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Johannesburg  — Talks to form South Africa’s first national coalition government are expected to begin this week after the governing ANC party lost its majority for the first time.  Despite the heavy blow his African National Congress party took at the polls, President Cyril Ramaphosa showed humor at a ceremony announcing the official South African election results Sunday night.   After an electoral commission official misspoke in welcoming the guests to the ceremony, Ramaphosa retorted that he was “distinguished” and not yet “extinguished,” drawing a laugh from the politicians and media gathered.  On a more serious note, the president pledged that the ANC — which got 40 percent of the vote — would work with other parties to find “common ground” as coalition talks get underway.  The ANC has had a majority for 30 years, since the end of apartheid, so governing in a coalition marks unchartered territory. Under the law, parties now have two weeks to form a government — with South Africans on edge about what form that could take.  There are several main options, Melanie Verwoerd, a former ANC member of parliament and diplomat who’s now a political analyst, told VOA.  “There are a number of coalition options. ... The first one is obviously a coalition with, a formal coalition with, the Democratic Alliance and the IFP,” Verwoerd said.  The IFP is the Inkatha Freedom Party, a small opposition party popular with the Zulu people.  The Democratic Alliance is a centrist party and South Africa’s main opposition. It took 21 percent of the vote in the elections.   Big businesses and Western powers would favor a coalition with the DA, which observers say has a good track record in areas it's been in charge of locally.  However, it is led by a white man, John Steenhuisen, which is a huge optics problem for many in South Africa because of the country’s history, noted David Everatt, a professor at Johannesburg’s Wits School of Governance.  “We have to understand that to go into a coalition with the Democratic Alliance, which is the official opposition, is seen by some as a betrayal of the revolution,” Everatt said.  Former MP Verwoerd said those in the ANC who balk at a coalition with the DA have another option, involving the radical left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or former President Jacob Zuma’s new uMkhonto weSizwe party, or MK.   “Then, of course, there is the more troubling one, which is an ANC-EFF coalition or an ANC-MK coalition, neither of which the ANC favors as a first option because it would affect the markets quite negatively and also [ANC is] very concerned about the stability of such a coalition,” Verwoerd said.  The populist MK party got the third highest number of votes, and was a game-changer in this election, despite Zuma having to resign in disgrace from the presidency in 2018 amid numerous corruption scandals.  Zuma is a sworn enemy of Ramaphosa, and the MK party has said they will not go into a coalition with what they call “the ANC of Ramaphosa.”  The EFF, led by firebrand politician Julius Malema, came fourth at the polls and wants expropriation without compensation of land, as well as nationalization of the mines and banks.  Steenhuisen on Sunday called the possibility of an ANC-EFF agreement a “doomsday coalition” and promised the DA would engage in talks to try and prevent it from happening.  On Tuesday, the ANC’s top brass is set to discuss coalitions. The party has publicly stated that Ramaphosa staying on as president is non-negotiable.

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Ukraine imposed emergency power shutdowns in most of the country on Sunday, after Russia unleashed large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure and claimed it made gains in the eastern Donetsk province. The Netherlands will allow its soon to be delivered F-16 fighter jets to hit Russian targets. President Zelenskyy accuses China of pressuring countries not to attend upcoming peace talks on Ukraine. Right wing, populist parties are expected to surge in three-day EU parliamentary elections starting June 6th which analysts say could impact support for Ukraine’s war against Russia. And the story of a professional Ukrainian tennis player is voluntarily fighting for his country.

