Новости за 29.03.2017

When he was growing up in Hyderabad, India, Ravindra Sunku, 52, could see and smell the burning kerosene and wood his neighbors used to cook. It stuck in his memory people he knew might have suffered from lung disease caused from what they inhaled by doing something as simple as cooking dinner. Now a tech executive in Silicon Valley, Sunku recently was able to use his professional skills to help a Kenyan organization that makes clean cook stoves that promise to save lives and reduce deforestation. Читать дальше...

United Nations human rights experts called on Russia on Wednesday to release peaceful protesters arrested across the country over the weekend and to annul any sentences already handed down. In a joint statement, the independent experts said that Russia had a legal obligation to protect people exercising their right to fundamental freedoms of peaceful assembly, opinion and expression. Up to 1,000 demonstrators who took to the streets following allegations of corruption against Prime Minister Dmitry... Читать дальше...

Best-selling British superstar singer George Michael was buried in London on Wednesday in a private funeral some three months after his death on Christmas Day, his publicist said. Several luxury cars with blacked-out windows arrived and later left Highgate Cemetery in north London, Reuters reporters said. British media said Michael's mother is buried there. Born in London in 1963 as Georgios Kyriacos Panayiatou, son of a Greek Cypriot immigrant father and English mother, Michael became one of... Читать дальше...

The European Parliament wants the rights of Europeans in Britain and of British citizens in Europe to get top priority in Brexit talks. European Parliament President Antonio Tajani told journalists Wednesday the parliament's main task is to defend the rights of citizens. “Not reaching a deal on rights of citizens means not reaching a deal at all.” Members of the European Parliament want citizens rights to be discussed at the beginning, fearing their rights could otherwise be used as bargaining chips during the negotiations. Читать дальше...

Colombia's Congress backed the appointment of retired General Oscar Naranjo as vice president, replacing German Vargas Lleras who stood down to qualify for a run at the presidency next year. President Juan Manuel Santos nominated the former national police chief and peace negotiator to focus on security in the Andean nation. Naranjo was approved with a total of 168 votes in his favor in the lower house and Senate, while 21 lawmakers cast null or blank votes. Santos, whose second four-year term... Читать дальше...

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

Kenyan Entrepreneur inspires more Kenyans to be productive

U.S. regulators have approved the first drug for an aggressive kind of multiple sclerosis that steadily reduces coordination and the ability to walk. The Food and Drug Administration approved Ocrevus late Tuesday after a large study found it slowed progression of the neurological disease and reduced symptoms. While there are more than a dozen treatments for the most common form of MS, there's been nothing specifically for people with the type called primary progressive MS. That type of MS is relatively rare... Читать дальше...

A Mexican journalist was shot and injured early on Wednesday in the eastern state of Veracruz, the state attorney general's office said, the latest in a spate of attacks against reporters in Mexico. The 51-year-old news editor at La Opinion de Poza Rica, a newspaper in the violent oil-drilling city of Poza Rica in the drug-ravaged state, was shot outside his home early on Wednesday morning. The attorney general's office in a statement identified him only as ‘A.A.G.’ but the State Commission for... Читать дальше...

Thousands of university professors worldwide have signed an online petition calling for an academic boycott of international conferences in the United States. The academics are protesting U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily barring travelers from six majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen. "The order institutionalizes racism and fosters an environment in which people racialized as Muslim are vulnerable to ongoing and intensifying acts of violence and hatred," said Nadine El-Enany... Читать дальше...

President Donald Trump hosted a listening session Wednesday at the White House with administration officials, the first step in his pledge to try and stem America’s worsening opioid addiction crisis. Trump called the increasing number of Americans addicted to opioids “a total epidemic,” and he vowed to stop the spread of drugs across the nation. “Drug cartels have spread their deadly industry across our nation, and the availability of cheap narcotics, some of it comes in cheaper than candy, has devastated our communities,” he said. Читать дальше...

The economic picture for Egypt is improving, ratings agency Moody's said on Wednesday, but a public backlash will likely lead the Mideast country to slow reforms undertaken to secure a bailout from the international Monetary Fund. The group forecasts that the Arab world's most populous country will reduce its fiscal deficit to 11 percent of GDP for the fiscal year 2017, higher than the IMF's forecast of 10 percent, because of lower growth forecasts and "potential fiscal slippage." The statement... Читать дальше...

