This is a lesson in United States Civics. This Reading Movie will help you understand the principles of American democracy, the U.S. system of government and the important rights and responsibilities of US citizenship. This the booklet which accompanies the Naturalization Quiz. This contains Question 13-Question 40.
The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release November 01, 2014 Weekly Address: It’s Time to Help Women and Working Families WASHINGTON, DC — In this week’s address, the President highlighted the progress our economy is making, and the commonsense policies that could make it even stronger by ensuring that everyone who works hard has the opportunity to get ahead, especially women and working families. This commitment has been a core part of the President’s Year of Action and a priority since the start of his administration, which is why he has put forth a range of policies that would help women and working families get ahead, from raising the minimum wage, to ensuring equal pay for equal work, to increasing access to high-quality child care and paid family leave. This week’s address follows remarks the President delivered on Friday at Rhode Island College, where he discussed the importance of harnessing our economy’s momentum by making policy choices that will help women and all working parents fully participate in and contribute to our economy. The audio of the address and video of the address will be available online at www.whitehouse.gov at 6:00 a.m. ET, November 1, 2014. Remarks of President Barack Obama Weekly Address The White House November 1, 2014 Hi, everybody. On Friday, I had a discussion with working women in Rhode Island about the economic challenges they face in their own lives -- challenges shared by many of you. Thanks to the work we’ve all put in, our economy has come a long way these past six years. Over the past 55 months, our businesses have added 10.3 million new jobs. For the first time in six years, the unemployment rate is below 6 percent. And on Thursday, we learned that over the past six months, our economy has grown at its fastest pace since 2003. But the gains of a growing economy aren’t yet felt by everyone. So we’ve got to harness this momentum, and make the right choices so that everyone who works hard can get ahead. In recent weeks, I’ve talked about these choices, from raising the minimum wage to creating new jobs in construction and manufacturing. Today, I want to focus on what I discussed with those women -- the choices we need to make to help more women get ahead in today’s economy. Right now, women make up almost half of our workers. More women are their family’s main breadwinner than ever before. So the simple truth is, when women succeed, America succeeds. And we should be choosing policies that benefit women -- because that benefits all of us. Women deserve fair pay. Even though it’s 2014, there are women still earning less than men for doing the same work. We don’t have second-class citizens in this country -- we shouldn’t in the workplace, either. So let’s make sure women earn equal pay for equal work, and have a fair shot at success. Women deserve to be able to take time off to care for a new baby, an ailing parent, or take a sick day for themselves without running into hardship. So let’s make sure all Americans have access to paid family leave. Pregnant workers deserve to be treated fairly. Even today, women can be fired for taking too many bathroom breaks, or forced on unpaid leave just for being pregnant. That’s wrong -- and we have to choose policies that ensure pregnant workers are treated with dignity and respect. New parents deserve quality, affordable childcare. There’s nothing like the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your kids are safe while you’re at work. And the benefits that children get out of early enrichment can pay off for a lifetime. But in many states, sending your kid to daycare costs more than sending them to a public university. So let’s start demanding Pre-K for our kids. And when most low-wage workers are women, but Congress hasn’t passed a minimum wage increase in seven years, it’s long past time that women deserve a raise. About 28 million workers would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage to ten dollars and ten cents an hour. And more than half of those workers are women. The local businesses where these workers spend their money would benefit, too. So let’s do this -- let’s give America a raise. All of these policies are common sense. All of them are within our reach. We’ve just got to speak up and choose them. Because they’ll build a stronger America for all of us. Thanks, and have a great weekend.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Thursday, October 30th, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. Kurdish forces in Syria getting reinforcements. Ebola cases in Liberia slowing down. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
Kurdish fighters in northern Syria are getting a boost in their battle with Islamic State militants in the town of Kobani.
A group of about 50 rebels from the Free Syrian Army arrived Wednesday in Kobani after crossing into Syria from Turkey.
A group of Iraqi Kurdish fighters flew into an airport in southeastern Turkey Wednesday and then proceeded toward the Syrian border under escort by Turkish security forces.
