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RIYADH/MINA, saudi arabia — Hundreds of visitors have died during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca amid scorching heat, according to press reports and foreign ministries.  At least 550 people have died on Hajj, diplomats told French news outlet Agence France-Presse on Tuesday. Three hundred and twenty-three of the dead were Egyptians, most of whom perished due to heat-related illness, AFP reported, citing two Arab diplomats.  Reuters was not able to immediately verify those numbers.  Stampedes, tent fires and other accidents have caused hundreds of deaths during Hajj to Saudi Arabia in the past 30 years. The pilgrimage began on Friday.   Saudi state TV said temperatures rose on Monday as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 Fahrenheit) in the shade at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.  A 2024 study by the Journal of Travel and Medicine found that rising global temperatures may outpace strategies to deal with the heat. A 2019 study by Geophysical Research Letters said that as temperatures rise in arid Saudi Arabia due to climate change, pilgrims performing Hajj will face "extreme danger."  Thirty-five Tunisian citizens have died during the Hajj, Tunisian news agency Tunis Afrique Presse said on Tuesday.  Many of those deaths were due to extreme heat, family members said on social media, as other families continued to search for missing relatives in Saudi hospitals.   The Jordanian foreign ministry said it had issued 41 burial permits for Jordanian pilgrims on Tuesday. Earlier, the ministry said at least six Jordanian citizens died of heat stroke during the Hajj.  Eleven Iranians have died and 24 were hospitalized during the pilgrimage, Iranian state news outlet IRINN said on Tuesday without giving the causes of death.   Three Senegalese citizens also died during Hajj, Agence de Presse Senegalaise, said on Monday.   One hundred and forty-four Indonesian citizens died during the pilgrimage, Indonesian health ministry data showed on Tuesday. The data did not specify if any of the deaths were due to heat stroke.  Physical exertion  The Hajj is an annual pilgrimage that millions of Muslims make to Mecca to perform religious rites as taught by the Prophet Mohammad to his followers 14 centuries ago.   A Saudi health official, speaking to Reuters on Monday, before many of the reports of deaths were issued, said that authorities had not noticed any unusual fatalities among Muslim pilgrims amid the extremely high temperatures.  The ministry had so far treated more than 2,700 pilgrims who suffered from heat-related illness, he added.   "Hajj is a difficult task, so you have to exert efforts and perform the rituals even in the conditions of heat and crowding," an Egyptian pilgrim told Reuters on Sunday.  Pilgrims used umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, as Saudi authorities warned pilgrims to stay hydrated and avoid being outdoors during the hottest hours between 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) and 3 p.m.  Hajj, one of the largest mass gatherings in the world, is a once-in-a-lifetime duty for able-bodied Muslims who can afford it. It will end on Wednesday.  More than 1.8 million pilgrims were expected to take part this year, according to the Saudi General Authority for Statistics. 

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President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that his administration would offer protections to some undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. He also marked the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides protection for young undocumented immigrants to the U.S. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.

Dakar, Senegal — Senegalese customs said Tuesday it had intercepted three shipments of cocaine with a total estimated value of more than $50 million in the past five days. The authorities have made an increasing number of cocaine seizures in recent months from neighboring countries — notably Guinea, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Mali — which are reputed to be transit zones for drugs produced in Latin America on their way to Europe. In a statement on Tuesday, the police said they had intercepted a refrigerated truck near the border with Mali. "The search of the lorry revealed 264 packets of cocaine weighing a total of 306.24 kilograms, carefully concealed in a hiding place inside the ventilation compartment of the fridge," it said. The value of the seizure is estimated at $40 million. The day before, customs officers in the south of the country carried out an operation on a vehicle from "a neighboring country" driven "by an individual from a Sahel country," according to another statement published on Friday. Customs officers discovered 95 packets of cocaine worth $14.2 million. Another seizure on Saturday at Blaise Diagne International Airport, near Dakar, led to the discovery of 18 kilograms of cocaine worth around $2.3 million. The drugs were in a suitcase that was part of a consignment of unaccompanied luggage "coming from a country bordering Senegal and bound for a European Union country." Several seizures of cocaine have been announced by customs in recent months, including a 1-ton haul in mid-April in the east of the country, near the border with Mali, and several others earlier this month. In November, the army announced the seizure of nearly 3 tons of cocaine from a vessel seized in international waters off the coast of Senegal.

