Новости за 10.09.2023

U.S. President Joe Biden has held his highest-level direct talks in months with the Chinese. The talks came during the recent summit of 20 of the world’s largest economies in New Delhi, India. During a historic visit to Vietnam after that, Biden also said a comprehensive strategic partnership between the U.S. and Vietnam is not about containing China. VOA's State Department bureau chief Nike Ching has more.

It's lunchtime at the Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District and a colony of sabethes cyaneus — also known as the paddle-legged beauty for its feathery appendages and iridescent coloring — find their way to Ella Branham. "They're not very aggressive and they're kind of picky eaters," said Branham, a technician, as she exhaled into a glass tank to attract the insects to the carbon dioxide in her breath. "So I'll be feeding them with my arm." Branham had volunteered to let the South American... Читать дальше...

Like many horrors before it, bad reviews didn't scare off moviegoers from buying tickets for " The Nun II." The sequel to the 2018 hit, released in 3,728 theaters by Warner Bros., topped the box office in its first weekend in North American theaters earning an estimated $32.6 million, the studio said Sunday. AP's Mark Kennedy wrote in his one-star review that it's "a movie that seems destined to pound a nail into this franchise's undead coffin" and audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore. But it hardly matters... Читать дальше...

Somali government forces have repulsed an al-Shabab attack on a key military base in the southern Lower Shabelle region.  Hundreds of militants attacked government forces in the key town of Awdhegle on the bank of the Shabelle River early Sunday, officials said.     The attack sparked heavy fighting between al-Shabab fighters and government forces who have been controlling the town since August 2019 when they removed the militants. Awdhegle is a strategic town where government forces protect... Читать дальше...

The death toll in Morocco has climbed past 2,000 following a massive earthquake late Friday. Buildings are reduced to rubble, and survivors sleep outside for fear of damaged dwellings collapsing. Help in many forms is on the way. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.

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

The death toll from flash floods that have inundated central Greece due to Storm Daniel has risen to 12 with the number expected to rise. The clean-up task in the Thessaly area comes as health officials warn of infectious diseases that are breaking out as a result of dead livestock scattered across devastated sections. Hara Petropoulou pleas for assistance after Storm Daniel caused widespread flooding in central Greece. “Help,” she shouts to the anchor of a Sunday morning show. “Please help.”... Читать дальше...

An Israeli delegation arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to attend a U.N. conference on world heritage sites, in the first public visit by government officials to the kingdom, an Israeli official said.  The delegation is led by the head of Israel's Antiquities Authority and includes diplomats, the official said. It is not a bilateral visit, and it was unclear whether they would meet with Saudi officials.  The official was not authorized to discuss the matter with media and spoke on condition of anonymity. Читать дальше...

Sri Lanka's president said Sunday he will appoint a committee chaired by a retired Supreme Court judge to investigate allegations made in a British television report that the South Asian country's intelligence was complicit in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 people.  The attacks, which included simultaneous suicide bombings, targeted three churches and three tourist hotels. The dead included 42 foreigners from 14 countries.  President Ranil Wickremesinghe's decision to appoint... Читать дальше...

Niger’s military leaders recently reopened the country’s airspace to all commercial flights, ending a closure that had been in place since August 6. But, in a VOA exclusive, U.S. military officials tell VOA that the change to commercial flight access has not “normalized” U.S. drone flight frequencies. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.

Niger's junta on Sunday accused France of deploying troops in several West African countries as part of preparations for a possible military intervention together with the regional bloc ECOWAS in Niger. In a communique read on state television overnight, the junta also repeated its call for the departure of French troops from its territory — a major source of tension between the one-time allies since the July 26 ouster of president Mohamed Bazoum. The statement appealed to "national and international... Читать дальше...

A magnitude 3.9 aftershock shook Moroccans on Sunday even as rescuers worked to find survivors in the mounds of rubble left in villages from the powerful earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people on Friday night. The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by the magnitude 6.8 quake, the country’s most powerful in a century. Rescue efforts were slow, and some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government wasn’t allowing more rescue workers into the country to help. Читать дальше...

President Joe Biden on Sunday affirmed that the United States and Vietnam would elevate their relationship to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” — a move the White House described as "unprecedented and momentous,” and that brings the U.S. level with its main adversary, China, which has the same upper-tier diplomatic status with Vietnam. “Vietnam and the United States are critical partners at what I would argue is a very critical time,” Biden said during his first meeting after arriving to... Читать дальше...

