Iran’s president said on Sunday his country will depend less on oil revenue next year, in a new budget that is designed to resist crippling U.S. trade embargoes. Iran is in the grips of an economic crisis. The U.S. re-imposed sanctions that block Iran from selling its crude oil abroad, following President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “The budget sends a message to the world that despite the sanctions, we will manage the country,” President Hassan Rouhani told the opening session of Parliament. The proposed budget will counter “maximum pressure and sanctions” by the U.S., he said. Rouhani added that the Iranian government will also benefit from a $5 billion loan from Russia that’s being finalized.  He said the U.S. and Israel will remain “hopeless” despite their goal of weakening Iran through sanctions. The budget aimed at giving more relief and “removing difficulties” for poor people by heavily subsiding food and medical needs, he stated. The next Iranian fiscal year begins March 20, with the advent of the Persian New Year. The budget is set to be about $40 billion, some 10% higher than in 2019. The increase comes as the country is …

President Donald Trump said Saturday that Israel has never had a better friend in the White House than him because, unlike his predecessors, “I kept my promises.” Trump energized an audience that numbered in the hundreds at the Israeli American Council National Summit in Florida by recounting his record on issues of importance to Jews, including an extensive riff on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and relocate the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv. Trump said his predecessors only paid lip service to the issue. “They never had any intention of doing it, in my opinion,” Trump said. “But unlike other presidents, I kept my promises.” Trump also highlighted his decision to reverse more than a half-century of U.S. policy in the Middle East by recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the strategic highlands on the border with Syria. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war but its sovereignty over the territory had not been recognized by the international community. In his speech, the president also claimed there are some Jewish people in America who don’t love Israel enough. “We have to get the people of our country, of this …

Myanmar leader and Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi  departed on Sunday for the U.N.’s top court in The Hague to defend the country against charges of genocide of its Rohingya Muslim minority. Suu Kyi was pictured smiling as she walked through the airport in the nation’s capital, Naypyitaw, flanked by officials, a day after thousands rallied in the city to support her and a prayer ceremony was held in her name. Crowds are expected to gather again in the afternoon to send off several dozen supporters who will travel to The Hague in the Netherlands and demonstrations are planned throughout the coming week, with hearings set for Dec. 10 to 12. Gambia, a tiny, mainly Muslim West African country, filed a lawsuit in November accusing Buddhist-majority Myanmar of genocide, the most serious international crime, against its Rohingya Muslim minority. During three days of hearings, it will ask the 16-member panel of U.N judges at the International Criminal Court of Justice to impose “provisional measures” to protect the Rohingya before the case can be heard in full. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar in 2017 after a brutal military-led crackdown the U.N has said was executed with “genocidal …

The FBI has officially identified the shooter at the U.S. naval base in Pensacola, Florida who shot and killed three people Friday. The shooter was Mohammed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the Royal Saudi Air Force who was a student naval flight officer at the Naval Aviation Schools Command at Naval Air Station Pensacola.  The FBI has not determined a motive for Alshamrani’s rampage.   The victims were also students at the flight school.  They have been identified as Ensign Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, from Coffee, Alabama; Airman Mohammed Sameh Haitham, 19, from St. Petersburg, Florida; and Airman Apprentice Cameron Scott Walters, 21, from Richmond Hill, Georgia. “The sorrow from the tragic event on NAS Pensacola will have a lasting impact on our installation and community,” Captain Tim Kinsella, the commanding officer of the naval base said in a statement. Eight people were wounded in the shooting naval base, officials say. The shooter, who was also killed in the incident, is reported to have hosted a dinner party earlier in the week where he showed videos of mass U.S. shootings to his guests, according to media reports. At least one of his guests is reported to have videotaped Friday’s …