LONDON — General elections in the United Kingdom will be held on July 4, and thousands of Hong Kongers who are eligible to vote through the British National (Overseas) program, or BNO visa, are expected to make their voices heard. The program was launched in January 2021 in response to a harsh Chinese security law imposed on Hong Kong seven months earlier. Since then, more than 150,000 Hong Kongers have received visas. The policy allows them to build new lives in the U.K. and gives them the right to vote. In towns such as Sutton and Wokingham, where many Hong Kongers live, the influence of Hong Kong society is obvious as the election approaches. Candidates seeking to secure their votes are addressing their concerns and needs. Lucy Demery, a Conservative Party parliamentary candidate for Wokingham, lived in Hong Kong for 17 years and once joined peaceful protests against the strict rule of the Chinese Communist Party. She told VOA that she wants to make sure that she is “the biggest, strongest advocate for the Hong Kong community here.” "It's a priority of mine to make sure that all Hong Kongers in Wokingham feel safe and secure and integrated into the community here. ... It's really a Conservative government that initiated the BNO settlement scheme, which I'm very proud of," she said. In Sutton, parliamentary candidates from all parties met with more than 70 BNO Hong Kongers and journalists on Saturday. The event was organized by local community groups Sutton Hong Kongers, HK Watch,  and Vote for Hong Kong 2024. The candidates expressed support for integration and providing a safe environment for the Hong Kong people. They also took a firm stance on international issues involving China, emphasizing the importance of human rights and democracy. Hersh Thaker, a Labour Party candidate for Carshalton and Wallington, said, "This is going to be one of the most remarkable migration stories in British history when you look back at the number of people that have come over from Hong Kong, but actually the contribution that has been made to this country as a result of this has been extraordinary.” But not all Hong Kongers are eager to participate in the political process. Richard Choi, Sutton Hong Kongers' organizer, told VOA, "It's important for Hong Kongers to feel safe. They are too scared to get involved in politics. They are afraid of speaking out. It's hard to get feedback from them. Even though their email address, postcode, and data are not required, people still don't want to get involved. Article 23 [of Hong Kong’s national security law] and the spy incident make it even worse." Last month, the U.K. prosecuted three people under the country’s National Security Act of 2023 for allegedly assisting Hong Kong intelligence agencies to conduct foreign interference activities in the U.K. According to the prosecution, Chung Biu Yuen, the executive manager of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London, was the suspected mastermind of the activities. Article 23 of Hong Kong’s national security law has also been used against Hong Kongers in the U.K. The Hong Kong passports of activists Simon Cheng and Nathan Law, who are in exile in the U.K., have been revoked, and their families in Hong Kong have been harassed. Demery said the U.K.'s strengthened national security law is crucial in protecting the safety of Hong Kong people. "It was also a Conservative government which strengthened our national security laws in the U.K., which allows us now to be cracking down on some transnational oppression from Hong Kong and China on our territory," she said. Bobby Dean, the Liberal Democrats candidate for Carshalton and Wallington, trained democracy activists in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He expressed concerns about China's threat to the Hong Kong community in the U.K. and called on the government to take a tough stance. "In the West, for too long, [we] have been too lenient and too concerned about how bad state actors like Russia and China might react to the language and rhetoric that we use, and so, we really soften that," he said. “China and Russia are looking at the hard calculation, not the tone of what we say.” During the event, some Hong Kongers expressed their concerns about higher tuition fees for those who haven’t lived in the U.K. for three years. One BNO passport holder said, "People misunderstand that Hong Kong people are rich. But many of us cannot afford £50,000 [$63,000] a year in tuition fees for our children because we are still classified as internationals." Tom Drummond, the Conservative Party candidate for Sutton and Cheam, said he would help solve the problem of expensive tuition fees. "We need to rebuild trust. We are all standing to make your lives better. I will be your voice in Westminster instead of your voice in Sutton. But I think it's important to realize that we're standing, all of us. And whoever's elected, I've got no doubt, they're going into it for the right reasons," he said. Luke Taylor, the Liberal Democrats candidate for Sutton and Cheam, said, "I think I would give you the reassurance that as Liberal Democrats, we have a history of standing on, as a party, the right side of controversial issues. We are not afraid to be contrary to the established view." Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

