U.S. President Donald Trump moved Saturday to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, whose citizens are fleeing north and overwhelming U.S. resources at the southern border.
The State Department notified Congress if it would look to suspend 2017 and 2018 payments to the trio of nations, which have been home to some of the migrant caravans that have marched through Mexico to the U.S. border.
On Friday, President Trump threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border next week.
"When you close the border, also you will stop a lot of the drugs from coming in because we take in tremendous drugs from Mexico, as you know as well as I do. So you close up the border, you watch the drugs go away down, too. But I will close the border if Mexico doesn't get with it, if Mexico doesn't stop it."
A Trump administration official said Saturday border officials are aiming to more than quadruple the number of asylum-seekers sent back over the southern border each day to address the swelling number of central Americans arriving in the country.
Hundreds of officers who usually screen cargo and vehicles at ports of entry were reassigned to help manage migrants.
Venezuelans held competing protests Saturday, declaring their support for President Nicholás Maduro, who's aided by Russia and China, or self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó, who's backed by the U.S. and some 50 other nations.
This comes one day after the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced it's obtained permission to distribute humanitarian aid and will start within 20 days. The permission would mark a change in the Maduro government's policy on outside aid, which has been blocked from entering Venezuela.
In Afghanistan, a mortar attack on a school in the volatile southeastern Ghazni province killed at least four students and wounded more than a dozen including two teachers.
It's not certain who fired the mortar round.
"Yellow vest" activists protested across France Saturday to support an activist injured last week in a confrontation with police and to show that they remain mobilized against the government's economic policies.
This is VOA news.
Three Palestinians have died in protests at the border fence between Gaza and Israel on the one-year anniversary of the start of the weekly demonstrations.
AP correspondent Charles De Ledesma has more.
Hamas rulers had pledged to keep people a safe distance from the border fence, but as the crowd swelled, protesters rushed forward unfurling flags and throwing rocks and explosives towards Israeli military positions. The troops then fired tear gas and opened fire at the protesters.
The fence protests have been aimed in large part at breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza, but haven't delivered major improvements so far.
I'm Charles De Ledesma.
Authorities in Mozambique say cholera cases among cyclone survivors have jumped to 271, nearly doubling from the previous day.
The World Health Organization has said some 900,000 cholera vaccine doses are expected to arrive on Monday.
Aid agencies are working to prevent another cholera epidemic in war-torn Yemen.
VOA's Lisa Schlein reports from Geneva.
Children represent 27 percent of the total number of suspected cases.
The Yemeni people and health workers are still reeling from the devastation caused by the cholera epidemic that engulfed the country over the past two years. The outbreak that erupted in April 2017 is the worst in recorded history. It affected more than 1.2 million people, killing more than 2,500.
The World Health Organization reports 239 districts in Yemen have reported suspected cholera cases within the last four weeks.
That's VOA's Lisa Schlein reporting.
The Rolling Stones announced Saturday they've postponed a tour of the U.S. and Canada to give singer Mick Jagger time to receive medical treatment.
Reuters ??? has more.
A statement from the band read Mick Jagger cannot go on tour at this time due to a needed "medical treatment." No more details were provided about his condition.
That singer lamented to his 1.6 million followers on Instagram, saying, "I really hate letting you down like this," though he also said he'd be working "very hard to be back on stage soon."
The 75-year-old rock star was expected to make a full recovery, the band's publicist said.
/1 
