VOA news for Friday, February 19th, 2016
VOA news for Friday,
February 19th, 2016
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
From
Washington, this is VOA news. I'm
David DeForest reporting. An historic visit to
Cuba.
The White House says
President Barack Obama plans to make a two-day visit to Cuba, beginning March 21.
Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes says the president will discuss a wide range of issues with
Cuban President Raul Castro, but has no plans to meet his brother,
Fidel.
"We see it as a means of pushing forward this normalization process, trying to achieve a greater opening between the
United States and Cuba commercially, but also supporting and advancing the values that we care about.”
Mr. Obama plans to meet with dissidents and raise human rights issues.
Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and
Ted Cruz, both of Cuban descent, are criticizing the planned trip.
Police in
Uganda briefly arrested presidential candidate
Kizza Besigye after he tried to enter a house he said was being used for rigging the national elections.
Besigye was released and taken to his home.
It's not clear if he was placed under house arrest.
Polls have closed in Uganda and vote counting has begun.
Turkey is blaming Wednesday's deadly car-bombing in
Ankara on a
Syrian man with links to
Kurdish militia groups.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said the attack was carried out by the
PKK Kurdish separatist group.
He said the Syrian man was a member of the
YPG, the armed faction of a Syrian Kurdish rebel group.
The European Union's top migration official says an
Austrian plan to limit the number of asylum seekers is unlawful.
In a letter to the
Austrian government Thursday,
Dimitris Avramopoulos said that
Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border.
This is VOA news.
Prime Minister David Cameron is meeting with other
European Union leaders at a summit in
Brussels where discussions are dominated by the region's migrant crisis and
Britain's threatened exit.
Lisa Bryant reports.
"A good deal but not any deal." That's a message sounded by
British Prime Minister David Cameron at the start of the Brussels talks.
"
I'll be battling for Britain. If we can get a good deal, I'll take that deal. But I will not take a deal that doesn't meet what we need.”
Cameron wants concessions from other EU leaders on key demands that he can present to
British voters in a referendum expected later in the year on whether his country will remain in the European Union.
Lisa Bryant,
Paris.
The U.S. and
Russia will co-chair an initial meeting of a cease-fire task force in
Geneva Friday. The meeting will take place under the auspices of the
United Nations.
The task force will explore prospects for a long-range cease-fire in
Syria.
The 17-nation
International Syria
Support Group devised the plan for the task force during its meeting last week in
Munich.
Pope Francis says it is acceptable to use artificial contraception in response to the
Zika virus, a disease that could cause birth defects. But the pope maintained the church's stance against abortion, calling it "an absolute evil.”
Pope Francis injected himself into the
U.S. presidential race Thursday suggesting
Republican frontrunner
Donald Trump is not
Christian because of his proposal to build a wall along the southern
U.S. border with
Mexico.
The wall will be intended to keep out illegal migrants headed for the United States.
Trump, a Presbyterian, said at a campaign rally that the pope's comments were, in his words, "not a nice thing to say and disgraceful.”
The remark by Pope Francis comes just two days ahead of a crucial party nominating contest in the state of
South Carolina, where political surveys show Trump with a commanding lead over five Republican challengers.
Authorities in
Ghana say at least 53 people died in a collision between a bus and a truck on a highway north of the capital,
Accra.
It is believed to be one of Ghana's worst road accidents in years.
The White House says President Barack Obama has started a process of finding a nominee to replace the late
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Spokesman
Josh Earnest said Thursday that Mr. Obama intends to nominate someone quickly.
But
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there will be no confirmation hearings for any
Obama nominee. Many
Republicans think the next president should make the nomination.
The White House insists the
Senate is obligated to consider a new justice.
On
Wall Street, U.S. stock indexes were up at the close of, down, rather, at the close of trade today.
In Europe, stocks were mixed.
I'm David DeForest in Washington.
That's the latest world news from VOA.