The global coalition to ensure the defeat of Islamic State group terrorists is ending its military mission in Iraq. U.S. officials said a two-phased plan would not hinder counter-IS operations elsewhere in the region but did not detail how, or if, U.S. troop numbers would change. Carla Babb reports.
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Поліцейські зафіксували 11 пошкоджених могил військових
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Безпосередньо в зоні бойових дій перебувають близько 5 тисяч військовослужбовиць
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Harare, Zimbabwe — The value of Zimbabwe’s gold-backed currency plunged 44% Friday on the official market.
The sudden drop of the gold backed currency, known as ZiG, began Friday shortly after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s monetary committee met and bank governor John Mushayavanhu said that after looking at “the recent macroeconomic and financial developments and economic outlook,” the bank was ready to “allow greater exchange rate flexibility, in line with the increased demand for foreign currency in the economy.”
Immediately after, the ZiG started trading at 25 to 1 U.S. dollar, down from 14, where it had been since it was introduced in April.
Tapiwa Mupandawana, a Zimbabwean independent economist and doctoral student at Africa Research University in Zambia, said allowing the ZiG to plunge is an adjustment toward its real value and a reflection of the actual state of Zimbabwe’s economy.
“The value of a currency is the derivative of the productive capacity of the country,” Mupandawana said. “So, in any case, you cannot have a stable currency if you do not have a stable economy.”
Prosper Chitambara, senior economist with the Labor and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, said the decision to allow the ZiG to drop could be positive for the economy and a sign the central bank is allowing market forces to play more of a role in determining the value of the country’s currency.
“[It] should have some stabilizing effect on the exchange rate,” Chitambara said. “I don’t think it is going to have a major impact in terms of pricing on the economy, given that most businesses were already indexing their … ZiG pricing based on the parallel market or based on the black-market premium.”
The gold-backed ZiG is the sixth type of currency Zimbabwe has tried to use since the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed amid hyperinflation in 2009. After Friday’s official devaluation, the ZiG was trading at around 50 on the black market. Before Friday it was trading at 35 ZiG to 1 U.S. dollar.
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У Харкові пошкоджено щонайменше 10 житлових будинків. Вибухової травми зазнав 73-річний чоловік
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У МОЗ додали, що медичний канабіс призначатимуть у випадках, коли інші ліки неефективні або викликають серйозні побічні ефекти
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump met Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York, where Trump repeated claims that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine by making a deal with Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. government said Friday it filed criminal charges against three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for hacking attempts aimed at disrupting the U.S. presidential election.
The indictment is the latest effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to counter foreign efforts to interfere in the November 5 presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The U.S. Treasury Department also said it was imposing sanctions on seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran has previously denied involvement.
The Trump campaign said in August it had been hacked by Iran but said the perpetrators were not able to get private information. Several news outlets have said they declined to publish internal campaign documents that were offered to them.
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Washington — Former President Donald Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York on Friday, amid increased skepticism of U.S. support for Ukraine’s war efforts from the Republican presidential nominee and lawmakers loyal to him.
Trump announced the meeting at a press conference Thursday, which was confirmed for VOA by Zelenskyy’s team. The meeting comes a day after the Ukrainian leader met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday to discuss U.S. support for the war in Ukraine.
Tension has been brewing between the two leaders. Trump is known for his skeptical remarks on U.S. involvement in Ukraine and claims that he can quickly end the conflict by making a deal between Ukraine and Russia, if elected.
During a campaign event on Wednesday, Trump slammed Zelenskyy for making “little, nasty aspersions” toward him. He appeared to be referring to Zelenskyy’s comments in a recent New Yorker magazine article that Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”
Trump suggested the Ukrainian leader together with the Biden administration are at fault for prolonging the war that followed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said in North Carolina. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine is now “in rubble” and in no position to negotiate the war’s end.
“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” said Trump.
The former U.S. president has repeatedly said he wants the Russia-Ukraine war to end but has not stated whether he wants Kyiv to win or keep all its territories. His position stands in contrast with that of Biden and Harris, who have championed American aid and military support for the embattled country.
“Ukraine will prevail, and we’ll continue to stand by you every step of the way,” Biden said Thursday as he met with Zelenskyy at the White House.
During her meeting with Zelenskyy, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, reiterated the administration’s support for Kyiv’s war efforts and underscored that it is up to Ukraine to decide how the war will end.
Without mentioning his name, Harris criticized Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, whose proposal to end the war would mean Ukraine had less territory and would not join NATO.
“These proposals are the same of those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”
Vance suggested in a recent interview that Ukraine and Russia halt fighting and create a demilitarized zone at the current battle lines. Kyiv would need to adhere to a neutral status and stop its bid to join NATO.
