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LONDON — Voters in Iceland are choosing a president Saturday, selecting from a field of 12 people that includes a former prime minister. The candidates are vying to replace outgoing President Gudni Th. Johannesson, who didn't seek reelection for the largely ceremonial post. The winner will be the seventh president of Iceland since the founding of the republic some 80 years ago. Among the best known of the candidates is Katrin Jakobsdottir, who became prime minister in 2017 after three parties formed a broad governing coalition in hopes of moving Iceland out of a cycle of crisis that triggered three elections. Jakobsdottir resigned as prime minister earlier this year to run for president. Iceland, a rugged island of around 380,000 people just below the Arctic Circle, has been ranked as the world’s most gender-equal country 14 years in a row by the World Economic Forum, which measures pay, education, health care and other factors. Polling stations opened at 9 a.m. and are set to close at 10 p.m., with results expected Sunday.

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CAIRO — A court run by Yemen's Houthi rebels Saturday sentenced 44 people to death, including a businessman working with aid groups, on spying charges, a defense lawyer said. The 44 were among 49 people who were detained by the Iran-backed rebels and accused of “collaborating with the enemy,” a reference to the Saudi-led coalition that has been at war with the Houthis since 2015, lawyer Abdel-Majeed Sabra said. Four were given prison sentences, Sabra said. Sixteen were sentenced to death in absentia, while 28 were brought before the Specialized Criminal Court in the capital, Sanaa, Sabra said. Among those sentenced to death was Adnan al-Harazi, CEO of Prodigy Systems, a Sanaa-based company that developed systems to help humanitarian groups register and verify the distribution of aid to those in need in the war-stricken country. The Houthis detained al-Harazi in March last year after throwing stones at his company. Saturday’s court ruling included the seizure of al-Harazi’s property, Sabra said. Sabra accused the Houthis of torturing the suspects “physically and psychologically,” adding that they disappeared into solitary confinement for nine months. He said the defense team withdrew at the beginning of the trial after the judges refused to allow them to obtain a copy of the case documents, describing the trial as “unfair.” A spokesperson for the Houthis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Thousands have been imprisoned by the Houthis during Yemen’s civil war. An AP investigation found some detainees were scorched with acid, forced to hang from their wrists for weeks at a time or were beaten with batons. Courts in Sanaa and other Houthi-held areas in Yemen used to give harsh sentences to those accused of collaborating with the Saudi-led coalition. In September 2021, the rebels executed nine people who were convicted of involvement in the killing of a senior Houthi official, Saleh al-Samad, in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in April 2018. Yemen was plunged into a devastating conflict when the Houthis descended from their northern stronghold in 2014, seizing Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forcing the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized government. The conflict has turned in recent years into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

GARDI SUGDUB, Panama — On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground. They go voluntarily — sort of. The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades. On a recent day, the island’s Indigenous residents rowed or sputtered off with outboard motors to fish. Children, some in uniforms and others in the colorful local textiles called “molas,” chattered as they hustled through the warren of narrow dirt streets on their way to school. “We’re a little sad, because we’re going to leave behind the homes we’ve known all our lives, the relationship with the sea, where we fish, where we bathe and where the tourists come, but the sea is sinking the island little by little,” said Nadin Morales, 24, who prepared to move with her mother, uncle and boyfriend. An official with Panama’s Ministry of Housing said that some people have decided to stay on the island until it's no longer safe, without revealing a specific number. Authorities won’t force them to leave, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue. Gardi Sugdub is one of about 50 populated islands in the archipelago of the Guna Yala territory. It is only about 366 meters (1,200 feet) long and 137 meters (450 feet) wide. From above, it’s roughly a prickly oval surrounded by dozens of short docks where residents tie up their boats. Every year, especially when the strong winds whip up the sea in November and December, water fills the streets and enters the homes. Climate change isn't only leading to a rise in sea levels, but it's also warming oceans and thereby powering stronger storms. The Gunas have tried to reinforce the island’s edge with rocks, pilings and coral, but seawater keeps coming. “Lately, I’ve seen that climate change has had a major impact,” Morales said. “Now the tide comes to a level it didn’t before, and the heat is unbearable.” The Guna’s autonomous government decided two decades ago that they needed to think about leaving the island, but at that time it was because the island was getting too crowded. The effects of climate change accelerated that thinking, said Evelio Lopez, a 61-year-old teacher on the island. He plans to move with relatives to the new site on the mainland that the government developed at a cost of $12 million. The concrete houses sit on a grid of paved streets carved out of the lush tropical jungle just over 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the port, where an eight-minute boat ride carries them to Gardi Sugdub. Leaving the island is "a great challenge, because more than 200 years of our culture is from the sea, so leaving this island means a lot of things,” Lopez said. “Leaving the sea, the economic activities that we have there on the island, and now we’re going to be on solid ground, in the forest. We’re going to see what the result is in the long run.” Steven Paton, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s physical monitoring program in Panama, said that the upcoming move “is a direct consequence of climate change through the increase in sea level.” “The islands on average are only a half-meter above sea level, and as that level rises, sooner or later the Gunas are going to have to abandon all of the islands, almost surely by the end of the century or earlier,” he said. “All of the world's coasts are being affected by this at different speeds,” Paton said. Residents of a small coastal community in Mexico moved inland last year after storms continued to take away their homes. Governments are being forced to take action, from the Italian lagoon city of Venice to the coastal communities of New Zealand. A recent study by Panama’s Environmental Ministry’s Climate Change directorate, with support from universities in Panama and Spain, estimated that by 2050, Panama would lose about 2.01% of its coastal territory to increases in sea levels. Panama estimates that it will cost about $1.2 billion to relocate the 38,000 or so inhabitants who will face rising sea levels in the short- and medium-term, said Ligia Castro, climate change director for the Environmental Ministry. On Gardi Sugdub, women who make the elaborately embroidered molas worn by Guna women hang them outside their homes when finished, trying to catch the eye of visiting tourists. The island and others along the coast have benefitted for years from year-round tourism. Braucilio de la Ossa, the deputy secretary of Carti, the port facing Gardi Sugdub, said that he planned to move with his wife, daughter, sister-in-law and mother-in-law. Some of his wife’s relatives will stay on the island. He said the biggest challenge for those moving would be the lifestyle change of moving from the sea inland, even though the distance is relatively small. “Now that they will be in the forest, their way of living will be different,” he said.

TEHRAN, Iran — A high-ranking general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards has died after an illness, Iran's state TV reported Saturday. General Vajihollah Moradi was one of the commanders of the Guards’ foreign wing, state TV said. He was also a comrade of General Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in 2020. State TV said funeral preparations were underway and a funeral ceremony will be held in the northern city of Babolsar on Sunday. Iran occasionally holds funerals for its soldiers fallen in Syria, although officials say Iranian forces are there only as advisers. This event highlights the continuous involvement of Iranian forces in the war-torn country. In April, Iranian forces pulled out of bases in Damascus and southern Syria, moving away from the border with the Golan Heights — after suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in Damascus just weeks earlier. That strike killed an Iranian military commander and marked a major escalation in Israel's war with its regional adversaries. Iran is Syrian President Bashar Assad's main regional supporter in the Arab nation’s lengthy civil war. Hundreds of Iranian forces have been killed in the war in Syria.

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Tehran, Iran — Iranian authorities have arrested 35 people in a raid on a "satanist network gathering" in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, local media reported Saturday.  The raid took place after police had "identified the location" of the gathering, which featured "signs and symbols of satanism, alcohol and drugs," ISNA news agency said.  Raids on so-called "satanist" gatherings are not uncommon in the deeply conservative country, often targeting parties or concerts with alcohol consumption, which is largely banned in Iran.  A total of "31 men and four women at the venue" were taken into custody and referred to judicial authorities, ISNA said, quoting Ruhollah Yaarizadeh, police chief in Khuzestan's Dezful city.  Early last month, Iranian police arrested more than 260 people, including three Europeans, west of the capital, Tehran, over similar charges.  The report said those suspects were arrested in Shahryar County for “spreading the culture of satanism and nudity.” It did not elaborate.   A 2007 raid on an unauthorized rock concert near Tehran saw some 230 people arrested.  Authorities in the Shiite Muslim-dominated country have in the past branded rock and heavy metal music concerts as "satanist" gatherings. 