A senior official at the World Health Organization says the number of new cases of Ebola in Liberia, the worst affected country, is starting to go down. Lisa Schlein reports.
After months of near-futile battle with Ebola, a glimmer of hope is beginning to emerge in Liberia. WHO Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward says he is cautiously optimistic that the tide may be turning.
He says there has been a huge effort to inform the population about how Ebola is transmitted in order to get people to change the behaviors that are putting them at risk. Most notably, he says, safe burial practices are being more widely adopted. Dr. Aylward says progress is being made in trying to build up clinical care and treatment capacity.
Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva.
President Obama says the United States may continue to see individual cases of Ebola until the outbreak in West Africa is contained.
At the White House Wednesday, Mr. Obama honored U.S. health workers who have returned from West Africa and those planning to go. He called them heroes who are serving with skills and courage, putting themselves in the heart of the Ebola epidemic for no other reason than the sense of duty.
This is VOA news.
Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, says 91 people "in positions of leadership" have been fired from the ministry, including 8 generals found to have links to past pro-Russian governments.
He says the dismissals targeted department heads, including the ministry's regional directorates in Kyiv and Donetsk.
NATO says it detected "unusual" activity in European airspace over the past two days.
A NATO military spokesman in Brussels says that four groups of Russian warplanes have been "conducting significant military maneuvers" over the Baltic Sea, North Sea and the Black Sea.
Norwegian, British, Portuguese, German and Turkish fighters were sent up to intercept and identify the Russian planes.
Russia successfully launched an unmanned rocket with supplies for the International Space Station from Kazakhstan on Wednesday just hours after a catastrophic explosion destroyed a similar mission in the United States.
On Tuesday, an unmanned commercial rocket with supplies and equipment for the space station burst into fiery fragments just seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island in the U.S. state of Virginia off the Atlantic coast.
The cause of the mishap is under investigation.
No one was hurt.
Egypt is evacuating hundreds of families from their homes along its border with the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian authorities are trying to stop "terrorist operations" they believe are originating in the Palestinian territory through tunnels under the border. Edward Yeranian has more.
Al Jazeera TV showed live webcam footage of a bulldozer knocking down a cement- and cinder-block building in the northern Sinai border town of Rafah. The report said Egyptian authorities had ordered 600 families in one area of Rafah to leave their homes.
Egyptian media report that local army commanders spoke with affected residents, giving them 48 hours to remove their belongings.
Egypt declared a state of emergency in the northern Sinai following a terrorist attack last Thursday that killed more than 30 Egyptian soldiers.
Edward Yeranian, Cairo.
Pakistani military officials say eight soldiers have been killed in an operation against militants in the country's Khyber tribal region.
The clash Wednesday also left 21 militants dead.
A landslide in hilly south-central Sri Lanka buried scores of homes, raising fears that hundreds of people may have been killed.
Heavy rains triggered the wave of mud.
A 50-meter-wide river of lava crossed one residential property and is now headed for the main road in the seaside town of Pahoa in the U.S. island state of Hawaii.
The molten stream from Kilauea volcano is threatening dozens of homes and businesses.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Wednesday, October 29th, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. NASA supply ship rocket to space station explodes on launch. President Obama warns against Ebola quarantines. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
An unmanned commercial rocket that was supposed to send a cargo ship to the International Space Station exploded just seconds after liftoff from a NASA launch pad in the southeastern state of Virginia.
The privately owned rocket barely got off the ground before it blew up just after sunset Tuesday on Wallops Island off the Atlantic coast.
There was no one on board the Antares rocket and no one on the ground was hurt. But NASA says there was significant vehicle and cargo damage.
President Obama says no other nation is doing as much as the U.S. to contain or ultimately stop the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
He has also praised American health workers who volunteered to fight the virus.
White House correspondent Luis Ramirez reports.
Without mentioning any state by name, the president on Tuesday said policies on quarantines and isolation of health workers who have had contact with Ebola patients should not be such that they discourage Americans from helping fight the disease.
"Those workers who are willing and able and dedicated to go over there in a really tough job, that they're applauded, thanked and supported. That should be our priority.”