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.

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The war in Ukraine is bringing what promises to be lasting changes in the role of women in the workplace. Lesia Bakalets traveled to Ukraine's Mykolaiv region to hear from women training to drive tractors, a job that until recently was the exclusive realm of men. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets.

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WASHINGTON — A cease-fire in Gaza can bring the conflicts along the Israel-Lebanon border to an end, senior U.S. officials said amid worries of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah fighters based in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, the United States is continuing to review one shipment of bombs for Israel over concerns about their use in the densely populated area of Rafah. Diplomatic solution U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that officials are seeking a diplomatic way to end the battles along Israel's northern border with Lebanon so civilians can safely return to their homes. "Hezbollah has tied the actions that it's committing against Israel to Gaza," Blinken told reporters during a press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. "If we get that cease-fire [in Gaza], I think that will make it more likely that we can find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in the north." In Beirut, U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein urged a de-escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. Hochstein said earlier on Tuesday that a cease-fire in Gaza "could also bring the conflict across the Blue Line to an end." He was referring to the demarcation line dividing Lebanon from Israel. Last week, Iran-backed Hezbollah escalated hostilities on Lebanon's southern border by launching rockets and weaponized drones at nine Israeli military sites. This was the largest attack by Hezbollah since October, when the group began exchanging fire with Israel in parallel with the Gaza war. U.S. weapons shipments to Israel On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Blinken has "assured" him that the Biden administration is "working day and night to remove these bottlenecks" on U.S. supplies of weapons and ammunition to Israel. The U.S. paused military shipments to Israel in May, including 1,800 907-kilogram (2,000-pound) bombs and 1,700 226-kilogram (500-pound) bombs, because of concerns over Israel's plan to expand a military operation in Rafah, a densely populated city in southern Gaza, which the United States does not support. Blinken told reporters the U.S. is still pausing a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel. At the State Department, Blinken said the U.S. continues to “review one shipment that President Biden has talked about with regard to 2,000-pound bombs” due to concerns about their use in Rafah. "But everything else is moving as it normally would move" to make sure Israel "has what it needs to defend itself against this multiplicity of challenges," noted Blinken. Meanwhile, Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer are in Washington this week for discussions following the visit of U.S. special envoy Hochstein to Israel and Beirut. Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday that a temporary pier built to deliver aid into the Gaza Strip is expected to be operational again this week. The U.S. military had disconnected the floating pier last week and moved it to the port of Ashdod in Israel because of bad weather. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this story.