Marchers are again expected to fill Hong Kong streets in a rally Sunday that will test the enduring appeal of the city’s protest movement marking a half year of demonstrations. Police granted approval for the march, which could boost participant numbers. The rally was called by the Civil Human Rights Front, a group that has organized some of the biggest demonstrations since hundreds of thousands of protesters first marched on June 9. That rally protested now-withdrawn government proposals that would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts in mainland China. The movement has snowballed from there into a sustained challenge to the government of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory and communist leaders in Beijing.   …

At least 35 people have died in a factory fire in India’s capital New Delhi, with the toll still expected to rise, police told AFP Sunday. The blaze broke out in the early hours in the city’s old quarter, whose narrow and congested lanes are lined with many small manufacturing and storage units. “We… have since rescued at least 50 people,” Sunil Choudhary, New Delhi’s deputy chief fire officer, told AFP. They were “laborers and factory workers sleeping inside this four- or five-storied building,” he said, adding that the fire had been extinguished but rescue operations were ongoing. A senior Delhi police official said eight or nine people were carried out later, bringing the overall number rescued to at least 58. Fire officials said it was very difficult to access the dark, poorly lit premises in the commercial hub of Sadar Bazar. Local news channels aired footage of firemen carrying people out of the narrow lanes to nearby emergency vehicles. The building was filled with school bags and packing material, fire officials said, but cautioned they were still unsure about the cause of the blaze. “All the rescued persons were rushed to the nearby local hospitals, which have already confirmed …

With its top leader absent, the party of Evo Morales gathered Saturday in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba to start choosing its candidates for new elections called after the resignation and exile of the former president amid protests over vote results. Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party is divided almost three weeks after Bolivia’s first indigenous president, prompted by the military and nationwide protests, left for political asylum in Mexico saying he was the victim of a coup d’etat. Critics of the long-ruling leader say he used fraud to win a fourth straight term in office in the Oct. 20 vote. “Evo is not alone”, shouted party militants, mostly from social and indigenous organizations, in a Cochabamba coliseum. The date for the new elections has not yet been set. Morales, who is currently in Cuba for a medical appointment, said via Twitter that “today the people are uniting, organizing and mobilizing to recover democracy and continue the process of change.” MAS president Rimer Agreda said the gathered delegates will vote to punish members who betrayed the party, apparently referring to party members who didn’t back Morales. “We have to give a punishment vote to all (those) who are at …

Iran will unveil a new generation of uranium enrichment centrifuges, the deputy head of Iran’s nuclear agency Ali Asghar Zarean told state TV on Saturday.    “In the near future we will unveil a new generation of centrifuges that are domestically made,” said Zarean, without elaborating.    In September, Iran said it had started developing centrifuges to speed up the enrichment of uranium as part of steps to reduce compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal following the withdrawal of the United States. …

The prospect of Russian interference in Britain’s election flared anew Saturday after the social media platform Reddit concluded that people from Russia had leaked confidential British government documents on Brexit trade talks just days before the general U.K. vote.  Reddit said in a statement that it had banned 61 accounts suspected of violating policies against vote manipulation. It said the suspect accounts shared the same pattern of activity as a Russian interference operation dubbed “Secondary Infektion“ that was uncovered earlier this year.   Reddit investigated the leak after the documents became public during the campaign for Thursday’s election, which will determine the country’s future relationship with the European Union. All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs.  Reddit said it believed the documents were leaked as “part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia.“  “We were able to confirm that they did indeed show a pattern of coordination,” Reddit said.  The British government has not challenged the authenticity of the documents.  FILE – Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson sits on a train in London, Dec. 6, 2019, on the campaign trail ahead of the general election on Dec. 12. Britain’s main opposition party has argued …

North Korea said Sunday that it had carried out a “very important test” at its long-range rocket launch site. The Korean Central News Agency said the test was conducted at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground on Saturday afternoon. It said the result of the test was reported to the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party. The test results will have “an important effect on changing the strategic position of [North Korea] once again in the near future,” the agency reported.  The report didn’t say what the test entailed. But media reports said a new satellite image indicated North Korea might be preparing to resume testing engines used to power satellite launchers at the site. The reported test came as North Korea is stepping up pressure on the U.S. to make concessions in stalled nuclear talks. The U.N. bans North Korea from launching satellites because it is considered a test of long-range missile technology. After repeated failures, North Korea successfully put a satellite into orbit for the first time in 2012 in a launch from the same site. North Korea had another successful satellite launch in 2016.  …

