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Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the media are working to verify details of the attack and to combat fast-spreading mis- and disinformation. Ethics experts are looking at how the attack is being framed. With Liam Scott, Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story for VOA News.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Amsterdam — The Netherlands commemorated on Wednesday the 298 victims of flight MH17 with a ceremony attended by the bereaved and representatives from Malaysia, Australia, Britain, Belgium and Ukraine. Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, including 196 Dutch citizens, were killed, leaving the plane's wreckage and the remains of the victims scattered across fields of corn and sunflowers. Based on an international investigation, a Dutch court in 2022 said there was no doubt the plane was shot down by a Russian missile system and that Moscow had "overall control" of the forces of the separatist "Donetsk People's Republic" in eastern Ukraine since May 2014. Russia denies any involvement. During Wednesday's ceremony, which took place at the MH17 monument in the village of Vijfhuizen near Amsterdam, loved ones read out loud the names of all the victims. Mark Rutte, who was prime minister when the disaster happened and has been a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since, drew applause for his efforts during his time in office to keep the international spotlight on the incident. The Dutch court convicted two former Russian intelligence agents and a Ukrainian separatist leader in absentia of murder for their role in the transport into eastern Ukraine of the Russian military BUK missile system used to down the plane. "Justice requires a long, long breath," said Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who took office earlier this month, adding that "a conviction is not the same as having someone behind bars."   Commemorating the victims in his nightly video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: "There is no doubt that the judicial process and the overall work of international justice will inevitably lead to entirely fair sentences for all responsible for this crime." His foreign minster, Dmytro Kuleba, wrote on X that Russia had twice killed the victims. "First with a missile. Second, with lies that abused their memory and hurt their relatives."   Moscow denies any responsibility for MH17's downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine. However, the EU's outgoing foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday called on Russia to finally accept its responsibility. "The evidence presented makes it abundantly clear that the BUK surface-to-air missile system used to bring down Flight MH17 belonged beyond doubt to the armed forces of the Russian Federation," Borrell said. "No Russian disinformation operation can distract from these basic facts, established by a court of law."

Kigali — Paul Kagame’s win in Rwanda's presidential election this week was widely expected, although critics say the vote was neither free nor fair. Lewis Mudge is the central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. Mudge, who lived in Rwanda for several years, said elections there are a mere performance and always produce big wins for Kagame. “Notwithstanding the economic progress that President Kagame has made, he’s effectively been in power since July of 1994. That progress has not been matched in terms of political and civil rights and that reflects open space for people to have an independent political platform that disagrees with the RPF,” he said. Kagame won over 99% of the vote, according to preliminary results announced on Monday. Earlier this year, like many analysts, Strathmore University lecturer Edgar Githua predicted the 66-year-old Kagame would win big but had no doubt the size of the victory would be greatly exaggerated. "Rwanda is the paradox of Africa. Paradox of Africa because the Rwandese themselves are afraid to talk about their own elections. If you have a vote where 98% votes for one candidate, that is a red flag. Nobody is that popular in this world," said Githua. Kagame, who has held various roles since 1994, won by a similar margin in 2017. At a watch party organized by his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front, he acknowledged that some people found his margin of victory this year suspicious. “This is a strange thing, that’s why there are many who don’t understand it, criticize it, but instead it [votes] continues to increase. It’s the uniqueness of RPF and the uniqueness of Rwandans,” he said. Indeed, Kagame’s supporters, including Samuel Kwazera, said they would vote for him forever if they could. “During the genocide in 1994, I was four years old; now it’s 30 years until today you can see the progress and you can see democracy going on, I am proud. I wish myself as I love him that he can be forever, and ever,” he said. Mudge said while there are Rwandans who will continue to vote for Kagame, this was not a free and fair election. “For our point as an organization that defends civil and political rights of people in Rwanda to express themselves, our