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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.

BANGKOK — Southeast Asia is seeing a rise in online scam centers that are swindling billions of dollars from people, a new report finds. Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia, published in May by the United States Institute of Peace, outlines a growing threat it says criminal networks pose to global peace and security. Included in the report are findings about scam centers operating throughout the region, including in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, and the deep involvement of Chinese criminal networks. The USIP report was presented in Bangkok in June at an event held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand. "One of the big findings of the report is about how huge of a problem this is. We’re framing it as a global security crisis," Jason Tower, Myanmar country director at USIP, said. "There are three countries in particular in which it’s gotten to a point now where the Chinese-origin criminal groups are able to perpetrate industrial scale, online scamming forced labor: Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. There are over 300,000 people involved in this horrific practice," he added. A total of 305,000 scammers in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos account for $39 billion in stolen funds annually, out of a total of $63.9 billion worldwide, according to the report. Half a million people are working as scammers, the report estimates. The scammers, though, are often initially victims themselves. Many are lured into false business opportunities overseas and forced into scam compounds, often located in desolate rural areas, and are punished violently if they try to escape. Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia-based political analyst on Southeast Asia, spoke at the event and said artificial intelligence technology, lax financial regulations regarding cryptocurrency, money laundering and the gray areas between legal and illegal practices contribute to the problem. "In the last four years, the level of escalation of the criminal ecosystem is profound. There are a number of factors we need to look at. It’s not just the networks or just about China, it’s about local actors that have a symbiotic relationship. Southeast Asia for a long time has had a very dynamic illegal economy," she said. In recent years there has been a rise in scams around online gambling, cryptocurrency and financial investment. Often, the scams involve enticing victims to gradually invest in fake and fraudulent schemes over a period of time. The victims are targeted online to invest, gamble or deposit money into illegitimate schemes, not knowing they are being scammed. The ongoing conflict in Myanmar has resulted in some scam operations finding themselves a part of the battle. Scam compounds along Myanmar’s borders have been protected and run by affiliates of the military government in Myanmar, the USIP report said. The northern Myanmar town of Laukkai, in Shan State, is known as a scam center hotspot, with many Chinese gangs operating there, according to the report. Myanmar’s ruling junta – the State Administrative Council – did not comment on the USIP report and questions asked by VOA about the scam centers but did respond via email that there is use of digital currencies in the country. "It has come to our attention that illegal transactions involving digital currencies, including USDT [Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar], are being conducted within the country. These activities are in violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Financial Institutions Act," it said, adding that those who violate the act "may be subject to imprisonment or fines, or both." VOA has contacted the governments of China and Cambodia by email and phone but has not received a reply. But with Myanmar resistance groups now reportedly in control of Laukkai, they have worked with Beijing to hand over cyber gang families. More than 40,000 Chinese nationals associated with cyber scams in Myanmar have reportedly been deported from Myanmar to China as of December. Chinese criminal networks collected $3.8 billion in illegal revenue from scams in 2023, with the help of at least 30,000 scammers. The USIP says within the past decade, the criminal networks operating in Southeast Asia have mostly emerged from China. "Many of these Chinese criminal origins became embedded in the [Southeast Asia] region. In the past five years, the forms of criminality have shifted from things that are more regional to global in Asia, and they’ve reached the point now where they can get much more involved in human trafficking and slavery, and quite sophisticated forms of scamming that are targeting a global audience," Tower said at the FCCT in Bangkok. At home, Beijing has tried to take a firm hand on scams. Online gambling is illegal in China and a telecom fraud law came into effect in December 2022 to try to combat the illegal schemes. "The report finds that [China] is one of the key victim countries," Tower said. "More and more people are falling prey to these investment scams." With cyber networks operating over multiple countries, all with different priorities and accountability, combating the scams is a challenge. Criminal networks in Cambodia have seen a $12.5 billion return in 2023 on their scamming operations, half of the country’s official gross domestic product. The USIP report says