NATO has joined the ranks of  at least 25 countries expelling several Russian diplomats as part of a “broad, strong and coordinated” international response to the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain. Russia denies responsibility for the poisoning, and has promised tough retaliation within a week. As VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department. …

U.S. and South Korean leaders need to coordinate their now divergent approaches to North Korea before their summit meetings with Kim Jong Un, said experts on North Korea. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is scheduled to hold a bilateral summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un late next month. U.S. President Donald Trump said he will meet Kim before the end of May. The U.S.-North Korea meeting has yet to be confirmed by Pyongyang. Moon has been preparing for the upcoming talks as an opportunity to strike what analysts call “a grand bargain,” while Trump intends to open the process of talks by first testing North Korea’s seriousness about denuclearization as the summit opens, experts said. “U.S. and [South Korean] interests overlap greatly but are not identical. There is a need to coordinate summit planning so that there are few surprises,” said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the …

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday he had no reservations or concerns about President Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, John Bolton, a hawk who has advocated using military force against North Korea and Iran. Amid speculation the two men will clash on a host of major national issues, Mattis said he would meet Bolton for the first time later this week at the Pentagon with the goal of forging a partnership. “We’re going to sit down together [this week], and I look forward to working with him. No reservations. No concerns at all,” Mattis told a group of reporters at an impromptu briefing. “Last time I checked, he’s an American and I can work with an American. OK? I’m not the least bit concerned with that sort of thing.” Trump has shaken up his core national security team in the past two weeks, replacing National Security Adviser H.R. …

There is no sign that the United States is distancing itself from the World Trade Organization, and negotiations are underway to avert a global trade war, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said in a BBC interview broadcast Wednesday. U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a series of tariff-raising moves, upsetting allies and rivals alike. Trump is also vetoing the appointment of WTO judges, causing a backlog in disputes and threatening to paralyze what is effectively the supreme court of trade. Some trade experts have begun asking whether Trump wants to kill the WTO, whose 164 members force each other to play by the rules. “I have absolutely no indication that the United Sates is walking away from the WTO. Zero indication,” Azevedo said in an interview on the BBC Hardtalk program, according to excerpts released early by the BBC. Last month, Trump called the WTO a “catastrophe” and complained the United …

Russian forces in Syria came close to clashing with the United States and U.S.-backed forces in the western part of the country but fell back following a phone call between a top Russian general and the top-ranking U.S. military officer. The incident earlier this week, east of the Euphrates River in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province, came to light Tuesday when U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis shared his concerns while talking with reporters. “These were forces moving into more advanced positions, too close,” Mattis said, calling them “Russian elements.” Discussions between the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, and his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, defused the situation. “Those (Russian) elements fell back,” Mattis said. “We have also drawn off slightly.” The close call between Russian and U.S. forces in the region follows a clash last month, when Syrian government forces, along with Russian mercenaries, attacked U.S. …

U.S. President Donald Trump, who campaigned against economic agreements he considered unfair to America has his first trade deal. The United States and South Korea have agreed to revise their sweeping six-year-old trade pact which was completed during the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama. The agreement “will significantly strengthen the economic and national security relationships between the United States and South Korea,” according to a senior administration official in Washington. Trump had threatened to scrap the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), calling it “horrible.” But officials of his administration on Tuesday confirmed key aspects of the agreement which officials in Seoul had announced the previous day. “When this is finalized it will be the first successful renegotiation of a trade agreement in U.S. history,” according to a senior U.S. official. The tentative agreement between the United States and its sixth largest trading partner and a critical security ally …

The Trump administration is ending a program that allows citizens of Liberia living in the United States to avoid deportation. But the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program, which was set to expire Saturday, will be extended for a year as part of a “wind-down” effort. “Liberia is no longer experiencing armed conflict and has made significant progress in restoring stability and democratic governance,” according to a memorandum signed by Trump and released Tuesday by the White House. Started in 1991, in part through a grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS), certain Liberian nationals were eligible for DED, which allowed them to flee armed conflict and civil war and live and work in the United States. “Liberia has also concluded reconstruction from prior conflicts, which has contributed significantly to an environment that is able to handle adequately the return of its nationals,” the memo said. The Department of Homeland Security said …

Authorities in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana on Tuesday cleared two white policemen of wrongdoing in the shooting death of a black man at close range after it was determined he was armed, as the officers said they had believed, as they struggled to arrest him. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the facts surrounding the 2016 killing of Alton Sterling showed “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the police officers, Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake, were justified in the way they handled the incident as it unfolded outside a Baton Rouge convenience store where Sterling was selling homemade CDs. Landry said the police officers believed that the 37-year-old Sterling was armed as they tried, unsuccessfully, to pin him on a sidewalk to arrest him. The attorney general said the policemen “several times tried to get hold of his hands.” At that point, a video of the incident shows Salamoni …