point is the context is very different if you want to express yourself differently, if you want to criticize government policy. There’s simply no space for them to operate,” he said. Kagame faced two opponents — Democratic Green Party Candidate Frank Habineza and independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana. Both received less than 1 percent of the vote. Other candidates, including some of Kagame’s most vocal critics, were barred from running for president, including Diane Rwigara. One of the reasons was that she didn’t garner the 600 signatures of support needed in her application. Mudge said in Rwanda’s political climate, Rwigara had no chance to get the signatures or a place on the ballot. “For people like Rwigara and [Victoire] Ingabire, it’s not about this technical aspect of signatures. This is about not allowing compelling, articulate women to run, to take attention, and basically challenging the narrative,” he said. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, another critic of Kagame who was a presidential candidate in the 2010 elections, was arrested, tried, and jailed on charges of terrorism and threatening national security. She was released eight years later through a presidential pardon. She said elections in Rwanda have long been predetermined. “Persistent wins of presidential elections close to 100% is not a sign of popularity but of lack of competition. … I don’t understand why they refuse to allow the most credible challengers to participate against President Kagame in elections in Rwanda. Of course, this is not only in 2024 but it was the case in 2003, 2010 and 2017,” she said. Recently Kagame called her a “genocidaire" and said her life will not end well. “I was surprised to hear President Kagame talking about me being from a genocidaire family but those are accusations used by the government to intimidate everyone who challenges the Rwandan government,” she said. Analysts acknowledge that Kagame does enjoy real popularity among Rwanda’s electorate, mainly for his ability to guide the East African country toward internal stability and economic progress since the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists. At the same time, they say, Kagame continues to stifle dissent, as support for the president and his policies is not unanimous.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Donald Trump’s former foes in the Republican party endorsed him at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee. Israelis are closely watching American election as well even as their own country is politically divided as well. Hezbollah warns it will strike more targets in Israel and NATO sets up an office in the Middle East. An update from Kyiv, China’s economic impact around the world and a look at security in Asia.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Beijing — Firefighters in China pulled six bodies from a shopping centre on Wednesday, state media reported, with an unknown number still trapped after a blaze broke out in a 14-storey building. Footage broadcast by state broadcaster CCTV and shared on social media showed thick black smoke billowing out of the tower, located in Zigong in southwestern Sichuan province. The blaze started in the early evening in a shopping center at the foot of the building, the channel said. Around 30 people were rescued from the shopping complex, with the fire extinguished by rescuers around 8:20 pm (1220 GMT), CCTV said. Later footage provided by a drone operator to AFP showed firetrucks and other first responders blocking off the road late at night, continuing to spray down the charred building. "Six people have been killed," CCTV reported, adding that search and rescue operations were continuing with people still trapped. Zigong's emergency services department received news about the fire at around 6:10 pm and immediately dispatched firefighters to extinguish the blaze, the broadcaster said. Other images shared on social media — which AFP could not immediately verify — show people gathered in front of the burning building. The emergency department has called on the public to "not to believe or amplify rumours" about the fire. Zigong, some 1,900 kilometers from the capital Beijing, is home to nearly 2.5 million people. Lax safety Fires and other deadly accidents are common in China due to lax safety standards and poor enforcement. In January, dozens died after a fire broke out at a store in the central city of Xinyu, with state news agency Xinhua reporting the blaze had been caused by the "illegal" use of fire by workers in the store's basement. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to avoid further tragedies. The same month, a fire in a residential building killed at least 15 people. That fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central China's Henan province killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory. In June last year, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the northwest of the country left 31 dead and prompted official pledges of a nationwide campaign to promote workplace safety. And in April 2023, a fire in a Beijing hospital claimed 29 lives and forced desperate patients to jump from windows to escape.  

