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Taiwan says there have been more than 50 aftershocks following the biggest earthquake to hit the island in 25 years. Demolition work was beginning on four buildings heavily damaged by the quake. Uganda's constitutional court has declined to annul or grant a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the country’s anti-gay law. Foreign ministers of NATO's 32 allies posed for a photo during a two-day meeting to celebrate the alliance's 75th anniversary and discuss long-term support for Ukraine. And what time is it on the moon? NASA instructed to come up with a universal “moon time.”

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London — Britain has called for an immediate investigation into an Israeli airstrike Monday on an aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including three British citizens, in Gaza. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rejected calls to suspend arms shipments to Israel amid mounting global anger over the attack. The bodies of six of the seven victims were taken out of Gaza on Wednesday in a convoy of ambulances through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. The body of the seventh worker, a Palestinian driver, was turned over to his family for burial in Gaza. Monday's attack struck several vehicles being used by the World Central Kitchen charity. Video of the aftermath clearly showed the charity's logo on the roof of a vehicle, next to a gaping hole apparently caused by a missile. The three British victims were identified as 57-year-old John Chapman, 47-year-old James Kirby and 33-year-old James Henderson. Sunak said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Tuesday. "I … was very clear with him that the situation is increasingly intolerable, and what we urgently need to see is a thorough, transparent investigation into what has happened, but also a dramatic increase in the amount of aid getting into Gaza," Sunak told The Sun newspaper. "I think we've always had a very careful export licensing regime that we adhere to. There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that we'll always follow, and I've been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that whilst, of course, we defend Israel's right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law," Sunak said. The opposition Labour Party's shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the government's legal advice on Israel's conduct in its war on Hamas must be published. "If it is the case that international law has been contravened, then it is absolutely right that offensive arms are suspended to Israel," Lammy told reporters Wednesday. The three British victims were providing security for World Central Kitchen through the firm Solace Global. The firm's non-executive director, Matthew Harding, said it was difficult to know exactly what had happened. "We have looked very closely already at everything that preceded and went on after the incident. We are completely satisfied that all measures were correctly taken and executed" by his company, Harding told BBC News. The other victims of the airstrike included the group's Palestinian driver, 25-year-old Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha; 43-year-old Australian national Lalzawmi Frankcom, who was World Central Kitchen's relief lead in Gaza; 35-year-old Polish citizen Damian Sobol; and 33-year-old Jacob Flickinger, a U.S.-Canadian citizen. Their governments have echoed calls for a swift investigation. Israel said it did not intend to target the aid workers. "It was a mistake that followed a misidentification at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. It shouldn't have happened," Herzi Halevi, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, said in a televised statement on Tuesday. Israeli government spokesperson Ilana Stein said Wednesday that the government regretted the "awful" incident. "This is a very complex war situation. Every war is very difficult. It's very messy, it's very dangerous, and it has casualties that we would all rather not have on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side," Stein told reporters in Tel Aviv. "Having said that, Israel has been checking itself every day. We have been reviewing our actions in different manners, also in the field, but also regarding what we can do to distribute aid." The organization Human Rights Watch rejected her explanation. "Israel's deadly attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza displays the characteristics of a precision airstrike, indicating that the Israeli military intended to hit the vehicles. World Central Kitchen coordinated its coordinates and its movements with the Israeli government. Their vehicles were clearly marked," said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. "This is not an isolated incident. The Israeli government has killed at least 196 aid workers in Gaza, according to the United Nations," Shakir told VOA. Israel maintains it makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties. World Central Kitchen has suspended its operations in Gaza. The organization said it has provided more than 42 million meals since its operations began there 6 months ago. In an article Wednesday in The New York Times, Jose Andres, the charity's founder, said the attack was "the direct result of [Israel's] policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels." Despite widespread accusations from aid agencies that Israel is obstructing relief supplies into Gaza, Israel denies it is blocking aid and blames Hamas for the delays, which it accuses of using hospitals and aid facilities as military bases. Hamas denies that claim and says Israel is using hunger as a weapon of war.