MILAN, ITALY — While Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni adopts a reassuring Western-allied foreign policy, cultural wars at home are preserving her far-right credentials heading into a European parliamentary election, where her neo-fascist-rooted Brothers of Italy party is projected to secure significant gains — and a possible coalition role. In less than two years leading the EU’s third-largest economy, Meloni has emerged as the most powerful right-wing leader in Europe, a position emphasized in a fiery speech in May to a Vox rally in Spain that included French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Hungarian President Viktor Orban and pro-Trump Republicans. Still, her pro-Ukraine and Israel policies have proven reassuring to centrist American and European allies as Italy prepares to host U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders of the Group of Seven most-industrialized nations in late June. The European elections June 6-9 could begin to tip Meloni’s balancing act. “I think there are two Melonis, and the Meloni that is getting more attention is the pragmatic, pro-Ukrainian Meloni," said Wolfango Piccoli of the London-based Teneo consultancy. “There is another Meloni, back in Italy, where she is pursuing a clear right-wing agenda on a variety of issues from migration to social-cultural values. The European elections could be a bit of a moment of truth. She has never been forced to take a clear ideological stand.” After campaigning on an anti-EU platform, Meloni has adjusted her rhetoric as Europe pours more than $228 billion in pandemic recovery funds into Italy. As premier, Meloni has a potential political ally in EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has not ruled out inclusion of Meloni’s party in a grand coalition, if needed. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is forecast to grow from six seats to at least 20 seats when Italians vote June 8-9, with Meloni personalizing the polls by asking voters to write her name, “Giorgia,” besides checking the party symbol. Even as her popularity grows, Italian opposition leaders, activists and journalists are sounding an alarm over the spread of far-right policies that are curbing LGBTQ+ and women’s rights while creating what some see as a climate of xenophobia and intimidation. Senator-for-life Liliana Segre, a nonagenarian Holocaust survivor, told the news agency ANSA that she is “really very worried” about the European election outcome. So far in her term, Meloni has delegated most of the cultural social politics to her ministers, giving her a degree of separation on many hot-button issues. Migration is the exception, as she champions her so-called Mattei Plan to fund projects in African countries along migrant routes in exchange for better controls, while pressing ahead with plans to run asylum reception centers in Albania — winning consensus from von der Leyen, a development she ballyhoos on the campaign trail. “Here we make history. ... This is a referendum," Meloni told a final election rally in Rome's Piazza del Popolo on Saturday. “When it comes to Meloni and the potential impact on EU politics after the European election, [the victory] depends on the numbers and the chemistry that emerge,” said Simone Tagliapietra, an analyst at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. He noted that the kind of social-cultural policies that her government has been most keen to tackle in Italy fall largely under national, not EU, competencies. Meloni’s government barred city administrations from legally registering a nonbiological parent in same-sex couples, effectively limiting their parental rights, and made access to abortion more difficult by allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion clinics, which activists say creates an intimidating environment. Her government also has come out against gender theory and is pushing a law through parliament that would ban surrogacy motherhood. Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano is unapologetically vanquishing foreigners and left-leaning appointees from running landmark museums, institutions and opera houses, exhibiting a desire to command the cultural debate in a way that hasn’t been seen in previous ideological shifts between the left and the right. The late Silvio Berlusconi, a three-time conservative premier, never so much as blinked at Italy’s cultural institutions. Under Meloni, the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has downgraded Italy five notches in its annual press freedom index, putting it in the “problematic” category alongside Poland and Hungary. In one recent episode, journalists at RAI state