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy has exonerated 256 Black sailors who were found to be unjustly punished in 1944 following a horrific port explosion that killed hundreds of service members and exposed racist double standards among the then-segregated ranks.  On July 17, 1944, munitions being loaded onto a cargo ship detonated, causing secondary blasts that ignited 5,000 tons (4,535 metric tonnes) of explosives at Port Chicago naval weapons station near San Francisco.  The explosion killed 320 sailors and civilians, nearly 75% of whom were Black, and injured another 400 personnel. Surviving Black sailors had to pick up the human remains and clear the blast site while white officers were granted leave to recuperate.  The pier was a critical ammunition supply site for forces in the Pacific during World War II, and the job of loading those ships was left primarily to Black enlisted sailors overseen by white officers.  Before the explosion, the Black sailors working the dock had expressed concerns about the loading operations. Shortly after the blast, they were ordered to return to loading ships even though no changes had been made to improve their safety.  The sailors refused, saying they needed training on how to more safely handle the bombs before they returned.  What followed affected the rest of their lives, including punishments that kept them from receiving honorable discharges even as the vast majority returned to work at the pier under immense pressure and served throughout the war. Fifty sailors who held fast to their demands for safety and training were tried as a group on charges of conspiracy to commit mutiny and were convicted and sent to prison.  The whole episode was unjust, and none of the sailors received the legal due process they were owed, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in an interview with The Associated Press.  It was "a horrific situation for those Black sailors that remained," Del Toro said. The Navy's office of general counsel reviewed the military judicial proceedings used to punish the sailors and found "there were so many inconsistencies and so many legal violations that came to the forefront," he said.  Thurgood Marshall, who was then a defense attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, defended the 50 sailors who were convicted of mutiny. Marshall went on to become the first Black justice on the Supreme Court.  On Wednesday, the 80th anniversary of the Port Chicago disaster, Del Toro signed paperwork officially clearing the sailors, who are now deceased. Del Toro handed the first pen to Thurgood Marshall Jr., the late justice's son.  The exonerations "are deeply moving," Marshall Jr. said. "They, of course, are all gone, and that's a painful aspect of it. But so many fought for so long for that kind of fairness and recognition."  The events have stung surviving family members for decades, but an earlier effort in the 1990s to pardon the sailors fell short. Two additional sailors were previously cleared — one was found mentally incompetent to stand trial, and one was cleared on insufficient evidence. Wednesday's action goes beyond a pardon and vacates the military judicial proceedings carried out in 1944 against all of the men.  "This decision clears their names and restores their honor and acknowledges the courage that they displayed in the face of immense danger," Del Toro said.  The racism that the Black sailors faced reflected the military's views at the time — ranks were segregated, and the Navy had only reluctantly opened some positions it considered less desirable to Black service members.  The official court of inquiry looking into why the explosion occurred cleared all the white officers and praised them for the "great effort" they had to exert to run the dock. It left open the suggestion that the Black sailors were to blame for the accident.  Del Toro's action converts the discharges to honorable unless there were other circumstances surrounding them. After the Navy upgrades the discharges, surviving family members can work with the Department of Veterans Affairs on past benefits that may be owed, the Navy said.

Indonesia has become a temporary home for thousands of refugees from Asia and Africa. Dave Grunebaum reports from Cisarua, Indonesia, on a program that is helping some of them prepare for the lives that lie ahead of them. (Camera: Dave Grunebaum)

Islamabad — Pakistan lodged an official complaint Wednesday with the Taliban government in Afghanistan over a recent extremist attack against a military compound in the northwest, which resulted in the deaths of eight soldiers and injuries to many others. The Foreign Ministry said that it summoned the deputy chief of the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad to deliver a "strong demarche" or official diplomatic note regarding Monday’s pre-dawn raid in the garrison city of Bannu.  The statement urged Taliban authorities to “fully investigate and take immediate, robust and effective action against the perpetrators” of the attack. The Pakistani military has said that 10 heavily armed men carried out the Bannu assault and were all killed in the ensuing hours-long gun battles with security forces. The Foreign Ministry asserted that the assailants were allies of the globally designed terrorist group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, based in Afghanistan and orchestrating cross-border attacks.  