CNN news 2014-12-10 加文本

cnn news 2014-12-10

CARL AZUZ, cnn ANCHOR: This is cnn STUDENT NEWS. Ten minutes of current events for middle and high school classrooms, no commercials. From the cnn

Center, I`m Carl Azuz. We are taking you to Afghanistan. Thousands of U.S. troops are serving in the Middle Eastern country. It`s part of the

U.S.-led war that began there in 2001. The U.S. government had planned to reduce the number of those troops at the end of this year.

But it announced over the weekend that some U.S. forces wouldn`t be coming home as soon as originally planned.

CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: This will remain a delayed withdrawal of up to 1,000 U.S. troops, so that up to 10,800 troops rather than 9,800

could remain in Afghanistan through the end of this year, and for the first few months next year.

AZUZ: There`s been a recent increase of attacks in the Afghan capital of Kabul. The Taliban are responsible. They are Afghanistan`s former rulers

who support al Qaeda terrorists, but the U.S. says that`s not the reason why American troops are staying. Afghanistan`s previous government didn`t

want U.S. troops to stay after this year. It wouldn`t sign an agreement to allow that. But the country`s new government has signed the security

agreement. By the end of next year, U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan are scheduled to be about half of what they are now. The Pentagon says Afghan

forces are currently leading about 99 percent of the mission`s they go on.

The typhoon we told you about last week dragged across the Philippines yesterday. Hagupit means lash in Philippino (sic), and that`s exactly what

it did to the Pacific Island nation. Hagupit did lose some power before making landfall. It came ashore at the strength of a category two

hurricane with wind speeds around 100 miles per hour. But the system moved slowly, and because of that Hagupit`s rain threatened severe flooding in

landslides. At least three deaths have been blamed on this storm, more than 900,000 people were affected, most of them evacuating their homes.

Still, it wasn`t as devastating as the typhoon that hit last year. Haiyan killed 6,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.