric. Saudi and German sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German security authorities about the suspect. Authorities on Saturday said his motive was not clear. Later, it emerged that the suspect had criticized Islam and expressed sympathy for the far-right. Diane To for Reuters. Israel ordered the closure and evacuation on Sunday of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in the Gaza Strip, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds to safety. The head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Husam Abu Safiya, told Reuters via text message, quote, "We currently have nearly 400 civilians inside the hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit, whose lives depend on oxygen and incubators. We cannot evacuate these patients safely without assistance, equipment and time", unquote. Elsewhere, Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 24 Palestinians, according to medics. This is VOA News. Ukraine's membership in NATO is achievable, but Kyiv will have to fight to persuade allies to make it happen. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Ukrainian diplomats in a speech released on Sunday allies need to know what Ukraine can bring to NATO and how this membership in the alliance would stabilize global relations. The Western military alliance has said Ukraine will join its ranks one day but has not set a date or issued an invitation. Russia has cited the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO as one of the principal justifications for Moscow's 2022 invasion, one that is still ongoing. Ukraine's parliamentary commissioner for human rights said on Sunday Russian forces executed five Ukrainian prisoners of war. He said that Russian troops shot the unarmed soldiers after capturing them. He gave no details but said he would report the information to the U.N. Reports say Russia did not immediately comment on the incident. Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Lebanese Druze leaders on Sunday that his country would not negatively interfere in Lebanon. "We are starting a new era with Lebanon. We respect its sovereignty and strength and we are trying to serve it as much as we can." Druze chief Walid Jumblatt is the first Lebanese figure to meet Sharaa since Sharaa's Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and allied rebel factions launched a lightning offensive last month, seizing Damascus and ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad. China said on Sunday it was taking countermeasures against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet. China's Foreign Ministry announced on its website that the measures, which took effect on Saturday, include asset freezes and bans on entry, and that the targets include Canada's Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada-Tibet Committee. Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority. Beijing denies any abuses. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to reassert U.S. control over the Panama Canal, accusing Panama of charging excessive rates to use the Central American passage, which allows ships to cross between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. In a Saturday evening post on his Truth Social platform, Trump also warned that he would not let the canal fall into what he called "the wrong hands," and he seemed to warn of potential Chinese influence on the passage, writing that the canal should not be managed by China. China does not control or administer the canal. The United States built the canal, which reverted to Panamanian control under treaties signed in the 1970s. Panama took control of the canal in 1999. A small plane with at least nine people on board crashed into shops in the center of the tourist city of Gramado in southern Brazil on Sunday, civil defense officials said. An initial reports indicated that there were no survivors. That wraps up this update, but the world and news never stop. For additional updates, visit our website. I'm Christina Menenti, VOA News. |