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak chastised China's premier on Sunday for "unacceptable" interference in British democracy, after a newspaper reported that a researcher in Parliament was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of spying for Beijing.  Sunak said he raised the issue with Premier LI Qiang when the two met at a Group of 20 summit in India. He told British broadcasters in New Delhi that he'd expressed "my very strong concerns about any interference in our parliamentary democracy, which is... Читать дальше...

Hikmet Hajiev, a foreign policy advisor to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, on Saturday denied that Baku had reached a deal with the breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabakh to simultaneously reopen roads to Azerbaijan and Armenia. In a message posted on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Hajiev said that Baku had offered to simultaneously reopen the roads but that what he called the "illegal regime" in Karabakh had refused.  Hajiev said that Azerbaijan would maintain "border and customs" control on the Lachin corridor... Читать дальше...

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced Sunday that Ethiopia has completed the filling of its Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile, a source of regional tensions with downstream Egypt and Sudan. "It is with great pleasure that I announce the successful completion of the fourth and final filling of the Renaissance Dam," Abiy said in a message on X, formerly Twitter, which comes as negotiation between the three countries resumed August 27. "There was a lot of challenge, we were many times dragged to go backwards. Читать дальше...

In an unprecedented move, the Vatican on Sunday beatified a Polish family of nine — a married couple and their small children — who were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews. During a ceremonious Mass, papal envoy Cardinal Marcello Semeraro read out the Latin formula of the beatification of the Ulma family signed last month by Pope Francis. A contemporary painting representing Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma with their children was uncovered near the altar. It is the first time that an entire family has been beatified. Читать дальше...

Afghanistan is the world’s fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, a report from the United Nations drug agency said Sunday. The country is also a major opium producer and heroin source, even though the Taliban declared a war on narcotics after they returned to power in August 2021. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, which published the report, said meth in Afghanistan is mostly made from legally available substances or extracted from the ephedra plant, which grows in the wild. ... Читать дальше...

Richie Olsten has been in Maui's helicopter tour business for a half century, so long he's developed a barometer for the tourism-dependent economy: rental cars parked at the island's airport. There are so many since wildfires killed at least 115 people in the historic town of Lahaina that Olsten is worried about a full-blown economic catastrophe. Restaurants and tour companies are laying off workers, and unemployment is surging. State tourism officials, after initially urging travelers to stay away... Читать дальше...

A new lawsuit to bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 Colorado primary ballot has revived a legal and political debate over an obscure provision of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, a progressive watchdog, filed the lawsuit on behalf of six Colorado voters on Wednesday. It claims that Trump is ineligible to run for the White House again because he supported an "insurrection" against the Constitution on Jan. Читать дальше...

Homes of people who went missing in China's crackdown on its Muslim minorities stand locked and silent in Xinjiang's rural heartland. Others lie dilapidated or abandoned, and locals chase out AFP reporters seeking to find out the fates of the detained. The Chinese government began rounding up Uyghurs in the northwestern region in large numbers from 2017 under what it calls an anti-terrorism policy. More than 1 million people were allegedly detained, with reports surfacing of widespread abuses... Читать дальше...

Large swells battered the northeast Caribbean on Saturday night as Hurricane Lee churned nearby through open waters as a Category 2 storm. The storm, which is not forecast to make landfall, was centered about 455 kilometers northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. Its maximum sustained winds had decreased to 165 kph and it was moving west-northwest at 15 kph. Earlier this week, Lee grew from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 storm in just one day amid warm waters and limited wind shear. ... Читать дальше...

An Australian who fell ill while working at an Antarctic research station is now in a hospital in Australia after being rescued by an icebreaker, a government agency said Sunday. The icebreaker RSV Nuyina's round trip between the Australian Antarctic Division headquarters in Hobart, Tasmania state, and Australia's Casey Station covered more than 6,500 kilometers and took more than two weeks as the Southern Hemisphere winter became spring. "The RSV Nuyina has returned to Hobart after the successful... Читать дальше...

How hot is it in Phoenix? In what has been the hottest summer ever measured, the sizzling city in the Sonoran Desert broke yet another record Saturday when temperatures topped 43.3 Celsius. It was the 54th day this year that the official reading at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport made the mark, eclipsing the previous record of 53 days set in 2020. Matt Salerno, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said the hot streak could reach 55 days. "We do have one more day," he said. An extreme heat warning remained in effect... Читать дальше...

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public in and around Albuquerque drew an immediate court challenge from a gun-rights group Saturday, as legal scholars and advocates said they expected. The National Association for Gun Rights and Foster Haines, a member who lives in Albuquerque, filed documents in U.S. District Court in New Mexico suing Lujan Grisham and seeking an immediate block to the implementation of her order. The challenge was expected... Читать дальше...