Новости за 10.09.2017

Pope Francis wrapped up his Colombia trip with a deeply personal final day Sunday honoring St. Peter Claver, a fellow Jesuit who ministered to hundreds of thousands of African slaves who arrived in the port of Cartagena to be sold during Spanish colonial times.   Francis' visit to Cartagena got off to a rocky start, however, when he banged his head on his popemobile when it stopped short amid swarms of well-wishers. Francis, who only had a hip-high bar to hold onto, lost his balance and suffered a bruised... Читать дальше...

Hurricane Irma battered Florida days after the U.S. Congress approved $15 billion for disaster funding. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the bill will bankroll hurricane relief efforts and give Washington a reprieve from fiscal deadlines, but it remains to be seen whether bipartisan action on Capitol Hill will last.

A new al-Qaida-inspired militant group, which has recently emerged in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi claims to act as a platform for militants who have grown disaffected with the Islamic State militant group (IS) in the country. The group, Ansar al-Sharia Pakistan, was reportedly formed by two former al-Qaida members who had severed ties with the organization in early 2017.  Since then, the group has been involved in several attacks in Karachi, according to Pakistani counterterrorism authorities. Читать дальше...

More than 500 people have died so far in a cholera epidemic that is sweeping the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Outbreaks of the water-borne disease occur regularly in Congo, mainly due to poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean drinking water. But this year's epidemic, which has already hit at least 10 urban areas including the capital Kinshasa, is particularly worrying as it comes as about 1.4 million people have been displaced by violence in the central Kasai region. Читать дальше...

U.S. Senator John McCain, who recently returned to Washington after treatment for brain cancer, said on Sunday the disease is vicious but that the treatment is going well and he has more energy than before. "This is a very vicious form of cancer that I'm facing," McCain, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008, told CNN's "State of the Union" program. The 80-year-old Arizona senator was found to have an aggressive form of brain tumor, glioblastoma, after surgery in July for a blood clot above his left eye. Читать дальше...

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

Norwegians voted on Sunday in a parliamentary election whose outcome is too close to call, with opinion polls showing Prime Minister Erna Solberg's centre-right government and the opposition center-left bloc running neck and neck. Solberg's Conservatives want to cut taxes if they win a fresh four-year mandate, while the centre-left led by Labor's Jonas Gahr Stoere seeks tax hikes to fund better public services. The outcome could also impact Norway's vital oil industry because to form a government... Читать дальше...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was optimistic that a dispute over how to distribute asylum seekers in the EU would soon be resolved after a court ruled on Wednesday that member states must take in a share of refugees who reach Europe. Speaking to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (F.A.S.) newspaper two weeks before a national election in which she is expected to win a fourth term, Merkel said she welcomed the court's decision. Separately, the newspaper also reported that in... Читать дальше...

Hurricane Irma slammed ashore at Key West, Florida early Sunday with whirling winds and pounding rain, leaving behind a trail of destruction across fragile Caribbean islands.

Prominent Russian political commentator and writer Yulia Latynina has left Russia fearing for her life, she told a Moscow radio station. Latynina's car was set on fire at the beginning of September, weeks after unidentified assailants sprayed a poisonous substance on her house outside Moscow and the car. "I'm quite scared ... I'm terrified that the people who did it were prepared for fatalities," Latynina said of the arson. "I'm abroad, my parents are also abroad. It's unlikely I'll be going... Читать дальше...

Saudi Arabia and Iran are rethinking their rivalry and a highly tentative, as well as a deniable, courtship is underway, say analysts. But it is fraught pitfalls and last week in London Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister dismissed talk of a possible thaw as “laughable,” saying Iran would have to change its policies dramatically for that to happen. Even so, Riyadh has softened its opposition to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s ally, and has dialed down its own sectarian rhetoric against the mullahs in Tehran. Читать дальше...

Government cargo planes flew in supplies and troops began distributing boxes of food to jittery survivors of an earthquake that destroyed a large part of Juchitan and killed at least 37 people here - more than half the nationwide total. Some people continued to sleep outside, fearful of more collapses, as strong aftershocks continued to rattle the town, including a magnitude 5.2 jolt early Sunday. Some prompted rescue workers to pause in their labor. Local officials said they had counted nearly... Читать дальше...

Syrian government forces seized a final stretch of highway linking the eastern city of Deir el-Zour to the capital Damascus on Sunday in further advances against Islamic State, a Hezbollah-run media unit reported. Troops moving in from the west linked up with forces already in Deir el-Zour at the Panorama entrance to the city, bringing the whole road under their control for the first time in years, it said. The Syrian army and its Iran-backed allies, which include Lebanese Hezbollah, this week... Читать дальше...