many of the scamming compounds in Cambodia are owned by local elites. "The significantly misaligned incentives in places like Cambodia, where there are powerful state actors who are building [scam] compounds, it is not in the incentives to local government officials to properly identify these victims. How do we prosecute this effectively when entire justice systems are run by people who run compounds who are financially benefiting from them?" asked Jacob Sims, a visiting expert at USIP. Chou Bun Eng, permanent vice chair of Cambodia’s National Committee for Counter Trafficking or NCCT, told the pro-government newspaper Khmer Times, that 80% of human trafficking cases they’ve investigated are "false." A coalition operation is required, Welsh said, as a one-country strategy won’t work. "Ordinary Southeast Asians are on the front line of having to deal with this. The trafficking numbers are high in terms of scams, but the scam victims are high. A lot can be done. It needs to be multifaceted, it can’t just be country specific, it needs to be dynamic, because the criminals are ahead of all of us," she said. Erin West, a deputy district attorney from California, suggested pressuring tech companies and governments to act. "The roots of the problem are the platforms enabling the scammers to meet their victims. What can be done about Meta, LinkedIn, Match.com — how do we apply pressure in a way to get them to root out the bad actors on their platforms? "Looking at sanctions is another way, and really elevating the conversation to the highest levels of governments and getting them to understand how massive this problem is," she said. 

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — A court in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Friday sentenced Chinese independent journalist Huang Xueqin and labor rights activist Wang Jianbing to five years and three years and six months in jail respectively for "inciting subversion of state power." Huang said she would appeal the sentence in court, according to information shared by Free Huang Xueqin & Wang Jianbing, an online support group for the two. Chinese authorities have strictly controlled information on this case so the media and human rights organization rely on information shared by supporters to report on the verdict. Authorities, before the trial, set up metal barriers and deployed a huge police presence around the court to keep journalists and the public from entering the court, the group said. According to details of the verdict shared by the online support group, Huang will be in jail until September 18, 2026, while Wang will finish his sentence on March 18, 2025. Authorities confiscated several computers, mobile phones, and hard drives that belong to Huang and Wang. Some analysts say Friday’s verdict shows the Chinese government’s attempt to outlaw social activism by applying criminal charges with heavier penalties to activities that do not directly challenge government authority. "This case shows that Beijing now considers training in nonviolent protest as an act of subversion of state power, which is incredibly worrying," Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China director, told VOA by phone. While China used to impose criminal charges with long sentences on human rights lawyers before 2020, Brooks said Beijing is now targeting lower-profile activists with similar charges. "Authorities used to target activists like Huang and Wang with charges like ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,’ [which carries a shorter prison sentence,] but now their activism could be viewed as national security crimes," she said. In response to human rights groups’ criticism, the Chinese Embassy in the Washington said China is a country of rule of law and the right to a fair trial is "well maintained" in the country. "Any attempt to smear China and interfere with China’s internal affairs in the name of human rights will not succeed," embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in a written response. Friday’s verdict comes nearly 1,000 days after Huang and Wang were imprisoned on the charges of inciting subversion of state power. It also follows repeated expressions of concern about Huang and Wang’s health condition by some of their friends. "Wang has a long history of depression while Huang suffered from weight loss, persistent back pain, and her menstruation had stopped," said a friend who requested anonymity due to fears of facing government retaliation. Since authorities have prevented their lawyers from sharing information about the case with the public, the anonymous friend told VOA there has been very little update about Huang and Wang’s health conditions in jail. In addition to shrouding the trial in secrecy, the friend, who is familiar with the case, said Guangzhou authorities tried to "justify" the charges they imposed on Huang and Wang by questioning 70 people connected to them. "During the first six months following their arrests, the police tried to fabricate evidence that could justify the charges they used against Huang and Wang by interrogating 70 people related to them," one activist with knowledge of the case, who requested anonymity due to fear of retribution, told VOA by phone. According to a copy of the official indictment shared by Huang and Wang’s supporters on X, formerly known as Twitter, Guangzhou authorities accused the two of publishing "seditious content" aimed at inciting subversion of state power on foreign social media platforms. They