Новости за 29.07.2023

Videos have surfaced in Iran of the month of Muharram memorial services, revealing religious singers, known as eulogists, and mourners embracing an approach that deviates from the Islamic Republic's expectations. The head of the Society of Seminary Teachers in Qom has voiced criticism toward specific religious programs, pointing out that some elegies appear to be "celebrating the enemy." Domestic media report cleric Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, the head of the Society of Seminary Teachers in Qom and former head of the country's seminaries... Читать дальше...

TOKYO — Toshihiro Mutsuda was only 5 years old when he last saw his father, who was drafted by Japan's Imperial Army in 1943 and killed in action. For him, his father was a bespectacled man in an old family photo standing by a signed good-luck flag that he carried to war. On Saturday, when the flag was returned to him from a U.S. war museum, where it had been on display for 29 years, Mutsuda, now 83, said: “It's a miracle." The flag, known as “Yosegaki Hinomaru,” or Good Luck Flag, carries the soldier's name... Читать дальше...

Somali authorities have confirmed Saturday the arrest of 14 people, including officers and soldiers, in connection with a suicide bombing Monday that targeted the Jalle Siyad military academy in Mogadishu. The attack killed 30 soldiers and injured 70 others. Deputy Defense Minister Abdifitah Qasim made the announcement during a session of Somalia’s Lower House of Parliament. He reported that security agencies, including the National Security Agency and the police and military command, are actively... Читать дальше...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan's Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday that Sri Lanka is a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific but also at countering an increasingly assertive China. Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo. The initiative... Читать дальше...

HUARINA, Bolivia — A 70-year-old man's feet sink into the soil as he passes abandoned boats where there used to be the water of Lake Titicaca. The highest navigable lake in the world has receded to what Bolivian authorities say are critically low levels due to a persistent drought. “It’s completely dry,” Jaime Mamani said in exasperation while walking along the new shoreline in Huarina, a farming town 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of La Paz where he is a community leader. The National Service... Читать дальше...

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday urged Denmark to take urgent action to prevent burnings of the Quran, a Turkish foreign ministry source said. In a phone call with his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Fidan condemned the "continuous vile attacks against the Quran." He told Rasmussen it was unacceptable to allow such actions under the guise of freedom of expression, the source said. Rasmussen on Saturday wrote on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter: "Turkey and Denmark are close allies. Читать дальше...

Questions about former Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang’s fate remain unanswered after the Chinese government abruptly replaced him with his predecessor, Wang Yi, on Tuesday. Analysts say the opaque nature of his removal will reduce global confidence in China and increase uncertainties that eventually may paralyze China’s governance system. “China’s system is compromised,” Alfred Wu, an expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore, or NUS, told VOA. “When the checks and balances in the system are gone... Читать дальше...

The race to choose a Republican nominee for the 2024 U.S. presidential election is heating up in Iowa. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner Friday brought nearly all of the party’s candidates to one place, allowing each to woo voters ahead of the January 15 caucus.

Here are some Native American-related news stories that made headlines this week: Archaeologists fail to find children’s remains at Indian boarding school site Nebraska state archaeologists say they’ve ended a two-week search for the graves of former students at the Indian Industrial School in Genoa, Nebraska, after failing to find any human remains. Researchers believe more than 80 students died at the school, most from infectious diseases. So far, they’ve identified 49 students who died at the school. Читать дальше...

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - The United States is warning mutineers who have seized control of Niger that U.S. support for the Western African nation will dry up unless President Mohamed Bazoum is released and returned to power. The threat Saturday by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to pull hundreds of millions of dollars in aid followed Friday’s announcement by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the head of the presidential guard, that he is Niger’s new leader. "Let me be very, very clear," Blinken said at a news conference in Brisbane... Читать дальше...

More than one-third of US workers are remote for at least part of the week

The explosion early on a June morning ignited a blaze that engulfed a New York City shop filled with motorized bicycles and their volatile lithium-ion batteries. Billowing smoke quickly killed four people asleep in apartments above the burning store. As the ubiquity of e-bikes has grown, so has the frequency of fires and deaths blamed on the batteries that power them, prompting a campaign to establish regulations on how the batteries are manufactured, sold, reconditioned, charged and stored. Consumer advocates and fire departments... Читать дальше...

BANGKOK — When Gao Peng landed in Thailand on July 3, he was not expecting to be accused of making bomb threats, to be put on an EU travel blacklist, or to see his mother and 16-year-old sister detained and threatened with deportation back to China. But bomb threats made in his and his mother's names against airports, luxury hotels and the Chinese embassy in Bangkok derailed the family's plan to seek asylum in the Netherlands, where Gao Peng's father moved three years ago. The threats appear to... Читать дальше...

