South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump agreed during a phone conversation to maintain dialogue with the nuclear-armed North, Seoul said Saturday, with the two allies noting the situation had become “grave”. Denuclearisation negotiations have been at a standstill since a summit in Hanoi broke up in February and pressure is rising as an end-of-year deadline to offer concessions, set by Pyongyang for Washington, approaches. The 30-minute talk was the first conversation between the US President and the South Korean leader since they met at the UN General Assembly in New York in September. “The two leaders shared an assessment that the current situation on the Korean peninsula is grave,” said Ko Min-jung, the spokeswoman of the South’s presidential office. “They agreed momentum for dialogue to achieve prompt results from denuclearisation negotiations should be continued,” she went on to say, adding that Trump had requested the call. The discussion came after a week in which exchanges between Trump and North Korea raised the prospect of a return to a war of words, culminating in Pyongyang’s threats to resume referring to the US president as a “dotard” and to take military action if the US military moves against …

Several Australian bushfires have combined to form a “mega fire” that is burning out of control across a swathe of land north of Sydney, authorities said Friday, warning they cannot contain the blaze. Rob Rogers, New South Wales Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner, said “there are probably more than eight fires in all” that have merged to form what has been dubbed a “mega fire” in an area of national park forest. The blaze was burning across 300,000 hectares, an area roughly 60 kilometers across, within an hour’s drive of Australia’s largest city, which was again subsumed in a soup of toxic smoke. “There is just fire that whole way” said Rogers, who added that firefighters could do little more than get any residents out, protect property and hope for an end to fire-friendly dry and windy conditions. We “cannot stop these fires, they will just keep burning until conditions ease, and then we’ll try to do what we can to contain them,” he told public broadcaster ABC. “The best thing we can do is try to protect property and people as much as we can.” The haze from bushfires obscures the sun setting above the Sydney Opera House in …

An American family suing Iran in a U.S. court for the 2007 disappearance of family patriarch Robert Levinson on an Iranian island has emerged from two days of tearful testimony more determined than ever to press Tehran for his release. The testimony of the retired FBI agent’s wife and seven adult children at the Wednesday and Thursday sessions of Washington’s U.S. District Court “is one way to keep reminding the Iranians that we’re not going away,” said eldest son Dan Levinson in a Friday appearance on VOA Persian’s Late News program. “They know exactly where my father is,” he said of the Iranian government. “It’s been almost 13 years (since the disappearance) and we’re just suffering terribly. It’s time for them to send my father home. And this (court testimony) is one way to hold them accountable and to pressure them to get this resolved.” FILE – Christine Levinson, center, wife of Robert Levinson, and her children, Dan and Samantha Levinson, talk to reporters in New York, Jan. 18, 2016. Levinson’s wife, Christine, was stoic throughout the week’s testimony. Speaking to VOA Persian late Wednesday, she said she has worked to enable her children to go on with their lives.  …

One of only three surviving crewmembers of the USS Arizona will be in Hawaii Saturday to mark the 78th anniversary of the “date which will live in infamy.” Lou Conter, 98, will attend the commemoration ceremony held to remember the 2,390 Americans killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the island of Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941. Conter was on the stern of the USS Arizona when a Japanese bomb pierced the bow of the battleship, igniting a million pounds of gunpowder. A total of 1,177 men were killed on the Arizona. On Saturday, Conter will also attend the internment of a shipmate who died in September. FILE – U.S.S. Arizona survivor Lauren Bruner during a memorial service for the 73rd anniversary of the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl harbor, Dec. 7, 2014, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. “We have to bury Lauren Bruner on Saturday, so [I] had to come back,” Conter, sitting in a wheelchair, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “I’ll come out every year I can until I’m gone.” Bruner’s remains will be interred into the warship that still lies where it sank that day. The ceremony As they have in years past, Pearl …