also claimed that Huang and Wang participated in and organized a series of "online courses" as well as private gatherings to "increase participants’ dissatisfaction" toward the Chinese government. Huang and Wang’s friend said Wang was hoping to reestablish social networks for activists focusing on different issues because the Chinese government intensified crackdowns on different sectors of China’s civil society since 2015, forcing many activists to become isolated. "Wang’s efforts increased the Chinese government’s concern that these social networks could create challenges to political stability in China," the friend told VOA, adding that Wang and Huang’s involvement in the labor rights movement and #MeToo movement made them the targets of Beijing’s crackdown. At the height of China’s #MeToo movement in 2018, Huang set up a social media platform for victims to report sexual harassment cases. She also released surveys concluding that sexual harassment was a serious problem at universities and workplaces. In October 2019, she was arrested and detained for several months after joining the protest in Hong Kong and shared her observations in an online article. For his part, Wang has been advocating for the rights of workers and those with disabilities since 2014. Some analysts say details of the case reflect the Chinese government’s efforts to crack down on private gatherings held by dissidents in recent years. Apart from Huang and Wang, Chinese human rights lawyers Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong were arrested and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for organizing a private gathering for dissidents in the coastal city of Xiamen in December 2019. The Chinese government is trying to decimate any kind of civil society activities, including private gatherings at dissidents’ homes," Yaqiu Wang, research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House, told VOA by phone. In addition to collecting evidence to justify the charges against Huang and Wang, Brooks said the Chinese authorities are also trying to have a chilling effect on other activists by summoning them for questioning. "The government is warning these activists that they should be careful about who they decide to be friends with," she said, adding that the message will cause human rights activism to "break down." Huang and Wang’s friend said Chinese authorities’ intimidation campaign against other activists has deterred them from continuing their activism. "The whole civil society has become less organized and more vulnerable," he told VOA. Despite the Chinese government’s attempt to deter activism in civil society, Brooks said some activists are still trying to continue work in sectors such as women’s rights and human trafficking.

Jerusalem — An Israeli court has confirmed and extended for 35 days the government's shutdown of Qatar-based television news channel Al Jazeera, the justice ministry said Friday. Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in Arabic and English, went off the air in Israel under an initial 45-day order early last month. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has had a long-running feud with Al Jazeera that has worsened since the Gaza war began in October. "The Tel Aviv district court confirmed the communications minister's instructions to stop Al Jazeera channel broadcasts, close its bureaus in Israel, block access to its websites and seize the equipment," the justice ministry said. The order, issued Thursday after a prosecutor's request for its confirmation and extension, was for an additional 35 days, the ministry said on its website. The shutdown does not affect broadcasts from the Israeli-occupied West Bank or the Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera still covers Israel's war with Hamas Palestinian militants. Parliament passed a security law in April enabling it to ban foreign media broadcasts in Israel that undermine security. The government on May 5 approved a decision to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting in Israel and to close its offices for 45 days. But on June 9 the supreme court, responding to petition from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, referred the case to the Tel Aviv district court. The government then asked that court to confirm the ban for 45 days. The judge authorized a 35-day ban, citing legal flaws. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi reacted in a statement, calling Al Jazeera "a mouthpiece for terrorism in the service of Hamas." "For absurd legal reasons, we are forced (to request) its closure in Israel every 45 days. We will continue to do whatever is necessary to cleanse the region of terrorism and incitement" to violence, he added. In January, Israel said an Al Jazeera staff journalist and a freelancer killed in an air strike in Gaza were "terror operatives." The following month, another journalist with the channel who was wounded in a separate strike was accused of being a "deputy company commander" with Hamas. Al Jazeera denied the allegations. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had called for a reversal of the ban. The United Nations, United States and Germany also opposed it. Israel is ranked 101 out of 180 in the RSF 2024 World Press Freedom Index. The Tel Aviv court said freedom of expression "is particularly important in times of war. However, when there is a significant infringement upon the security of the state, priority is given to the latter consideration."