The attorney general’s office in the western U.S. state of California is joining an investigation into the deadly police shooting of an unarmed African-American man to provide independent oversight. The announcement was made by the police chief of Sacramento, the capital city of California, where the shooting occurred. Chief Daniel Hahn said the partnership is intended to “build faith and confidence” in the probe. Attorney General Xavier Becker said his office would ensure the probe would be “based on the facts and the law, nothing less, nothing more.” Law enforcement authorities are investigating the death of Stephon Clark, who was fatally shot by two police officers earlier this month in his grandparents back yard. The officers were responding to a nighttime phone call about a man breaking car windows and a glass door in the area. They encountered him in the yard and shot him to death, firing 20 bullets. …

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested a man for allegedly sending suspicious packages to several U.S. military and intelligence installations in the Washington area. The man has been been identified as 43-year-old Thanh Cong Phan, who the FBI said was taken into custody Monday at his home in the town of Everett in the northwestern U.S. state of Washington. The FBI has not said whether a motive has been determined but he is scheduled to appear in federal court later Tuesday. The FBI said its examination of the packages determined they contained “potential destructive devices and appeared to be sent by the same individual.” More than a half-dozen packages were shipped, including to Fort McNair in the nation’s capital and Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia, both U.S. Army bases. They were also delivered to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, a military base in Washington, the Naval Surface Warfare Center in northern …

While China and the United States seem to be negotiating in an effort to avert a trade war, Washington is unlikely to relent in its determination to stop advanced technology from leaving America for China. “I think there is a growing consensus in the United States that Chinese firms should be blocked from certain types of acquisitions of U.S. firms, of getting certain types of U.S. technology,” said AlexCapri, an international trade scholar at the National University of Singapore. China has come up with a list of U.S. products it will target as part of a retaliatory action against Washington’s plan to raise tariffs on Chinese products. But it has been silent about restricting technology companies. International action The European Union already is considering a law that would scrutinize and block Chinese purchases of local firms for the purpose of acquiring new technology. China is worried any U.S. action would …

With a robust U.S. economy, polls show that President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are on the upswing, even as a majority of Americans still disapprove of his 14-month White House tenure. A pair of polls this week — by CNN and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — both say that 42 percent of Americans approve of his performance as president, the highest figures the news organizations have recorded in months. CNN says 54 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the presidency, while AP says 58 percent feel that way. Real Clear Politics’ national average of several polls shows a similar result, a 53-42 negative rating for Trump. Trump’s approval ratings, through the first months of his four-year term, have been the lowest among modern U.S. presidents recorded during seven decades of polling. But CNN noted that Trump’s current standing is only marginally lower than that …

NATO has announced it is expelling seven Russian diplomats and denying accreditation to three others as part of a “broad, strong and coordinated” international response to the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain. “I have today withdrawn the accreditation of seven staff of the Russian mission to NATO. I will also deny the pending accreditation request for three others,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday. “This will send a clear message to Russia that there are costs and consequences for their unacceptable pattern of behavior.” Stoltenberg noted the North Atlantic Council has also reduced the maximum size of the Russian mission to NATO by 10 people to a total of 20. Mass expulsions The move follows similar action by the United States and more than 20 other countries in the wake of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, …

Fifty-nine U.S. senators have called on the Polish prime minister to support legislation that would allow Holocaust victims and their heirs to receive compensation for property that was seized by the Germans during World War II and later nationalized by the Communists. In a letter signed by more than half of the Senate and released Monday, the lawmakers expressed concern about a restitution bill under discussion in Poland that, in its current form, would require that claimants be Polish citizens and limit compensation to spouses, children or grandchildren. “This draft legislation would adversely affect Holocaust victims and their heirs and is therefore of urgent importance to many of our constituents, millions of Americans, and Holocaust survivors around the world,” the senators wrote in the letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The letter was authored by Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, and Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida. The restitution …

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday his government will respond to a U.S. order for 60 Russian diplomats accused of being spies to leave the United States within a week. Twenty-two other countries, including France, Germany and Poland, have also expelled a total of 77 Russian “intelligence personnel,” according to the White House. That list does not include Australia, which announced [Tuesday] it is expelling two “undeclared intelligence officials.” Lavrov blamed the mass expulsions on “colossal pressure” by the United States. The U.S. move, along with the closure of a Russian consulate in the country, is in response to Moscow’s to what the State Department called the “outrageous violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and breach of international law,” involving the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain. Britain, other Western nations and NATO also blame Russia for the March 4 chemical …