washington — In the remote and rural communities of southeastern Alaska, news is never in short supply thanks to a small but dedicated crew of journalists. “We are what we call community radio,” said Angela Denning. The radio journalist is the regional news director of the media nonprofit CoastAlaska and oversees six newsrooms. All of them, she said, are “pretty darn remote.” Just one person runs the newsroom in Wrangell — an island borough of little more than 2,000 people on the Alaska panhandle — while two people run the newsroom that Denning oversees in Petersburg, another panhandle town. “It has 3,300 people. It's on an island, so no roads in or out. We take planes, we take boats,” she told VOA. Denning says their audiences rely on stations like hers for news and natural disaster warnings. But radio also provides a human connection that is harder to achieve through websites. “It’s very personal,” said Denning, adding that listeners often tune in for updates on middle school basketball games, or just to hear the voices of their neighbors, friends or colleagues. That personal connection serves them well as CoastAlaska teams up with media nonprofits working to prevent the spread of disinformation. Communities where agriculture, logging or mining are the main industries are seeing a growth in misinformation and disinformation, media groups say. To stem that, organizations like the Rural News Network and the News Literacy Project work with affiliates, including CoastAlaska, to offer audiences the tools to spot and debunk false information. Local media are often on the front line of fighting disinformation, said Mike Webb, the News Literacy Project’s senior vice president of communications. As the U.S. prepares for elections, his nonpartisan group is helping newsrooms like Denning’s to equip audiences with the tools they need to spot misinformation. Ten years ago in Alaska, Denning said, misinformation and distrust in media were less of a worry. “Trust. It was something we took for granted,” she said. But now, “we don't assume there’s trust anymore. Quite the opposite.” To build and preserve trust, CoastAlaska works with its community to help audiences feel more involved. They have changed the formats of public forums to allow more engagement and to receive feedback from their audiences. For instance, when residents felt as if they didn’t have a voice in a local election, the journalists set up a way for audiences to ask questions at a borough assembly candidates forum. For the first half, the media asked questions. Then they let residents quiz the candidates. “We pulled their names out of the hat during the program so that those people would be able to ask the questions,” Denning said. And people had to ask their question to all the candidates, not just one. It was one way for some people who are suspicious of or don't have much trust in media outlets to feel like they were empowered and part of the process. “I think it kind of worked,” she said. “We got good feedback about it. But of course, we approached it very carefully.” Part of CoastAlaska’s success is its existing connections with the audience. “I think it works because we are covering community-based local events such as who's going to tell the community how the high school did at their basketball game over the weekend. That's us,” Denning said. In her region, the most engagement their reporting receives is often on the successes of students or community member profiles, Denning said. Though, she added, the reporters also cover issues like landslides, conflicts with the logging industry, and economic problems. "Our listeners and readers may not agree with everything we say but they also really appreciate the coverage that we give to the community, all those little things,” she said. Despite being largely isolated on islands in the state’s southeast, Denning’s reporters are always talking with each other. “If you're in constant contact with your colleagues, even if they're a few hundred miles away on a different island, you can still feel supported,” Denning said. “During this time of misinformation and distrust, that's more important than ever.”

