19 Feb 2019; DW: US President Donald Trump called on the Venezuelan armed forces to back interim President Juan Guaido. Trump said he sought a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela, but that "all options" remained open.

US President Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to Venezuela's interim President Juan Guaido and delivered a strong rebuke to socialism, in a speech he delivered on Monday in Miami.

JERUSALEM, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Arab-Israeli women employees earn less than 50 percent of the national average wages, according to a report published Monday by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission at Israel's Ministry of Labor.

The report noted that Arab-Israeli women are the most discriminated in the state's employment market.

In the computer manufacturing industry, for example, Arab-Israeli women without an academic degree make only 37 percent of the average salary of Jewish-Israeli workers without a degree.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- A grade-six student in the U.S. state of Florida was arrested after he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in his classroom, but local police said Monday that he was arrested "for disrupting the classroom" and "NOT for refusing to participate" in the pledge.

On Feb. 4, the 11-year-old student, who is black, refused to take part in the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag in his classroom, citing "racist" and "offensive to black people" as reasons, CNN reported quoting the school district and local police statements.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A former North Korean diplomat says leader Kim Jong Un has no intention of giving up his nuclear weapons and sees his upcoming second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump as a chance to cement his country’s status as a nuclear weapons state.

Thae Yong Ho, who defected to South Korea in 2016, said in a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday that next week’s meeting in Vietnam will be a failure if Trump can’t get Kim to declare he will abandon all of his nuclear facilities and weapons and return North Korea to the nuclear non-proliferation agreement.

GENEVA, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- An estimated 574,000 people in camps close to Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar face the coming cyclone seasons with only rotting bamboo and shredding plastic to protect them, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned here Monday.

IFRC said in a statement that a survey found that that 82 percent of the 700,000 people in sprawling camps there urgently need sturdier shelters to protect them from extreme temperatures, monsoon downpours and two cyclone seasons a year.

CARACAS, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan government on Monday said it will send humanitarian aid to Cucuta, a Colombian town bordering Venezuela, to help improve the difficult situation facing children in the area.

The move seems to be a satiric response to Colombia's decision to allow a U.S. military transport plane carrying aid meant for Venezuelans to land in Cucuta.

The border crossing has turned into a potential flashpoint as the Venezuelan opposition, with the support of Washington, steps up pressure on President Nicolas Maduro's government to renounce power.

19 Feb 2019; DW: Japanese car giant Honda has announced it will close of its only car plant in Britain in 2021. Several carmakers have announced plans to trim UK operations, with concerns that a no-deal Brexit could disrupt supply lines.

Honda will shutter its operations in southwestern England in 2021, the Japanese carmaker announced Tuesday. The move adds to a growing number of car manufacturers scaling down operations in the UK.

WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US-China trade talks aimed at ending a damaging tariff war resumed from Tuesday (Feb 19) in Washington, the White House said.

The last set of talks ended Friday in Beijing with no deal, though US President Donald Trump said the discussions were going “extremely well” and suggested he could extend a March 1 truce deadline for an agreement to be reached.

The next round of negotiations will commence with deputy-level meetings before moving on to principal-level talks on Thursday, a White House statement said.

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday stressed the economic and trade potential in the Asia-Pacific region, especially China, saying his government aims to bolster trade with countries in the region.

One of his government's strategic projects is to build a bicoastal corridor in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a narrow area of land in southern Mexico, between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, he said.

MOSCOW, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Kremlin on Monday condemned the blocking of Russian government-backed RT video channels by Facebook as "unprecedented and undisguised pressure on the Russian media."

"Unfortunately, many large companies that provide services in the field of social networks and in other, let's say, digital formats, are also used by the authorities of unfriendly countries as a tool to exert pressure on Russian media," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The United States discussed exchanging liaison officers with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), U.S. media reported on Monday.

Washington and Pyongyang were seriously considering exchanging liaison officers, an incremental step toward building formal diplomatic relations, according to a CNN report citing two high-level diplomatic sources.

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. The United States is behind the European Union's decision to impose new sanctions on Russia over the incident in the Kerch Strait, chairman of the Russian State Duma's International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky said on Monday.