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Kyiv, Ukraine — Kyiv and Moscow staged dozens of drone and missile attacks overnight, officials said Friday, leaving several wounded in Ukraine and damaging a fuel reservoir site in a Russian border region. The two sides have stepped up cross-border aerial assaults in recent weeks, with Kyiv targeting Russian energy facilities and Moscow launching retaliatory barrages. Russia said it had downed 87 Ukrainian drones, of which 70 had targeted the southern Rostov region that houses the headquarters of its military operation against Kyiv. The defense ministry said 70 drones were downed over Rostov, six each over Kursk and Voronezh, and two each over Volgograd and the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine. The attacks sparked power cuts in several areas of the Rostov region, its governor Vasily Golubev said on social media. In Voronezh, which borders Ukraine, a fuel reservoir was slightly damaged by falling debris, its regional governor Aleksander Gusev said. Kyiv meanwhile said Ukrainian air defense systems had downed 24 out of 31 Russian drones and missiles fired overnight. Six people were wounded in an attack on the front-line town of Selydove in the war-battered Donetsk region, its governor said. Three people were wounded in a drone attack in the eastern Sumy region and several homes were damaged in the neighboring Kharkiv region.

HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The U.N. says an estimated 60 million people in southern Africa are food insecure due to the El Nino-induced drought -- and the problem is not only in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, countries that have made international appeals for help. In a statement, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Angola, eSwatini, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania are also being affected by the drought hitting southern Africa. Plaxedes Madzikatire, who lives about 100 kilometers south of Harare, is one of the millions struggling to cope with the drought. She is getting $65 a month from the World Food Program (WFP) which she is using to take care of her four children after her crops dried up and died. She said from the money, $25 is used to pay for food and $20 for school fees. She uses the remaining $20 to finance and upgrade her business of selling hoes and axes she makes from scrap metal. She’s hoping the WFP can extend its assistance by a few more months. WFP winds up assistance in Madzikatire’s area next month, but the organization hopes to restart soon -- and in the whole of Zimbabwe -- as the effects of the El Nino drought intensify. In a recent interview via Skype from Zambia’s capital Lusaka, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain, who was visiting the region to assess the impact of drought, described it as a disaster. "These people have lost everything," she said. "They have no income. They have no way of surviving without assistance for the whole year because their next growing season will not be harvested until next May. These people depend on the stores they get from their crops, they didn’t get any this time." McCain said the recurrence of droughts due to climate change calls for greater investment into weather forecasts so people can be prepared for what is coming. And that’s not all, she said. Drought-resistant crops and good water-management practices can help, too. "We should treat and manage this drought crisis, the same way we would an emergency crisis in a war zone, let’s say," she said. "This is very serious and can devastate a country. So, it’s important that we can better use the tools we have and offer new science and technology to help farmers to be able to grow." Last month, at a virtual summit of SADC heads of state and government on the El Nino-induced humanitarian crisis, regional leaders appealed for $5.5 billion. The FAO says as El Nino's grip loosens, La Nina looms and the region should brace for new challenges, as that weather phenomenon usually leads to heavy rainfall and flooding, leading to crop damage and displacement of people.