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washington — The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that it projects this year's federal budget deficit to be $400 billion higher, a 27% increase compared with its original estimate released in February.  The major drivers of the change are higher costs from the supplemental spending package signed in April that provides military aid to Ukraine and Israel; higher than estimated costs of reducing student loan borrower balances; increased Medicaid spending; and higher spending on FDIC insurance because the agency has not yet recovered payments it made after the banking crises of 2023 and 2024.  The report also projects that the nation's publicly held debt is set to increase from 99% of gross domestic product at the end of 2024 to 122% of GDP — the highest level ever recorded — by the end of 2034. "Then it continues to rise," the report states.  Social security costs growing Deficits are a problem for lawmakers in the years to come because of the burden of servicing the total debt load, an aging population that pushes up the total cost of Social Security and Medicare, and rising health care expenses.  The report cuts into President Joe Biden's claim that he has lowered deficits, as borrowing increased in 2023 and is slated to climb again this year.  The White House budget proposal released in March claims to reduce the deficit by roughly $3 trillion over the next 10 years and would raise tax revenues by a total of $4.9 trillion in the same period.  White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said after the report's release that "the president is going to work to do everything he can when it comes to lowering the deficit," adding that former president Trump "didn't sign a single law to reduce the deficit."  White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates blamed tax cuts passed into law during the Trump administration for the deficit, which he says "continue to come at the expense of the American people by driving up deficits."  Former President Donald Trump, as a candidate for president in 2024, recently told a group of CEOs that he would further cut the corporate tax rate he lowered while in office, among other things. The Committee for a Responsible Federal budget estimates that the 10-year cost of the legislation and executive actions President Trump signed into law was about $8.4 trillion, with interest.  'Definition of unsustainable' Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said the CBO projections show that the outlook for America's critical national debt challenge is worsening.  "The harmful effects of higher interest rates fueling higher interest costs on a huge existing debt load are continuing and leading to additional borrowing. It's the definition of unsustainable," Peterson said.  "The leaders we elect this fall will face a series of highly consequential fiscal deadlines next year, including the reinstatement of the debt limit, the expiration of the 2017 tax cuts and key decisions on health care subsidies, discretionary spending caps and more." 

United Nations — The representatives of Sudan and the United Arab Emirates clashed Tuesday at the U.N. Security Council over Khartoum’s accusations that Abu Dhabi is providing arms and other support to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, fueling a brutal war in Sudan.   "The UAE must stay away from Sudan!" Sudan's ambassador, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, told the council. "That is the first requirement that will allow for stability in Sudan. It must stop its support."  Mohamed accused the UAE of assisting RSF forces through militias in Chad, southern Libya and central Africa, adding that Sudan has submitted copies of a half dozen UAE passports found on the battlefield in Khartoum to the council to back up their claims of Emirati interference. He also said, without providing evidence, that wounded RSF fighters are being airlifted to Dubai for medical treatment.  Emirati Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab, who was seated beside his Sudanese counterpart at the 15-nation council's horseshoe-shaped table, during the meeting on the situation in Sudan, called the allegations "ludicrous."  "We see this as a shameful abuse by one of the warring parties of Sudan of this Council — using this platform to spread false allegations against the UAE to distract from the grave violations that are happening on the ground," the Emirati ambassador said.  The UAE has repeatedly denied sending arms to the RSF, but Tuesday was the first time their envoy had responded in person to the accusations at a council meeting.  A report by a U.N. panel of experts earlier this year said there was substance to media reports that cargo planes originating in the UAE capital had landed in eastern Chad with arms, ammunition and medical equipment destined for the paramilitary group.  Sudan's envoy asked the council to act.  "I ask your esteemed council to speak bravely and to take the last required step, which is to openly mention and condemn the UAE so that it would stop this war," Ambassador Mohamed said.  The United States has expressed concern about regional and international interference in Sudan.  "We must also continue calling on external actors to stop fueling and prolonging this conflict, and enabling these atrocities, by sending weapons to Sudan," Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at Tuesday's meeting.  On Friday, she told reporters on a conference call to announce an additional $315 million in humanitarian support for Sudan, that there is no military solution to the conflict. She criticized countries that are supporting the rival generals with arms and ammunition and said she had spoken with the UAE about Sudan's allegations. She also noted that Russia and Iran are providing support to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).  "We have been very, very clear with those actors, that they should cease their support for this war," she said Friday of all external actors. "It is only exacerbating and prolonging the conflict, and it is making the situation more dire for the people of Sudan."  Battle for El Fasher  Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher remains dire. The RSF has surrounded the city, burning and looting communities in its vicinity. They have advanced on the city, where an SAF infantry division is outnumbered and surrounded.  "The Sudanese Armed Forces will defend El Fasher to the last soldier," Ambassador Mohamed told reporters after the meeting.  The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says El Fasher is presently the epicenter of Sudan's humanitarian nightmare.  "Amid unrelenting violence and suffering, the lives of 800,000 people — of women, children, men, the elderly and people with disabilities — these lives hang in the balance," Edem Wosornu, OCHA's director of Operations and Advocacy, told the council.  Without immediate decisive action, she said, the international community risks bearing witness to a repeat of the well-documented atrocities perpetrated in West Darfur's capital, El Geneina, when the city fell to RSF troops last year.  Human rights groups say thousands of people, mostly ethnic Masalit and members of other non-Arab communities, were massacred by the RSF, even after the city fell to the paramilitary.  Today's RSF has elements of the Arab Janjaweed fighters who carried out the genocide against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s.  On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the RSF halt its siege and de-escalate the fight for El Fasher and that both sides allow aid in. The resolution has so far been ignored.  RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has been locked in an armed power struggle with SAF General Abdel-Fattah Burhan for the past 14 months. The fighting has spread from Sudan's capital, Khartoum, to other parts of the country, leaving millions displaced and in dire need of food, shelter and medical care.