The statement said the group “is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani civilians and security forces.” It urged de facto Afghan authorities to “fully investigate and take immediate, robust, and effective action against the perpetrators” of the deadly violence and “prevent the recurrence of such attacks” from Afghan soil. “Pakistan reiterated its serious concerns over the presence of terror outfits inside Afghanistan that continue to threaten Pakistan’s security,” the foreign ministry stated Wednesday, reiterating Islamabad’s call for “decisive action against terrorism.” Taliban officials in Kabul have not responded to the charges immediately, though they have previously denied such allegations and claimed no foreign groups are present in Afghan territory.  Pakistani security officials have claimed that their investigations into the Bannu attack identified one of the slain assailants as an Afghan national. They stated that he was a resident of the eastern Afghan province of Logar and an active Afghan Taliban combatant. U.S. reaction On Tuesday, the United States, while commenting on surging militant violence in Pakistan, renewed its call for Taliban authorities to combat extremist threats emanating from Afghanistan. “We have a shared interest with the Pakistani people and the government of Pakistan in combating threats to regional security,” State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller told reporters in Washington.  “We do continue to urge the Taliban to ensure that terrorist attacks are not launched from Afghan soil. That has been a priority for us in engagements with them, and it continues to be,” Miller added.  The United Nations released a report on the security situation in Afghanistan earlier this month, describing the TTP as “the largest terrorist group” operating in the country. “TTP continues to operate at a significant scale in Afghanistan and to conduct terrorist operations into Pakistan from there, often utilizing Afghans,” said the report by the U.N. sanctions monitoring team. It noted that the ruling Taliban and al-Qaida are increasingly supporting cross-border TTP attacks. “The Taliban do not conceive of TTP as a terrorist group: the bonds are close, and the debt owed to TTP is significant,” the U.N. report added. Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the U.N. findings, saying they are part of efforts to malign their Islamic administration in Kabul. The TTP, commonly referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, is known to have publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. It provided shelter on Pakistani soil and recruits for their Afghan ideological allies to help them wage insurgent attacks against the U.S.-led NATO troops for years until U.S. and international forces withdrew in 2021, and the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan. 

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Baghdad — The U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that the Islamic State group is trying "to reconstitute" as the number of attacks in Syria and Iraq is on track to double this year, compared to the year before. IS claimed 153 attacks in the two countries in the first six months of 2024, CENTCOM said in a statement. According to a U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't allowed to speak publicly on the matter, the group was behind 121 attacks in Syria and Iraq in 2023. "The increase in attacks indicates ISIS is attempting to reconstitute following several years of decreased capability," CENTCOM said. In northeastern Syria, Kurdish-led authorities issued a general amnesty Wednesday that would include hundreds of Syrians who have been held by the main U.S.-backed force over their roles within IS. The U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, are holding over 10,000 captured IS fighters in around two dozen detention facilities — including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them. The SDF captured the last sliver of land in Syria from IS in March 2019. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria said a life sentence will be reduced to 15 years in jail, while those detainees serving life sentences who have incurable diseases will be set free, as will those who have reached the age of 75. It said the amnesty will not include IS officials and members who fought against the SDF, nor those who carried out attacks with explosives that killed people. Legal expert Khaled Jabr told The Associated Press that the amnesty will include some 600 Syrian citizens who are held on terrorism charges and links to IS, as long as their hands are not tainted with blood or they were detained while fighting SDF members. The announcement comes just after the 10-year mark since the militant group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria. At its peak, the group ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom where it attempted to enforce its extreme interpretation of Islam, which included attacks on religious minority groups and harsh punishment of Muslims deemed to be apostates.  Militants also killed thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority and kidnapped thousands of women and children, many of whom were subjected to sexual abuse and human trafficking.  A coalition of more than 80 countries, led by the United States, was formed to fight IS, which lost its hold on the territory it controlled in Iraq and 2017 and in Syria in 2019, although sleeper cells remain in both countries and abroad.  Iraqi officials say that they can keep the IS threat under control with their own forces and have entered into talks with the U.S. aimed at winding down the mission of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq.  