VOA news for Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015

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• published: 02 Sep 2015
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Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text VOA news for Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015 From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm David Forrest reporting. Hundreds of thousands flee to Europe. The International Organization for Migration says more than 350,000 migrants have made the journey across the Mediterranean this year. European Council President Donald Tusk warned against hostility to the migrants. "Whatever the challenges migration might bring, there is no justification for hostile, racist or xenophobic reactions to migrants.” The EU plans to hold emergency talks on the migrant issue September 14 amid disagreements among the 28-member nations as to how to handle the sudden influx. Worries about China's economic growth were sharpened by a disappointing report on that nation's manufacturing sector Tuesday. China's official manufacturing index for August fell slightly to its lowest level since 2012. Prices on the Shanghai market fell drastically at the open but regained some strength to close. U.S. President Barack Obama took a walk on a melting Arctic glacier in Alaska Tuesday. The president is pressing the world to act quickly to cut greenhouses gas emissions that are believed to affecting the global climate. The American leader is in the midst of a three-day visit to Alaska. He is using the Alaskan scenery as a backdrop for a call for attention to the effective global warming which could leave entire nations and major coastal cities underwater. Al-Shabaab militants attacked an African Union base at Janaale in southern Somalia Tuesday, killing at least 19 soldiers and reportedly taking others hostage[s]. The death toll was provided by a high-ranking Somali official who tells VOA a similar number of AU troops were abducted by Al-Shabaab. This is VOA news. The Congress of Guatemala has stripped President Otto Pérez Molina's immunity from prosecution. The president is caught up in a corruption scandal. He denies any wrongdoing. The move Tuesday paves the way for possible charges to be brought against Mr. Pérez Molina. Two Ukrainian National Guard officials have died, officers, rather, have died from wounds caused by a grenade blast during Monday's demonstrations in Kyiv. That brings the death toll to three. Officials announced the deaths of the two servicemen Tuesday a day after nationalists fought with security forces outside the country's parliament building. The nationalists were protesting constitutional amendments proposed by the government that would give greater autonomy to parts of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko visited wounded soldiers and told reporters most Ukrainians support the amendments. "More than 70 percent of Ukrainian people support the changes of the constitution and decentralization, 70 percent.” The legislation won preliminary approval Tuesday. Thailand's prime minister says a suspect has been arrested in the recent bombing of a Bangkok shrine. At the same time, Thailand's military Tuesday called on landlords to help them find those responsible for the August 17 bombing of a Bangkok shrine that killed 20 people and injured more than 100. Steve Herman reports. National police Lieutenant General Prawut Thavornsiri told reporters the man arrested Tuesday is an important member of the group responsible for the bombing. The police spokesman would not confirm whether a widely broadcast image of a Chinese passport photo page for a 25-year-old man born in Xinjiang, China, was that of the suspect arrested at the border with Cambodia. On a broadcast Tuesday evening carried on all channels, an army TV newscaster said the suspect is likely the man in a yellow shirt seen on closed circuit television images leaving a parcel at the Erawan shrine just prior to the explosion. Steve Herman, Bangkok. A local court clerk in the U.S. state of Kentucky continues to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering her to do so. Local media reports that the office of Kim Davis, the elected court clerk in Kentucky's Rowan County, refused licenses to two same-sex couples Tuesday. A suicide bomber killed at least four people and wounded around 50 Tuesday in northwestern Pakistan. The killings happened in a region near the Afghan border. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. An Azerbaijani journalist [who was reported] who has reported extensively on high-level corruption, Khadija Ismayilova, has been sentenced to 7 and a half years in prison. I'm David Forrest in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA.