Новости за 30.04.2017

U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, is retiring at the end of her term next year, saying it's time to move on after 38 years in office. The 64-year-old Republican was elected last November to Florida's redrawn 27th district, a stretch of southeast Miami-Dade County that is heavily Democratic. Hillary Clinton won it over Donald Trump by 20 percentage points, and Ros-Lehtinen was able to win it by 10 percentage points.   Her unexpected... Читать дальше...

At least eight people have died as tornadoes and storms swept through the southern U.S. states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi. East Texas was the worst hit, with a series of tornadoes there killing at least four people and leaving a trail of what officials called "extensive damage." All four deaths were in an area east of Dallas, authorities said. At least 50 other people were injured, the local fire department said. In neighboring Arkansas, at least two people are dead and two missing, authorities said. Читать дальше...

An English policeman wearing a gorilla costume while crawling the London Marathon has finally finished the race, almost a week after starting.   Metropolitan Police officer Tom Harrison, who goes by the name “Mr. Gorilla,” raised a reported 26,000 pounds ($33,650) for the Gorilla Organization, which is dedicated to conserving gorillas in countries including Rwanda and Uganda.   The 41-year-old Londoner started the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) route last Sunday and crossed the finish line on Saturday. Читать дальше...

April 30 is International Jazz Day, with events and concerts being held throughout the world. It also marks the end of Jazz Appreciation Month in the United States. Sponsored by the National Museum of American History, it's designed to stimulate and encourage people to participate, study and listen to a genre of music that is uniquely American. Jazz has a storied place in Voice of America's 75-year history. For 40 years, millions of people worldwide listened to VOA's Jazz Hour with Willis Conover. Читать дальше...

Investigations conducted during the month of March reveal that U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria killed 45 civilians, mostly in and around the Iraqi city of Mosul, according to a Pentagon statement released Sunday. In each incident, the Pentagon said "all feasible precautions were taken," but the strikes still resulted in "unintentional" loss of civilian life.   The report did not include findings from an ongoing investigation into a March 17 strike... Читать дальше...

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

An award-winning Iranian filmmaker imprisoned over his work has been released after serving about five months of his yearlong sentence, though he doesn't know whether he'll make movies again in the Islamic Republic.   Keywan Karimi told The Associated Press on Sunday that he credited international pressure for his early release, as well as escaping the 223 lashes that were part of his sentence. Others, however, remain imprisoned in the Islamic Republic as part of a hard-line crackdown amid President... Читать дальше...

Wary of U.S. President Donald Trump's tough talk on Iran, the European Union is courting Tehran to show Iranians preparing to vote in a May 19 presidential poll that it is committed to a nuclear deal and they stand to benefit, EU diplomats say. Europe's energy commissioner is leading more than 50 European firms in a business forum in Tehran over the weekend — the latest bid to foster new ties in the 16 months since Iran curbed its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Of the six major powers who engineered the deal ... Читать дальше...

U.S. President Donald Trump says he "would not be happy" if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, which would be its sixth. "I can tell you also, I don't believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either," Trump said of Chinese President Xi Jinping in an interview that aired Sunday on the CBS television network's "Face the Nation" show. Asked if "not happy" with another Pyongyang nuclear test meant he would undertake "military action" against the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un... Читать дальше...

The United Nations' refugee agency on Sunday airlifted its first batch of relief supplies to the more than 11,000 people on Angola's northern border fleeing the latest violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The U.N. said that more than a million civilians have been displaced inside the DRC since a brutal conflict broke out in the Kasai region in mid-2016, with about 25,000 asylum seekers crossing into Angola. "Arrivals are in urgent need of life-saving assistance, including food... Читать дальше...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticized President Hassan Rouhani for saying his detente policy with the West had caused the threat of war to fade as tensions intensify in Tehran before May election. Rouhani, a pragmatist whose election in 2013 led to a diplomatic thaw between Iran and the West, championed in 2015 a landmark deal in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in return for lifting of international sanctions. A standoff between Rouhani, who is seeking a second term... Читать дальше...

Turkish media reports say the Iranian owner of a leading Farsi-language satellite television network has been shot dead in Istanbul, along with another man. Saeed Karimian, the owner of GEM TV, was gunned down late Saturday. The other man killed was reported to be a business partner. No motive for the killing is known. Based in Dubai, GEM TV dubs Turkish soap operas and other entertainment shows into Farsi and broadcasts them into Iran. Tehran has been critical of GEM TV and similar satellite channels... Читать дальше...

British Prime Minister Theresa May expects divorce talks with the European Union to be difficult, she said on Sunday in response to the tough stance taken by EU leaders over the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. EU leaders endorsed stiff divorce terms for Britain at a Brussels summit on Saturday, warning Britons to have "no illusions" about swiftly securing a new relationship to retain access to EU markets and to be prepared for the complexity of issues such as residency rights for EU citizens. "What this shows... Читать дальше...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats have opened a seven-point lead over the center-left Social Democrats five months ahead of the Sept. 24 election, according to a poll on Sunday in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. The Emnid institute survey found the Christian Democrats and their Christian Social Union allies winning 36 percent of the vote if the election were held on Sunday, unchanged from a similar Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag taken a week ago. But the Social Democrats (SPD)... Читать дальше...

