VOA News for Tuesday, October 8th, 2019
This is VOA news.
I’m Michael Brown.
President Trump is hearing strong pushback from Capitol Hill after his sudden decision to pull back US troops in northern Syria.
AP Washington correspondent Sager Magani reports.
The move essentially abandoned Syrian Kurd fighters who were among the best US allies against Islamic State militants.
Turkey sees them as “terrorists” and the President's move frees Turkish forces to attack the Kurds.
He's warning Turkey not to go too far but sees his move as fulfilling a campaign pledge to bring American troops home from endless war.
“There has to be an endgame,” and says the US has done its job- “We defeated ISIS-” but he's facing unusually strong criticism from Republican allies like Lindsey Graham.
“ISIS is not defeated, my friend-” who tells Fox and Friends this all but invites the militants to return.
Other Republicans call the President's decision a catastrophic mistake and a disaster.
Sager Magani, at the White House.
3 Democratic committees are demanding the Defense Secretary and Office of Budget and Management acting-Director, turn over the documents by October 15th.
Democrats are investigating President Trump's actions of pressing Ukraine to investigate his democratic rival Joe Biden and his son hunter. Part of the investigation includes examining whether or not Trump's decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine was tied to his request for Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens.
Trump has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
A 2nd US intelligence whistle-blower has also come forward with the complaint about actions of the Trump administration. Meantime, the impeachment inquiry is moving forward this week, with 2 Congressional committees said to hear testimony from several important figures.
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From here in Washington, this is VOA news. Police clashed with protesters in Hong Kong Monday in another night of unres.
Earlier in the day 2 protesters were charged with violating Hong Kong's new ban on wearing masks at rallies.
The mask ban has led to more anger with rallies and widespread violence over the last 3 days.
Police said the public order of the whole city is being pushed to the verge of a very dangerous situation.
Protesters are upset at what they say is Beijing's increasing influence over Hong Kong, which was promised a high level of autonomy when it returned to Chinese rule- Chinese rule that is- back in 1997. Ethopian Airlines former chief engineer filed a whistle-blower complaint on the March crash of a Boeing Max jet.
Get more the story from AP correspondent Mike Grassio.
A former top employee of Ethiopian airlines has filed a whistle-blower complaint with regulators in which he says someone got into maintenance records that should have been locked 1 day after the March crash of a Boeing 737 MAX jet that killed all 157 people on board.
Yonas Yeshanew, resigned as Ethiopian airlines chief engineer this summer.
He's seeking asylum in the United States, in part, because he says speaking out against the government owned airline can lead to imprisonment.
“if you are in jail mean you will be beaten- you will be tortured.” Yeshanew also tells the Associated Press Ethiopian Airlines mechanics are overworked and pressed to take short cuts and pilots fly on too little rest and not enough training.
I’m Mike Grassio.
A bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 10 people including a child on Monday.
An Afghan official says the attack targeted a mini-bus carrying new army recruits.
The official says the attack in Jalalabad city wounded some 27 others. US utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric(PG&E) said it may be forced to cut power to most of northern California later this week in order to prevent wildfires.
The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather warning. PG&E is exercising extreme caution after its power line sparked a blaze that destroyed nearly !19,000 buildings, killed 85 people and ravaged the town of Paradise last year.
Last month the company paid some !$11,000.000,000 to insurance companies for claims stemming from wild fires sparked by its equipment back in 2017-2018, including the one in Paradise.
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From here in Washington, I'm Michael Brown, VOA news.