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GENEVA — More than half of Gaza's agricultural land, crucial for feeding the war-ravaged territory's hungry population, has been degraded by conflict, satellite images analyzed by the United Nations show. The data reveals a rise in the destruction of orchards, field crops and vegetables in the Palestinian enclave, where hunger is widespread after eight months of Israeli bombardment. The World Health Organisation warned on Wednesday that many people in Gaza were facing "catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions." Using satellite imagery taken between May 2017 and 2024, United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 57% of Gaza's permanent crop fields and arable lands essential for food security had shown a significant decline in density and health. "In May 2024, crop health and density across the Gaza Strip showed a marked decline compared to the average of the previous seven seasons," UNOSAT said on Thursday. "This deterioration is attributed to conflict-related activities, including razing, heavy vehicle movement, bombing, and shelling." The decline, UNOSAT said, marked a 30% increase in damaged agricultural land since it published its last analysis in April. Israel's ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas stormed southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. The offensive has killed more than 37,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, and has caused mass destruction and cut off routes for aid. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there were more than 8,000 children younger than 5 in Gaza who had been treated for acute malnutrition. As well as damage to crop fields and orchards, greenhouses across the Gaza Strip had also sustained significant damage, UNOSAT said. The Gaza Strip has an estimated 151 square kilometers of agricultural land, which makes up about 41% of the coastal enclave's territory, according to data from UNOSAT. 

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.

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.

MINA, Saudi Arabia — In sweltering temperatures, Muslim pilgrims in Mecca converged on a vast tent camp in the desert Friday, officially opening the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Ahead of their trip, they circled the cube-shaped Kaaba in the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site. More than 1.5 million pilgrims from around the world have already amassed in and around Mecca for the Hajj, and the number was still growing as more pilgrims from inside Saudi Arabia joined. Saudi authorities expected the number of pilgrims to exceed 2 million this year. This year's Hajj came against the backdrop of the raging war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Palestinian militants, which pushed the entire Middle East to the brink of a regional war between Israel and its allies on one side and Iran-backed militant groups on the other. Palestinians in the coastal enclave of Gaza were not able to travel to Mecca for Hajj this year because of the closure of the Rafah crossing in May when Israel extended its ground offensive to the strip's southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt. Palestinian authorities said 4,200 pilgrims from the occupied West Bank arrived in Mecca for Hajj. Saudi authorities said 1,000 more from the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the war in Gaza also arrived to perform Hajj at the invitation of King Salman of Saudi Arabia. The 1,000 invitees were already outside Gaza — mostly in Egypt — before closure of the Rafah crossing. "We are deprived of (performing) Hajj because the crossing is closed, and because of the raging wars and destruction," said Amna Abu Mutlaq, a 75-year-old Palestinian woman from Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis who had planned to perform Hajj this year. "They (Israel) deprived us from everything." This year's Hajj also saw Syrian pilgrims traveling to Mecca on direct flights from Damascus for the first time in more than a decade. The move was part of an ongoing thaw in relations between Saudi Arabia and conflict-stricken Syria. Syrians in rebel-held areas used to cross the border into neighboring Turkey in their exhausting trip to Mecca for Hajj. "This is the natural thing: Pilgrims go to Hajj directly from their home countries," said Abdel-Aziz al-Ashqar, a Syrian coordinator of the group of pilgrims who left Damascus this year for Hajj. The pilgrimage is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and all Muslims are required to make the five-day Hajj at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able to do it. It is a moving spiritual experience for pilgrims who believe it absolves sins and brings them closer to God, while uniting the world's more than 2 billion Muslims. It's also a chance to pray for peace in many conflict-stricken Arab and Muslim countries, including Yemen and Sudan, where more than a year of war between rival generals created the world's largest displacement crisis. For many Muslims, the Hajj is the only major journey that they made in their life. Some spend years saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the journey in their 50s and 60s after they raised their children. The rituals during the Hajj largely commemorate the Quran's accounts of Prophet Ibrahim, his son Prophet Ismail and Ismail's mother Hajar — or Abraham and Ismael as they are named in