英语新闻 VOA NEWS April 19, 2017

From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Michael Brown reporting.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday the international community should be applying diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to get that country to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Speaking during a visit to Japan, Pence said the U.S. "will not relent" until it achieves the goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsula, and that "all options are on the table."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who hosted Pence for talks in Tokyo, said he appreciates the Trump administration's "all options" approach.

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at making it harder for companies to hire temporary foreign workers.

The order called "Buy American - Hire American" will take initial steps to reform the H1-B visa program.

"Right now H-1B visas are awarded in a totally random lottery and that's wrong. Instead, they should be given to the most skilled and highest paid applicants and they should never, ever be used to replace Americans. No one can compete with American workers when they're given a fair and level playing field, which has not happened for decades."

Trump said his administration will require companies to demonstrate that the visas are going only to the most highly skilled workers in their fields.

The Department of Homeland Security reports that 71 percent of the H1-Bs went to Indians in 2015 and China is a distant second with 10 percent of the visas.

For more news, we invite you to join us at our website. That is voanews.com. From here in Washington, this is VOA news.

Police in France on Tuesday arrested two "radicalized" Frenchmen, possibly preventing what authorities called an "imminent" attack just days before a presidential election.

The French interior minister said police confiscated guns and bomb-making materials from the men. He provided no other details about their potential targets or motives, but said he suspected the attack was planned for "the eve of the French presidential election."

The French president called the arrests "remarkable" and praised police for stopping the planned terror attack.

British Prime Minister Theresa May announced Tuesday she will seek an early election on June 8 three weeks after officially launching the process for Britain to exit the European Union.

May said opposition parties are threatening to derail the process and that parliament is not coming together in the same way as the nation.

"I have a simple challenge to the opposition parties. You have criticized the government's vision for Brexit. You have challenged our objectives. You have threatened to block the legislation we put before parliament. This is your moment to show you mean it. To show you are not opposing the government for the sake of it. To show that you do not treat politics as a game."

The House of Commons must approve the call for new elections.

A day after a narrow victory in a constitutional referendum granting him new executive authority, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan denounced election observers who said the voting process did not meet European standards.

The Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe said one side dominated media coverage, voters were not provided impartial information and civil [side] society groups were unable to participate.

The main opposition has rejected Sunday's results and called for a revote.

A nationwide manhunt has ended after police Tuesday located the man accused of posting a murder video on Facebook.

He was spotted at a fast food restaurant near Erie, Pennsylvania.

"The vehicle fled from that area. There was a short pursuit in which the vehicle was stopped. As the officers approached that vehicle, Steve Stephens took his own life."

Stephens allegedly filmed himself committing the murder and published the video on Facebook along with another video in which he claims to have previously murdered an additional 13 people.

Police say they have not uncovered any evidence indicating Stephens actually killed the 13 other people and they are continuing their investigation.

And, a federal judge has sentenced an Islamic State sympathizer to life in prison for plotting to bury a remote-controlled bomb on a beach on Key West, Florida.

For details and much more news, we invite you to join us at our website. That is voanews.com. From here in Washington, I'm Michael Brown reporting.

That's the latest world news from VOA.

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