VOA News for Monday, May 17th, 2021

VOA News for Monday, May 17th, 2021
Thanks to gandalf.ddo.jp/ for transcribing
This is VOA News. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called Sunday for an "immediate cease-fire" among Israelis and Palestinians after a week of fighting killed at least 180 Palestinians and eight Israelis.
Guterres told an emergency online meeting of the Security Council on Sunday that the fighting must stop immediately. China, Norway and Tunisia were the countries who called the rare Sunday meeting of the Security Council.
Guterres said the U.N. is [...] actively working with all sides toward reaching an immediate cease-fire to end what he called the "senseless cycle of bloodshed, terror and destruction.”
UNICEF, or the United Nations Children's Agency, said Sunday that over the past week, at least 55 Palestinian children and two children in Israel were among those killed.
The top editor at the Associated Press is calling for an independent investigation into the Israeli airstrike that targeted and destroyed a Gaza City building housing offices of the AP, broadcaster Al-Jazeera and other media.
AP's executive [e...] editor says the Israeli government has yet to provide clear evidence supporting its attack, which leveled a 12-story building.
The Israeli military has said that Hamas used the building for a military intelligence office and weapons development.
The media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, is asking the International Criminal Court to investigate the bombing as a possible war crime.
Algeria's presidential office said Sunday the country will reopen air and land [bonder...] borders on June the 1st but strict measures will be imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
More details are expected a week from now, but on Sunday the presidency announced there will be only five flights a day to and from Algerian airports.
This is VOA News.
Members of a militia opposed to the coup by the Myanmar military on Sunday hold back into the jungle of western Myanmar [followed] following days of fighting with the army as the United States and Britain condemned military violence against civilians.
Mindat, a city of about 40,000 people [on the] in the western Chin state of Myanmar has become a hotspot for civilian movement against the military government, which seized power in a coup on February 1.
Some Mindat residents have formed the Chinland Defense Force, which said in a statement Sunday that six of its members had been killed by the junta. After three weeks of fighting, the army has battled local people. But fighters pulled back after days of assaults by [ar...] army combat troops backed by artillery.
Some security forces were killed and others were reported missing after attacks in Mindat, Myawaddy television controlled by the army, said on Saturday. The BBC reported that some of the Mindat population is believed to have fled while others are trapped in the town.
The United Nations has estimated that the military has killed more than seven [hundry...] hundred eighty people since the coup. The military disputes that number.
Fighting between government security forces and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan resumed in the early hours of Sunday, ending a three-day cease-fire declared by the adversaries to mark Islamic Eid al-Fitr festival.
The Afghan army confirmed its forces started "offensive, clearing and counterterrorism" operations in districts close to Lashkar Gah, the capital of southern Helmand province. It claimed the ensuing clashes killed at least 20 Taliban rebels, including a key commander.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani spoke to his military commanders Saturday night by video conference to discuss the post-cease-fire situation.
Taliban officials have not commented on post-truce insurgent operations in the country nor on the situation in Helmand. The hotly contested province has been the scene of intense fighting since May 1. That's when the United States and NATO allies formally began their final troop pullout from Afghanistan.
Sudan hopes to entice investors and secure pledges to pay off its arrears to the International Monetary Fund at a conference in Paris on Monday, paving the way for wider relief on external debt of at least $50 billion.
Sudan has a lot of debt, but recently made [ra...] rapid progress toward having much of it forgiven under the IMF and World Bank program to aid highly indebted poor countries.
Sudan is emerging from decade(s) of economic sanctions and isolation under former President Omar al-Bashir.

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