Zelenskyy, in the same New Yorker interview, said that Vance’s plan would “give up” Ukrainian territory, calling Trump’s running mate “too radical.”
“His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice,” he said. “The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable.”
Zelenskyy, who has been in the United States since Sunday to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, was scheduled to depart Thursday but extended his visit as Trump announced the meeting.
Partisan politics
On Wednesday, congressional Republicans loyal to Trump demanded that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, for organizing Zelenskyy’s visit earlier this week to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November U.S. presidential election. Zelenskyy met with the Democratic governor of the state, Josh Shapiro.
In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit to the factory that made munitions for Ukraine was a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats” that amounts to “election interference.”
The White House called Johnson’s letter a “political stunt” and pointed out that Zelenskyy recently met the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, in a “similar event.”
Ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid includes a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers.
The White House said no announcement was imminent regarding Ukraine’s request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia.
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Panama has begun deporting migrants who cross the dangerous Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama as part of an agreement with the United States signed in July. Veronica Villafane narrates this story by Oscar Sulbaran.
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New York — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
This meeting between the countries’ top diplomats comes amid growing U.S. concerns over Chinese firms supplying chips and drones to Moscow, which have significantly bolstered Russia’s battlefield capabilities in its war against Ukraine.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has told the Congress that China’s material support for Russia’s war effort “comes from the very top.”
Blinken’s talks with Wang will take place ahead of a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, expected later this fall.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the U.N. General Assembly that Ukraine would never accept a deal imposed by other nations to end Russia’s 31-month invasion, questioning the motives of China and Brazil in pushing for negotiations with Moscow.
For months, U.S. officials have accused China of actively aiding Russia’s war effort. Washington has sanctioned Chinese firms providing crucial components to Russia’s defense industry.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently told VOA that the U.S. openly discusses its “differences” with China to ensure that both countries “at least understand where the other is coming from, even if we can’t reach an agreement.”
He added that Washington is managing its relationship with China to prevent it from “veering from competition into conflict.”
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With violent gangs controlling most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, calls for a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission are growing. The country’s prime minister says the current international effort lacks resources, manpower and the capability to face the gangs. Celia Mendoza reports.
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LOS ANGELES / WASHINGTON — Employers negotiating a labor contract at U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast ports on Thursday filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the longshoremen’s union, saying its leaders refuse to resume talks ahead of a threatened Tuesday strike.
The United States Maritime Alliance said it filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board because of the repeated refusal of the International Longshoremen’s Association to return to the bargaining table.
The six-year master contract between USMX and the ILA expires Monday, and the two sides appear to be deadlocked on wage issues.
The employer group said it requested immediate injunctive relief requiring the union to resume bargaining so a deal could be finalized.
It is uncommon, but not unheard of, for employers to make such complaints to the NLRB, an independent agency of the federal government that enforces U.S. labor law, particularly with regard to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices.
In rare cases, the NLRB will go to court and ask for an injunction pending the outcome of a board case, but that can take weeks to play out.
The ILA on Thursday responded, calling the USMX a poor negotiating partner.
Earlier this week, ILA leader and chief negotiator Harold Daggett said he had rebuffed USMX approaches.
“They call me several times each week trying to get the ILA to accept a lowball wage package,” Daggett said.
Sources close to the talks said the ILA asked for a wage increase of 77%, a percentage the union called exaggerated. Industry experts predict that the increase will be higher than the 32% raise won by the West Coast longshoremen’s union last year.
Companies that rely on ocean shipping are increasingly worried that the ILA’s 45,000 members will strike and close 36 ports that handle more than half of U.S. ocean trade of products such as bananas, meat, prescription drugs, auto parts, construction materials and apparel.
If that happens, delays and costs could quickly cascade, threatening the U.S. economy in the weeks ahead of the U.S. presidential election, burdening already taxed global ocean shipping networks and over time foisting higher prices on consumers.
Economists at Oxford Economics estimated that the impending strike would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by $4.5 billion to $7.5 billion, or 0.1% annualized, for every week it continues.
A strike has the potential to weigh on the October employment report at a time when the Federal Reserve is highly attuned to signs of weakness in the labor market, they said.
The timing is politically sensitive because Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is facing former Republican President Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election on November 5.
A White House official on Thursday reiterated that President Joe Biden does not intend to invoke a federal law known as the Taft-Hartley Act to prevent a strike.
“We encourage all parties to come to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith,” the official said. “Senior officials from the White House, Labor Department and Department of Transportation are in touch with the parties and delivering the message to them directly.”
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According to the International Energy Agency, the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. But with that shift comes environmental risks related to the mining of critical minerals. VOA’s Jessica Stone looks at how nations are navigating the environmental challenges of creating a renewable future.
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