The Trump administration’s decision to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census divided Capitol Hill Tuesday, with Democrats saying the addition could skew the results and alter millions in government funding, while some Republicans praised it as a “commonsense” move. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced late Monday the next effort to count every resident in the country will include a question about citizenship status. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the survey every 10 years, with the next set for 2020. The deadline for finalizing the questions is Saturday. In a memo late Monday, Ross said he chose to include the query at the urging of the Department of Justice, which said it needed the citizenship data to better enforce a law protecting minority voting rights. Republicans on Capitol Hill welcomed the decision, which revives a practice that was abandoned in 1950, after being in place for 100 …

Mexico and the United States have signed three accords to improve bilateral customs procedures and expedite the flow of agricultural produce across their almost 2,000-mile (3,220-kilometers) border, the two governments said on Monday. In a joint news conference with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said the first agreement aimed to promote joint cooperation to stop illegal merchandise crossing the border. Secondly, the two agreed to implement programs of joint inspections of cargo between the neighbors, whose bilateral trade is worth half a trillion dollars a year. “It’s about creating efficiencies” Videgaray said. Finally, the governments signed an accord that would promote the trade of agricultural goods, the minister added. Nielsen said the two countries were also working on some 20 further memorandums of understanding and letters of intent. Mexican-U.S. relations have been strained by U.S. President Donald Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for the …

Linda Brown, who as a young girl was at the center of the lawsuit that ended racial segregation in American schools, has died. Brown died Sunday in Topeka, Kansas. She was 76. Brown was 9 years old when her father, the Rev. Oliver Brown, sued the Topeka school board to allow his daughter to attend an all-white elementary school close to her home. Four similar cases were combined with Brown’s complaint and presented to the U.S. Supreme Court as Brown v. The Board of Education. In May 1954, the nation’s highest court unanimously ruled that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” making it unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment that says no citizen can be denied equal protection under the law. “In the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall argued the case before …

In her widely watched “60 Minutes” interview, porn star Stormy Daniels explained why she accepted a $130,000 payment she says was intended to keep her silent about her sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006.   Trump has denied the affair, through his representatives. But his lawyer, Michael Cohen, has said he paid Daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket days before the 2016 election. That has prompted questions about whether it was effectively a campaign contribution. Cohen denies the payment was related to the campaign.   Some questions and answers about the payment:   WAS THE $130K ILLEGAL?   The transaction itself does not seem to be illegal, but the failure to report it either as a campaign contribution or on government ethics forms might be.   WHO OBJECTS?   Two complaints have been filed by watchdog groups. Common Cause says in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission …

The United States is imposing sanctions on seven Pakistani companies for alleged links to the nuclear trade. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIC) placed 23 companies —15 from Sudan and one from Singapore, in addition to the seven from Pakistan — on its Entity List. The Entity List contains companies the U.S. determines are “acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States,” according to BIC’s website. Companies placed on the list need special licenses to do business in the United States. A U.S. State Department spokesperson told VOA that the U.S. regularly adds entities to the list. “It is not country-specific. Entities are looked at on a case-by-case basis, irrespective of national affiliation, and are added based on whether they operate counter to U.S. national security interests,” the spokesperson said. VOA tried to talk to some of the companies on the …

With his job status in danger, embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin sought to lower his public profile Monday as a White House spokesman insisted that President Donald Trump still had confidence in his leadership “at this point in time.” Shulkin, the lone Obama administration official in Trump’s Cabinet, abruptly backed out of a media availability Monday morning that had been scheduled at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Elsmere, Delaware, as part of an annual Veterans Summit hosted by Democratic Senator Tom Carper. Shulkin told organizers he needed to “get back on the road to Washington.” “Secretary Shulkin’s singular focus is on finding the best ways to provide care and benefits to our country’s heroes,” said Shulkin’s strategic adviser, Ashleigh Barry, in response to questions about his public plans in the coming days. Three administration officials told The Associated Press that Trump is planning to oust the Shulkin within …

Dozens of high school students in Wisconsin have a message for U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and they are going to his hometown to deliver it.  The teens set off from Madison to march more than 80 kilometers (50 miles)  to Janesville to tell Ryan: Pass meaningful gun reform legislation now.  The four-day march organized by Shorewood High School students is called “50 Miles More.” They will walk about 12 miles a day during their spring break, starting Sunday and ending with a rally outside Ryan’s office Wednesday.  ​The march “is directed toward Paul Ryan for his lead role in blocking and burying any change of gun reform again and again,” the 50 Miles More website says. “We are ready to keep up the pressure on our nation’s top leaders until gun reform is a priority for Republicans and Democrats. We are not afraid.” It is no coincidence that the march …