Vicheika Kann and Reaksmey Hul in Phnom Penh, and Chenda Hong in Washington contributed to this report. In his most recent photos, Nuon Chea looks like somebody’s grandfather, wearing big dark glasses that suggest a sensitivity to light possibly tied to other medical problems. Not that long ago, he’d gone from tottering as he walked…
read moreChina says it will take “countermeasures” if the United States deploys ground-based intermediate-range missiles in the Asia-Pacific region. Fu Cong, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control division, told reporters Tuesday that Beijing “will not stand idly by” if Washington follows through on a pledge made last weekend by new Defense Secretary Mark…
read moreChinese companies have stopped buying U.S. agricultural products, China’s Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday, a blow to U.S. farmers who have already seen their exports slashed by the more than year-old trade war. China may impose additional tariffs on U.S. farm products bought shortly before the purchase ban took effect, China’s Commerce Ministry said. China…
read moreNewtown. Charleston. Orlando. Parkland. And now after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Congress again is confronted with the question of what, if anything, lawmakers should do to combat the scourge of gun violence afflicting the country. While both parties are calling for action, the retreat to familiar political corners was swift.…
read moreThe last time the U.S. government passed a gun control bill was 25 years ago. The bill: Federal Assault Weapons Ban Year passed: 1994 Provisions: It banned the manufacture, transfer or possession of “semiautomatic assault weapons,” defined as military-style assault weapons, including the AR-15. Effect: A recent study found mass shooting fatalities were 70% less likely…
read moreThe United States might seem more divided than ever, but that could be because Americans have a distorted impression of people with opposing political views. “Democrats and Republicans overestimate the proportion of people on the other side of the political aisle who hold extreme views by a factor of about two,” says Daniel Yudkin, associate…
read moreHigh school classmates of the gunman who killed nine people early Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, say he was suspended for compiling a “hit list” of those he wanted to kill and a “rape list” of girls he wanted to sexually assault. The accounts by two former classmates emerged after police said there was nothing in…
read moreChina allowed its yuan to fall below the politically sensitive level of seven to the U.S. dollar on Monday for the first time in 11 years, prompting concern Beijing might use devaluation as a weapon in a tariff war with Washington. The central bank blamed the exchange rate’s decline on “trade protectionism.” That followed…
read moreSouth Korea’s president on Monday described the country’s escalating trade war with Japan as a wake-up call to revamp its economy and issued a nationalistic call for economic cooperation with North Korea, which he said would allow the Koreas to erase Japan’s economic superiority in “one burst.” President Moon Jae-in’s comments were made during a…
read moreSecretary of Defense Mark Esper has slammed China’s “destabilizing” actions in the Indo-Pacific region during his first trip to the region. Speaking to reporters in Sydney with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their Australian counterparts, Esper said the United States is “firmly against a disturbing pattern of aggressive behavior, destabilizing behavior from China.” Esper…
read moreUpdated Aug.4, 2:10PM In 13 hours of carnage in the United States, two shooters in separate incidents killed 29 people and injured dozens, leaving authorities searching for motives behind the mayhem. A gunman wearing body armor and carrying extra magazines of ammunition was shot to death by police less than a minute after he opened…
read moreU.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is crisscrossing the Asia-Pacific region on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department. The trip began as the U.S. withdrew from a decades-old arms control pact with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The withdrawal means Washington and Moscow are free to develop ground-based missiles with…
read moreDemocratic presidential candidates expressed outrage Saturday that mass shootings have becoming chillingly common nationwide and blamed the National Rifle Association and its congressional allies after a gunman opened fire at a shopping area near the Texas-Mexico border. “It’s not just today, it has happened several times this week. It’s happened here in Las Vegas where…
read moreMexican officials said Saturday they would investigate the killing of a journalist in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz who was the third reporter to be killed in a week in Mexico as the country grapples with a record homicide rate. Jorge Ruiz Vazquez, a reporter at the Grafico de Xalapa newspaper in Veracruz’s capital,…
read moreLONDON — Lawmakers will be unable to stop a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 by bringing down Britain’s government in a vote of no confidence next month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s top aide has advised, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Dominic Cummings, one of architects of the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, told ministers that Johnson could schedule a…
read moreMEXICO CITY — U.S. federal prosecutors have accused the Honduran government of essentially functioning as a narco-state, with the current and former presidents having received campaign contributions from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection. A 49-page document filed in New York’s southern district on Friday refers to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez as a co-conspirator…
read moreMaryland Rep. Elijah Cummings took the high road Saturday, inviting President Donald Trump and other Americans to visit Baltimore but declining to respond in kind to the barrage of presidential tweets and comments disparaging him and the majority-black city he has long represented. “We are a great community,” Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House…
read moreU.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is crisscrossing the Asia-Pacific region on his first international trip as head of the Defense Department. The trip began as the U.S. withdrew from a decades-old arms control pact with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The withdrawal means Washington and Moscow are free to develop ground-based missiles with…
read moreAfter three summits and several exchanges of letters between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Washington must now deal with Pyongyang’s five missile tests since February and near muted talks on denuclearization, results generated by Trump’s lack of criticism of the launches, experts said. North Korea fired two more missiles Friday,…
read moreThis story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from Reuters. WASHINGTON — U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer says an unresolved extortion investigation in North Macedonia could undermine prospects for the small Balkan nation’s long-awaited European Union accession talks. North Macedonia’s former chief Special Prosecutor, Katica Janeva, unexpectedly tendered her resignation…
read moreAnother scientific study has confirmed that trees can have a far-reaching effect in stemming global warming by removing large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Tree-planting advocates say this is something they’ve known for decades, and the world is finally getting the message. Mike O’Sullivan has more from Los Angeles. …
read moreKentucky native Kelly Knight Craft will be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after winning confirmation by a slim majority in the Senate this week. Some Democrats complained about her lack of foreign policy experience going into a senior diplomatic post. VOA’s U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer has more. …
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