Новости за 28.09.2017

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria said Thursday that three of the terror group's drone experts were killed in Syria this month. U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the counter-Islamic State coalition, said Abu Muadh al-Tunisi was killed on September 12 and Sajid Farooq Babar was killed on September 13 by coalition airstrikes near Mayadin, Syria, in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. Speaking to reporters via videoconference from Baghdad, Dillon... Читать дальше...

Authorities in the U.S. and Central America say they have indicted thousands of violent street gang members since March, including a powerful MS-13 leader who allegedly ordered bloodshed on the East Coast while imprisoned in El Salvador. Law enforcement officials planned to announce the arrests Friday in Miami, where Justice Department officials are meeting with attorneys general from the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The notoriously brutal street gang has roots in Central America and the U.S.... Читать дальше...

On the defensive over the pace of federal help for Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans cleared the way Thursday for more supplies and government cash for the hurricane-ravaged U.S. island. Trump waived federal restrictions on foreign ships delivering cargo. And House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief account will get a $6.7 billion boost by the end of the week. Trump and his advisers, meanwhile, defended the administration's response to the devastation on the island... Читать дальше...

Germany and France are in sync on what it will take to strengthen the European Union once its breakup with Britain is completed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday as leaders of the 27 remaining members of the bloc met for a two-day summit.   “As far as the proposals are concerned, there is a high degree of agreement between Germany and France, but of course we still have to talk about the details,” Merkel said ahead of a summit dinner of EU leaders.   French President Emmanuel Macron... Читать дальше...

U.S. Navy veteran Mohammed Jahanfar has traveled overseas four times in the last year to visit his Iranian fiancee, most recently hoping to complete government paperwork that would allow her to come live with him in the United States. But the 39-year-old now fears they will be forever separated after President Donald Trump's administration rolled out new restrictions blocking most Iranians from traveling to America. The new restrictions covering citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia... Читать дальше...

“If we had less here, we wouldn’t have food or medicine at all,” said Jassim Ahmed, 32, a former Iraqi police officer living in a desert refugee camp about 30 kilometers from Mosul. “For large families, the food it is not even enough now.” Beginning Friday, Baghdad is shutting down international flights to Iraq's Kurdistan region in retaliation for the Kurdish independence referendum this week that passed with more than 92 percent of the vote. Humanitarian workers say the flight cancellations could... Читать дальше...

An overwhelming majority of American voters believe undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children should be allowed to remain in the country and become citizens, according to a new Qunnipiac University poll. Eighty-two percent of voters, including nearly 70 percent of Republicans, believe the so-called “Dreamer” immigrants should be able to stay and apply for citizenship. Only 6 percent felt they should be permitted to remain but not become citizens. Ten percent of the respondents... Читать дальше...

Where Americans suffer widespread job loss, fewer people go to college. So says a recent study from Duke University that linked local job loss with lower college attendance rates, worse mental health among adolescents, and increased inequality overall. When traditional industries make way for more efficient, more technologically advanced industries, a process called “creative destruction”, economists have traditionally thought that young people would shift their education goals, the study said. Читать дальше...

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

Women will make up more than half of all judges in Colombia's war tribunals, a historic move that gives women an equal say in building peace after half a century of war. Under a peace deal signed last year between the government and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), war tribunals will seek to prosecute those responsible for human rights atrocities committed in the civil war. Women will account for 53 percent of those people selected to serve as court judges, promoting... Читать дальше...

With his hair and face caked in dust, the little boy appears ghostly. Syrian emergency workers known as White Helmets say the toddler, appearing in a tweeted photo, had just been rescued from the rubble of a building hit in an airstrike in the northern Syria province of Idlib.   “He laughed and said, ‘I still alive,’” according to the tweet, of a first responder, posted just hours before Russia on Thursday denied widespread allegations from monitoring groups that its warplanes have killed more... Читать дальше...

Twenty-four people are facing jail terms in Egypt for "insulting" the judiciary, Amnesty International said Thursday. North Africa Campaigns Director at Amnesty International Najia Bounaim said, "This trial is an attempt to silence criticism of a judiciary that has itself become a source of human rights violations.  'Insulting’ public institutions or officials is not a criminal offense under international law, and no one should stand trial, let alone face imprisonment, for peacefully exercising... Читать дальше...

Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy Magazine has died at the age of 91. Famous for his smoking jacket, his magazine and his lifestyle Hefner singlehandedly changed the publishing industry, and maybe the world. VOA's Kevin Enochs reports.

You have seen his "Sunflowers" in a museum, sung along with Don McLean to "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" and gawped at the tens of million of dollars his works have fetched at auction. But you have never seen Vincent Van Gogh's art quite like it is shown in the film "Loving Vincent." Seven years in the making and billed as the world's first fully-painted feature film, "Loving Vincent" uses more than 130 of the Dutch artist's own paintings to tell his own story. Each of the 65,000 frames of the animated independent film... Читать дальше...