Washington resumed talks with the Taliban in Qatar Saturday, a U.S. source said, three months after President Donald Trump abruptly halted diplomatic efforts that could end America’s longest war. “The U.S. rejoined talks today in Doha. The focus of discussion will be reduction of violence that leads to intra-Afghan negotiations and a cease-fire,” said the source briefed on efforts to end almost two decades of war in Afghanistan. In September, the United States and the Taliban had appeared on the verge of signing a deal that would have seen Washington begin withdrawing thousands of troops in return for security guarantees. It was also expected to pave the way toward direct talks between the Taliban and the government in Kabul and, ultimately, a possible peace agreement after more than 18 years of war. But that same month, Trump abruptly called the year-long effort “dead” and withdrew an invitation to the insurgents to join secret talks at his retreat at Camp David after the killing of an American soldier. During a surprise visit to a U.S. military base in Afghanistan last week, Trump said the Taliban “wants to make a deal.” …

A woman in northern India who was on her way to a court hearing of a rape case she had filed months ago was set on fire Thursday morning by five men. She died from her injuries late Friday. Two of the five men were suspects in the gang rape case, according to Associated Press reports. They were out on bail, according to the news agency. The woman, 23, suffered extensive injuries and was airlifted from Uttar Pradesh to a hospital in New Delhi where she died of cardiac arrest. She died on the same day that four men who were suspects in a rape case in southern India were shot to death by police. The men in the southern state of Telangana were suspects in the rape of a 27-year-old veterinarian. Authorities say the suspects set her body on fire after raping her. They wrapped her body in a blanket and dumped it under a bridge, where she was found by a passer-by. According to the latest Indian government figures, 33,658 rape cases were reported in 2017, an average of more than 90 every day. Women activists say the actual number is much higher because many cases are never …

Maritime sovereignty rivals China and Vietnam have started talking again after a prolonged standoff earlier this year, entering what analysts call a routine show of peace before more flare-ups. China’s withdrawal of a survey ship from disputed waters in October and Vietnam’s ascent to chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations led the reasons that the two began talking this month, political observers say. On Wednesday, a Vietnam-China working group on maritime cooperation held its 13th round of talks in Ho Chi Minh City. The event brought in midlevel officials from each side’s foreign ministry, Viet Nam News reported. “It seems to me they’re moving into a phase of talk, because the confrontation no longer serves any particular purpose,” said Carl Thayer, Southeast Asia-specialist emeritus professor with the University of New South Wales in Australia. FILE – Protesters hold up Vietnamese flags and anti-China banners in front of the Chinese embassy during a protest against the alleged invasion of Vietnamese territory by Chinese ships in disputed waters in Hanoi, June 12, 2011. China and Vietnam have cycled through dozens of tiffs and talks over at least the past 20 years. Diplomacy normally comes after the two sides bury a specific …

President Donald Trump said Friday in a tweet that he will hold off on designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Trump said all the work had been completed and he was statutorily ready to issue a declaration but had decided to delay at the request of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds his daily news conference in Oaxaca, Mexico, Oct. 18, 2019. There was no immediate confirmation from Mexico, but the government had pushed back against Trump’s plan, saying such a step by the U.S. could lead to violations of its sovereignty. “All necessary work has been completed to declare Mexican Cartels terrorist organizations,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Statutorily we are ready to do so.” “However, at the request of a man who I like and respect, and has worked so well with us, President Andres Manuel (at) LopezObrador — will will temporarily hold off on this designation.” Under pressure from Trump’s threat to impose tariffs, Mexico has pressed thousands of national guard troops into service to help block Central American migrants from traveling through Mexico to reach the U.S. In place of designating the cartels as terrorist outfits, Trump said the …

U.S. officials say Friday’s shooting suspect at the Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida was a Saudi aviation student. Authorities say four people, including the gunman, were killed and several others were wounded in the incident. A motive for the attack remains under investigation. This is the second deadly shooting at a U.S. military base this week. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports. …

