NPR News 2013-04-08 加文本

NPR News 2013-04-08

From NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Raum.

Secretary of State John Kerry opened his Middle East and Asia tour with a call for Turkey and Israel to restore normal ties and take a leading role in stabilizing the region. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports.

Speaking in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Kerry urged Turkey and Israel to continue on the path of rapprochement that started with an Israeli apology for the 2010 death of Turkish citizens aboard an aid vessel bound for the Gaza Strip.

Turkey and Israel are both vital allies of the United States and we are hopeful that their agreement to restore normalization between their countries will actually help to open the door to greater cooperation so that we can all of us work together to promote peace.

Turkey and Israel have discussed returning their respective ambassadors, but Turkey is also demanding compensation for the deaths aboard the aid ship Mavi Marmara, which Israel has agreed in principle to pay. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.

Assailants attacked mourners in Cairo, following a procession to bury four Christian men killed in religious violence in north of Cairo over the weekend. NPR's Leila Fadel reports one person died and 22 others were wounded.

Christian protesters chanted against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi as unknown assailants to attack the procession. Egyptians watched on live TV as young men on rooftop shot handguns and threw Molotov cocktails near the Saint Mark Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo. A fire burned at the cathedral with a coptic pope bleeps and police fired tear gas into the grounds of the church and at the assailants. The funeral followed a gun fight between Muslims and Christians north of Cairo on Saturday. One Muslim man was also killed. Religious violence appears to be on the rise since Egypt's 2011 revolt. And the Christian community, which makes up about 10% of the population, say they feel more vulnerable since Islamists were elected to power.  Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo.

A top security official in South Korea said today, North Korea may be planning another missile test this week. He said it could come Wednesday the deadline for foreign missions in Pyongyang to submit evacuation plans. North Korea has said it can't guarantee the safety of diplomats after that point. For weeks, North Korea has been threatening South Korea and the U.S. for their joint military drills.

Congress is coming back after a 2-week recess, a bipartisan group of senators spent some of the break working on a bill to overhaul immigration laws to be ready for consideration by the end of the week. Republican John McCain told CBS's Face the Nation it won't be easy to win support for the measure.

There will be a great deal of unhappiness about this proposal, because everybody didn't get what they wanted. There are entrenched positions on both sides of this issue as far as business and labor.

A bipartisan group in the House is working on its own version.

This is NPR News from Washington.

Police in India have arrested at least eight people in connection with a building collapse near Mumbai last week. At least 72 people died. Officials say two builders are among those arrested, allegedly for bribing the police and local officials.

Officials at South Africa Kruger National Park say they are poised to combat poachers with a new equipment as sophisticated as that used by criminal gangs, who are killing animals. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports.

Kruger Park says at least 145 rhinos have been killed by poachers this year and warns that figure may rise to 1,000 by the end of 2013. Kruger Spokesman William Mabasa told South African local radio they have isolated most of the poaching to the park's border near Mozambique and are challenging the well-armed criminals.

From the security point of view, we are doing everything, we have offered them the latest equipment in the market, we have increased the vehicle numbers. Over and above that we were able to give them helicopters.

Extra gain rangers have been recruited to patrol alongside the police and soldiers, in a bid to stop poachers from bypassing the new security measures. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Johannesburg.

Officials in Israel say a cyber attack this weekend against government websites was mainly ineffective. The group anonymous had said it would target the country to protest Israeli policy towards Palestinians. The head of the government's National Cyber Bureau said anonymous lacks the skills to harm vital infrastructure and that hardly any real damage occurred. He said if the group really wanted to hurt Israeli websites, it wouldn't have announced its plans ahead of time.

I'm Nora Raum, NPR News, in Washington.