Senegalese start-ups are testing a fledgling market for online music platforms in French-speaking West Africa, where interest in digital entertainment is growing but a lack of credit cards has prevented big players from making inroads. Long celebrated in Europe for their contribution to "world" music - with Mali's Salif Keita, Senegal's Youssou N'Dour and Benin's Angelique Kidjo household names in trendy bars - West African musicians have struggled to make money back home, where poverty is widespread and music piracy rampant. Читать дальше...

After two days of talks among members of Kenya's electoral commission, the ruling party and the opposition fell apart apart amid disagreements over how to conduct fresh presidential elections set for next month. There are fears Kenya is headed for a political and constitutional crisis. The dispute centers in part on two proposed amendments to the electoral law ahead of the October 26 ballot. The ruling Jubilee Party wants the law changed so officials rely more on election results that are submitted via paper ballot... Читать дальше...

A U.N. fund to help victims of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and U.N. staff has now grown to $1.5 million following contributions from 10 more countries including Sri Lanka, whose troops were implicated in a child sex ring in Haiti.   Critics called the fund "tiny" and said it would only provide general support services rather than payouts to individual victims.   The U.N. Department of Field Support made the announcement Wednesday in New York, a week after a special session was... Читать дальше...

Members of Congress are sharpening their criticism of Myanmar's crackdown that has forced nearly a half-million Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. Republicans and Democrats want the Trump administration to consider sanctions against the perpetrators and to re-evaluate U.S. policy toward the Southeast Asian nation. Twenty-one senators say in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  there's a risk of genocide against the Rohingya, who've fled en masse after Myanmar security forces responded to insurgent attacks. Читать дальше...

The approval rating for Brazilian President Michel Temer's scandal-plagued government has sunk further since new corruption charges were brought against him, and 92 percent of Brazilians do not trust him, a new poll published on Thursday showed. The survey by pollster Ibope said the number of people who consider Temer's government "bad" or "terrible" rose to 77 percent from 70 percent in the previous survey carried out in July. The proportion of those who rate his government as "great" or "good" slipped to just 3 percent from 5 percent. Читать дальше...

The death toll from Mexico's Sept. 19 earthquake has risen to 343, with 204 of the deaths coming in the nation's capital.   National Civil Defense chief Luis Felipe Puente announced the new toll Thursday, as recovery teams pulled some of the few remaining bodies out of collapsed buildings in Mexico City.   Most of the capital's collapse sites have already been cleared of rubble.   President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday that preliminary accounting suggests damage from the magnitude 7.1... Читать дальше...

After President Donald Trump last week issued a new executive order giving the United States greater leverage over foreign banks that support the North Korean regime, the U.S. is now looking at implementing the tougher sanctions, officials said Thursday. Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of state for Asian and Pacific affairs, told a congressional committee the administration is working with allied countries to try and “ferret out these illicit underground networks” used by North Korea to subvert previous sanctions. Читать дальше...

The Islamic State group has released what it says is a new audio recording of its top leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, indicating he may still be alive.   The recording was released by the IS-run al-Furqan outlet Thursday and the voice sounded like previous recordings of the reclusive leader, who has only appeared in public once. The last purported audio message from al-Baghdadi was released in November.   Russian officials said in June there was a "high probability" that al-Baghdadi died in a Russian... Читать дальше...

A car bomb explosion in Somalia's capital late Thursday has killed at least five people, police say. The blast was by a car parked outside a restaurant in Mogadishu's Hamarweyne district and killed mostly civilians, said Capt. Mohamed Hussein. The explosion shattered a period of calm in this seaside city which has a large security presence following a series of attacks by the Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabab, who are linked to Al-Qaida and fighting the Somali government and African Union forces in the country. Читать дальше...

What's your dream car to drive? Saudi women are asking that question after the kingdom announced that females would be granted licenses and be allowed to drive for the first time. An Arabic Twitter hashtag asking women what car they want to drive already had more than 22,000 responses on Thursday. Some users shared images of black matte luxury SUVs. Others teased with images of metallic candy pink-colored cars. A few shared images of cars encrusted with sparkly crystals. Car makers see an opportunity... Читать дальше...

A Supreme Court with a reconstituted conservative majority is taking on a new case with the potential to financially cripple Democratic-leaning labor unions that represent government workers. The justices deadlocked 4-4 in a similar case last year.   The high court agreed Thursday to again consider a free-speech challenge from workers who object to paying money to unions they don't support.   The court could decide to overturn a 40-year-old Supreme Court ruling that allows public sector unions... Читать дальше...