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked the Trump administration from restarting federal executions next week after a 16-year break.  The justices denied the administration’s plea to undo a lower-court ruling in favor of inmates who have been given execution dates. The first of those had been scheduled for December 9, with a second set for December 13. Two more inmates had been given execution dates in January.  Attorney General William Barr announced during the summer that federal executions would resume using a single drug, pentobarbital, to put inmates to death.  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington temporarily halted the executions after some of the chosen inmates challenged the new execution procedures in court. Chutkan ruled that the procedure approved by Barr most likely violates the Federal Death Penalty Act.  The federal appeals court in Washington had earlier denied the administration’s emergency plea to put Chutkan’s ruling on hold and allow the executions to proceed.  Longer delay Federal executions are likely to remain on hold at least for several months, while the appeals court in Washington undertakes a full review of Chutkan’s ruling.  The Supreme Court justices directed the appeals court to act “with appropriate dispatch.”  Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a short separate opinion that he believes the government ultimately will win the …

Elon Musk did not defame a British cave explorer when he called him “pedo guy” in an angry tweet, a Los Angeles jury found Friday. Vernon Unsworth, who participated in the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for weeks in a Thailand cave last year, had angered the Tesla CEO by belittling his effort to help with the rescue as a “PR stunt.” Musk said Unsworth’s comments in an interview with CNN were an unprovoked attack on his sincere and voluntary efforts to help in the rescue. Musk had engineers at his companies, including Space X and The Boring Co., develop a mini-submarine to transport the boys. Despite working around the clock to build the sub, Musk arrived in Thailand late in the rescue effort and the craft was never used. Musk, who said his stock in Tesla and SpaceX is worth about $20 billion, insisted in his testimony that the phrase he tweeted off-the-cuff “was obviously a flippant insult, and no one interpreted it to mean pedophile.” A jury of five women and three men deliberated for less than an hour in the afternoon in U.S. District Court. Jury foreman Joshua Jones said the panel decided …

The United States imposed sanctions Friday on three Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders over their alleged role in violently suppressing protests that have shaken Iraq. The militia leaders are accused of ordering their forces to fire on civilians protesting government corruption and high unemployment. Since the protests began in October, around 400 protesters have been reported killed by security forces. “Peaceful public dissent and protest are fundamental elements of all democracies,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that announced the sanctions Friday. In a subsequent statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “The Iraqi people want their country back. … They are calling for genuine reform and accountability and for trustworthy leaders who will put Iraq’s national interests first. Those demands deserve to be addressed without resort to violence or suppression.” FILE – Iraqi anti-riot police try to prevent anti-government protesters from crossing the al-Shuhada (Martyrs) bridge in central Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 6, 2019. The sanctions target two brothers, Qais al-Khazali and Laith al-Khazali, from the Asaib Ahl al-Haq Iran-backed militia, as well as Husayn Falih Aziz al-Lami, who was accused of running a militia on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Trump administration will consider imposing further …

Argentine President-elect Alberto Fernandez unveiled his cabinet on Friday evening, laying out his core team days before the center-left leader takes office facing a stalled economy, rising debt fears and painful inflation. Fernandez named Martin Guzman as economy minister, who will need to help steer debt restructuring negotiations with international creditors and the International Monetary Fund over around $100 billion in sovereign debt. Guzman, a young academic and protege of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, is considered an expert in the field of debt restructuring, though he has little hands-on experience in policy making. Matias Kulfas, who previously held government and central bank positions, was named as production minister. Young political scientist Santiago Cafiero, heir to a historic Peronist family, was named Cabinet chief, and former Buenos Aires Governor Felipe Sola was tapped as foreign minister. Peronist Fernandez, who takes over from conservative leader Mauricio Macri, will be sworn into office on Dec. 10. Vice President-elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a divisive former president, was not present at the event when Fernandez announced his picks. …

It was the odd-looking locker handles that caught their eye. Investigators spent hours poring over graphic images of little boys changing in and out of their swimsuits at what looked like a YMCA. They were hunting for any clue to help them identify the location — and ultimately, the victims and the person who exploited them. Then they noticed that the locker handles had unusual plastic hooks. They scrubbed the photos to remove the images of children, then sent the pictures to locker manufacturers. One of them recognized the lockers and said they had been installed at YMCAs. Eventually, investigators matched the photos to a YMCA in Sandusky, Ohio. That led to the suspect, a former Boy Scout leader. These weren’t FBI or local police, but investigators from the agency that’s the poster child for President Donald Trump’s polarizing immigration policies: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations section, tasked with investigating crime, has a Child Exploitation Investigations lab where agents scour disturbing photos and videos of child sexual abuse. They look for unlikely clues that help them identify the children and bring their abusers to justice. In one case, it was the loud, persistent chirping of a …