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HARARE, ZIMBABWE — A Zimbabwean opposition leader and nearly 100 youths who spent two nights in jail for allegedly holding an unsanctioned meeting appeared in court in Harare on Tuesday, where they complained of police assaults.  After their arrest Sunday, members of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change, or Triple C, arrived in court in apparent pain — some limping, and one with a broken leg — under heavy police guard.   That did not stop one man from shouting to waiting reporters.  “Are you hearing me?” he said. “The women were asked to kneel down and crawl to a waiting police truck by this government. Button sticks, claps hit us. One of the ladies had her room invaded. Why? She just had a bra on. Please record that. These people are cruel.”   Police officers accompanying the opposition members refused to comment.  Tinashe Chinopfukutwa, a lawyer representing Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, told reporters that his clients had been abused upon arrest.  “The charges which have been preferred against them are of participating in a gathering with [the] intent to promote public violence, bigotry and breaches of peace,” Chinopfukutwa said. “They have also preferred an alternative charge of disorderly conduct in [a] public place. They were assaulted by the police at the time of their arrest. Some of them were forced into jumping into a dirty swimming pool, while putting on their clothes. They were then forced to crawl to a police vehicle which was parked several meters away. We are going to lay those complaints before the court.”   Chinopfukutwa said the police initially arrested about 100 opposition activists, together with their leader, Jameson Timba, but some were released for unspecified reasons.  Agency Gumbo, a lawyer and a member of parliament with Triple C, said party members had been arrested at Timba’s home Sunday while commemorating International Day of the African Child.    He said the arrests were meant to quell opposition’s activities, which started during the era of the late President Robert Mugabe’s nearly 40 years in power.  “What this entails is that the regime is hell-bent on stopping voices of dissent, the regime is hell-bent on stopping the opposition,” Gumbo said. “It’s as if the opposition is now a banned organization. It’s as if the Triple C and the entire opposition forces are banned in this country.”  VOA repeatedly contacted Zimbabwe’s information minister, Jenfan Muswere, for comment but did not receive a response.   However, on Monday he said that no one in the country was above the law, and anyone who commits an offense would meet the wrath of the law.  Meanwhile, the 79 still detained were placed in custody until Wednesday, when they are expected to challenge their arrests. They are arguing that they were detained for more than the 48 hours allowed by the constitution before they were brought to court on Tuesday.

Kyiv was willing to negotiate peace but could not accept the terms giving Moscow a veto over allies defending Ukraine if Russia invaded again.