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Illegal immigration is the top issue for many voters in this year’s U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Scott Stearns looks at how candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden differ over what to do.

washington — U.S. weapons sales to Israel have been under increased scrutiny amid outrage over the reported deaths of tens of thousands of people in Gaza since the start of the war, including seven aid workers killed in an Israeli airstrike this week.  President Joe Biden said in a statement on Tuesday that he was "outraged and heartbroken" by the deaths, his latest stern rebuke of Israel's war conduct. Israel said the strike was "unintentional" and promised an investigation. On Wednesday, Biden ignored questions about whether he would put conditions on U.S. military aid. His aides suggest the administration is unlikely to do so, citing U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself against the "still viable threat" from Hamas. The administration will wait for results of Israel's investigation, National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby told reporters Wednesday. "I'm not going to get ahead of decisions that haven't been made yet," he said. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres accused Israel of targeting the group's food convoy "systematically, car by car." He said he had established clear communication with the Israeli military about his aid workers' movements. Andres is a celebrity chef who is well-known in Washington. That and the fact that the victims included U.S.-Canadian citizen Jacob Flickinger has added a new level of outrage, including among lawmakers of Biden's own Democratic Party, and renewed demands that the president condition military aid to Israel. "Israel has killed more than 200 aid workers in 6 months. That's not an accident. No more aid for Netanyahu's war machine," Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders said in a social media post Tuesday. Weapons transfer Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid, nearly $4 billion a year, most of it in the form of military assistance. Under U.S. law, the administration must notify Congress of weapons transfers to Israel that are worth more than $25 million. In December, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved two emergency weapons transfers to Israel, bypassing the congressional review requirement for foreign military sales. Since the October 7 Hamas attack, two additional transfers have been made public, said Josh Paul, former director at the State Department agency that handles weapons transfers, who resigned in October in protest over the U.S.'s "continued lethal assistance to Israel." Those two were made under the direct commercial sales process and Congress was notified, Paul told VOA. "But with less visibility, because there is less information that is provided to the public on direct commercial sales," he said. In addition to the four that were made public, since October 7 more than 100 arms transfers to Israel have taken place without informing Congress, mainly because the packages were structured to fall below the notification threshold, according to reporting by The Washington Post, which VOA confirmed with a Department of Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Ari Tolany, director of security assistance, arms trade and technology at the Center for International Policy, said the moves amount to a "deliberate dodge of transparency" by the administration. "When they are publicly saying that Israel needs to take more steps to protect civilians but privately pushing through hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of weapons, there's really no credibility," she told VOA. The Biden administration refuses to use the most significant source of leverage it has, she said, which is "the massive amount of arms provided to Israel." The Post reported that the transfers included billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets in recent weeks, even as the administration publicly criticized Israel's intention for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.5 million displaced Palestinians seek safety. Unconditional support Since Harry Truman recognized Israel minutes after its founding in 1948, American presidents have supported the country. Almost all have done so unconditionally, with the exception of President George H.W. Bush, who in 1991 gave Israel an ultimatum to freeze settlements on Palestinian land in exchange for $10 billion in loan guarantees. That approach worked. But not all agree that restricting aid will effect change. "The emotive issue of providing for a country's means for their own defense can sometimes trigger different responses in different theaters. It's just been a sort of inexact tool for the U.S in the past," said Grant Rumley, a senior fellow specializing in military and security affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "I think that's internalized within this administration right now," he told VOA. "That, coupled with the president's long-standing commitment to Israel, is why you haven't seen any real steps taken on this route." There is also the fear that putting conditions on aid may send the wrong signal to Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, increasing the prospects of opening a second front to the conflict at Israel's northern border with Lebanon. In March, to meet the Biden administration's requirement set out in February, Israel provided assurances that American weapons are used in accordance with international and humanitarian law, which the administration accepted. Those assurances are "not credible," said Human Rights Watch and Oxfam. The rights groups submitted examples of what they call Israeli violations of international humanitarian law, including "deprivation of services critical to the survival of the civilian population, and arbitrary denial and restrictions of humanitarian aid." Eighty Muslim and Arab American organizations sent a similar letter to Biden on Wednesday, objecting to his "administration's decisions to falsely declare that Israel's war on Gaza complies with U.S. legal requirements and authorize the continued transfer of U.S.-manufactured weapons." The groups cited the attacks on the World Central Kitchen aid workers as the latest example of Israel's violation of the laws of war.