The administration has rejected calls for a ban on travel to and from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and recommended against automatic quarantines of people arriving from those countries.
Mr. Obama reminded Americans Tuesday that only two people have been infected with Ebola on U.S. soil. He said officials should be guided by science, not fear, in dealing with the disease.
Luis Ramirez, VOA news, at the White House.
This is VOA news.
Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters are headed to Kobani, Syria, to help Syrian Kurds fight Islamic State militants for control of the town just south of the Turkish border.
Kurdish officials say 80 fighters equipped with artillery and machine guns are expected to join the battle for Kobani Tuesday. Another 72 are expected to arrive today.
The fighting continued Tuesday, with the U.S. saying it launched four more aerial attacks on Islamic State positions in Kobani and nine other strikes against jihadists in Iraq.
Foreign ministers and representatives from 40 nations met Tuesday in Berlin to focus on helping Syria's neighbors cope with the huge group of refugees who have been pushed from their country by more than years of war.
The U.N. has registered more than three million Syrian refugees. Turkey and Lebanon each are hosting more than one million people.
At least 18 workers are trapped underground after an accident at a coal mine in southern Turkey.
Initial reports say flooding inside the mine near the town of Ermenek in Karaman province caused a cave-in. But later reports say workers were trapped by the water.
Turkey's emergency management agency says a broken pipe in the mine caused the flooding.
In Hong Kong, protesters marked a one-month anniversary of the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations Tuesday.
The anniversary comes amid an impasse between the protesters and authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. Ivan Broadhead reports.
Tuesday dawned amid a sea of 2,000 tents and countless democracy activists on the streets of the Hong Kong Central business district.
In the cool breeze, a group of students marked the end of the first full month of the democracy protest by singing the lilting refrain of the Umbrella Movement anthem, Under a Vast Sky.
Late Tuesday, the students continue to strategize, and sing, at the now nightly rally in Umbrella Square.
Ivan Broadhead, Hong Kong.
Protesters want Beijing to repeal its decision to screen candidates for the territory's 2017 election for chief executive.
Authorities have refused, instead declaring the gatherings to be illegal and cracking down on the protesters several times.
Russia will recognize results of upcoming elections in two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the voting scheduled for November 2nd will be important for what he calls the "legitimization of power" in the unrecognized "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk.
And a 50-meter-wide river of lava continues to creep down a mountainside in the U.S. island state of Hawaii.
The village's roughly 1,000 residents have been told to evacuate.
It's all coming from the Kilauea volcano at 2,000 degrees.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Monday, October 26th, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. Coming up, airstrikes continuing against the Islamic State. Also the latest on the Ebola outbreak.
Syrian activists say more than 800 people have been killed in ground fighting in Kobani in the six-week battle between Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters for control of the Syrian town just south of the Turkish border.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday that nearly 500 jihadists and more than 300 Kurds have been killed.
American fighter jets launched five more airstrikes on Islamic State positions in the last 24 hours, with plumes of black smoke from the blast billowing into the skies over Kobani on Sunday.
British and U.S. soldiers have formally marked the end of combat operations in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province by [handling] handing [their] over their control of the country's largest military base to Afghan soldiers.
At its peak, the coalition combined base held up to 40,000 personnel including foreign troops and contractors. With an overall drawdown taking place, 12,000 foreign soldiers to train and advise Afghan forces will remain in the country after December.
The government of Mali seeks to prevent a major Ebola outbreak after a two-year-old girl died from the virus after traveling across the country from Guinea.
Meantime, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has begun a tour of West African countries to assess international support for nations struggling to contain the Ebola outbreak.
In Washington, President Obama met Sunday with his public health and national security advisers to discuss what the White House called "appropriate measures" to contain the spread of the domestic Ebola cases.
This is VOA news.
Exit polls from Ukraine's pro-Europe and nationalist parties have scored a major victory in the country's parliamentary election.
The bloc led by current President Petro Poroshenko won 23 percent of the vote ahead of the People's Front party of his ally, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who took 21 percent. The Self-Help party of western Ukraine was in third place with 13 percent of the vote, while the opposition Bloc party of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych finished a surprising fourth with nearly 8 percent.