washington — Despite years of debate and numerous proposals, the United States has accomplished next to nothing on immigration reform. In recent years, attempts to modernize U.S. immigration law have been made through a series of legislative efforts; none has achieved a significant breakthrough. “We are nowhere and we’re not getting anywhere,” according to the Brookings Institution’s William Galston, a former Clinton White House aide for domestic policy. Border legislation Last October, Senate Republicans insisted additional aid for Ukraine must be tied to a bill addressing security at the U.S.-Mexico border. The border legislation, negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators, was rejected by most Senate Republicans and some Democrats in February when Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump objected to it. Shortly after the February vote, Senator Chris Murphy initiated talks with other senators to draft a bill that could receive sufficient bipartisan support, hoping to overcome opposition from both Democrats and Republicans. The resulting new bill, similar to the bill proposed in February, failed less than four days after it was introduced. Senate Democrats have repeatedly sought to add elements of immigration reform to spending bills. In each instance, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that immigration measures do not belong in spending bills, which can pass the chamber with a simple majority vote. Cornell University immigration law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr says immigration reform is dead for 2024. “For a variety of reasons,” he said, adding “immigration reform has always been hard to get through Congress. … Donald Trump wants to make immigration one of his key pillars of his campaign. So he basically killed the efforts in the Senate and the House earlier this year.” According to Yale-Loehr, the country will not have any possibility of immigration reform until 2025. “And even then, it will depend on who is the president and who controls the House and the Senate,” he said. Under the Trump administration, Republicans proposed immigration legislation focused on stricter enforcement and reducing legal immigration. One major proposal was the "RAISE Act," which aimed to cut legal immigration by half over 10 years. Another proposal was the "Secure and Succeed Act," which sought $25 billion for a border wall, increased border security and stricter visa controls. Both bills faced strong opposition and did not become law. These efforts, Galston said, were not comprehensive immigration reform. “Look, the last time we had serious immigration reform was in 1986. … The border bill that was worked out in the Senate [last year] was only a piece, an important piece, but still only a piece of a much larger picture,” he said. Galston said the country missed its best recent opportunity for immigration reform in 2013. The Senate proposed a comprehensive immigration reform bill known as the "Gang of Eight" bill, named after the bipartisan group of eight senators who crafted it. This proposal created a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country, provided they met certain requirements such as paying fines and back taxes, learning English and passing background checks. The bill also sought to strengthen border security, enhance the E-Verify system employers use to check workers' immigration status and expand visa programs for high-skilled and agricultural workers. Despite passing the Senate with bipartisan support, the bill faced strong opposition in the House of Representatives, where many lawmakers argued that it did not do enough to secure the border and might encourage more illegal immigration. Critics were also concerned about the potential costs and the impact on American jobs. As a result, the House did not bring the bill to a vote, and the effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform stalled. “The fact of the matter is that things have changed fundamentally since the last bill, which was almost 40 years ago, so we are trying to do immigration policy in the mid-2020s on the basis of legislation that was enacted in the mid-1980s,” Galston said. In the '80s, he said, asylum requests were not nearly as significant as they are now. “It was not even close. And that’s just one example of changes in the situation on the ground that really do require legislative response,” he added. Yet Yale-Loehr does not see reforms happening anytime soon. “Because it's so complex," he said. "We have a broken immigration system. Courts have said that immigration law is as complex as our tax law. And just as it seems impossible for Congress to overhaul our tax system, I don't think any Congress is likely to be successful in trying to reform all of our broken immigration system. … But there are bits and pieces that Congress could pass as sort of a down payment.” Executive orders “All of the action on immigration coming out is coming out of the executive branch in the form of executive orders,” Galston said. Under the Trump administration, a number of significant changes were added to U.S. immigration policy, including restricting travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries; a "zero tolerance" policy for illegal border crossings, leading to the separation of thousands of children from their parents; and the effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Since taking office, President Joe Biden has signed several executive orders reversing Trump-era policies on immigration, including ending the travel bans, halting the construction of the border wall and preserving DACA, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the country as minors. On his first day in office, Biden unveiled sweeping immigration reform legislation — the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which included a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The proposed bill did not go far in Congress.   Immigration and election Immigration is one of the top issues in this U.S. presidential election, according to a Gallup poll released in April. Republican voters are more likely than Democrats and independents to consider immigration the most important issue. In the latest poll, 48% of Republicans, 8% of Democrats, and 25% of independents said immigration was the most important problem facing the country. Ironically, the deadlock on immigration legislation has roots in the last major reform, Galston said. The Reagan-era legislation was a compromise between Democrats and Republicans aiming to provide legal protections to millions of undocumented migrants while focusing on curbing illegal immigration. And while it worked to help people gain legal status, Galston said, it failed to effectively address the latter. “And it was on that basis that immigration [reform] was defeated during the Bush administration. … And then again during the Obama administration in 2013, which really represented our best chance … it was a bill that did a lot of good things and it was very tough on the southern border,” he said.

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.

President Biden is pushing a ceasefire plan in Israel and Gaza, but is it enough to bring the fighting to an end, and the hostages back home? Elections have wrapped up in India, Mexico and South Africa, and we get an update on the war from Kyiv. Plus, a look at a crisis of confidence in the institutions of American democracy.