television accused the new government-installed leadership of censoring a planned Liberation Day monologue denouncing fascism. More recently, the editor of the Turin daily La Stampa, Massimo Giannini, said four police agents woke him at his hotel room at 4 a.m. to deliver a defamation complaint for comments critical of the Meloni government made on a television talk show the evening before. Giannini told private TV La7 that such treatment is usually reserved for “drug traffickers, not journalists.” The new Made in Italy Ministry has engaged in grandstanding tactics, like recently impounding dozens of Fiat Topolino microcars emblazoned with the emblem of the Italian flag despite being made in Morocco. Such operations serve a dual purpose, Piccoli said, distracting from Italy’s ongoing structural issues and stagnant economy, while appealing to Brothers of Italy stalwarts. “The beauty of all this in my view is that we are almost halfway through her term, and none of the structural issues in Italy have been addressed," he said, including addressing the right-wing issue of the demographic collapse or reforming pensions. “You just wonder whether they just go for the easier stuff, which helps to mobilize public opinion, rather than addressing the structural problem of this country, including the lack of economic growth.” Some analysts say that Meloni's pragmatic streak brings into question the degree to which she personally believes in the far-right social and cultural agenda. Political analyst Roberto D’Alimonte notes that the growing popularity of the Brothers of Italy is taking on board fickle voters who don’t necessarily have the same ideology, which could give Meloni room to loosen the far-right orthodoxy if she increases her mandate in the next Italian parliamentary vote. “She is a shrewd politician," said D'Alimonte, of Rome's LUISS university. "If she wins the next election, we might see a Meloni who tries to change that, becoming more conservative even on cultural matters, rather than far-right.”

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DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — U.S.-sanctioned former Revolutionary Guards commander Vahid Haghanian is among the candidates who registered Saturday to become Iran's next president following the death in a helicopter crash of Ebrahim Raisi, state media reported. Haghanian, a close aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told reporters after registering that his qualifications were based on "experience from serving 45 years in the presidency and the leader's office." The U.S. Treasury designated Haghanian in 2019 among nine individuals in Khamenei's "inner circle responsible for advancing ... domestic and foreign oppression." Iran says most U.S. sanctions are prompted by baseless accusations. Former parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, a prominent conservative, was among candidates registering Friday, as was Abdolnasser Hemmati, a former central bank governor. An election official told reporters Saturday that 12 hopefuls had registered since the process opened on Thursday for the June 28 election. The Guardian Council will publish the list of qualified candidates on June 11. The death of Raisi — who was once seen as a possible successor to Khamenei, Iran's ultimate decision-maker — has triggered a race among hardliners to influence the selection of the country's next leader. After a five-day registration period, the clerical-led Guardian Council will vet candidates running for the presidency. Moderate politicians have accused the 12-member body of disqualifying rivals to hardline candidates, who are expected to dominate the race. Turnout might take a hit because of restricted choice on the ballot and rising discontent over an array of political, social and economic crises. Within Iran's complex mix of clerical rulers and elected officials, Khamenei has the final say on all state matters such as nuclear and foreign policies. But the elected president will oversee tackling the country’s worsening economic hardship. Saeed Jalili, a former chief nuclear negotiator who two decades ago ran Khamenei's office for four years, was the first heavyweight hardliner to register for the election on Thursday. Interim President Mohammad Mokhber has also been mentioned in Iranian media as a possible candidate. Several more low-key moderate politicians are also likely to enter the race. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, another former Revolutionary Guards commander, who had been touted as a potential candidate, was reelected Tuesday as the speaker of parliament, making it less likely that he might run for the presidency.

