A San Francisco Bay Area city  official wants to explore the possibility of using a cruise ship to house up to 1,000 homeless people amid a high cost of living and a shortage of housing. Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan told a council meeting Tuesday that the ship would be brought to the Port of Oakland, but port officials said Wednesday the move would be “untenable.” “We respect President Kaplan’s desire to address homelessness but Port of Oakland docks are designed to work cargo ships, there isn’t the infrastructure to berth a cruise ship,” port spokesman Mike Zampa said. FILE – Then-Oakland mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan poses for photos in Oakland, Calif., Oct. 29, 2014. The port is among the 10 busiest in the nation and safety and security issues in the federally regulated facilities “would make residential uses untenable,” Zampa said. Kaplan didn’t immediately return a request for further comment from The Associated Press. Kaplan said she has been contacted by cruise ship companies about providing a ship for emergency housing, and that the companies were reaching out to the Port of Oakland about what options exist to park a ship at the port, the San Francisco Chronicle …

North Korea’s ballistic missile tests have been “deeply counterproductive” and risk closing the door on prospects for negotiating peace, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft said Wednesday. She told the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. is “prepared to be flexible” and remains ready to take concrete, parallel steps with North Korea toward an agreement. But “its continued ballistic missile testing is deeply counterproductive to the shared objectives” that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have discussed at their two summits, Craft said. FILE – In this June 30, 2019, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, right, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea. North Korea has carried out 13 ballistic missile launches since May. “These actions also risk closing the door on this opportunity to find a better way for the future,” Craft said. The tests violate Security Council resolutions, she said, as some other council members have previously. She said the U.S. trusts that North Korea will stop “further hostility and threats” and engage with Washington. But if not, she said the Security Council must be “prepared to act accordingly.” North Korea was …

U.S. lawmakers and military leaders sparred Wednesday over the U.S. decision in October to pull troops out of northern Syria amid the threat of a Turkish offensive.    “The American handshake has to mean something,” Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat and former Defense Department official who has been outspoken against the U.S. move, told Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley.    The U.S. decision to withdraw troops from the area cleared the way for NATO ally Turkey to invade a region of Syria controlled by another U.S. ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes Kurdish fighters denounced by Ankara as terrorists.    Officials estimate that hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes because of the Turkish incursion. Kurdish fighters, who had been key in helping the U.S. fight the Islamic State terror group, were also left open to attack.  Turkish buildup   Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on U.S. military policy in Syria, Milley said Wednesday that he “personally recommended to pull out 28 special forces soldiers” from northern Syria “in the face of 15,000 Turks.” He said intelligence had shown considerable buildup of Turkish forces on the Syrian border since early August.    “I’m …

Noor Alexandria Abukaram, a 16-year-old runner living in the U.S. state of Ohio, was recently disqualified from a race because she wore a hijab. Now, Abukaram is fighting to get the rules changed. VOA’s Mohammad Jafar Haand visited the runner in her hometown and filed this report.  …

Russia’s foreign minister is back in Washington to discuss nuclear arms control, the wars in Syria and Ukraine, as well the continuing controversy over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Patsy Widakuswara reports from the White House, where Sergei Lavrov met with President Donald Trump.   …

To environmentalists, palm oil is a scourge that causes profit-seeking corporations to burn forestland for planting, thereby polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. To Indonesian farmers, the commodity is a lifeline to support their families and less polluting than some of the alternatives. FILE – An aerial view of forest fire burning next to oil palm plantation at Kumpeh Ulu district in Muarojambi, Indonesia, in this photo taken by Antara Foto. The opposing sentiments have caused Indonesia to lock horns with the European Union, which wants to purchase less of the oil. However EU companies still want to do business in the archipelago nation so they are laboring to improve the relationship despite the oily argument. Last month the EU ASEAN Business Council and European Chamber of Commerce met with President Joko Widodo, celebrating the fact that they were the first foreign chambers to have such a conference with the newly-reelected president. The organizations have companies all across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “We continue to encourage both the European Commission and the countries in ASEAN to have a constructive dialogue on this issue in order to resolve the misconceptions on both sides,” Chris Humphrey, executive director of the …

 A group of international law enforcement experts recruited by Hong Kong’s police watchdog unit have quit, citing concerns about the unit’s independence. In a statement issued Wednesday announcing their resignations, the experts said there was a “crucial shortfall” in the “powers, capacity and independent investigative capability” of the Independent Police Complaints Council. The experts from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were brought in to advise the council in its investigation of police actions since mass demonstrations first broke out in June over a proposed bill that would have sent individuals to mainland China to stand trial.  The demonstrations have become increasingly violent as they have evolved into demands for full democracy for Hong Kong, riot police firing rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas at angry protesters. The demonstrators have also demanded an independent inquiry into possible use of excessive force by police — an idea rejected by embattled chief executive Carrie Lam.   Pro-democracy legislator Tanya Chan called the mass exodus by the international experts as “a vote of no-confidence” in the IPCC’s upcoming report on allegations of police misconduct.     …

