The chaos among House Republicans this past week on immigration shows how problematic and risky the issue can be for a party that needs unity heading into the elections in November that will decide control of Congress. GOP leaders thought they had found a way by Friday morning to make the party’s warring conservative and…
read moreSouth Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate, LG Group, said its Chairman Koo Bon-moo did Sunday. Koo, 73, had been struggling with an illness for a year, LG Group said in a statement. “Becoming the third chairman of LG at the age of 50 in 1995, Koo established key three businesses — electronics, chemicals and telecommunications — led…
read moreDonald Trump Jr., the U.S. president’s eldest son, met in August 2016 with an envoy representing the crown princes of United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The meeting, first reported by The New York Times on Saturday and confirmed by an attorney representing Trump Jr., was a chance for the envoy to offer help to the Trump presidential campaign, according to the…
read moreChina and the United States said Saturday that they had reached consensus on steps to substantially reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing. The announcement followed high-level talks in Washington and U.S. allegations that unfair Chinese trade practices meant the United States was buying far more from China than it sold there. China pledged to…
read moreVOA Contributor Greta Van Susteren talks with U.S. Senator Mark Warner about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election and the controversy surrounding the new director of the CIA. Warner is from Virginia and is the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. …
read moreIt’s been an unlikely journey from a Somali refugee camp in Kenya to the Minnesota State House of Representatives, but 36-year-old Ilhan Omar’s historic rise as the first Somali American legislator in the United States is a beacon of hope for Muslims – particularly Muslim women – worldwide. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from St.…
read moreU.S. officials are pushing back at reports that America’s ties with European allies are frayed over the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. “We agree on more than we disagree,” said State Department Policy Planning Director Brian Hook during a telephone briefing Friday with reporters. “People are overstating the disagreement between the U.S.…
read moreThe Trump administration acted Friday to bar taxpayer-funded family planning clinics from referring women for abortions, energizing its conservative political base ahead of crucial midterm elections while setting the stage for new legal battles. The Health and Human Services Department sent its proposal to rewrite the rules to the White House, setting in motion a…
read moreIndia and the European Union have given the World Trade Organization lists of the U.S. products that could incur high tariffs in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariffs on steel and aluminum, WTO filings showed Friday. The EU said Trump’s steel tariffs could cost $1.5 billion and aluminum tariffs a further $100 million,…
read moreIn an embarrassment for House Republican leaders, conservatives on Friday scuttled a bill that combines stricter work and job training requirements for food stamp recipients with a renewal of farm subsidies popular in GOP-leaning farm country. Hard-right conservatives upset over the party’s stalled immigration agenda opposed the measure, which failed by a 213-198 vote. Some…
read moreU.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will outline a “diplomatic road map” next week that he hopes will convince European and other allies to apply pressure on Iran and force it back to the negotiating table, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. Rebuffing appeals from France, Germany and Britain, U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew…
read morePresident Donald Trump said on Friday he will nominate Robert Wilkie to be secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, replacing David Shulkin, who was pushed out amid alleged ethics problems. Wilkie, 55, has been acting secretary of the department since Trump fired Shulkin in March over concerns about unauthorized travel expenses. The Republican…
read morePresident Donald Trump’s attorney said Friday the special counsel in the Russia probe has narrowed the scope of potential questions for the president, even as Trump advanced an unverified theory that the Justice Department planted a spy in his 2016 campaign and is now “out to frame him.” Rudy Giuliani said Friday on CNN that…
read moreChina has dropped an anti-dumping investigation and given long awaited approval for the sale of Toshiba’s memory chip business, in gestures that could suggest a thaw between Beijing and the U.S. as trade talks resumed in Washington. The Commerce Ministry said Friday ended the probe into imported U.S. sorghum because it’s not in the public…
read moreThe European Commission is proposing that EU governments make direct money transfers to Iran’s central bank to avoid U.S. penalties, an EU official said, in what would be the most forthright challenge to Washington’s newly reimposed sanctions. The step, which would seek to bypass the U.S. financial system, would allow European companies to repay Iran…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump says the United States and North Korea are still making arrangements for a summit next month, despite tough rhetoric by officials on both sides. Trump denied his national security adviser’s claim that the U.S. would model a nuclear deal with North Korea after one reached in 2003 with Libya. John Bolton…
read moreSwitzerland’s government has requested a report into the risks and opportunities of launching its own cryptocurrency, a so-called “e-franc” that would use technology similar to privately launched coins like bitcoin but have backing of the state. The lower house of the Swiss parliament must now decide whether to back the Federal Council’s request for a…
read moreThe United States sought on Thursday to further choke off funding sources for Iranian-backed Hezbollah, imposing sanctions on its representative to Iran, as well as a major financier and his five companies in Europe, West Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. Treasury said Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi was a Hezbollah financier operating through Belgium, Lebanon…
read moreU.S. officials and politicians say they are increasingly frustrated and looking for ways to fight back against what they see as China’s use of its market power to impose “politically correct” behavior on American companies. Airlines, retailers and hoteliers all have been pressured to alter products and promotions that offended Beijing. “These actions are outrageous…
read moreU.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he was referring to criminal gangs when he called some illegal immigrants “animals,” a term the Mexican government labeled as unacceptable and which drew rebukes on social media. Trump made the remarks on Wednesday during a meeting with California municipal leaders who support his goal of making the…
read moreA renegade effort to force the U.S. House of Representatives to vote on immigration reform is rekindling hopes for broader congressional action to address the status of hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants across America, senators of both political parties told VOA Thursday. “I’m glad the House is moving,” North Carolina Republican Senator Thom…
read morePresident Donald Trump stepped into a round of tough trade talks with China on Thursday after the White House confirmed a meeting between the U.S. president and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The two world powers are taking part in a second series of trade negotiations that started Thursday. The initial talks were held in…
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