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PARIS — Iran has turned its prisons into sites of mass killing with at least 853 people executed in the Islamic republic in 2023, over half of them on drug-related charges, Amnesty International said on Thursday. The London-based group said in a report that stronger international action was needed to halt the rise in executions, otherwise "thousands" risked being hanged in the coming years. The Iranian authorities have "persisted with their state-sanctioned killing spree which has turned prisons into killing fields," Amnesty said. The figure for 2023 was up 48% on the previous year and 56% of executions involved drug-related charges, Amnesty said. Two other NGOs, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), published a report last month giving the slightly lower figure of 834 people executed in 2023. The surge in executions came after Iran was convulsed by protests that erupted in September 2022. Nine people have been put to death in cases related to the protests. Rights groups including Amnesty have warned that the authorities are using executions to instill fear throughout society and prevent any more demonstrations. Amnesty said Iran's behavior had not changed this year, with at least 95 executions already recorded up to March 20. The rights group added that its numbers were "minimum figures," and the real death toll would be higher. "Without a robust global response, Amnesty International fears that the Iranian authorities will continue using the death penalty as a tool of oppression to execute thousands more people in the coming years," the group said in its report. Among those executed was 17-year-old Hamidreza Azari, hanged in November in Razavi Khorasan province after being convicted over a deadly 2023 stabbing when he was 16. His age "was misrepresented" as 18 by state media to "evade accountability," Amnesty said, adding that it had reviewed his birth certificate. Amnesty said the Sunni Baluch minority concentrated in the southeast was being targeted disproportionately. The minority "constitutes only about 5% of Iran's population but accounted for 20% of all executions in 2023," the report noted. And the renewed surge in executions for drug offences was a particular concern, Amnesty said. Iran's anti-narcotics legislation was modified in 2017 and executions for drug offences declined in 2018 and 2020 before dramatically rebounding last year. "The death penalty is abhorrent in all circumstances but deploying it on a mass scale for drug-related offences after grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts is a grotesque abuse of power," said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty's deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

BOSTON — In a scathing indictment of Microsoft corporate security and transparency, a Biden administration-appointed review board issued a report Tuesday saying "a cascade of errors" by the tech giant let state-backed Chinese cyber operators break into email accounts of senior U.S. officials including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The Cyber Safety Review Board, created in 2021 by executive order, describes shoddy cybersecurity practices, a lax corporate culture and a lack of sincerity about the company's knowledge of the targeted breach, which affected multiple U.S. agencies that deal with China. It concluded that "Microsoft's security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul" given the company's ubiquity and critical role in the global technology ecosystem. Microsoft products "underpin essential services that support national security, the foundations of our economy, and public health and safety." The panel said the intrusion, discovered in June by the State Department and dating to May, "was preventable and should never have occurred," and it blamed its success on "a cascade of avoidable errors." What's more, the board said, Microsoft still doesn't know how the hackers got in. The panel made sweeping recommendations, including urging Microsoft to put on hold adding features to its cloud computing environment until "substantial security improvements have been made." It said Microsoft's CEO and board should institute "rapid cultural change," including publicly sharing "a plan with specific timelines to make fundamental, security-focused reforms across the company and its full suite of products." In a statement, Microsoft said it appreciated the board's investigation and would "continue to harden all our systems against attack and implement even more robust sensors and logs to help us detect and repel the cyber-armies of our adversaries." In all, the state-backed Chinese hackers broke into the Microsoft Exchange Online email of 22 organizations and more than 500 individuals around the world — including the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns — accessing some cloud-based email boxes for at least six weeks and downloading some 60,000 emails from the State Department alone, the 34-page report said. Three think tanks and foreign government entities, including a number of British organizations, were among those compromised, it said. The board, convened by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in August, accused Microsoft of making inaccurate public statements about the incident — including issuing a statement saying it believed it had determined the likely root cause of the intrusion "when, in fact, it still has not." Microsoft did not update that misleading blog post, published in September, until mid-March, after the board repeatedly asked if it planned to issue a correction, it said. Separately, the board expressed concern about a separate hack disclosed by the Redmond, Washington, company in January, this one of email accounts — including those of an undisclosed number of senior Microsoft executives and an undisclosed number of Microsoft customers — and attributed to state-backed Russian hackers. The board lamented "a corporate culture that deprioritized both enterprise security investments and rigorous risk management." The Chinese hack was initially disclosed in July by Microsoft in a blog post and carried out by a group the company calls Storm-0558. That same group, the panel noted, has been engaged in similar intrusions — compromising cloud providers or stealing authentication keys so it can break into accounts — since at least 2009, targeting companies including Google, Yahoo, Adobe, Dow Chemical and Morgan Stanley. Microsoft noted in its statement that the hackers involved are "well-resourced nation state threat actors who operate continuously and without meaningful deterrence." The company said that it recognized that recent events "have demonstrated a need to adopt a new culture of engineering security in our own networks," and added that it had "mobilized our engineering teams to identify and mitigate legacy infrastructure, improve processes, and enforce security benchmarks."

Zimbabwe is attempting to turn its biggest trash dump into a source of biogas, a renewable energy source that can be used to produce electricity. Locals like the idea of a project that creates jobs and eases chronic power shortages. But as Columbus Mavhunga reports from Harare, some residents say the project is draining the city's scarce resources.