Sunday's election was the first parliamentary poll since street protests in the capital, Kyiv, forced Moscow-backed Yanukovych to flee in February, assuring a pro-Europe leadership under President Petro Poroshenko.
Polls are showing a majority of Ukrainian supporting economic and democratic reforms, especially a crackdown on corruption, leading eventually to European Union membership.
Tunisians went to the polls on Sunday to elect their first full parliament under a new constitution. We get more now from Lisa Bryant.
Sunday's vote dominated Tunisia's airwaves as voters lined up early in the morning to cast their ballots.
Tunis resident Mariam Touati waited at a polling station in the old Medina area. What's key, she says, are realistic political programs emphasizing education and economic development, and not just idle talk.
Voter Iheb Attia hopes the elections will achieve a national consensus so Tunisia can move forward to prosperity.
Lisa Bryant, for VOA news, Paris.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been reelected to a second term to lead the [country's] world's fifth-largest nation.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, Ms. Rousseff won 51.5 percent of the ballots over her opponent, center-right senator Aecio Neves.
The vote is widely seen as an endorsement of Ms. Rousseff's Workers' Party, which has held the presidency since 2003.
An Egyptian court has convicted 23 young democracy activists of staging an illegal demonstration and sentenced them to three years in prison even in the face of international calls for their release.
The activists were arrested in June for violating a law that bans all but police-sanctioned protests, the part of a continuing crackdown on dissent in Egypt by the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Some of the activists had supported the military's overthrow last year of the democratically elected government of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. But they since have turned against the el-Sissi government with its severe restrictions on street protests.
You can get more news by going to our website at voanews.com.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Saturday, October 25th, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. Boko Haram's release of schoolgirls reportedly will occur. In the U.S., New York City hatchet attack is called a terrorist act. I'm Vincent Bruce reporting from Washington.
According to Reuters news agency, Moussa Mahamat Dago, the number-two official in Chad's Foreign Ministry, says he expects Nigeria's deal with militant group Boko Haram to free more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls will go through despite the apparent breakdown of a cease-fire.
Reuters reports Dago says Nigeria and Boko Haram have verbally agreed to a series of points, including the release of the schoolgirls and of jailed Boko Haram fighters.
No estimate of when that will happen.
New York City's police Commissioner William Bratton is calling Thursday's hatchet attack that wounded two officers an act of terrorism.
Bratton says a search of computers at the home of suspect Zale Thompson uncovered Islamic extremist websites as well as articles about beheadings, the Canadian parliament shooting and the White House intruders.
Police say Thompson had converted to Islam but probably acted on his own.
As the world focuses on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, cholera has sickened thousands and killed dozens in Ghana's capital. Chris Stein has more.
More than 7,000 people have been infected with cholera in Ghana's capital, Accra, since June, fifty-seven of whom died from the disease.
Simpson Boateng, the director of public health for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, says food cooked in unsanitary conditions is mainly to blame for the disease. Overflowing gutters and fetid, open sewers are common across the capital.
Chris Stein, for VOA news, Accra.
Visit us at out website voanews.com 24 hours a day for more on these stories. This is VOA news.
The U.S. military says it has not confirmed reports that Islamic State militants are using chlorine gas bombs against Iraqi security forces in their fight to grab more territory.
A Pentagon spokesman, speaking Friday, said U.S. authorities have seen reports of such attacks in U.S. and Iraq media, but Rear Admiral John Kirby said, "We don't have any indications that they are true in terms of usage and in terms of possession.”
Two U.S. nurses two caught Ebola while caring for a Liberian patient are now virus free, while another U.S. Ebola patient is prompting new quarantine measures in and around New York City.
Nina Pham, a nurse at a Dallas, Texas, hospital that treated the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., was released from a hospital Friday and met with President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama gave a hug to Pham.
Health officials say another Dallas nurse who has been treated for Ebola, Amber Vinson, no longer has detectable levels of the virus.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest indicated Pham's recovery is a testament to the nation's ability to deal with the disease.