As reports about the threat of far-right recruitment among Europe’s law enforcement and military grow, German armed forces, or Bundeswehr, told VOA that they are working to keep far-right extremists away from their units or to remove them once they have been identified.    A spokesperson for the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) told VOA the military was expanding its cooperation with German security authorities and international partners to analyze links and connections of suspected right-wing extremists to try to expose them.    “There is no place whatsoever for extremists in any form, but especially right-wing extremists, in the Bundeswehr with its over 250,000 members,” the MAD spokesman, who did not wish to be named, said.    He said the military has taken several approaches to prevent infiltration by far-right extremists, including carrying out 16,000 security checks annually for all its applicants.    “We also take other preventive measures, aiming to encourage an improved reporting culture within the units through advisories, talks and our own publications,” the spokesperson added.  FILE – Members of the German army’s special forces secure an area while demonstrating their skills in training in Claw, near Stuttgart, July 14, 2014. German media Sunday reported that the Bundeswehr had suspended an officer of its elite …

U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has been a leading voice defending President Donald Trump throughout the congressional Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.    But the 300-page impeachment report released Tuesday by the Democratic majority on the Intelligence Committee revealed that the California congressman has connections to the Trump-Ukraine scandal that have raised questions about his own official conduct.    House Democrats obtained phone records of Nunes’ calls with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who Democratic investigators say led a shadow effort to subvert U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine in a manner that would benefit the president’s own political interests in the 2020 election campaign.    Logs show five calls between Giuliani and Nunes on April 10, 2019. Two of those were missed calls and the longest was almost 3 minutes in duration. The phone calls occurred at a time when Giuliani has been accused of waging a smear campaign to oust U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as part of an effort to clear the way for pressuring the Ukrainian government to announce investigations of one of Trump’s leading political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter.   FILE – Rudy Giuliani is seen with Ukrainian American businessman …

The Israeli military said Saturday that three rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel.    The military said air defenses had intercepted two of the missiles.    There were no reports of injuries, and no Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the rocket fire.    Cross-border violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza has ebbed and flowed in recent years. Fighting last month was the most violent in months.    Leaders from Hamas, the militant group ruling Gaza, and the smaller but more radical Islamic Jihad are in Cairo, talking with Egyptian officials about cementing a cease-fire.  …

U.S. Democratic lawmakers met privately Saturday to work on the investigation into President Donald Trump, inching closer to an impeachment vote, possibly before the Christmas holiday recess.    Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee were working through the weekend to review evidence against the Republican president and to draft charges that they could recommend for a full House vote as early as Thursday.    The legislators disclosed a 55-page report Saturday that outlined what they viewed as the constitutional grounds on which the charges, known as articles of impeachment, could be based.    On Friday, the White House said it would not cooperate with the remaining House impeachment proceedings against Trump.   FILE – White House counsel Pat Cipollone, center, arrives for a speech by President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House, May 16, 2019. “As you know, your impeachment inquiry is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness,” read a letter from Pat Cipollone, counsel to the president, addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler.    The response was issued less than an hour before a Friday afternoon deadline for lawyers of the president to state whether they would represent him in the next round of the …

Airstrikes on areas in the last major rebel stronghold in northwest Syria on Saturday killed at least 18 people, including women and children, and wounded others as a three-month truce crumbles, opposition activists said.    The airstrikes on Idlib province have intensified over the past few weeks as the government appears to be preparing for an offensive on rebel-held areas east of the province to secure the main highway that links the capital Damascus with the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest and once a commercial center.    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 people were killed in Idlib province while the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense said 18 lost their lives.    The largest number of casualties occurred in the village of Balyoun, where the Civil Defense said eight people were killed while the Observatory said nine died. Both groups also said that four people, including a child and two women, were killed in airstrikes on the rebel-held village of Bara.    Both groups also said that five others were killed in the village of Ibdeita. The Civil Defense said another child was killed in a nearby village in Idlib while the Observatory had two more.    Conflicting …