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the minimum retirement age will remain 62, but workers will have to work until 64 to get a full pension.  In a sweeping speech Wednesday, he said the implementation of the pension changes will be delayed. The new pension system will only apply to people born after 1975.  The measures will start being implemented for new workers entering the labor market in 2022, which is the final year of President Emmanuel Macron’s current term. The government says a minimum pension of 1,000 euros (about $1,100) per month will be put in place for those who have worked all their life. The government’s announcements come on the seventh straight day of a crippling transport strike and after hundreds of thousands of angry protesters have marched through French cities.  The government is hoping that the plan might calm tensions as hundreds of thousands of angry protesters have marched through French cities.  On Wednesday in the Paris region, authorities measured around 460 kilometers (285 miles) of traffic jams, and all but two of the city’s metro lines closed. Commuters also used means other than cars to get to work, such as shared bikes and scooters. Many French …

With fewer than 24 hours to go until the ballot boxes open in Britain for the general election, the latest polling shows a sharp drop in support for the ruling Conservatives. While most polls still suggest Prime Minister Boris Johnson will win a majority — it’s by no means certain that he’ll still be in 10 Downing Street after the election. Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined an early morning milk round in the northern city of Leeds Wednesday.  Johnson’s Conservatives are hoping to make gains in these northern seats — that were once safe opposition Labour seats  but which voted strongly for Brexit. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson drives a JCB through a symbolic wall with the Conservative Party slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’ in the digger bucket, during an election campaign event at the JCB manufacturing facility in Uttoxeter, England. “We can get Brexit done. We are ready to go,” he said.  But with fewer than 24 hours to go the latest polling has checked Johnson’s momentum. One of the largest surveys involving over 100,000 voters predicts a Conservative majority of 28 MPs — down sharply from two weeks ago. And the margin of error means a hung parliament, with no one party gaining …

Israel is on its way to a third general election in the span of a year as the leaders of the two biggest parties in parliament remain unable to bring together a governing majority. Members of parliament gave preliminary approval to a dissolution measure Wednesday, and are expected to finalize the process through several other rounds of voting throughout the day. That would set a new election for March 2. FILE – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Cabinet Secretary Tzahi Braverman attend the weekly Cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, Dec. 1, 2019. Voters cast ballots in April and September, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and former military chief Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party ended up nearly deadlocked with neither having enough seats for a majority. After both elections, both party leaders were given a chance to try to form a coalition, but failed. Recent opinion polls suggest the situation will be similar for the March election with support for the two parties remaining about the same. Netanyahu and Gantz have blamed each other for the inability to find a solution. One possibility under discussion was an agreement between the parties to get together …

Bougainville has taken a major step towards becoming the world’s newest nation by voting overwhelmingly for independence from Papua New Guinea.   Bertie Ahern, the former Irish prime minister and head of the Bougainville Referendum Commission, announced Wednesday that 98 percent of the more than 180,000 votes cast in the two-week referendum favored breaking away from Port Moresby.  Voters also had the choice of greater autonomy from Papua New Guinea. The non-binding referendum was part of the 2001 peace agreement that formally ended the 1988-98 civil war between Bougainville rebels and Papua New Guinea security forces over revenues from a lucrative copper mine in the town of Panguna. The conflict left between 15-20,000 people dead.   With the referendum decided, leaders of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea will enter into negotiations over the timetable for independence. The issue will then be taken up by Papua New Guinea’s legislature, which could take years to ratify any agreement.   …

Formula 1 car racing will debut next year in Vietnam as the fast-growing host country tries to attract high-end tourism and its own moneyed citizens take an ever keener interest in sports. A racing circuit is due for completion next month in the capital Hanoi, Formula 1 says on its website. In April, the international car racing event will hold the country’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix. The race’s arrival in Vietnam, a country racked by widespread poverty and the aftershocks of war 40 years ago, shows that many people have the money as well as the interest to buy tickets and the goods sold by event sponsors, country analysts say. Hosting Formula 1 races is also expected to stimulate more tourism. “It’s probably one of the strategies of the government to increase value-added tourism and also to brand the tourism economy in a better way, and then of course Vietnam’s own more upper middle class population would be interested in these types of events,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at market research firm IHS Markit. The Vietnam Grand Prix circuit will extend 5.6 kilometers, 1.5 kilometers of which will be straight. It will allow speeds of about 335 …