"I think this also should be a pretty apt reminder that we do have the best medical infrastructure in the world, and certainly a medical infrastructure that's in place to protect the American public. And the track record of treating Ebola patients in this country is very strong, particularly for those who are quickly diagnosed and admitted through the system.”
Authorities in Egypt say two attacks in the Sinai Peninsula have killed at least 28 security forces in some of the deadliest violence since the military overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi last year.
Officials say at least 25 troops were killed in the first attack. In a second attack, gunmen opened fire on another check point near Al-Arish, the main town in the northern part of the restive peninsula.
Turkey's president says Syrian Kurds and Free Syrian Army fighters are joining forces to defend the [Syrian border of Kobani] Syrian border city of Kobani from Islamic State extremists.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has agreed to allow Syrian rebels to transit through his country, said Friday that a deal had been reached allowing 1,300 moderate Syrian rebels safe passage to the besieged city.
Hong Kong's pro-democracy protest leader say they plan to hold a vote to measure public support for their government reform proposals.
A coalition of protest groups says it will hold the referendum on Sunday at the main downtown protest site.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States is willing to hold denuclearization talks with North Korea.
More on all these stories at our website voanews.com. I'm Vincent Bruce reporting from Washington.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Friday, October 24th, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. Canadian shooter acted alone. Mali reports first Ebola case. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
Canadian authorities say the gunman who shot and killed a Canadian soldier at the War Memorial before he himself was shot and killed in the parliament building acted alone in Wednesday's shooting rampage.
Canadian officials say 32-year-old Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was a Canadian-born citizen who may have also held Libyan citizenship.
They say he recently applied for a Canadian passport and was hoping to travel to Syria.
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his country will be vigilant, but "not run scared" in the face of two attacks this week in Ottawa and near Montreal.
Prime Minister Harper addressed parliament as it reopened Thursday, saying his country will not run scared.
"... and as for the business of government, well, here we are, in our seats, in our chamber in the very heart of our democracy and our work.”
Prime Minister Harper pledged to boost the surveillance and detention powers of security forces.
The lawmakers gave the parliament sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers, a prolonged standing ovation, honoring him for shooting the gunman to death.
The U.S. is continuing its aerial bombardment against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, launching 15 new attacks.
The U.S. Central Command says it carried out nine strikes in Iraq in the last day. The U.S. also hit six targets in Syria, four of them near Kobani.
The West African nation of Mali is reporting its first case of Ebola. Mali's health minister says the patient is a two-year-old girl who was brought to a hospital from neighboring Guinea, one of three countries in the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
In New York City, health care worker who just returned from West Africa was rushed to a hospital after complaining of a high fever and nauseous.
The medical aid group, Doctors Without Borders, says the patient worked in one of the countries affected by the outbreak.
This is VOA news.
The emergency Ebola committee of the World Health Organization is again coming out against bans on travel and trade with countries where the virus is wreaking the greatest havoc. The committee of experts believe this will not stop the spread of Ebola. Lisa Schlein has more from WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The emergency committee emphasized the importance of stopping transmission of Ebola within the three main countries as the best way of preventing further international spread.
The committee rejected calls for a general ban on international travel or trade as being both ineffective and counter productive.
But WHO Director of Global Capacities, Isabelle Nuttall, says the committee stands by its previous recommendation that people who are sick with Ebola or have been in contact with patients in the last 21 days should not leave their countries.
Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva.
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels Thursday earmarked $31 million for further research aimed at developing Ebola virus vaccines and clinical trials.
A bomb exploded at a bus station in northeastern Nigeria. It killed at least five people and wounded 12 others.
There was no claim of responsibility for the blast which hit late Wednesday in Azare, a town in Bauchi state.
A Libyan Army spokesman is calling on young men in the capital, Tripoli, to rise up and help overthrow the Islamist militia coalition controlling the city. Edward Yeranian has details.
Libyans gathered in the capital Tripoli's iconic central square to mark the third anniversary of the fall of long-time strongman Moammar Gadhafi. Celebrations took place Thursday despite the on-again, off-again fighting between Islamist militias and the country's official army.