The Saudi student who fatally shot three people at a U.S. naval base in Florida hosted a dinner party earlier in the week where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Saturday. One of the three students who attended the dinner party videotaped outside the building while the shooting was taking place at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday, said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity after being briefed by federal authorities. Two other Saudi students watched from a car, the official said. The official said 10 Saudi students were being held on the base Saturday while several others were unaccounted for. U.S. officials had previously told the AP they were investigating possible links to terrorism. The student opened fire in a classroom at the base Friday morning, killing three people. A U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity on Friday identified the shooter as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The official also said the FBI was examining social media posts and investigating whether he acted alone or was connected to any broader group. The …

France’s most serious nationwide work stoppage in decades frustrated weekend travelers Saturday as truckers blocked thoroughfares and vital transportation services continued to operate far below normal capacity. Concern that President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed pension overhaul would force millions of people to work longer or face less lucrative benefits triggered the union-led strike on Thursday, bringing much of the country to a halt. Truckers blocked roads Saturday in about 10 regions in France to protest a proposed tax hike on diesel fuel for commercial vehicles. Yellow vest protesters, who have taken to the streets on Saturdays over the past year to voice frustration over the high cost of living in France, sought to capitalize on the nationwide strike. Several hundred of them launched a new protest Saturday in Paris and they scuffled with police in the city’s Left Bank district. Travel in France remained problematic Saturday, with only one in 10 regional trains running and one out of six high-speed TGV trains operating. Air travel was returning closer to normal after authorities dropped travel restrictions. More than 800,000 people participated in the first day of demonstrations on Thursday. In response to what they see as an attack on hard-won worker rights, …

More than 2,000 people are expected at a ceremony Saturday to remember those killed when Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor 78 years ago and launched the U.S. into World War II. Organizers of the public event at the Hawaii naval base say attendees will include about a dozen survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, the youngest of whom are now in their late 90s. A moment of silence is scheduled for 7:55 a.m., the same minute the assault began. U.S. Air Force fighter jets flying overhead in missing man formation will break the quiet. Retired Navy Adm. Harry Harris, currently the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, is due to deliver remarks, along with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. The ceremony comes on the heels of two deadly shootings at Navy bases this week, one at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and another at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. A Pearl Harbor National Memorial spokesman said security will be beefed up as usual for the annual event. The 1941 aerial assault killed more than 2,300 U.S. troops. Nearly half — or 1,177 — were Marines and sailors serving on the USS Arizona, a battleship moored in the harbor. The vessel …

An armed drone targeted the home of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr on Saturday, hours after his supporters deployed in Baghdad in response to an attack that left 17 protesters dead. The developments marked a worrying turn for the anti-government protests rocking Iraq since October, the country’s largest and deadliest grassroots movement in decades. The mostly young protesters in the capital’s iconic Tahrir Square had long feared a spiral into chaos, and on Friday it appeared their apprehensions were well-placed. After nightfall, armed men on pick-up trucks attacked a large building where protesters had been camped out for weeks near the capital’s Al-Sinek bridge. Security forces deployed on the bridge itself did not intervene, witnesses said, as the attackers ousted protesters from the building in a volley of gunfire. At least 17 people were killed and dozens more wounded, medics told AFP, with ambulances shuttling teenagers suffering gunshot and stab wounds to nearby field clinics. Panicked demonstrators rushed out into the street, sending out calls through social media for people to come to their main gathering place in Tahrir Square. By Saturday morning, hundreds had arrived. “I came after the incident and there were tons of people in Tahrir and by …