FIFA Council member Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah of Kuwait is resigning from his soccer roles under pressure from allegations in an American federal court that he bribed Asian officials. Sheikh Ahmad said Sunday in a statement he will withdraw from a May 8 election in Bahrain for the FIFA seat representing Asia, which he currently holds. "I do not want these allegations to create divisions or distract attention from the upcoming AFC [Asian Football Confederation] and FIFA Congresses," said the Kuwaiti royal, who denies any wrongdoing. Читать дальше...

An Iraqi commander expects to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul in May despite resistance from militants in the densely populated Old City district. The battle should be completed "in a maximum of three weeks", the Iraqi army's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi, was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper al-Sabah on Sunday. A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support for the offensive in Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, which fell to hardline Sunni Muslim fighters in June 2014. Читать дальше...

Pope Francis called on Sunday for the respect of human rights and an end to violence in Venezuela, where nearly 30 people were killed in unrest this month. Francis, speaking to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square for his weekly address, decried a "grave humanitarian, social , political and economic crisis that is exhausting the population". Venezuela's opposition is demanding elections, autonomy for the legislature where they have a majority, a humanitarian aid channel from abroad to alleviate an economic crisis... Читать дальше...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday his country may take further action against Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria and insisted U.S. support for such groups "must come to an end.''   The U.S. moved troops and armored vehicles through several Syrian cities and towns on Friday and Saturday in a show of force apparently intended to dissuade Turkey and Syrian Kurdish forces from attacking each other.   Kurdish officials described the U.S. troop movement as a "buffer" between them and Turkey. Читать дальше...

Poland's Foreign Ministry has suspended one of its honorary consuls in the U.S. after the woman allegedly posted a digitally-altered image showing European Council President Donald Tusk dressed as a Nazi German SS officer. The image was posted on the Facebook page of Maria Szonert Binienda, recently named honorary consul in Akron, Ohio. The news agency PAP reported Sunday that she has been suspended from that position and that further decisions will be decided after Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski returns from a visit to Australia. Читать дальше...

U.S.-backed militias said on Sunday they had made a big advance in Tabqa, a strategically vital town controlling Syria's largest dam, in their campaign to drive Islamic State from its stronghold of Raqqa, 40km (25 miles) downstream. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias, will wait to assault Raqqa until it seizes Tabqa, its military officials have previously said, but it had made only slow progress since besieging the town early this month. In a statement it circulated on social messaging sites... Читать дальше...

Once they acclimate to their new environment, overcoming language, social and cultural barriers, refugees in the U.S. often thrive. Some translate their experiences into assets that are valuable to their new community, as did Parvin and Yadollah Jamalreza. VOA's June Soh visited their popular tailoring shop in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A set of ancient Angkorian gold jewelry that found its way to a London art dealership will be returned to Cambodia after the government intervened to stop a planned sale. The Jonathan Tucker Antonia Tozer Asian Art dealership listed the jewelry in its online catalog, according to a statement from Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. The ministry petitioned the dealership in November to return the Angkorian artifacts. They originated in the Khmer empire, a power in Southeast Asia from A.D. 802 to A.D. 1431. At one point... Читать дальше...

Famed Swiss climber Ueli Steck was killed Sunday in a mountaineering accident near Mount Everest in Nepal, expedition organizers said.   Mingma Sherpa of the Seven Summit Treks said Steck was killed at Camp 1 of Mount Nuptse. His body has been recovered from the site and been taken to Lukla, where the only airport in the Mount Everest area is located.   It was not clear how Steck died but he was planning to climb 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) Mount Everest and nearby Mount Lhotse next month.   ... Читать дальше...

The U.S. Marine Corps has returned to Helmand, the restive province in southern Afghanistan where it fought years of bloody battles with the Taliban, to help train Afghan forces struggling to contain the insurgency. Many of the 300 Marines coming to Helmand as part of the NATO-led Resolute Support training mission are veterans of previous tours in the province, where almost 1,000 coalition troops, mostly U.S. and British, were killed fighting the Taliban. Marines face tough year When they left in 2014... Читать дальше...

The parents of Madeleine McCann, the 3-year-old British girl who vanished during a family vacation to Portugal in 2007, say they are still hopeful they will one day be reunited with their daughter as they mark the 10th anniversary of her disappearance.   In an interview with the British media released Sunday, the McCanns said they felt encouraged by progress British police have made in the case in the past five years.    Scotland Yard said last week that, a decade later, detectives are pursuing critical leads to trace Madeleine... Читать дальше...