Month: June 2019

Millions of Istanbul residents voted Sunday in a re-run of a mayoral election that has become a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies and a test of Turkey’s ailing democracy. In the initial March 31 vote, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate secured a narrow victory over Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP) in Turkey’s largest city, a rare electoral defeat for the president. But after weeks of AKP appeals, Turkey’s High Election Board in May annulled the vote citing irregularities. The opposition called the decision a coup against democracy, which has raised the stakes for round two. “It is …

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U.S. military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems Thursday as President Donald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike in response to Iran’s downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, U.S. officials said Saturday. Two officials told The Associated Press that the strikes were conducted with approval from Trump. A third official confirmed the broad outlines of the strike. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the operation. The cyberattacks, a contingency plan developed over weeks amid escalating tensions, disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled …

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Ethiopia’s chief of staff and at least three other senior officials were killed during a coup attempt by an army general in the northern state of Amhara, state television said Sunday. Amhara’s state president Ambachew Mekonnen and his advisor were also killed, according to state media, which named the region’s security head, General Asamnew Tsige, as the orchestrator of the attempted coup. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government faces growing pressure from regional strongmen, including in Amhara, a flashpoint in growing ethnic violence in Ethiopia. The shooting occurred when federal officials were meeting the state president, an ally of Abiy, to …

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U.S. women will soon have another drug option designed to boost low sex drive: a shot they can give themselves in the thigh or abdomen that raises sexual interest for several hours. The medication OK’d Friday by the Food and Drug Administration is only the second approved to increase sexual desire in a women, a market drugmakers have been trying to cultivate since the blockbuster success of Viagra for men in the late 1990s. The other drug is a daily pill. The upside of the new drug “is that you only use it when you need it,” said Dr. Julia …

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A top U.S. Defense Department official told ambassadors and other leaders from Southeastern Asian countries that the Indo-Pacific region is “our priority theater” even as China makes inroads in an area it considers its backyard. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver, spoke at the US-ASEAN Business Council Wednesday.   He emphasized the need for nations in the region to consider the options offered by the United State and China, which are jockeying for geopolitical and economic influence in the area, before devising their individual Indo-Pacific strategies. “You don’t choose between countries or capitals but can you …

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Security measures were increased at one of Iraq’s largest air bases that houses American trainers following an attack last week, a top Iraqi air force commander said Saturday. The U.S. military said operations at the base were going on as usual and there were currently no plans to evacuate personnel. The stepped-up Iraqi security measures at Balad air base, just north of the capital, Baghdad, come amid sharply rising tensions in the Middle East between the United States and Iran. The current regional crisis is rooted in the U.S. withdrawal last year from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and …

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White House senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke to Reuters Television exclusively in advance of the release of a U.S. economic plan for the Palestinian economy and surrounding countries to be unveiled at a workshop in Bahrain next week. The following are highlights from the interview. “The plan would invest about $50 billion in the region. It would create a million jobs in the West Bank and Gaza. It would take their unemployment rate from about 30 percent to the single digits. It would reduce their poverty rate by half, if it’s implemented correctly. It’s a ten-year plan. It would double …

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A new report finds nearly half of all people in the Central African Republic are suffering acute food shortages. The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a joint effort by eight U.N. and International non-governmental organizations, finds more than 1.8 million people in C.A.R. are facing an emergency food crisis.   Civil war in the Central African Republic erupted in December 2013 and continues to take a heavy toll on its people.  The country is in the midst of its so-called lean season, which goes from May to August.   This is the period between harvests when …

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The United States is painting a bleak portrait of religious freedom, with violations in countries including North Korea, Iran, Russia, Myanmar and China, while praising Uzbekistan for its progress in respecting people’s fundamental rights. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday released the State Department’s 2018 Report on International Religious Freedom.   The top U.S. diplomat announced that Uzbekistan is not designated by the U.S. as a “Country of Particular Concern” for the first time in 13 years. “This past year, the [Uzbekistan] government passed a religious freedom ‘road map.’ Fifteen hundred religious prisoners have been freed, and 16,000 people …

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Capitol Hill correspondent Katherine Gypson and VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn contributed to this report from Washington. The United States was “cocked & loaded,” ready to strike three sites in Iran in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz but called off the attacks at the last possible moment to spare Iranian lives.  The revelation by U.S. President Donald Trump on social media Friday followed news reports that the president initially authorized strikes on a handful of Iranian targets, such as radar installations and missile batteries, before pulling back. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on …

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U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered immigration enforcement officials to conduct a mass roundup of migrants who have received deportation orders, in an operation that is expected to begin Sunday, according to The Washington Post. The newspaper said the operation would target up to 2,000 families in large cities that are major immigration destinations, including Houston, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles. It said the information about the raids was based on three U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Trump tweeted Monday that the United States would start deporting “millions of illegal aliens” from the country next week, but …

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