At the same time, army spokesman Ahmed al Misnari in a TV broadcast called for able-bodied men in the capital to rise up against the Islamist Fajr militia coalition which has ruled the city since routing army forces in August.
Edward Yeranian, Cairo.
Ukraine's prime minister says Russia may try to disrupt elections Sunday in his homeland and that he has ordered a full security mobilization to prevent what he calls possible terrorist attacks.
Arsenic Yatseniuk's comments came Thursday in a meeting in Kyiv with top security chiefs and election monitors.
Moscow denied immediately to respond to the warning.
A group of Chinese scientists says it is testing a virus that could be used to kill cancer cells without harming normal ones.
The virus, known as M1, was extracted from a mosquito found in the southern province of Hainan.
So far, it's only been tested on mice.
Scientists plan to test the virus on monkeys beginning next week.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Friday, October 24th, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. Canadian shooter acted alone. Mali reports first Ebola case. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
Canadian authorities say the gunman who shot and killed a Canadian soldier at the War Memorial before he himself was shot and killed in the parliament building acted alone in Wednesday's shooting rampage.
Canadian officials say 32-year-old Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was a Canadian-born citizen who may have also held Libyan citizenship.
They say he recently applied for a Canadian passport and was hoping to travel to Syria.
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his country will be vigilant, but "not run scared" in the face of two attacks this week in Ottawa and near Montreal.
Prime Minister Harper addressed parliament as it reopened Thursday, saying his country will not run scared.
"... and as for the business of government, well, here we are, in our seats, in our chamber in the very heart of our democracy and our work.”
Prime Minister Harper pledged to boost the surveillance and detention powers of security forces.
The lawmakers gave the parliament sergeant-at-arms, Kevin Vickers, a prolonged standing ovation, honoring him for shooting the gunman to death.
The U.S. is continuing its aerial bombardment against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, launching 15 new attacks.
The U.S. Central Command says it carried out nine strikes in Iraq in the last day. The U.S. also hit six targets in Syria, four of them near Kobani.
The West African nation of Mali is reporting its first case of Ebola. Mali's health minister says the patient is a two-year-old girl who was brought to a hospital from neighboring Guinea, one of three countries in the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
In New York City, health care worker who just returned from West Africa was rushed to a hospital after complaining of a high fever and nauseous.
The medical aid group, Doctors Without Borders, says the patient worked in one of the countries affected by the outbreak.
This is VOA news.
The emergency Ebola committee of the World Health Organization is again coming out against bans on travel and trade with countries where the virus is wreaking the greatest havoc. The committee of experts believe this will not stop the spread of Ebola. Lisa Schlein has more from WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The emergency committee emphasized the importance of stopping transmission of Ebola within the three main countries as the best way of preventing further international spread.
The committee rejected calls for a general ban on international travel or trade as being both ineffective and counter productive.
But WHO Director of Global Capacities, Isabelle Nuttall, says the committee stands by its previous recommendation that people who are sick with Ebola or have been in contact with patients in the last 21 days should not leave their countries.
Lisa Schlein, for VOA news, Geneva.
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels Thursday earmarked $31 million for further research aimed at developing Ebola virus vaccines and clinical trials.
A bomb exploded at a bus station in northeastern Nigeria. It killed at least five people and wounded 12 others.
There was no claim of responsibility for the blast which hit late Wednesday in Azare, a town in Bauchi state.
A Libyan Army spokesman is calling on young men in the capital, Tripoli, to rise up and help overthrow the Islamist militia coalition controlling the city. Edward Yeranian has details.
Libyans gathered in the capital Tripoli's iconic central square to mark the third anniversary of the fall of long-time strongman Moammar Gadhafi. Celebrations took place Thursday despite the on-again, off-again fighting between Islamist militias and the country's official army.
At the same time, army spokesman Ahmed al Misnari in a TV broadcast called for able-bodied men in the capital to rise up against the Islamist Fajr militia coalition which has ruled the city since routing army forces in August.
Edward Yeranian, Cairo.
Ukraine's prime minister says Russia may try to disrupt elections Sunday in his homeland and that he has ordered a full security mobilization to prevent what he calls possible terrorist attacks.