The top general for U.S. military operations in the Middle East says the military has launched a formal investigation into the circumstances that caused estimates of about 100 civilian deaths in Mosul, Iraq, while the U.S. was conducting counter-Islamic State airstrikes in the area. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers Wednesday at a House Armed Services Committee meeting that Islamic State fighters have evolved their tactics in the densely urban terrain. Читать дальше...

Broadband access in the U.S. is not universal. There has long been a digital divide between urban and rural areas. But in one small town just four hours from Washington, D.C., there's no Wi-Fi internet service at all. The town of Green Bank, West Virginia, is the site of the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world, so Wi-Fi Internet connections and anything else that can create electromagnetic waves, such as microwave ovens, are banned. VOA's Lesya Bakalets reports.

Peru asked the United States for more aid Wednesday to confront the intense rains and flooding that have buried entire villages in mud, displaced thousands from their homes and left 97 dead. The Andean nation is struggling to recover from what officials describe as the worst environmental disaster to strike in nearly two decades and Defense Minister Jorge Nieto said Peru is especially in need of equipment like motor pumps to drain areas still inundated in water. Nations from throughout Latin... Читать дальше...

Clean That Up If You Don't Mind

Montenegro officials on Wednesday welcomed the U.S. Senate's decision to ratify its entry into NATO, calling it a great step for the tiny Balkan nation.   Montenegro is set to become NATO's 29th member following the Senate's overwhelming ratification on Tuesday.   Russia, though, strongly opposes the Western military alliance's expansion in the Balkans. Russia has been accused by Montenegro of trying to stage an election day coup in October to try to keep the country out of the alliance.   ... Читать дальше...

With a House committee investigation into Russia's interference in the November U.S. presidential election apparently stalled, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported Wednesday that it will soon finish reviewing thousands of documents in an attempt to "separate fact from fiction." Republican Senator and committee chairman Richard Burr told reporters on Capitol Hill an "unprecedented amount of documents" have been received and the committee is "within weeks" of completing its review. Burr added... Читать дальше...

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Sasa Jankovic and Vuk Jeremic differ on many things, but they agree on one: the campaign for Serbia's presidential election is the dirtiest since the votes that kept strongman Slobodan Milosevic in power in the 1990s. "We've seen difficult times in this country and we have gone through a number of uneven elections, uneven in the sense of free and fair conditions for holding an election," Jeremic said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But I think that this beats all the votes that I've... Читать дальше...

Residents of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa live in terror, trapped as a massive human shield in the Islamic State's de facto capital ahead of the final battle with U.S.-backed opposition forces for the militant group's last major urban stronghold.  A belt of landmines and militant checkpoints circle the city. Inside, all the men have been ordered to wear the jihadis' garb of baggy pants and long shirts — making it difficult to distinguish Islamic State militants from civilians. Hundreds if... Читать дальше...

The Eurostar rail link beneath the English Channel, now 23 years old, once symbolized the bonds between Europe and Britain that many thought unbreakable. It was an appropriate way then for London Mayor Sadiq Khan, an ardent supporter of Britain’s EU membership, to depart Paris Tuesday following a visit to the French and Belgian capitals. “Even though we've chosen to leave the European Union, we're not going to stop being friends, we're not going to stop being allies,” Mayor Khan told his Parisian hosts. Читать дальше...

Britain has formally notified Brussels of its intention to leave the European Union, triggering a two-year period of negotiations over its departure and future relations. London financiers are concerned that Britain's withdrawal from the European Single Market will put the city’s pre-eminence as the continent’s financial hub at risk. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, other European capitals and financial hubs in Asia and America are looking to benefit.

Hungary's crackdown on foreign-funded NGOs is spilling over into a tightening of rules on foreign universities, which could shutter Budapest's Central European University (CEU), a stalwart of liberal international education in the country. The law "strikes at the heart" of CEU, founded by American financier and philanthropist George Soros, the institution said in a statement. CEU Rector Michael Ignatieff told an emergency town hall forum that the law must be withdrawn. "It is not an issue in... Читать дальше...

The price of ivory in China has dropped sharply as the country plans to end the legal trade in ivory later this year, a leading elephant conservation group said in a new report Wednesday. Chinese demand for tusks has been driving African elephants toward extinction, experts say. The Chinese government in recent years has taken steps to stop the trade in ivory, which is used for ornamentation and souvenirs. China's ivory factories are to be shut down by Friday, followed by the closing of retail outlets by the end of this year. Читать дальше...