The U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general is due to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his report that found no evidence of political bias in the FBI’s launching of its investigation into Russian election interference. Michael Horowitz issued the report Monday with findings that amounted to a rejection of President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that the FBI probe was a political witch hunt to undo his presidency. Trump nonetheless asserted that the report confirmed an “attempted overthrow” of the government far worse than he had ever thought possible. The president on Tuesday criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray for saying in an interview with ABC News that the investigation “was opened with appropriate predication and authorization.” Wray also noted Horowitz found the FBI made numerous mistakes during its inquiry. “I don’t know what report the current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but I’m sure it wasn’t the one given to me,” Trump tweeted.  “With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!” I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, …

A powerful bomb-and-gun attack on the largest American military base in Afghanistan early Wednesday injured dozens of people, mostly civilians. Afghan military authorities said a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed vehicle in front of the gate of an unused hospital almost adjacent to the Bagram Airfield in Parwan province. Four gunmen later entered the vacant health facility before foreign forces engaged them in a gunfight, Alozai Ahmadi, the commander of the Parwan coordination center, told VOA. A spokesman for the NATO-led Resolute Support military mission confirmed the attack on the medical facility. “The attack was quickly contained and repelled by our ANDSF (Afghan National Defense and Security) and coalition partners, but the future medical facility was badly damaged. There were no U.S. or coalition casualties and Bagram remained secure throughout the attack,” he said. Ahmadi said the casualties occurred in the nearby civilian population because the powerful car bomb explosion shattered houses there. He said more than 50 people, including women and children, were injured. Ahmadi said the hospital was built by the Korean government but it had not been in use for four years due to security reasons. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack, though …

Leading House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, accusing him of abusing his office for personal political gain and obstructing the congressional impeachment inquiry. It was only the fourth time in the 243-year history of the United States that impeachment charges have been brought against an American leader, although Trump’s removal from office remains unlikely. House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, head of the panel that will first consider the impeachment articles, contended that Trump “sees himself as above the law.” Nadler alleged that Trump threatened U.S. national security by withholding key military aid to Ukraine. He said the president threatened the integrity of the 2020 election, in which he is seeking a second term in office, and sought to block congressional review of his actions. “He consistently puts himself above the country,” Nadler said. Democrats unveil articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, Dec. 10, 2019. Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who led the weeks-long impeachment inquiry against Trump, called the allegations against the U.S. leader “overwhelming and uncontested.” But Trump has said he did nothing wrong and none of his Republican supporters in Congress has called for his impeachment and removal …

The number of journalists imprisoned globally remains near a record high, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which identifies China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as the world’s largest jailers of reporters. “For the fourth consecutive year, hundreds of journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammad bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media,” says A Turkish police officer walks past a picture of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi prior to a ceremony, near the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, marking the one-year anniversary of his death, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. The growing number of arrests and documented abuse, say CPJ researchers, reflect a brutal crackdown on dissent under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom U.S. and UN officials blame for the October 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Istanbul. The crown prince told CBS News’s “60 Minutes” in September accepted responsibility for Kashoggi’s murder, but denied that it was done on his order.  Most of the 26 reporters currently imprisoned in Egypt, CPJ reports, are prosecuted en masse, brought …

The Afghan government, claiming progress in the ongoing war against militants, is downplaying The Washington Post’s recent report that said U.S. officials made overly optimistic statements about the war that they knew to be false. The Washington Post this week published a trove of government documents, revealing that U.S. officials made false statements and hid evidence about the years long conflict. Fawad Aman, a spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, downplayed the Post report, telling VOA Tuesday that the Afghan forces have made tremendous progress in fighting the militants. “If we have a comparative glance at the war in Afghanistan, we have had tremendous progress in the past two years,” Aman told VOA. “For instance, we destroyed IS-K (Islamic State-Khurasan) in eastern Afghanistan. In addition, due to our military operations, Taliban suffered many casualties this year. Taliban’s offensive capabilities have been taken away from them. We are progressing well and Afghan security forces are making progress and we are optimistic about the future,” he added. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has denied intentionally misleading the public about the war in Afghanistan. “There has been no intent by DoD (Department of Defense) to mislead Congress or the public,” Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. …