Alaska will soon close a year that is shaping up as its hottest on record, with glaciers in the “Frontier State” melting at record or near-record levels, pouring waters into rising global seas, scientists said after taking fall measurements. Lemon Creek Glacier in Juneau, where records go back to the 1940s, had its second consecutive year of record mass loss, with 3 meters erased from the surface, U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Louis Sass told Reuters. Melt went all the way up to the summit, said Sass, one of the experts who travel to benchmark glaciers to take measurements in the fall. “That’s a really bad sign for a glacier,” he said, noting that high-altitude melt means there is no accumulation of snow to compact into ice and help offset lower-elevation losses. At Wolverine Glacier on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage, loss was the second highest in a record that goes back to the 1960s. Sass said it failed to match the record set in 2004 only because so much of the glacier had already melted. “The lower part’s completely gone now,” he said. FILE – U.S. President Barack Obama views Bear Glacier on a boat tour of Kenai Fjords …

U.S. investigators are trying to determine what caused a Saudi air force pilot in the United States for flight training to go on a deadly shooting rampage at a U.S. naval base in Florida. The shooting, which took place at the Pensacola Naval Air Station early Friday, left four people dead, including the shooter. A law enforcement official said another eight people were wounded. Naval Air Station Pensacola The U.S. Navy and law enforcement officials identified the shooter as a Saudi pilot, one of up to a few hundred foreign nationals who had come to the base in Pensacola for training. NBC News, quoting law enforcement officials, further identified the shooter as Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. Guns are not permitted at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, but Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said the shooter managed to get a handgun onto the base before targeting individuals at one of the buildings. Officials said the rampage ended when a sheriff’s deputy cornered and shot the suspect in a classroom. Officials with the U.S. FBI confirmed they were leading the probe, telling VOA it was still in the early stages. “It is too early to determine motive,” a FBI official said on condition of …

Dozens of Afghan activists participated in a candlelight vigil Thursday near the Japanese Embassy in Kabul to mourn for Tetsu Nakamura, a physician and longtime aid worker who was fatally shot with five other people in eastern Afghanistan this week. VOA’s Rahim Gul Sarwan reports. …

An attorney told a Los Angeles federal jury Friday it would be reasonable to award $190 million in damages to a British cave explorer who is suing Elon Musk for allegedly branding him as a pedophile during a Twitter spat. Attorney Lin Wood said the suggested sum includes $150 million in punitive damages. Musk, who testified his stock in Tesla and SpaceX is worth about $20 billion, contends that he was not being literal when he referred to Vernon Unsworth as a “pedo guy.” FILE- British cave expert Vernon Unsworth talks with guests at an event in Bangkok, Thailand, Sept. 6, 2018. The case was expected to go to the jury later in the day after closing arguments end. The spat happened as Unsworth was involved in the rescue of a youth soccer team and its coach from a flooded cave in Thailand. Unsworth had ridiculed Musk’s effort to help in the rescue by having engineers at his companies, including Space X and The Boring Co., develop a mini-submarine to transport the boys. Despite working around the clock to build the sub, Musk arrived in Thailand late in the rescue effort and the craft was never used. Unsworth called it …

Kenya’s public prosecutor Noordin Haji on Friday ordered the immediate arrest and prosecution of Nairobi County Governor Gideon Mbuvi. He said the governor and nearly a dozen senior Nairobi County officials face charges of unlawful acquisition of public property, money laundering and other economic crimes. According to Haji, investigations by Kenya’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission found enough evidence to warrant arrest and prosecution of Mbuvi and his accused associates. FILE – Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji speaks at his office in Nairobi, Kenya, July 23, 2019. “In making this decision, the office of the director of public prosecution is cognizant of the principal of innocence ’til proven guilty, the determination which can only be made by a court of law,” Haji said. “The decision to charge is based on the evidence that is available … at the time the decision is made.” Last month, Mbuvi tried to stop the Corruption Commission from investigating him but the courts declined to issue a temporary restrain order. In Friday’s briefing, Haji warned Mbuvi’s supporters against any attempts to subvert the cause of justice. “In recent times, we have seen that corruption fights back, and there have been blatant misguided attempts …