The talks come at a time of increased domestic tensions over the U.S. military presence.  From October to February, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq launched regular drone attacks on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, which they said was in retaliation for Washington's support of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza and were aimed at forcing U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq.  Those attacks largely halted after three U.S. soldiers were killed in a strike on a base in Jordan, near the Syrian border in late January, prompting U.S. retaliatory strikes in Iraq.  On Tuesday, two Iraqi militia officials said they had launched a new drone attack targeting the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. It was unclear whether the attack had hit its target. U.S. officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Geneva — Hunger and looming famine are driving a growing number of people to flee war-torn Sudan in search of refuge in neighboring countries, according to World Health Organization officials. Dr. Shible Sahbani, WHO representative to Sudan, recently told journalists that he met Sudanese refugees on a recent mission to Chad who’d left home only because of hunger. “They say it is not insecurity, it is not a lack of access to basic services, but because they have nothing to eat,” he said at Tuesday’s press conference in Geneva. An acute food insecurity analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, in late June indicates that 14 months into the conflict, “Sudan is facing the worst levels of acute food insecurity ever recorded by the IPC in the country,” noting that the number of acutely hungry people has risen from 17.7 million to 25.6 million over the last six months. “There is a risk of famine in 14 areas in greater Darfur, Greater Kordofan, Al Jazirah states and some hotspots in Khartoum if the conflict escalates further, including through increased mobilization of local militias,” says the report. Sahbani has previously described refugees fleeing the Darfur and Kordofan regions as “disturbing, heartbreaking even,” explaining that women and children spoke of “loss of life, loss of belongings, hunger, disease, a lack of basic services and violence, including sexual violence.” All of this, he said, has led to a massive influx of refugees in the neighboring countries. Displacement milestone The United Nations humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, on Tuesday said the conflict in Sudan “has reached another grim milestone” in its displacement crisis. Citing the International Organization for Migration, it said 12.7 million people have become displaced since war broke out in mid-April 2023, with more than 10 million remaining inside Sudan and more than 2 million displaced as refugees in five neighboring countries. Sahbani said that Chad, which is hosting more than 700,000 refugees from Sudan, reportedly is receiving between 500 and 700 new arrivals every day. “The Chad government and the people of Adre have been welcoming. They have opened their system and their homes,” he said. “But this is a system already overstretched, and these are people who have nothing more to share.” The WHO is calling for stepped up cross-regional efforts to provide lifesaving humanitarian aid to millions of people trapped in Sudan’s escalating and ever more brutal conflict. Officials are specifically calling for a humanitarian corridor from Chad so essential relief can reach millions of starving people in Sudan. The U.N.-linked health agency also says the Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum and Al Jazira states are “all but cut off from humanitarian and health assistance due to the relentless fighting.” It says the situation is particularly alarming in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur where more than 800,000 people are besieged and cut off from access to food, health care and medical supplies. “The wounded cannot get the urgent care they need; children and pregnant and breastfeeding women are weak due to acute hunger,” WHO representative Sahbani said. “Access is crucially and immediately needed so that we can avert the disastrous health situation.” Weather could make matters worse He warned that the situation is likely to worsen with the approaching rainy season, which can affect access to health care across the region. Sahbani said that he expects flooding to hamper the ability of the WHO and its partners to deliver humanitarian assistance, and that the international community will be needed to urgently “bridge the huge funding gap.” OCHA said that 30% of the U.N.’s $2.7 billion Humanitarian Response Plan has been funded, “more than halfway through the year.” “We urgently appeal to donors to make good on their pledges and increase their support,” it said. Sahbani warned that urgent action and a cease-fire are needed to contain an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. “If we do not take action now, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Sudan could spiral out of hand, permitting the unchecked reign of diseases, malnutrition and trauma,” he said. Commenting on the U.N.-mediated “proximity talks” with Sudan’s warring parties underway in Geneva, the WHO official said, “There were some promising signs.” “Let us wait for the coming hours, days,” he said. “If we cannot get a cease-fire, we hope that at least we can get the protection of civilians and the opening of humanitarian corridors.”