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BANGKOK — Tin Oo, one of the closest associates of Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as a co-founder of her National League for Democracy party, died Saturday. He was 97. Tin Oo died at Yangon General Hospital, said Moh Khan, a charity worker, citing a member of his family. Charity workers in Myanmar handle funeral arrangements. Moh Khan said Tin Oo had been hospitalized at Yangon General Hospital on Wednesday due to difficulty urinating and other health problems, including weakness. His cause of death was not immediately announced. Tin Oo was respected by many of his party's members for his outspokenness and courage as he shared many of Suu Kyi’s travails. In 1988, Tin Oo helped found the National League for Democracy with Suu Kyi after a failed revolt against military rule. He became vice chairman, then chairman of the new party. But when the military cracked down the following year, he was put under house arrest, as was Suu Kyi. Like her, he spent 14 of the next 21 years under house arrest or in prison before he was released ahead of the 2010 general election. The party had won a 1990 election, but the results were annulled by the ruling military, which launched a crackdown on its opponents. In 2003, in one of the intermittent periods when he and Suu Kyi were at liberty before their 2010 release, they had the harrowing experience of being ambushed on a country road in upper Myanmar by a mob widely believed to have been assembled by an element of the military. The incident occurred as the party leaders were making a political tour and attracting large crowds of supporters. The two leaders managed an escape, although dozens in their entourage were apparently killed in the attack, details of which remain murky. Despite being the targets, Suu Kyi and Tin Oo were detained in prison and then house arrest again after the incident. When the party was allowed to fully resume political activities, Tin Oo served as its senior leader and patron. He was often seen in public rallies, and he helped campaign with Suu Kyi for the 2015 election, which the party won by a landslide. “He endured with dignity the various house arrest and prison terms and detentions imposed on him,” Moe Thuzar, senior fellow and coordinator of the Myanmar Studies Program at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said in an email interview. “His sense of loyalty — to principles, to persons who he believed could uphold and continue the pursuit of this principles — was also evident in his unswerving support for the party he co-founded.” Because the constitution enacted under military rule contained a clause effectively barring Suu Kyi from becoming president on the grounds that she was married to a foreigner — British academic Michael Aris — there had been speculation that Tin Oo might take the position. He declared he wasn't interested, saying Suu Kyi should have the job. “I never want to be president. I want to help her as much as I can,” he told journalists. Htin Kyaw, a politician and scholar, ended up as president, while Suu Kyi took the newly created post of state counselor, the equivalent of prime minister with overall authority over government. Suu Kyi’s government was ousted by the army in 2021 after winning a second term in the 2020 election. Suu Kyi was arrested and tried on a series of charges that were widely seen as trumped up for political reasons to keep her locked up. Tin Oo was not arrested and was allowed instead to stay quietly at his Yangon home. Tin Oo’s background was unusual for a senior politician opposed to army rule, as he joined the National League for Democracy after a high-profile military career. He had been Myanmar's fourth commander-in-chief of the armed forces between 1974 and 1976 under the government of the late dictator General Ne Win. A year after his retirement, he was imprisoned for allegedly withholding information about a failed coup against Ne Win but was released in 1980 under an amnesty. Some scholars believe he was purged because his popularity threatened Ne Win's grip on power. Tin Oo displayed no inclination to reconcile with the military in which he once served, although it made several overtures. Nearly a year after the 2021 army takeover, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military government, paid a visit to Tin Oo at his home in Yangon and inquired about his health. In June last year, a Buddhist monk with close links to the army visited and suggested to him that Suu Kyi should retire from politics and get involved in working for peace. The army's seizure of power spurred widespread armed resistance, which has since reached the intensity of a civil war. A week after the monk's visit, Tin Oo's family hung a sign on their property's front fence declaring “No Visitors Allowed."

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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.