the Bible. Male pilgrims wear an ihram, two unstitched sheets of white cloth that resemble a shroud, while women dress conservative, loose-fitting clothing with headscarves, and forgo makeup and perfume. They have been doing the ritual circuit around the cube-shaped Kaaba, counter-clockwise in the seven-minaret Grand Mosque since arriving in Mecca over recent days. Saudi authorities have adopted security restrictions in and around Mecca, with checkpoints set up on roads leading to the city to prevent those who don't have Hajj permits from reaching the holy sites. Security authorities arrested many people who attempted to take pilgrims to Mecca who didn't have Hajj permits, said Lt. Gen. Muhammad al-Bassami, head of Hajj Security Committee. Most of them were expelled from the country, while travel agents faced jail for up to six months, according to the Interior Ministry. On Friday, the pilgrims made their way to Mina, officially opening the Hajj. They then will move for a daylong vigil Saturday on Mount Arafat, a desert hill where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have delivered his final speech, known as the Farewell Sermon. Healthy pilgrims make the trip on foot, others use bus or train. The time of year when the Hajj takes place varies, given that Hajj is set for five days in the second week of Dhu al-Hijjah, the last month in the Islamic lunar calendar. Most of the Hajj rituals are held outdoors with little if any shade. When it falls in the summer months, temperatures can soar to over 40 Celsius. The Health Ministry has cautioned that temperatures in the holy sites could reach 48 Celsius. Many pilgrims carried umbrellas against the burning sun. After Saturday's warship in Arafat, pilgrims will travel a few kilometers to a site known as Muzdalifa to collect pebbles that they will use in the symbolic stoning of pillars representing the devil back in Mina. Pilgrims then return to Mina for three days, coinciding with the festive Eid al-Adha holiday, when financially able Muslims around the world slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor. Afterwards, they return to Mecca for final circumambulation, known as Farewell Tawaf. In recent years, the annual pilgrimage has returned to its monumental scale after three years of heavy restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic. Last year, more than 1.8 million pilgrims performed Hajj, approaching the 2019 level when more than 2.4 million pilgrims participated in the pilgrimage.

QUITO, Ecuador — Spiraling criminal violence in one of Ecuador's most dangerous cities caused a buildup of unidentified and unclaimed bodies that exceeded the capacity of Guayaquil's main morgue, officials confirmed Thursday. The government of Guayas, the province of which Guayaquil is the capital, said Thursday afternoon in a statement that "the problem that has arisen in recent days in the morgue" has been resolved, its first acknowledgment the problem existed in the first place. Local television and media reports had said about 200 bodies in excess of the Forensic Medicine Service morgue's capacity had accumulated and a refrigeration unit used to store them had failed, causing nearby residents to complain of foul odors. Ecuadorian media outlets Ecuavisa and Teleamazonas broadcast images taken with drones showing morgue workers removing bodies from a refrigerated container and spraying the container's entrance with a product the outlets said was meant to neutralize the putrid liquids seeping out of it. Both the Forensic Medicine Service and the Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press made Wednesday. The government statement did not say how many bodies were involved but said a malfunctioning refrigerated unit where bodies are kept when the morgue is full had been repaired. During the past week, forensic services collected 40 bodies that were victims of violence in a city that in 2023 recorded a total of 3,762 violent deaths, according to police figures. Most of the deaths are the result of clashes between gangs fighting over territory and drug distribution routes, which has created unprecedented levels of violence in this port city of 2.72 million inhabitants. The former head of forensic medicine at the Guayaquil morgue, Juan Montenegro, told the AP that the "bodies are stored in containers without taking into account their cooling capacity," meaning the decomposition process is accelerated and bad odors spread and putrid liquids seep untreated into pipes. "I don't understand why they haven't sent the bodies to a mass grave in a timely manner, donated them to the universities, or why they haven't handed them over to the relatives, who are on the street demanding the bodies," he said.

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U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement on Thursday aimed at bolstering Ukraine's defense against Russian invaders and getting Ukraine closer to NATO membership. Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies agreed an outline of a deal on Thursday to provide $50 billion in loans for Ukraine using interest from Russian sovereign assets frozen after Moscow launched its invasion of its neighbor in 2022. We talk to Sergey Sanovich - a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. And Chinese scientists at a giant panda sanctuary in Ya’an say efforts to introduce the captive-bred bears back into the wild are “paying off” and that the wild giant panda population is growing.

