VOA news Oct 17, 2017

VOA NEWS October 17, 2017 From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Jonathan Smith reporting. Iraqi government forces swept into the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk on Monday, capturing the governor's office, key military sites and an oil field. In a lightning-fast strike, Baghdad's U.S.-trained troops entered the northern city and, on orders from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, raised Iraqi flags in place of the Kurdish banners. The move came less than a day after launching the operation in response to last month's Kurdish vote for independence that the central government declared was illegal. Iraqi forces have now shut down access both in and out of Kirkuk as fighting with Kurdish Peshmerga forces grows worse. Popular Mobilization Units moved into Kirkuk in the early hours of Monday. President Trump says his decision not to recertify Iran's compliance with the Iran nuclear deal could lead to its "total termination." He said, "That's a very real possibility." He spoke to reporters Monday as he began a meeting with his cabinet at the White House. In remarks that were at times prepared and other times not, the president said a lot of people agreed with what he did in pulling away from the 2015 accord, which Iran reached with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the European Union. None of the other parties to the agreement have endorsed Trump's move, however, and EU foreign ministers, meeting Monday in Luxembourg, dispatched one of their top diplomats to Washington to fight for the deal. Trump defended his decision on Monday. This is VOA news. The death toll in the Somali capital Mogadishu has now topped 300 as rescue teams continue to search for survivors from a massive explosion on Saturday blamed on Islamist militants. Three hundred two people now confirmed dead from the blast, which struck a busy intersection in the Somali capital late Saturday. Four hundred twenty-nine people were injured and taken to local hospitals. There is some sense that the death toll is likely to rise. Protesters in the Kenyan city of Kisumu defied a local government ban on rallies Monday to demand reforms in the country's electoral commission. This is the fourth Monday in a row that demonstrators have marched on the commission's offices. Correspondent Mohammed Yusuf reports now from Kisumu. Protesters marched to the offices of the electoral commission offices in Kisumu's city center. But in the afternoon, police used teargas and water cannons to disperse the crowd. One person was killed. Kisumu is the hometown of opposition leader Raila Odinga. Odinga had challenged to win over incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta in the August election. The Supreme Court overturned the outcome, saying presidential results were [either] neither transparent [or] nor verifiable. The court ordered the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, or IEBC, to conduct a new election within 60 days of its September 1 ruling. Since then, Odinga has demanded the commission fire members who were allegedly involved in the August electoral irregularities. The commission has said it has no time to make changes. Last week Odinga withdrew from the October 26 re-run election blaming the commission and the ruling Jubilee party of planning to rig the vote. Mohammed Yusuf, for VOA news, Kisumu, western Kenya. The man accused of planting two bombs in New York, leaving 30 people injured in September 2016, was found guilty of all charges Monday. Twenty-nine-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahimi of Elizabeth, New Jersey, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for charges including counts of using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place. All entries submitted to the U.S. Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, popularly known as the Green Card Lottery, between October 3rd and [4] 10th, that is, have been lost because of a computer glitch. Anyone who submitted applications is being told to reapply. The technical issue has been resolved but the State Department says, "Entries submitted during October 3-10 are not valid and have been excluded from the system; they will not count as a duplicate entry." There is more on these and other late breaking and developing stories, from around the world, around the clock, at voanews.com and on the VOA news mobile app. I'm Jonathan Smith reporting from the world headquarters of the Voice of America in Washington. That's the latest world news from VOA.