Britain has called for an immediate Israeli investigation into an airstrike that killed seven aid workers in the Gaza strip, amid mounting global anger over Monday’s attack. Three of the dead were British citizens, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.

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new york — A New York judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump's bid to delay his April 15 trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews claim to presidential immunity in a separate criminal case.   The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 25 the former U.S. president's arguments that he is immune from federal prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden.   His defense lawyers in the New York case in March asked Justice Juan Merchan to delay the trial until that review was complete, arguing it was relevant because prosecutors were seeking to present evidence of statements Trump made while he was president from 2017 to 2021.   In a court ruling on Wednesday, Merchan said Trump had waited too long to raise the issue.   "Defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7, 2024," Merchan wrote.   Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, declined to comment.  Trump, the Republican candidate to challenge Biden in the November 5 election, has pleaded not guilty in each of the four criminal indictments he faces.   The New York case could be the only one to go to trial before the election.   He is accused of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.   Trump denies any such encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.   Trump also is seeking a delay on the basis that a deluge of news coverage of the case has led potential jurors to believe he is already guilty. Merchan has not yet ruled on that request.   Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which charged Trump in 2023, opposed that request in a court filing made public on Wednesday.  They argued that Trump himself had generated much of the news coverage, and that they would be able to weed out biased jurors through the jury selection process.  The Supreme Court's decision to take up Trump's appeal in the federal election interference case was a major victory for him, delaying the trial's start by months at least.   He also faces a state case in Georgia over his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results, as well as a federal case in Florida over his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office in 2021. Those cases also lack firm trial dates.  No U.S. president has ever faced a criminal trial. 

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tokyo — Japan is set to improve its strategic partnership with the Philippines at an upcoming trilateral meeting with the United States amid rising tensions between Beijing and Manila. Leaders of the three countries, who will meet April 11 in Washington, are expected to discuss maritime security issues that are drawing Japan into a more robust military role in the Asia-Pacific region. China used water cannons last month to disrupt a Philippine mission to resupply its garrison in a disputed portion of the South China Sea, an attack that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called “illegal, coercive” and warranting countermeasures. Despite its geographical distance from the South China Sea, Japan’s national interests lie in defending peace across the region, according to Alexander Vuving, professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. “From the Philippines' perspective, Japan is Manila's second most important partner in the South China Sea, second only to the United States, given Japan's high commitment to keeping the sea free of Chinese dominance; Japan's robust economic and military capabilities; and Japan's proximity to the sea,” he told VOA. Protecting regional dominance Freedom of navigation in the maritime region is vital to Japan, which sees 90% of its energy and trade flow through the South China Sea. Japan relies heavily on importing crude oil from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while one-fourth of the nation’s total trade in 2019 was from the European Union and members of ASEAN that also rely on the sea route. Vuving added that Japan has changed its strategy from depending only on the U.S.-Japan military alliance to taking a more proactive role in defending its own national interests. “The protection of the sea lines of communication that connect Japan with the rest of Afro-Eurasia is prominent in this vision because these maritime routes are some of the main arteries of Japan's supply chains,” he said. Ken Jimbo, a Keio University professor specializing in Japanese defense and security policy, said Japan is aiming to keep China’s maritime presence in check. “Diplomatically, [keeping China in check] allows Japan to strengthen its position in the Indo-Pacific region, fostering closer security and defense cooperation with like-minded countries to counterbalance China's assertiveness,” he told VOA. Japan announced late last year that it was in talks with the Philippines for a defense pact known as a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) that would provide for enhanced security assistance. “The negotiation of a Japan-Philippines RAA signifies a deepening military cooperation, aiming to elevate their defense relations,” Jimbo said. “Japan is considered a powerful ally for the Philippines, not just in terms of military equipment but also in enhancing interoperability and strategic alignment against common security challenges in the region.” Early last year, the two countries signed terms of reference that simplified the process for Japanese forces to enter the Philippines for humanitarian assistance. Further friction with China? Japan’s siding with the Philippines and the U.S. has created friction in sometimes bumpy Sino-Japanese relations. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, urged Japan to “take actions that are beneficial to regional peace and stability,” state media CGTN reported in late March. The sources of friction between the two countries range from anger over Japan’s use of sexual slavery during World War II to the release of wastewater from the disabled Fukushima nuclear power plant. There is also a long-standing dispute over islands in the East China Sea known as Diaoyu to China and Senkaku to Japan. Jimbo said the trilateral summit in Washington could strain Sino-Japanese relations, but that the benefits outweigh the costs. “It is a calculated move within Japan’s broader regional strategy,” he said. “The dynamics of Japan-China relations are complex, with economic interdependence coexisting with strategic rivalry, suggesting that both nations are accustomed to managing fluctuations in their relationship.” Vuving said China is unlikely to react by raising tensions over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. “Such tensions would only strengthen Japan’s belief in seeking regional cooperation to deny Chinese regional dominance,” he said. “China may seek ways to hurt Japan economically, but for Japan, the trilateral cooperation … helps to redress the balance of power in the South China Sea in the long term … and would be immensely important if a conflict occurred over Taiwan.” China is currently Japan’s largest trading partner, and one of the largest investment destinations for Japanese companies. Japan exports semiconductors and electronic parts to China and imports telecommunications and computer equipment from it, according to government data. Experts say that after the trilateral meeting, Japan is expected to send its naval vessels to patrol with the U.S and the Philippines and will likely join military drills in the South China Sea. 

