Новости за 03.11.2023

The little asteroid visited by NASA's Lucy spacecraft this week had a big surprise for scientists. It turns out that the asteroid Dinkinesh has a dinky sidekick — a mini moon. The discovery was made during Wednesday's flyby of Dinkinesh, 480 million kilometers (300 million miles) away in the main asteroid belt beyond Mars. The spacecraft snapped a picture of the pair when it was about 435 kilometers (270 miles) out. In data and images beamed back to Earth, the spacecraft confirmed that Dinkinesh is barely a half-mile (790 meters) across. Читать дальше...

Myanmar resistance leaders and international human rights groups are welcoming a new round of U.S. sanctions aimed at that country’s oil and gas sector, a major source of revenue for the ruling junta that seized power in February 2021. Additional sanctions announced simultaneously by the United States, Britain and Canada are hailed as evidence of a coordinated international response to the brutal rule of the junta, which is blamed for almost 4,000 civilian deaths. “This is an announcement that... Читать дальше...

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency said Friday that it urgently needed more money to cover the soaring costs of providing lifesaving assistance to millions of people in Gaza and the West Bank. “The cost of meeting the needs of 2.7 million people — that is, the entire population of Gaza and 500,000 people in the occupied West Bank — is estimated to be $1.2 billion,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The U.N. appealed for $294 million October 12... Читать дальше...

Latest developments: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he stressed preventing escalation of the conflict, doing more to protect Palestinians and substantially increasing aid to Gaza during a meeting Friday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s war cabinet. He said humanitarian pauses would help accomplish each of those priorities. Israel is returning to Gaza thousands of Palestinian workers who were trapped in Israel following the Hamas attack on Israelis. Israel says... Читать дальше...

An Iranian court has sentenced a woman to death for adultery, state media said.  A report by the IRAN newspaper on Wednesday said the woman worked as a trainer in a gym for females. It said her husband contacted police in 2022 when he found her with another man at their home.  The husband discovered from surveillance cameras that she was having relations with other men, the report added. Under Iranian law, she can appeal the sentence. Iranian courts sometimes sentence people to death by stoning for adultery... Читать дальше...

Heavily armed insurgents ambushed a military convoy in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province Friday, killing at least 14 soldiers. The attack, one of the deadliest in recent years, occurred in the district of Gwadar, where China runs a deep-water Arabian Sea port. The Pakistani military’s media wing confirmed the incident, saying “perpetrators of this heinous act will be hunted down and brought to justice.” It said that the convoy came under attack while moving between the towns of Pasni and Ormara. Читать дальше...

In a city whose slogan is “Keep Austin Weird,” one artwork stands taller than the rest. The backyard “Cathedral of Junk” draws visitors from around the world. Deana Mitchell has our story from the Texas capital.

Exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is seeking support from the European Union and individual European countries for a "New Belarus" passport for exiled citizens of her country whose official documents have expired. The move is in response to a decree issued in September by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko ordering the nation’s consulates to stop renewing or extending passports, requiring citizens to return to Belarus if they want their documents renewed. Hundreds... Читать дальше...

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

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair on Friday slammed Chinese fighter jets' second "significantly unsafe" intercept in two weeks of Canadian aircraft patrolling the Pacific. Blair said at a news conference that a Chinese fighter jet on October 29 twice flew close to a Canadian Cyclone helicopter near the Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea, and on the second flyby fired flares "directly in front" of the helicopter. There was "little separation" between the fighter jet and the helicopter, he said. Читать дальше...

This week, the U.S. State Department confirmed that Washington’s plan to refurbish and extend the Lobito Corridor — a railway that will run through mineral-rich Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to an Atlantic port in Angola — is moving full steam ahead. Such ambitious infrastructure investments by other powers in Africa have been derailed in the past. For years, China has tried with mixed results to increase its influence in Africa and boost trade connectivity by investing in ports and railways. Читать дальше...

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Friday that his powerful militia is already engaged in unprecedented cross-border fighting with Israel along the Lebanon-Israel border and threatened a further escalation as the four-week-long Israel-Hamas war rages on. In televised remarks — Nasrallah's first since the beginning of the war sparked by the Palestinian militants' deadly October 7 incursion into southern Israel — he stopped short of announcing his Lebanese militia would fully enter the conflict. Читать дальше...