Venite Bernard’s feet are bloodied and torn because, she said, she had no time to grab her sandals when she fled her shack with her youngest children as gangsters roamed the Haitian capital’s most notorious slum, shooting people in their homes. Now the 47-year-old Bernard and her family are camped in the courtyard of the town hall of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, along with more than 200 others, fleeing an outbreak of violence that is part of what civic leaders say is the country’s worst lawlessness in more than a decade. “Bandits entered the homes of some people and beat them, and they were shooting,” Bernard said through her tears, lying on a rug in the shade of a tree. “Everyone was running so I left as quickly as I could with the children.” United Nations peacekeeping troops withdrew from Haiti in 2017 after 15 years, saying they had helped to re-establish law and order in the poorest country in the Americas, where nearly 60 percent of the population survives on less than $2.40 a day. But that left a security vacuum that has been exacerbated over the past year by police forces being diverted to deal with protests against …

A look at the history, facts and timeline of the war in Afghanistan. …

Lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer have won a court battle after a judge asked Canada’s attorney general to hand over more evidence and documents relating to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, according to a court ruling released Tuesday. Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes in the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s legal team that there is an “air of reality” to their assertion. FILE – A logo of Huawei marks one of the company’s buildings in Dongguan, in China’s Guangdong province, March 6, 2019. But she cautioned that her ruling is limited and does not address the merit of Huawei’s allegations that Canadian authorities improperly handled identifying information about Meng’s electronic devices. Meng, 47, was arrested at the Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of the United States, where she is charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading the bank HSBC about Huawei Technologies’ business in Iran. She has said she is innocent and is fighting extradition. She was questioned by Canadian immigration authorities prior to her arrest, and her lawyers have asked the government to hand over more documents about her arrest. Meng’s legal team has contested her …

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that House Democrats have reached agreement with the Trump administration on a new and revised North American trade deal now known as United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA. The agreement on the pact’s final terms came after more than two years of talks, that also included Canada and Mexico, to revise the original free trade accord, known as NAFTA. Pelosi’s announcement came on the same day that democratic lawmakers announced articles of impeachment against President Trump. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports. …

Somali Security forces have shot to death five attackers who officials said were behind a raid Tuesday evening on an upscale hotel near the presidential palace, officials said. At least five people were killed in the attack and scores rescued, officials said. Among those killed is a former judge and three security personnel who died during the firefight with the militants. Somali government spokesman Ismael Mukhtar Omar confirmed on Twitter that all five suspects were killed and the operation is “concluded.” The standoff lasted seven hours as security forces engaged the militants inside the two-story hotel. It’s the third time militants have raided the same hotel in recent years. Police earlier rescued 82 people from the hotel. At least two lawmakers suffered minor injuries. Witness to attack Abdirahman Omar Jeeni-Qaar, former commander of the Somali army’s special forces, was at the hotel when the militants opened fire. He told VOA that about five assailants arrived at the hotel on foot just before 7 p.m. local time. Some of the militants fired on security forces guarding the nearby presidential palace, presumably as a distraction while others entered the hotel, he said. Jeeni-Qaar said he saw two of the attackers wearing the …

  LONDON — Myanmar’s state counsellor, the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, appeared at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Tuesday to defend her government against accusations of genocide. Myanmar’s military is accused of conducting a campaign of mass killings, rape and torture against the country’s Rohingya Muslim community in 2017, forcing more than 700,000 to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Aung San Suu Kyi was held under house arrest for 15 years until 2010, but she is now defending the military that once imprisoned her. Almost 28 years to the day since she won the Nobel Peace Prize, the state counsellor listened as lawyers for Gambia, which brought the case against Myanmar, began to detail the alleged acts of genocide. “One witness recounted, ‘The soldiers killed the male members of my family. They shot them first and then slit their throats. The courtyard was full of blood,’” lawyer Andrew Loewenstein told the court. “‘They killed my husband, my father-in-law and my two nephews of 15 and 8 years old. They even killed the child in the same way.’” FILE – Rohingya Muslims wait to cross the border to Bangladesh, in a temporary camp outside Maungdaw, northern …

A police officer and multiple other people were killed in a furious gunbattle Tuesday that filled the streets of Jersey City with the sound of heavy gunfire for about an hour, authorities said. Authorities said they believe the shootout was not an act of terrorism, but the bloodshed was still under investigation. Officials gave no immediate details on what set off the shooting and how it unfolded, and there was no word on how many suspects were involved or whether anyone had been taken into custody. One officer was pronounced dead at a hospital, and multiple other people were found dead at a kosher supermarket, Mayor Steven Fulop said without specifying how many were killed. A second officer was struck in the shoulder by gunfire, and two others were hit by shrapnel, Fulop said. The shooting spread fear through the neighborhood, and the nearby Sacred Heart School was put on lockdown as a precaution. The bullets started flying early in the afternoon in the city of about 270,000 people, situated across the Hudson River from the Statue of Liberty.  SWAT teams, state police and federal agents converged on the scene, and police blocked off the area, which in addition to …