Новости за 19.12.2023

Geneva — A top U.N. agency says the Gaza Strip is "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child" as Israel's military bombardment of the territory kills and injures thousands of children and thousands more suffer from infectious disease and a lack of food, water and medicine in overcrowded, unsanitary hospitals and shelters. "I am furious that those with power shrug as this humanitarian nightmare is unleashed on a million children," James Elder, UNICEF spokesman, told journalists Tuesday in Geneva. Читать дальше...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden hailed Sandra Day O'Connor as an "American pioneer" who embodied principle over politics in his eulogy at the Washington funeral of the U.S. Supreme Court's first female justice.   Biden praised O'Connor for breaking down barriers in the legal and political worlds, transcending political divisions and weighing ordinary people in her decision-making in pointed remarks that contrasted sharply with his words about the current Supreme Court.  "She was especially conscious... Читать дальше...

Berlin — World powers said Tuesday that the international community needed a firm and unified response to North Korea's "reckless" nuclear build-up and missile launches. G7 foreign ministers said in a statement after the launch of Pyongyang's most powerful ballistic missile that "North Korea's repeated reckless actions must be met with a swift, united and robust international response, particularly by the United Nations Security Council". North Korea on Monday test-fired its most advanced intercontinental... Читать дальше...

North America’s oldest citizen science project is underway with thousands of volunteers measuring bird populations in the annual Christmas Bird Count. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya joined a birdwatching team in Seattle.

United Nations — The U.N. Security Council voted Tuesday to accede to a demand from Democratic Republic of Congo and launch a gradual withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers starting this month, a year earlier than originally planned. The resolution, which renews the mandate of the peacekeeping mission in DRC for a further year, includes plans for the departure of peacekeepers from South Kivu province by the end of April. The drawdown comes despite United Nations concern about violence in the eastern part of the country. Читать дальше...

As clashes between Israel and the militant Hezbollah group escalate along the Israel-Lebanon border, VOA visited some residents defending an evacuated kibbutz just 2 kilometers inside Israel. They say they want to go to war in Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah, while the international community scrambles to find a diplomatic route. Henry Wilkins reports.

Finland entered into a defense cooperation agreement with the United States on Monday, allowing the U.S. military access to Finnish national security facilities. In the past month, Finland closed its border with Russia, accusing the Kremlin of sending migrants in an act of "hybrid warfare." Eastern Europe chief Myroslava Gongadze visited the Finnish-Russian border and has this story. (Camera and Produced by: Daniil Batushchak)

Taipei, Taiwan — Students from China and the U.S. have been traveling between the two countries for decades, playing an important role in cultivating people-to-people ties between the world’s top two economies. However, rising tension between Beijing and Washington in recent years is posing serious threats to this tradition. During a talk at the Brookings Institute in Washington last week, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said there were 15,000 American students in China “six or seven years ago,” but that number dropped to 350 in 2022.

LONDON — WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange's possible final legal challenge to stop his extradition from Britain to the United States, where he is wanted on criminal charges, will be held at London's High Court in February, his supporters said on Tuesday. Assange, 52, is wanted by U.S. authorities on 18 counts, including one under a spying act, relating to WikiLeaks' release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which Washington said had put lives in danger. Читать дальше...

Mental health is a big topic of discussion on U.S. college campuses, with universities themselves continually reaching out to students to make sure they are OK. Many international students studying in the U.S. say the concern is novel but welcome. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has more. Camera and video editing by Saqib Ul Islam.

Researchers in Australia have developed a method to make hydrogen from seawater without a costly desalination process. This could mark a breakthrough in the production of clean hydrogen from a plentiful, eco-friendly source. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.

California high school students are helping Afghan girls learn computer coding as part of a program to counter Taliban prohibitions against girls going to school. Genia Dulot has our story from San Diego. Video edit: Bakhtiyar Zamanov

Washington — After graduating from university in 2020, Gao Yu faced challenges securing stable office work in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province in southern China. Reluctant to abandon her aspirations for a white-collar job in a big city, Gao Yu, like many rural Chinese youth, returned to rural Yunnan to support her family's online fresh food business. She requested anonymity for this interview due to fear of reprisal from Chinese authorities. "I was reluctant to go back at first," she told VOA. Читать дальше...

New Delhi — More than half of all opposition lawmakers have been barred from the ongoing session of India's parliament for demanding a debate into a protest last week in which a smoke canister was released in the legislature. The suspended 141 lawmakers belong to an opposition grouping of 26 parties dubbed INDIA — the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance — formed to fight general elections slated for early next year. On Dec. 13, a man stunned lawmakers when he jumped from an overhead... Читать дальше...

Seoul, South Korea — Troops on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area on the border with the North have been authorized to carry guns, the UN Command said Tuesday, after Pyongyang's soldiers reportedly started carrying weapons there last month. Soldiers from both countries face off at the JSA north of Seoul, which is overseen by the U.S.-led United Nations Command. North and South Korea agreed to disarm their troops on the JSA in line with a 2018 military pact, but the North's troops... Читать дальше...

SYDNEY — The military has begun to evacuate a remote Indigenous community cut off by record-breaking floods in northern Australia.   A previous attempt to reach Wujal Wujal, north of Brisbane, was abandoned because of the storms. Torrential rain has brought life-threatening flash flooding to parts of north Queensland in the aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper. Residents have sought shelter on rooftops and up trees.  There are no reports, so far, of deaths or serious injuries. In a swollen river in north Queensland... Читать дальше...

SEOUL, South Korea — In a joint announcement on Tuesday, South Korea, Japan and the United States said they had activated a system to detect and assess North Korea's missile launches in real-time and established a multi-year trilateral military exercise plan. Separately, national security officials of the three countries held a video conference about curbing North Korea's illicit cyber activities, which may be channeling funds to its weapons programs, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's office said. Читать дальше...