Latest Developments:     U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he stressed preventing escalation of the conflict, doing more to protect Palestinians, and substantially increasing aid to Gaza during a meeting Friday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s war cabinet. He said humanitarian pauses would help accomplish each of those priorities. Israel is returning thousands of Palestinian workers to Gaza who were trapped in Israel, following the Hamas attack on Israelis. ... Читать дальше...

Isabella McNutt, a student from Budapest, Hungary, studying at the College of William & Mary in the U.S. state of Virginia, went to her first American football game at the school. "It’s a surreal daydream of dressing up in gold and green and going to tailgates before herds of students flood the stadium to see a series of fumbles, sacks and, hopefully, a touchdown or two," she writes in The Flat Hat, the student newspaper. Read her story here. (October 2023)

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will fly Friday to Lewiston, Maine, to meet with families of the 18 people who were killed in an October 25 shooting spree. "President Biden is committed doing everything in his power to stop the epidemic of gun violence tearing our communities apart and urging Congress to act on commonsense gun safety legislation," said Stefanie Feldman, the head of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, in a statement. While in Lewiston, the president... Читать дальше...

Across the nation, much of the debate around gun rights and restrictions centers on mental health. Many advocates on both sides agree that getting people with serious mental health struggles into treatment, and preventing people who are dangerous from accessing guns, is key to preventing mass shootings. Yet in the weeks and months before the mass shooting in Lewiston, there were so many warning signs from the killer that people all around him were raising concerns to authorities. He was still able to massacre 18 people... Читать дальше...

American Muslim groups say that the Biden administration’s efforts to combat rising Islamophobia in the United States must go hand in hand with the protection of civilians in Gaza from Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hamas that have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report

A fire broke out at a drug rehabilitation center in northern Iran on Friday, killing at least 27 people, state media reported. Seventeen others were injured and taken to hospitals in Langroud city, about 200 kilometers northwest of the capital, Tehran, state TV said. It said the fire started at the private rehabilitation center early Friday morning, and showed a video of flames and smoke pouring into the dark sky. The fire was extinguished, and authorities are investigating the cause, it said. Читать дальше...

Fewer high school students are vaping this year, the government reported Thursday. In a survey, 10% of high school students said they had used electronic cigarettes in the previous month, down from 14% last year. Use of any tobacco product — including cigarettes and cigars — also fell among high schoolers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. "A lot of good news, I'd say," said Kenneth Michael Cummings, a University of South Carolina researcher who was not involved in the CDC study. Читать дальше...

Colombia will try to control its population of more than 100 hippopotamuses, descendants of animals illegally brought to the country by late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in the 1980s, through surgical sterilization, the transfer of hippos to other countries and possibly euthanasia, the government said Thursday. The hippos, which spread from Escobar's estate into nearby rivers where they flourished, have no natural predators in Colombia and have been declared an invasive species that could upset the ecosystem. Читать дальше...

The U.S. House of Representatives takes up a bill aiding Israel – we learn why it is doomed in the Senate. Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to the Middle East and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces political pressure. Plus, The Beatles have a new song.

Thai officials held direct talks with Hamas in Iran last week over the fate of 22 of the kingdom's nationals taken hostage by the Palestinian militant group in its attack on Israel, the head of the Thai delegation said. Negotiators met Hamas officials in Tehran on Oct. 26 and were given a pledge that the Thais would be released at the "right time," Areepen Uttarasin told reporters in Bangkok on Wednesday. Israeli authorities say 1,400 people, many of them civilians, were killed and more than 230 hostages taken in the Oct. Читать дальше...

As South Korean electric vehicle battery makers brace for China’s export curb on graphite to take effect next month, analysts say Washington, Seoul and Tokyo should accelerate the launch of a pilot program aimed at boosting supply chain resilience. Daniel Ikenson, director of trade, investment and innovation at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told VOA he thought the U.S., South Korea and Japan had already waited too long to establish a proposed supply chain early warning system (EWS). The... Читать дальше...

Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities gathered Wednesday night at the University of California, Los Angeles to hold a vigil for peace that mourned lives lost in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the last month. Genia Dulot reports.

A former political prisoner in Iran is facing imminent deportation back to that country after a decade of waiting in Turkey for resettlement and despite having once been granted asylum status by the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR. Journalist and rights activist Shahram Elyasi, an Iranian Kurd, has been given 10 days to appeal the decision before being returned with his family to Iran. Speaking to VOA, Elyasi said UNHCR granted asylum to him, his wife and two daughters in Turkey in 2015, and they waited to be transferred to the United States. Читать дальше...