JOHANNESBURG — The African National Congress party lost its parliamentary majority in a historic election result Saturday that puts South Africa on a new political path for the first time since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule 30 years ago. With more than 99% of votes counted, the once-dominant ANC had received just over 40% in Wednesday's election, well short of the majority it had held since the famed all-race vote of 1994 that ended apartheid and brought it to power under Nelson Mandela. The final results are still to be formally declared by the independent electoral commission that ran the election, but the ANC cannot pass 50%. At the start of the election, the commission said it would formally declare the results by Sunday, but that could come earlier. While opposition parties have hailed the result as a momentous breakthrough for a country struggling with deep poverty and inequality, the ANC remained the biggest party by some way. However, it will now likely need to look for a coalition partner or partners to remain in the government and reelect President Cyril Ramaphosa for a second and final term. Parliament elects the South African president after national elections. “The way to rescue South Africa is to break the ANC’s majority, and we have done that,” said main opposition leader John Steenhuisen. The way forward promises to be complicated for Africa’s most advanced economy, and there’s no coalition on the table yet. Steenhuisen's Democratic Alliance party was at around 21% of the vote. The new MK Party of former President Jacob Zuma, who has turned against the ANC he once led, was third with just over 14% of the vote in the first election it has contested. The Economic Freedom Fighters was in fourth with just over 9%. More than 50 parties contested the election, many of them with tiny shares of the vote, but the DA and MK appear to be the most obvious for the ANC to approach, given how far it is from a majority. Which coalition the ANC pursues is the urgent focus now, given Parliament needs to sit and elect a president within 14 days of the final election results being officially declared. Negotiations are set to take place, and they will likely be complicated. Steenhuisen has said his centrist party is open to discussions. The MK Party said one of their conditions for any agreement was that Ramaphosa is removed as ANC leader and president. That underlined the fierce political battle between Zuma, who resigned as South African president under a cloud of corruption allegations in 2018, and Ramaphosa, who replaced him. “We are willing to negotiate with the ANC, but not the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa," MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela said. MK and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters have called for parts of the economy to be nationalized. The Democratic Alliance is viewed as a business-friendly party, and analysts say an ANC-DA coalition would be more welcomed by foreign investors, although there are questions over whether it is politically viable considering the DA has been the most critical opposition party for years. An ANC-DA coalition "would be a marriage of two drunk people in Las Vegas. It will never work,” Gayton McKenzie, the leader of the smaller Patriotic Alliance party, told South African media. Despite the uncertainty, South African opposition parties were hailing the new political picture as a much-needed change for the country of 62 million, which is Africa's most developed but also one of the most unequal in the world. South Africa has widespread poverty and extremely high levels of unemployment, and the ANC has struggled to raise the standard of living for millions. The official unemployment rate is 32%, one of the highest in the world, and the poverty disproportionately affects Black people, who make up 80% of the population and have been the core of the ANC's support for years. The ANC has also been blamed — and now punished by voters — for a failure in basic government services that affects millions and leaves many without water, electricity or proper housing. Nearly 28 million South Africans were registered to vote, and turnout is expected to be about 60%, according to figures from the independent electoral commission.

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SINGAPORE — Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy arrived in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue conference on Saturday, where he planned to meet U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and discuss support for his embattled country in an address to delegates.  After arriving at the conference venue in a motorcade amid heavy security, Zelenskyy said in a statement on the social media platform X that he had come to gather support from the Asia-Pacific region for a peace summit planned for June 15-16 in Switzerland.  "Global security is impossible when the world's largest country disregards recognized borders, international law, and the U.N. Charter, resorts to hunger, darkness, and nuclear blackmail," the statement said, referring to Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.  The statement said Zelenskyy planned to hold several meetings, including with Singaporean President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta, Austin, and Singaporean investors.  A U.S. official said Zelenskiy and Ukrainian Defense Minster Rustem Umerov would meet Austin "to discuss the current battlefield situation in Ukraine and to underscore the U.S. commitment to ensuring Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression."  The International Institute of Strategic Studies, which organized the security conference, said Zelenskyy would participate in a discussion session on Sunday entitled "Re-Imagining Solutions for Global Peace and Regional Stability."  Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Russia is trying to disrupt the Switzerland peace summit, which he hopes will generate support for the withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine's 1991 borders.  It is Zelenskiy's second trip to Asia since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In May 2023, he attended the G7 meetings in Japan.  Russia has begun renewed assaults against Ukrainian lines and has stepped up missile attacks in recent months. Russian troops have made small gains in Ukraine's east and south, even as Kyiv's allies accelerate shipments of ammunition and other arms.  Russia has not attended the Shangri-La Dialogue since the invasion.  The United States this year approved $61 billion for weapons for Ukraine, some of which — such as Patriot missiles and ATACMS precision ballistic missiles — have already arrived there.   On Thursday, U.S. officials said U.S. President Joe Biden had assured Ukraine it could use U.S. weapons to strike targets across the border in Russia that were being used to attack areas around Kharkiv, a city in Ukraine's northeast.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned NATO members against allowing Ukraine to fire their weapons into Russia and on Tuesday again raised the risk of nuclear war.  Sweden also approved a new security package this week worth about $1 billion, which included armored vehicles, and for the first time, airborne warning and control aircraft that can spot targets in the air at extreme distances.  Austin, who spoke earlier on Saturday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, noted in his remarks that the support for Ukrainian forces pushing back against Russia's invasion for more than two years showed that countries around the world could rally in the face of aggression.  The Shangri-La conference, held annually in Singapore by the International Institute of Strategic Studies for the last 21 years, ends on June 2. 

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SINGAPORE — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to refocus attention on China's threat in the Asia-Pacific region on Saturday, seeking to alleviate concerns that conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have distracted from America's security commitments in the region. Austin, who was speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, met his Chinese counterpart, Dong Jun, on Friday in a bid to cool friction over issues such as Taiwan and China's military activity in the South China Sea. There has been increasing concern that Washington's focus on helping Ukraine counter Russia's invasion and support for Israel's war in Gaza, while trying to ensure that the conflict does not spread, has taken away attention from the Indo-Pacific. "Despite these historic clashes in Europe and the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific has remained our priority theater of operations," Austin said in his speech, which appeared aimed at underlining the administration's legacy in the region as President Joe Biden's first term in office nears its end. Biden is running for reelection in November against former President Donald Trump. "Let me be clear: The United States can be secure only if Asia is secure," Austin said. "That’s why the United States has long maintained our presence in this region." Austin underscored the importance of alliances in the region. "And ... peaceful resolution of disputes through dialogue and not coercion or conflict. And certainly not through so-called punishment," Austin said, taking a shot at China. The speech took aim at Beijing's actions in the region, including the South China Sea, without naming China for the most part. In response, Chinese Lieutenant General Jing Jianfeng said the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy was intended "to create division, provoke confrontation and undermine stability." "It only serves the selfish geopolitical interests of the U.S. and runs counter to the trend of history and the shared aspirations of regional countries for peace, development and win-win cooperation," said Jing, deputy chief of the Joint Staff Department of China's Central Military Commission. Some U.S. officials say Beijing has become more emboldened in recent years, recently launching what it described as "punishment" drills around Taiwan, sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks after Lai Ching-te was inaugurated as Taiwan's president. About $8 billion in U.S. funding is set aside for countering China in the Indo-Pacific as part of a supplemental funding bill passed by lawmakers. Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Friday denounced illegal, coercive and aggressive actions in the South China Sea, a disputed ocean territory that China has been flooding with coast guard ships in recent months. The Philippines, a sprawling archipelago with strong historical ties to the United States and close geographical proximity to China, is at the center of an intensifying power struggle between Washington and Beijing. Austin said the harassment faced by the Philippines was dangerous and reiterated that the United States' mutual defense treaty with Manila was iron clad. He said the aim was for tensions between Beijing and Manila not to spiral out of control. "America will continue to play a vital role in the Indo-Pacific, together with our friends across the region that we share and care so much about," Austin said. Jing, the Chinese general, said these alliances contribute to instability in the region. "It is natural for neighbors to bicker sometimes, but we need to resolve disagreements through dialogue and consultation rather than inviting wolves into our house and playing with fire," he said.