(From) Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Tommie McNeil reporting.

British counter-terrorism police now say that a former Russian double agent who fell ill was actually poisoned by a nerve agent.

Reports say that Russian President Vladimir Putin had vowed to kill 66-year-old Sergei Skripal.

"Having established that a nerve agent is the cause of the symptoms leading us to treat this as attempted murder, I can also confirm that we believe the two people who became unwell were targeted specifically."

[and reports say that Russian president again] Mark Rowley is Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service. He says that both Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter are fighting for their lives after both were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping mall.

The United States says it will impose new economic sanctions on North Korea for using a lethal chemical nerve agent in last year's assassination of the estranged half-brother of leader Kim Jong Un.

The U.S. State Department announced Tuesday that it has determined that Pyongyang used the banned VX nerve agent to kill Kim Jong Nam on February 13, 2017 as he walked through Kuala Lumpur's International Airport. Two women were caught on airport security cameras spraying a liquid in Kim's face. He died just minutes later.

The United Nations human rights chief said Wednesday, "it is urgent to reverse this catastrophic course and to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court."

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein went on to say that the Syrian government's offensive in the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta cannot be justified by its targeting of a few hundred fighters.

The United Nations Security Council is discussing eastern Ghouta and a 30-day cease-fire adopted by its members on February 24.

This is VOA news.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Ethiopia Wednesday. It's the first stop on his official visit to Africa. He was welcomed on the red carpet by the foreign minister and the U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia.

Africa is a resource-rich continent that is becoming more closely linked with China on matters such as trade and aid.

In response to U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the International Monetary Fund and European leaders pushed back, saying it would provoke a calamitous global trade war.

This comes as the president's top economic adviser and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn resigned. As director of the NEC, Cohn tried to get Mr. Trump to abandon his tariff plan, but the president emphasized that he will impose the measures in the coming days.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided a timeline. "We expect that the president will sign something by the end of the week. And there are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada based on national security and possibly other countries as well based on that process."

She was also asked why at least a half dozen administration officials have resigned ....

"This is an intense place, as is every White House. And it's not abnormal that you would have people come and go. But we're continuing to do great work. We're continuing to focus on the president's agenda. And that's what we're all here to do."

And on the issue of Mr. Trump's proposed tariffs and whether they will spark trade wars, Trump has claimed the United States needs to impose steel and aluminum tariffs to protect its national security.

The accused 19-year-old shooter in the U.S. high school massacre three weeks ago has been indicted on 17 counts of premeditated murder and another 17 counts of attempted murder.

Nikolas Cruz, who was expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last year, could face the death penalty in that case, but the prosecutor has not yet announced whether he plans to seek that.

A day after hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants formally lost temporary protection from deportation, a Republican lawmaker in the state of Arizona attempted to revive the U.S. Senate debate on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA. It had provided beneficiaries temporary work and study permits.

Another Republican, however, James Lankford of Oklahoma, objected to Jeff Flake's motion, and the issue was put on hold once again.

Court challenges to Mr. Trump's DACA decision have, in effect, extended the deadline for Congress to act. Political analysts believe that makes it more likely that Dreamers as they are called will remain in legal limbo through the November midterm elections.

I'm Tommie McNeil, VOA news.

That's the latest world news from VOA.