The Minnesota National Guard says the three soldiers who were killed when their helicopter crashed near St. Cloud this week were part of a unit that returned last May from a nine-month deployment to the Middle East. The Guard identified the men who were killed in Thursday’s crash as Chief Warrant Officers 2nd Class James A. Rogers Jr., 28, and Charles P. Nord, 30, and Sgt. Kort M. Plantenberg, 28. The Guard tweeted that during their unit’s recent Middle East deployment, it conducted medical evacuations in support of operations Spartan Shield and Inherent Resolve. All three soldiers were assigned to Company C, 2-211th General Support Aviation Battalion, which is based in the central Minnesota city of St. Cloud. The soldiers were killed when their Black Hawk crashed in a field about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of St. Cloud, which is where it had taken off from. The Guard says the crash happened during a routine maintenance test flight. A team from Fort Rucker, Alabama, was sent to Minnesota to determine why the crash happened. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who served in the Guard for 24 years, ordered flags flown at half-staff at state and federal buildings throughout Minnesota from …

Only after finding safety in numbers, joining hundreds of other pro-government protesters in Hong Kong on Saturday, did Reddy Lin drum up the courage to slip into her red T-shirt marked, “China, I love you” and glue a heart-shaped Chinese-flag sticker on her face. But for the train ride home, the teacher said she’d be taking all her pro-China garb off again. The risk of running into supporters from the rival camp, those who oppose China’s communist rulers, was simply too great, she said. “It’s very dangerous. They’ll beat you,” she said. “They’re brutes.” Lin and hundreds of other protesters waving red Chinese flags packed a Hong Kong park to vociferously denounce what they say is a reign of terror being imposed on the city by months of anti-government demonstrations. The protest highlighted the widening gulf between the pro- and anti-government camps in Hong Kong, with divisions that appear irreconcilable. Compared to the hundreds of anti-government rallies that have gripped Hong Kong since June, the pro-China demonstration was like stepping through a looking glass. The Hong Kong police were praised as saviors, not bullies. China was presented as a country to love, not fear. Hong Kong was described as a …

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday called for the World Bank to stop loaning money to China, one day after the institution adopted a lending plan to Beijing over Washington’s objections. The World Bank on Thursday adopted a plan to aid China with $1 billion to $1.5 billion in low-interest loans annually through June 2025. The plan calls for lending to “gradually decline” from the previous five-year average of $1.8 billion. “Why is the World Bank loaning money to China? Can this be possible? China has plenty of money, and if they don’t, they create it. STOP!” Trump wrote in a post on Twitter. “World Bank lending to China has fallen sharply and will continue to reduce as part of our agreement with all our shareholders including the United States,” the World Bank said in an emailed statement to Reuters. “We eliminate lending as countries get richer.” Spokespeople for the White House declined to comment on the record. The World Bank loaned China $1.3 billion in the fiscal 2019 year, which ended on June 30, a decrease from around $2.4 billion in fiscal 2017. But the fall in the World Bank’s loans to China is not swift enough for the …

One hundred forty bushfires continue to burn across eastern Australia.  A huge blaze near Sydney is bigger in size than the city itself and could take weeks to put out.  Conditions have eased Saturday but the dangers persist.   Sydney is again shrouded in a toxic, smoky haze.  Health warnings have been issued and many weekend sporting activities have been cancelled.  Several blazes have combined to create a “mega fire” north of Australia’s biggest city. The fire’s front is 60 kilometers long and officials warn it is simply too big to put out. Lauren McGowan works in a bar in the nearby city of Cessnock. “Everyone is a bit on edge, getting a little bit too close to home for around here.  Like, even with people we have working here the fires are practically on their doors,” she said. There are 95 bushfires here in the drought-hit state of New South Wales.  Half are burning out of control.  More than 2,000 firefighters are on the ground.  Their task is unrelenting, but reinforcements have arrived from overseas, including Canada, New Zealand and the United States.   Morgan Kehr, a senior firefighter from Edmonton, has flown in to join his Australian counterparts, who …