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The Middle East, Europe and East Asia are three of the places we're headed today on CNN STUDENT NEWS.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Good to have you along.
First up, the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, traveled to the U.S. capital yesterday. He spent part of his day with President Obama.A big focus of their meeting, U.S. troops in Afghanistan.There are currently just under 10,000 American forces in Afghanistan.The Obama administration had planned to reduce that number to 5,500 by the end of this year.
But Afghan President Ghani believes that could cause problems for his country's troops.With support and training from U.S.forces,the Afghan military is fighting the Taliban, Afghanistan's former rulers, as well as the al Qaeda terrorist group. So he wants U.S. troops to stay longer in Afghanistan.
After their meeting yesterday, President Obama announced that there would be no reduction this year in the number of U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan.
Less than a week from now is a deadline for the U.S. and some other Western countries to reach a deal with Iran over its controversial nuclear program. The U.S. wants Iran to put that program on hold. Iran wants sanctions, the international penalties on its economy, to be lifted.
Israel, a U.S. ally whom Iran has threatened in the past, has warned the Obama administration not to agree to a deal with Iran.
Did Israel spy to get info on the deal?
There are two parts to this story, two main allegations.
The first is that the Israeli government spied on the negotiations with Iran.
The second is that the government then used the information they gleaned from inside those negotiations and used it to influence Congress.
The Israeli government, the administration here, from Benjamin Netanyahu, denies the first of those allegations, that Israel ever spied on the negotiations to begin with. They issued a very strongly worded statement.
That statement reads, "These allegations are utterly false. The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel's other allies. The false allegations are clearly intended to undermine the strong ties between the United States and Israel and the security and intelligence relationship we share."
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