sep. 14
It is twenty-three hours thirty Universal Time and here is the news in Special English. ▼ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have ended a day of direct peace talks in Egypt. The two leaders held an extra, unplanned meeting with American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday. But, there are no reports of any new progress in issues that divide the two sides. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas are to meet Wednesday in Jerusalem. American diplomat George Mitchell said the talks are generally moving in the right direction. However, he did not say if there had been any progress on the issue of Jewish settlements. The Obama administration believes Israel should extend a ten-month partial ban on building in the settlements. The ban is to end September twenty-sixth.
An American woman freed by Iran has been reunited with her mother. Officials say Sarah Shourd met her mother at the airport in Oman Tuesday. The reunion took place just hours after Ms Shourd was freed from Evin Prison in Tehran. She was detained in Iran for more than a year. Ms Shourd left behind two male friends, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who remain in detention. Officials arrested the three after they walked into Iran from northern Iraq. Iran accuses them of spying and entering the country illegally. Family members say they crossed the border by accident. President Obama welcomed the news of Sarah Shourd's release. Iranian officials say they will extend Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal's detention for two more months. The French Senate has voted to ban the public use of Muslim head coverings for women. The vote is the final step in making the ban legal. Two hundred forty-six lawmakers voted to approve the ban. Only one vote opposed the ban. The law has already passed in the National Assembly. Opponents of the bill have ten days to fight the measure in France's Constitutional Council before French President Nicolas Sarkozy signs the legislation into law. The law will make it illegal for Muslim women to wear a full face covering, which only shows the eyes in public. France has one of the largest Muslim populations in Western Europe. An estimated two thousand Muslim women in France wear the face-covering veil.
NATO says Afghan and coalition forces in Helmand province killed up to twenty-three militants in three separate operations. A NATO statement said joint forces requested rocket artillery fire to suppress militants after being attacked late Monday. NATO also confirmed that its troops captured a member of the Haqqani militant group in Khost province. Troops also seized weapons. In Wardak province, joint forces killed three militants supervising the manufacture and transport of homemade bombs.
You are listening to the news in VOA Special English.
Two American missile strikes have killed at least fourteen militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border. Officials said that at least ten militants were killed when missiles were fired from an unmanned aircraft struck a target in the Shawal area of North Waziristan. Later, missiles struck a vehicle near the town of Miran Shah, killing four militants. There have been eleven suspected American missile attacks in northwest Pakistan this month.
Thousands of heavily armed police officers guarded towns across Indian-controlled Kashmir Tuesday. The officers had earlier received orders to shoot anyone disobeying a curfew. Police urged people to stay indoors. Police fired at a group of stone-throwing protestors in Baramulla near the city of Srinagar. At least, six people were injured. The government in New Delhi said it will discuss the growing tensions in Kashmir will all political parties on Wednesday. The government has suspended all flights to and from Srinagar because of the worsening security situations. At least, eighty-eight civilians have died in Kashmir since protests began three months ago. Kashmir separatists have fought since nineteen eighty-nine to win independence from India or unite with Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Attackers have killed two Nigerian officials in separate incidents. Police in the northern city of Kano say attackers with knives killed state security service official Garba Bello early Monday. The attackers also killed his wife and three of his children. In the second incident, Nigeria's economic and financial crimes commission says one of its officials was killed Tuesday in Kaduna. Abdullahi Muazu was head of the agency's forensic department. Separately, police in Borno state say they have arrested at least ten members of Boko-Haram, the extremist Muslim group blamed for a recent series of killings of police officers and local officials.
China has again demanded that Japan release a Chinese fishing boat and its captain, whose boat crashed into two Japanese guard ships. A Chinese ministry spokeswoman says it is important that Japan release the captain immediately and safely. Japanese officials have said government lawyers are deciding whether to charge the captain with a crime. The boat incident took place last week in the East China Sea near a group of islands that both countries claim. Japan also detained the boat's fourteen crew members but freed them on Monday. Earlier Tuesday, China postponed a lawmaker's visit to Tokyo. Li Jianguo had planned to visit Japan for five days starting Wednesday. ▲ And now briefly, here again is the major news of the hour in Special English.
Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian president have ended a day of direct peace talks in Egypt. The French Senate has voted to ban the public use of Muslim face coverings for women. And, two American missile strikes have killed at least fourteen militants in Pakistan's northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border. And, that's the news in VOA Special English from Washington. Source: VOA Special English September 14, 2010 2330UTC