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — A tropical disturbance that brought a rare flash flood emergency to much of southern Florida delayed flights at two of the state's largest airports and left vehicles waterlogged and stalled in some of the region's lowest-lying streets. "Looked like the beginning of a zombie movie," said Ted Rico, a tow truck driver who spent much of Wednesday night and Thursday morning helping to clear the streets of stalled vehicles. "There's cars littered everywhere, on top of sidewalks, in the median, in the middle of the street, no lights on. Just craziness, you know. Abandoned cars everywhere." Rico, of One Master Trucking Corp., was born and raised in Miami and said he was ready for the emergency. "You know when it's coming," he said. "Every year it's just getting worse, and for some reason people just keep going through the puddles." Travelers across the area were trying to adjust their plans on Thursday morning. More than 50 centimeters of rain had fallen in some areas of South Florida since Tuesday, with more predicted over the next few days. Ticket and security lines snaked around a domestic concourse at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport just before noon Thursday. The travel boards showed about half of that terminal's flights had been canceled or postponed. Bill Carlisle, a Navy petty officer first class, had spent his morning trying to catch a flight back to Norfolk, Virginia. He had arrived at Miami International Airport about 6:30 a.m., but 90 minutes later he was still in line and realized he couldn't get his bags checked and through security in time to catch his flight. "It was a zoo," said Carlisle, a public affairs specialist. He was speaking for himself, not the Navy. "Nothing against the [airport] employees — there is only so much they can do." He used his phone to book an afternoon flight out of Fort Lauderdale. He took a shuttle the 32 kilometers north, only to find that the flight had been canceled. He was then heading back to Miami for a 9 p.m. flight, hoping it wouldn't get canceled by the heavy rains expected later in the day. He was resigned, not angry. "Just a long day sitting in airports," Carlisle said. "This is kind of par for the course for government travel." Wednesday's downpours and subsequent flooding blocked roads, floated vehicles and even delayed the Florida Panthers on their way to Stanley Cup games in Canada against the Edmonton Oilers. The disorganized storm system was pushing across Florida from the Gulf of Mexico at roughly the same time as the early June start of hurricane season, which this year is forecast to be among the most active in recent memory amid concerns that climate change is increasing storm intensity. The disturbance has not reached cyclone status and was given only a slight chance to form into a tropical system once it moves into the Atlantic Ocean after crossing Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center. In Hallandale Beach, Alex Demchemko was walking his Russian spaniel Lex along the still-flooded sidewalks near the Airbnb where he's lived since arriving from Russia last month to seek asylum in the U.S. "We didn't come out from our apartment, but we had to walk with our dog," Demchemko said. "A lot of flashes, raining, a lot of floating cars and a lot of left cars without drivers, and there was a lot of water on the streets. It was kind of catastrophic." On Thursday morning, Daniela Urrieche, 26, was bailing water out of her SUV, which got stuck on a flooded street as she drove home from work on Wednesday afternoon. "In the nine years that I've lived here, this has been the worst," she said. "Even in a hurricane, streets were not as bad as it was in the past 24 hours." The flooding wasn't limited to the streets. Charlea Johnson spent Wednesday night at her Hallendale Beach home barreling water into the sink and toilet. "The water just started flooding in the back and flooding in the front," Johnson said. By Wednesday evening, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and mayors in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Miami-Dade County each declared a state of emergency. It's already been a wet and blustery week in Florida. In Miami, about 15 centimeters of rain fell Tuesday and 17 centimeters fell in Miami Beach, according to the National Weather Service. Hollywood got about 12 centimeters. More rain was forecast for the rest of the week, with some areas getting another 15 centimeters of rain. The western side of the state, much of which has been in a prolonged drought, also got some major rainfall. Nearly 16.5 centimeters of rain fell Tuesday at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, the weather service said, and flash flood warnings were in effect in those areas as well. Forecasts predict an unusually busy hurricane season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates there is an 85% chance that the Atlantic hurricane season will be above average, predicting between 17 and 25 named storms in the coming months, including up to 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes. An average season has 14 named storms.