ISLAMABAD — The Islamabad High Court has overturned the conviction of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in a case pertaining to mishandling state secrets.  In a short verbal statement witnessed by a VOA reporter Monday, two members of the high court announced the acquittals of Khan and Qureshi as it accepted their appeals against the convictions.  The decision in what is known as the “cipher case” comes after a special, lower court in January sentenced Khan and Qureshi to 10 years each in prison for making public the contents of a secret diplomatic cable sent by Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the United States.   The two men had argued the “sham case” was politically motivated and that the trial was conducted in an unfair manner.  Despite the high court’s order, Khan and Qureshi are not expected to walk free. Khan, imprisoned since last August, is serving time for a conviction for an illicit marriage.   Qureshi remains under arrest, facing a list of charges regarding violence that erupted in May of last year after Khan’s supporters stormed military and government installations to protest the former prime minister’s arrest.  Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, hailed Monday's verdict. Congratulating supporters on the much-needed legal relief, party leader Syed Zulfikar Bukhari said in a post on X that the state’s “malafide attempt to establish IK [Imran Khan] and SMQ [Shah Mahmood Qureshi] as traitors goes into the dustbin.”     In a hastily called press conference, the government’s spokesperson for legal affairs, Aqeel Malik, said the prosecution might appeal the decision in the country’s top court.  “If the prosecution feels that there was an error [in the judgment] or it should be challenged, it will decide whether to appeal [the verdict] in the Supreme Court,” Malik said.  The court should have considered the national security implications of its decision, he added.  The cipher was not presented in the court at any stage.  Case history  In April 2022, Khan was expelled from power in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. He had served fewer than four years of a five-year term.  Since then, Khan has alleged that a secret diplomatic cable, or cipher, proves that Washington conspired with Pakistan's military and then-opposition leaders to remove him from office. The cable was sent by Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S.  State authorities alleged Khan and his allies used the document for political purposes and that the former prime minister did not return the decoded copy of the classified diplomatic message to the foreign office.  The special court, established under the Official Secrets Act, tried Khan and Qureshi in prison and sentenced both to a decade behind bars on January 30, before Pakistan held national elections February 8.  Cipher contents  In August 2023, American news outlet The Intercept published what it said was the text of the cipher.  The cable described a March 7, 2022 meeting between then-Ambassador Khan and Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, in Washington.  According to the purported cable, State Department officials at the meeting encouraged the ambassador to tell Pakistan's powerful military that Islamabad could expect warmer relations if Khan were removed from office because of his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Pakistani prime minister was in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, 2022, the day the invasion began, and did not condemn it.  "I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. … Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead," the document quoted Lu as telling the Pakistani ambassador. While the State Department has consistently rejected the allegation of orchestrating Khan's ouster, the department's spokesperson, Mathew Miller, conceded last year that the Biden administration was unhappy with Khan's overtures to Russia. "We expressed concern privately to the government of Pakistan as we expressed concerns publicly about the visit of then-Prime Minister Khan to Moscow on the very day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We made that concern quite clear," Miller said at a regular press conference while responding to a question about The Intercept's reporting. The Pakistani military and Khan's successors have also rejected his allegations.

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.

Paris — Humanity has made strides tackling global warming but remains on track for a "ruinously high" rise in the Earth's temperature, the U.N.'s climate chief said as crucial negotiations began Monday.   Diplomats meet every June in Bonn to try and advance the stickiest points in climate negotiations so that political leaders can finalize agreements at the year-end COP summit.   At this year's Bonn talks, which run until June 13, the main issue is money — how much wealthy nations should pay to help low-income nations cope with climate change.   A new, longer-term goal for climate aid is supposed to be agreed by nearly 200 nations at the COP29 summit in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in November.   Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, urged those attending the Bonn midyear talks "to make every hour here count."   "We cannot afford to reach Baku with too much work still to do," he told negotiators in the German city.   International diplomacy had avoided a scenario where the planet warmed by five degrees — a world in which "most of humanity likely couldn't survive," Stiell said.   "We are now headed for around 2.7 degrees. This is still ruinously high and there's a long and steep road ahead," he added.   Under the Paris agreement in 2015, nations agreed to limit global warming to "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and to strive for a safer 1.5 C cap.   Incoming COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev said progress made at Bonn "will be the foundation stones of tangible results at COP29."  In 2009, wealthy nations most responsible for climate change to date agreed to raise $100 billion a year by 2020 for countries without the means to invest in clean energy and adapt to extreme weather.   They only met this target for the first time in 2022, two years past the deadline set. Donors have also been criticized for extending loans instead of grants.   The next round of financial pledges looks beyond 2025 but there is no consensus on how much should be raised, who should pay it, and where it should go first.   There has been pushback to calls for prosperous emerging economies like China and Gulf nations to chip in.   Some countries want the level of their climate action contingent on how much money is made available. Countries are supposed to submit their updated climate plans by early 2025.