Новости за 10.12.2023

For the first time in Hayao Miyazaki's decades-spanning career, the 82-year-old Japanese anime master is No. 1 at the North American box office. Miyazaki's latest enchantment, "The Boy and the Heron," debuted with $12.8 million, according to studio estimates. "The Boy and the Heron," the long-awaited animated fantasy from the director of "Spirited Away," "My Neighbor Totoro" and other cherished anime classics, is only the third anime to ever top the box office in U.S. and Canadian theaters and the first original anime to do so. Читать дальше...

For many years, a recycling company in Los Angeles, California, has been giving a free Christmas tree to anyone who brings trash or recycling in exchange. In doing so, the company hopes to promote the proper way to dispose of trash and to eliminate illegal dumping in the city. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian.

Amid growing criticism over its continued support of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, the United States defended its stance Sunday but also reiterated the importance of protecting Palestinian civilians. Verónica Balderas Iglesias reports.

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

The World Health Organization chief said on Sunday it will be all but impossible to improve the "catastrophic" health situation in Gaza even as the board passed an emergency WHO motion by consensus to secure more medical access. Palestinian officials have also described a disastrous health situation in Gaza, where Israel's assault has left most of the population homeless, with little electricity, food or clean water, and a medical system facing collapse. The emergency action, proposed by Afghanistan... Читать дальше...

Central Tennessee residents and emergency workers cleaned up Sunday from severe weekend storms and tornadoes that killed six people and sent more to the hospital while damaging buildings, turning over vehicles and knocking out power to tens of thousands. Officials confirmed that three people, including a toddler, died after a tornado struck Montgomery County 80 kilometers northwest of Nashville near the Kentucky state line on Saturday afternoon. Some 23 people were treated for injuries at hospitals in the county... Читать дальше...

Several thousand people demonstrated against antisemitism in Berlin on Sunday as Germany grapples with a large increase in anti-Jewish incidents following Hamas' attack on Israel two months ago.  Police estimated that around 3,200 people gathered in the rain in the German capital, while organizers put the figure at 10,000, German news agency dpa reported. Participants in the protest, titled "Never again is now," marched to the Brandenburg Gate.  A group tracking antisemitism in Germany said in... Читать дальше...

Israel helped Cyprus foil an Iranian-ordered attack against Israelis and Jews on the island, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Sunday, saying such plots were on the rise since the Gaza war erupted. Netanyahu's office gave no details of the planned attack but said in the statement on behalf of the Mossad intelligence service that Israel was "troubled" by what it saw as Iranian use of Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus "both for terrorism objectives and as an operational and... Читать дальше...

A Swedish national employed by the European Union faces charges in Iran of spying for Israel and ‘corruption on earth’, a capital offense under the country's Islamic laws, Iranian news agency ISNA said on Sunday.  Johan Floderus was detained in April 2022 while on holiday in Iran. Sweden’s foreign minister said on Saturday that his trial had begun.  Floderus' family has said he was detained "without any justifiable cause or due process."  Rights groups and Western governments have accused the... Читать дальше...

West African leaders met in Nigeria's capital Abuja on Sunday for talks on their region in deepening crisis, after four countries fell under military rule and with risks growing from Sahel jihadist conflicts. After coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger since 2020, the Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS saw member states Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau report attempted coups in recent weeks. A French military withdrawal from the Sahel — the region along the Sahara desert across Africa ... Читать дальше...

Established in 1634, Boston Common remains at the center of the city’s civic life

America’s oldest public park was established in Massachusetts in 1634. Boston Common has seen a lot in its 389-year history and remains as central to city life as it was at its founding centuries ago. VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports from Boston. VOA footage by Adam Greenbaum.

Negotiators at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai remained far apart on the future role of fossil fuels on Sunday as talks at the Dubai summit entered their final stage. The question of whether the world should, for the first time ever, agree on an eventual end to the oil age has been central to the international conference where nearly 200 countries are trying to hash out a solution to climate change. A coalition of more than 80 countries including the United States, the European Union and... Читать дальше...

A Rwandan genocide survivors' group on Sunday voiced anger that Laurent Bucyibaruta, a former official convicted of complicity in the 1994 massacres, died this week "without facing the full force of justice". Bucyibaruta, who died on Wednesday aged 79, was the highest-ranking Rwandan to have faced trial in France over the 1994 massacres in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in 100 days of mass killings.  Bucyibaruta was found guilty in July 2022 of complicity in genocide... Читать дальше...