Arsenic Yatseniuk's comments came Thursday in a meeting in Kyiv with top security chiefs and election monitors.
Moscow denied immediately to respond to the warning.
A group of Chinese scientists says it is testing a virus that could be used to kill cancer cells without harming normal ones.
The virus, known as M1, was extracted from a mosquito found in the southern province of Hainan.
So far, it's only been tested on mice.
Scientists plan to test the virus on monkeys beginning next week.
Thanks to http://gandalf.ddo.jp/ for audio and text
Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
From Washington, this is VOA news. Nigeria declared free of Ebola. Turkey helping Iraqi Kurds cross into Syria to aid Kurdish fighters. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting from Washington.
The World Health Organization says Nigeria is free from Ebola after 42 days passed with no new reported cases.
WHO representative Rui Gama calls the development a "success story.”
"But we must be clear that we only won a battle. The war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola.”
Nigeria had 20 cases of Ebola and eight deaths.
Last week, the WHO declared Senegal to be Ebola-free.
In the southwestern U.S. city of Dallas, Texas, Monday, the 21-day quarantine was lifted on 43 people who had contact with the state's first Ebola patient.
But Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings says 120 others who had contact with one of the other Ebola patients are still being watched for signs of the virus.
Turkey says it is helping Iraqi Kurds cross into Syria to aid Kurdish fighters as they fight the advance of Islamic State militants in the town of Kobani.
The announcement Monday by Turkey's foreign minister came as the United States air-dropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies from Kurdish authorities in Iraq to Kurdish forces defending Kobani, just south of the Turkish border.
Al-Qaeda militants have killed at least 18 Shiite rebels in a suicide bomb attack and other attacks near Yemen's capital, Sana'a.
The victims were members of the Houthi movement who had taken over the capital last month.
Most of the rebels were killed in a car bombing that targeted the house of a top local official with the party of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
This is VOA news.
Fierce fighting between Islamist militias and pro-government forces in Benghazi, Libya, killed at least 65 people over the past several days.
Those clashes have sent thousands of residents fleeing.
A Libyan militant pleaded not guilty in a U.S. federal court to charges linked to the September 11th, 2012, attacks in Benghazi that killed four American citizens, including the U.S. ambassador.
Ahmed Abu Khattala entered a not guilty plea Monday. He is charged with 18 counts, including murder of an "internationally protected person" and killing a person during an attack on a federal facility. Some of the charges carry the death penalty.
Khattala is the first suspect to be charged in the Benghazi attacks.
The cease-fire deal announced by the Nigerian government last week appears to be coming apart. VOA's Anne Look reports.
Residents of Borno state say that since the cease-fire was announced Friday, militants have attacked several communities, killing at least 40 people and hoisting their black flag over the border town of Abadam.
The government said those attacks were the work of "fringe groups" who hadn't yet gotten word of the cease-fire.
However, a member of a civilian militia group allied with the government and an army officer in Borno state told VOA that on Sunday night Boko Haram militants stormed the town of Damboa. A state intelligence official in Borno told VOA the army drove back the attack.
The fighting casts even further doubt on the cease-fire.
Anne Look, Abuja.
Russia is suspending the import of a number of meat products from the European Union. It is a widening of its restrictions on food products from Europe and the United States that Russia imposed early this year in response to Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine.
Hong Kong's pro-democracy leaders have strongly denied claims by the city's chief executive that the weeks of mass rallies are being orchestrated by "foreign forces.”
The secretary-general of the Hong Kong Federation of Students, Alex Chow, rejected Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's allegations Monday, saying the city chief is, in his words, "just making it all up.”
Hong Kong's government is expected to open talks with student demonstrators Tuesday.
Indonesia's new president, Joko Widodo, took the oath of office Monday in the capital, Jakarta.
He is the first elected president of Indonesia with no ties to the country's political or military elite.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attended the inauguration.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, will be holding its next parliamentary elections in late October or early November of next year.
This will be Myanmar's second general election since the country began to emerge from decades of military rule in 2011.
The next parliament is expected to choose the country's next president in early 2016.
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