Australians have surrendered more than 400 guns a day under a firearms amnesty that began in July. The weapons turned in include several high-powered military assault rifles as well as shotguns from the Vietnam War. This is the first national no-questions-asked amnesty since one following a mass shooting in the state of Tasmania in 1996. 26,000 firearms have been handed in so far, much to the surprise of Australian officials. They had not expected so many weapons to be surrendered during the three-month program. Читать дальше...

Fawaz Saleh Ahmed has been secretly sneaking into his own village in northern Iraq to visit his home.   The last time he went, he wept as he spent several hours going from room to room in the partially destroyed house, he said. When his tears dried, he made his way back to the nearby Khazir camp housing those displaced by war, where he and his family have lived for almost a year.   Frustratingly, tantalizingly, he can see his house from there, but the Kurdish forces controlling his village, called Hassan Shami... Читать дальше...

At least three people were killed and 13 others were wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a teashop in the central Somali town of Beledweyne Sunday, police and witnesses said. Police said the attack occurred close to the headquarters of Hiran regional administration in Beledweyne. “The explosion happened at 12:10pm [local time] it was a time people at the teashop were preparing to go to the mosques to pray,” Commander of the police Colonel Isaq Ali Abdulle told VOA Somali. Three journalists are among the wounded... Читать дальше...

The World Health Organization reports about 800,000 people commit suicide every year. To mark this year’s World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10), WHO is stressing the important role the media can play in stopping people from taking their own lives. Worldwide, every 40 seconds, someone commits suicide. The World Health Organization reports for every suicide, 20 others, mainly young people, attempt to take their own lives. WHO says suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15 to 29 year olds. Читать дальше...

The northern eyewall of Hurricane Irma has come ashore at Key West, Florida after strengthening as it moved across the warm waters of the Straits of Florida. Now a category 4 storm, Irma's nearly 210 kilometer per hour winds and associated storm surge are expected to bring devastation to parts of the state that have not seen a major hurricane in a century. Irma is expected to make landfall during the early morning hours of Sunday, first crossing the Florida Keys before tracking up the western coast of the state. Читать дальше...

Nancy Hatch Dupree, a prolific American expert on the history, art, and archaeology of Afghanistan, died Sunday at the age of 90 after battling an illness in a Kabul hospital, officials announced. Dupree arrived in the country in 1962 as a diplomat’s wife and dedicated the rest of her life to collecting and preserving the war-shattered country’s cultural heritage. In 2013, she founded and opened the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University (ACKU), the first facility of its kind in the country dedicated to the study of Afghanistan's history... Читать дальше...

Egypt's official news agency says police killed nine suspected militants when they raided two apartments in a densely populated Cairo neighborhood. The Middle East News Agency says five policemen were wounded in Sunday's early morning exchange of fire in the Ard el-Liwa district. It says police found rifles, ammunition, bomb-making materials and explosive devices at the apartments.   The report, which cited an unnamed Interior Ministry official, did not say to which group the suspects were linked. Читать дальше...

South Africa's ruling African National Congress is fending off fresh crises as the bitter fight for control of the former liberation party grows before President Jacob Zuma steps down as party leader in December. A racially divisive public relations campaign, sexual allegations against the deputy president and what appears to be a political assassination highlight the struggle for power within Nelson Mandela's storied movement. "It's a really tense time for the ANC," said Daniel Silke, an independent political analyst. Читать дальше...

Cambodia's main opposition party will boycott a parliamentary vote to strip their detained leader of immunity on Monday and will instead go to Kem Sokha's jail to demand his release, one of his deputies said on Sunday. Kem Sokha, the head of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), was arrested a week ago and charged with treason for allegedly plotting to win power with the support of the United States, escalating a crackdown on critics of Prime Minister Hun Sen and independent media ahead of a general election next year. Читать дальше...

China is joining France and Britain in announcing plans to end sales of gasoline and diesel cars. China's industry ministry is developing a timetable to end production and sale of traditional fuel cars and will promote development of electric technology, state media on Sunday cited a Cabinet official as saying. The reports gave no possible target date, but Beijing is stepping up pressure on automakers to accelerate development of electrics. China is the biggest auto market by number of vehicles sold... Читать дальше...

The death toll from the massive earthquake that struck Mexico on Thursday night has risen to at least 90 after emergency services in the southern state of Oaxaca said late on Saturday there had been 71 confirmed fatalities in the state alone. "It's 71 (dead). Just for Oaxaca," said Jesus Gonzalez, a spokesman for the state civil protection authority. At least 15 people died in the neighboring state of Chiapas, according to local authorities, while another four deaths have also been confirmed in the state of Tabasco to the north. Читать дальше...

The wife and mother of detained Taiwanese rights activist Lee Ming-che were due to arrive in China on Sunday to attend his subversion trial on Monday, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement, calling for Lee's safe return home. Lee, a community college teacher and pro-democracy and human rights activist, went missing during a March visit to China. Authorities later confirmed he had been detained, straining already-tense ties between the mainland and the self-ruling island. Authorities... Читать дальше...