Voter turnout was low Sunday in Hong Kong’s district council elections, the first since the electoral system was overhauled this year to restore order and reestablish control after widespread anti-government and pro-democracy protests in 2019. Voters were either apathetic or boycotting the elections, which some people see as rolling back the city’s democracy. By midday, the voter turnout rate was about 20%, much lower than during the last district council election in 2019, which saw a record... Читать дальше...

The Taliban must embrace and uphold human rights obligations in Afghanistan, the U.N. mission in the country said Sunday on Human Rights Day and the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have erased basic rights and freedoms, with women and girls deeply affected. They are excluded from most public spaces and daily life, and the restrictions have sparked global condemnation. The U.N. mission, highlighting the Taliban's failures in upholding rights' obligations... Читать дальше...

Some of the more than 300 Rohingya refugees who arrived on the western coasts of Indonesia on Sunday were transferred to a temporary shelter during the visit of a United Nations representative.     A group of 135 refugees, mostly women and children, were relocated from a beach in Aceh Besar regency of Aceh province to a governor's office building before the authorities eventually conveyed them by truck to a camping ground.     The mostly Muslim Rohingya were the target of a 2017 crackdown by... Читать дальше...

China’s recent decision to accept the credentials of the Taliban ambassador to Beijing, without having formally recognized Afghanistan’s new rulers as the legitimate government, is both paradoxical and transactional, experts say. The Taliban foreign ministry announced December 1 that the director-general of the protocol department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, had accepted the credentials from Taliban Ambassador Asadullah Bilal Karimi. The following week, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ spokesperson... Читать дальше...

Despite some recent financial setbacks, U.S. offshore wind power has hit a milestone. A 244-meter-tall turbine is now sending electricity onto the grid from a commercial-scale offshore wind farm on pace to be the country's first. The moment is years in the making and at the same time a modest advance in what experts say needs to be a major buildout of this type of clean electricity to address climate change.  Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and the utility Eversource announced Wednesday the... Читать дальше...

The Paris 2024 organizing committee president said Thursday that he still wanted the surfing competition at next year's Olympics to take place in Tahiti, despite the controversy surrounding the construction of the judging tower at the site, where coral has been damaged.  Speaking to media company Polynesie La Premiere, Tony Estanguet said he was going to pour "all [his] energy" into keeping the surfing in French Polynesia at the Tahiti site of Teahupo'o.  Because Teahupo'o's surf breaks offshore... Читать дальше...

At night, in this village near the Assua River in Brazil, the rainforest reverberates. The sound of generators at times competes with the forest, a sign that there are people here. Until recently, the Juma people seemed destined to disappear like countless other Amazon tribes decimated by the European invasion. In the late 1990s, the last remaining family was made up of three sisters, Boreá, Mandeí, and Maytá and their father, Aruká, in his 50s. In 2021, Aruká died of COVID-19, prompting obituaries... Читать дальше...

Hundreds of opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party supporters protested Sunday to mark International Human Rights Day, as the country gears up for a general election on Jan. 7 that the opposition says should be held under a nonpartisan, caretaker government. The party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, is boycotting the election, leaving voters in the South Asian nation of 166 million with little choice but to re-elect Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League for a fourth consecutive term. Читать дальше...

A British Palestinian surgeon who spent weeks in the Gaza Strip during the current Israel-Hamas war as part of a Doctors Without Borders medical team said he has given testimony to a British war crimes investigation unit. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic surgeon specializing in conflict medicine, has volunteered with medical teams in multiple conflicts in Gaza, beginning as a medical student in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian uprising. He has also worked in other conflict zones, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Читать дальше...

The Chinese coast guard assaulted three Philippine vessels with water cannon blasts Sunday and rammed one of them, causing serious engine damage off a disputed shoal in the South China Sea just a day after similar hostilities at another shoal, the Philippine coast guard said. The latest confrontation happened near Second Thomas Shoal as two Philippine navy-operated supply boats and Philippine coast guard escort ships were en route to deliver food and other supplies to Filipino forces in a long-marooned... Читать дальше...

A century-old territorial dispute deepened by the discovery of oil is boiling over between neighbors Guyana and Venezuela. Steeped in patriotism, the Venezuelan government is seizing on the fight to boost support ahead of a presidential election among a population fed up with a decadelong crisis that has pushed many into poverty. Venezuelans on Sunday approved a referendum to claim sovereignty over Essequibo, a mineral-rich territory that accounts for two-thirds of Guyana and lies near big offshore oil deposits. Читать дальше...