Iranian security forces were “shooting to kill” in their deadly crackdown against protesters in recent weeks, according to  credible  video footage, the U.N. human rights chief said Friday.                     The unrest left at least 208 people dead nationwide, the office of High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said, echoing a count also tallied by Amnesty International.  Iran disputes death toll figures released by foreign organizations but has so far refused to any countrywide casualty or arrest figures.                      Bachelet  said footage received by her office appears to show demonstrators were gunned down while running away, or being shot “directly in the face and vital organs.”                     Such actions amounted to ”serious violations of human rights,” Bachelet said. She urged Iran to allow independent investigations into the violations, and release of all protesters who were unfairly stripped of their liberty during the crackdown.                     “Verified video footage indicates severe violence was used against protesters, including armed members of security forces shooting from the roof of a justice department building in one city, and from helicopters in another,” Bachelet said.                     “We have also received footage which appears to show security forces shooting unarmed demonstrators from …

Hiring in the United States jumped last month to its highest level since January as U.S. employers shrugged off trade conflicts and a global slowdown and added 266,000 jobs. The unemployment rate dipped to 3.5% from 3.6% in October, matching a half-century low, the Labor Department reported Friday. And wages rose a solid 3.1% in November compared with a year earlier. Investors cheered the report, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 300 points in late-morning trading. November’s healthy job gain runs against a widespread view that many employers are either delaying hiring until a breakthrough in the U.S.-China trade war is reached or are struggling to find workers with unemployment so low. The pace of hiring points to the resilience of the job market and economy more than a decade into the U.S. economic expansion — the longest on record. The steady job growth has helped reassure consumers that the economy is expanding and that their jobs and incomes remain secure. Consumer spending has become an even more important driver of growth as the Trump administration’s trade conflicts have reduced exports and led many businesses to cut spending. “Today’s jobs report, more than any other report in …

The United States and South Korea failed to reach a defense cost-sharing agreement after holding a fourth round of talks this week. Jeong Eun-bo, South Korea’s head negotiator in the defense cost-sharing talks, met with U.S. officials for two days in Washington this week. By the end of his trip, the two countries had not reached any conclusions, he said. “At this point, we are in a situation where we need to continue to narrow our differences. It is not that we have reached a concrete result,” Yonhap reported that Jeong said at Dulles International Airport on Dec. 6. FILE – U.S. soldiers wait for a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) as he meets U.S. troops based in Osan Air Base, South Korea, June 30, 2019. Since meeting in Honolulu last October, U.S. negotiators have asked that South Korea pay roughly $5 billion to cover the cost of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed there. That’s five times the roughly $800 million amount South Korea is currently paying. It appears that the United States is still asking for Seoul to pay the sharp increase — even after South Korea agreed to increase its share of the cost burden …

Diplomats, U.N. agency heads, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) converged this week to discuss rebuilding towns and villages scarred by the separatist war in Cameroon. Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute, who convened the meeting on behalf of the government, pleaded with the international community to help reconstruct the country after close to four years of bloody conflicts that have killed thousands and caused severe damage in dozens of towns and villages. Cameroon Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute speaks during a meeting on the country’s reconstruction, in Yaounde, Dec. 5, 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA) Ngute says most citizens are opting for peace because they are tired of all the killings. “The label of Cameroon being a peace-loving and stable country has been destroyed and Cameroonians from all walks of life, from all the four corners of this country, think that it is time for us to regain that status which we once held as a peaceful country, a country to which other people came for refuge,” he said. “A country that received people rather than send out people.” Representatives from about 24 of the 75 diplomatic missions, United Nations agencies and international NGOs in Cameroon attended the meeting. Ngute did not say …