CAIRO — Amna al-Nour narrowly escaped death twice. The first was when militias torched her family's home in Sudan's Darfur region. The second was two months later when paramilitary fighters stopped her and others trying to escape as they tried to reach the border with neighboring Chad. "They massacred us like sheep," the 32-year-old teacher said of the attack in late April on her home city Geneina. "They want to uproot us all." Al-Nour and her three children now live in a school-turned-refugee housing inside Chad... Читать дальше...

PHOENIX — A historic heat wave that turned the U.S. Southwest into a blast furnace throughout July is beginning to abate with the late arrival of monsoon rains. Forecasters expect that by Monday at the latest, people in metro Phoenix will begin seeing high temperatures under 43.3 degrees Celsius for the first time in a month. As of Friday, the high temperature in the desert city had been at or above that mark for 29 consecutive days. Already this week, the overnight low at Phoenix Sky Harbor... Читать дальше...

DES MOINES, IOWA — Donald Trump and his top rivals for the GOP presidential nomination took the stage one by one Friday night to address an influential gathering of Iowa Republicans, with none of the top-tier hopefuls mentioning that new federal charges had been filed against the former president just a day earlier. Instead, Trump's competitors mostly reserved their sharpest criticism for President Joe Biden and a Democratic Party they argued had lost touch with mainstream America — failing to... Читать дальше...

TAIPEI — Typhoon Doksuri weakened into a tropical storm late Friday night after bringing heavy winds and rain that left more than a million people without power in southern China. After making landfall Friday morning in southern Fujian province, where at least 400,000 people were evacuated, the storm flooded streets and toppled electric transmission towers in the province. Over a million households were left without power, according to the state-backed Xiamen Evening News. The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm at 11 p.m. Friday... Читать дальше...

PHOENIX — By the time Aaliyah Ibarra started second grade, her family had moved five times in four years in search of stable housing. As she was about to start a new school, her mother, Bridget Ibarra, saw how much it was affecting her education. At 8 years old, her daughter did not know the alphabet. "She was in second grade and couldn't tell me any of the letters. I would point them out and she didn't know," Bridget Ibarra said. "She would sing the song in order, but as soon as I mixed them up... Читать дальше...

Former President Donald Trump was charged Thursday with illegally retaining a classified document detailing an operational U.S. military plan of attack on Iran, and with two counts of attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal evidence” during the investigation into the classified documents he took to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.

Carlos Reyes sought shade under a tree in the Bronx on a day that felt like it was over 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) because of the heat and humidity.  "It's not like when you were younger, you were playing around," said the 56-year-old who runs a daycare center. "Now it's like you got the humidity. It makes you kind of not breathe the same way. So when you walk, you get a little more tired, a little more exhausted."  Reyes was one of nearly 200 million people in the United States, or 60% of the U.S. population... Читать дальше...

WASHINGTON - Hong Kong expatriates are welcoming a reported decision by the U.S. government to bar Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee from attending an economic conference in the United States because of his role in crushing the city’s pro-democracy movement. The Biden administration’s decision was first reported by The Washington Post, which, citing unidentified U.S. officials, said he would be barred from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in San Francisco in November. Lee has been... Читать дальше...

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — Four air crew members were missing after an Australian army helicopter ditched into waters off the Queensland state coast during joint military exercises with the United States, officials said Saturday. The MRH-90 Taipan helicopter went down near Hamilton Island, a Great Barrier Reef tourist resort, about 10:30 p.m. Friday, Defense Minister Richard Marles said. A search was underway to find the crew, and their families had been notified, officials said. A rescue helicopter... Читать дальше...

TEHRAN, Iran — Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world on Friday commemorated Ashoura, a remembrance of the 7th-century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussein, that gave birth to their faith. In Afghanistan, the Taliban cut mobile phone services in key cities holding commemorations for fear of militants targeting Shiites, whom Sunni extremists consider heretics. Security forces in neighboring Pakistan also stood on high alert as the commemorations there have seen attacks in the past. Читать дальше...

The U.S. government announced Friday that it would take referrals of Haitian, Cuban, Venezuelan and Nicaraguan citizens from Mexico for possible resettlement as refugees in the United States.  Mexico announced earlier this week that it would set up a service center offering jobs and resettlement for people from those four countries. It said the center would be on the southern border with Guatemala but did not specify where or when it would open.  When the U.S. government began requiring asylum-seekers... Читать дальше...

Two major labor unions in Iran are strongly condemning the Revolutionary Court of Tehran’s sentencing of Reyhaneh Ansari-Nejad, a retired worker and dedicated labor activist, to a four-year prison term. Ansari-Nejad was sentenced for “participating in an organizational session” and alleged affiliations with dissident groups and French spy organizations.    The Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Mill Labor Syndicate and the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company both firmly asserted that Thursday’s... Читать дальше...