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New York — Children are being denied access to lifesaving humanitarian assistance in conflict zones around the world in a blatant disregard for international law, a senior U.N. official said Wednesday. “Let me be very clear: The Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child contain key provisions requiring the facilitation of humanitarian relief to children in need,” Virginia Gamba, the U.N. envoy on children and armed conflict, told a meeting of the Security Council. “The denial of humanitarian access to children and attacks against humanitarian workers assisting children are also prohibited under international humanitarian law,” she said. Her office verified nearly 4,000 such denial of aid cases in 2022, she said, with the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Yemen, Afghanistan and Mali having the highest number. Gamba said the data for her office’s upcoming report shows the negative trend continuing. “Some situations involve high levels of arbitrary impediments and/or outright denial of humanitarian access to children, including in situations such as in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and in Haiti to name but two,” she said. Gamba said denial of aid access is linked to the restriction of humanitarian activities and movements; interference with humanitarian operations and discrimination against aid recipients; direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure; disinformation; looting; and the detention of, violence against and killing of humanitarian personnel. Children are especially affected by the lack of nutrition, education and health care, which can have lifelong consequences. Gamba said it is even more catastrophic for disabled children. And it also impacts boys differently than girls. “For instance, restrictions to girls’ movement challenge their access to aid in areas where it may be distributed, including in internally displaced persons camps, while teenage boys could be perceived as associated with an opposing party and, therefore, denied that access,” she said. Gamba called upon all parties to allow and facilitate safe, timely and unimpeded humanitarian access, as well as access by children to services, assistance and protection, and to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and assets. She said hospitals, schools and their staff must also be protected under international humanitarian law. The deputy executive director of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, urged the Security Council to help humanitarians get the access they need. Ted Chaiban underscored that aid groups need more exemptions in sanctions resolutions for their work; they need to be able to engage with all armed groups without fear of consequences; as well as access across borders and conflict lines. "Around the world, our teams on the ground are working under increasingly difficult operational circumstances to access children,” Chaiban said, adding they are committed to staying and delivering. “Children are the first to suffer and the ones who will carry the longest-lasting humanitarian consequences,” he said. “Parties have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure children’s access to humanitarian services.”

Washington — The United States on Wednesday opposed a Palestinian push for full membership at the United Nations, with Washington saying it backed statehood but after negotiations with Israel.  "We support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.  "That is something that should be done through direct negotiations through the parties, something we are pursuing at this time, and not at the United Nations," he said, without explicitly saying that the United States would veto the bid if it reached the Security Council.  Miller said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been actively engaged in establishing "security guarantees" for Israel as part of the groundwork for a Palestinian state.  U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has increasingly highlighted support for a Palestinian state, with a reformed Palestinian Authority in charge in the West Bank and Gaza, as it looks for a way to close the ongoing war in which its ally Israel is seeking to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for decades resisted a Palestinian state and leads a far-right government with members hostile to the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited autonomy in sections of the West Bank.  Under longstanding legislation by the U.S. Congress, the United States is required to cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state.  The law has been applied selectively. The United States cut off funding in 2011 and later withdrew from the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO, but Biden's administration returned, saying it was better to be present.  Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, said that recognition of a Palestinian state by the world body would mean "funding would be cut off to the U.N. system, so we're bound by U.S. law."  "Our hope is that they don't pursue that, but that's up to them," Wood said of the Palestinians' bid.  The Palestinian Authority has submitted a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for the Security Council to reconsider a longstanding application for statehood in April.  Any request to become a U.N. member state must first be recommended by the Security Council, where Israel's primary backer the United States as well as four other countries wield vetoes, and then endorsed by a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.   Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas launched the statehood application in 2011. It was not considered by the Security Council, but the General Assembly the following year granted observer status to the "State of Palestine."