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KYIV — Missiles fired by the Ukrainian navy struck an oil terminal at the Russian port of Kavkaz in the Krasnodar region on Friday, the Ukrainian military said via the Telegram messaging app. The military reported explosions at the site as it worked to verify the damage from the attack carried out with Ukrainian-made Neptune missiles. Ukrainian drones also struck another oil depot in the Krasnodar region, the statement said. "Russia's 'modern' and 'effective' air defense system once again proved powerless against our missiles and unmanned systems and failed to protect important facilities used for logistics and supply of the Russian army," the Ukrainian military said. The Russian defense ministry said on Telegram that its air defense systems destroyed five missiles and 29 drones targeting Krasnodar. Falling drone debris sparked a fire at an oil depot in the Temryuk district, damaging several tanks filled with fuel and injuring two people, according to local Russian officials.

Rafah, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces on Friday struck targets across the Gaza Strip, with witnesses reporting air raids around the southern city of Rafah, the latest focus of the nearly eight-month war. Israel launched its military incursion into Rafah in early May despite international objections over the safety of civilians sheltering in the city on Gaza's border with Egypt. A strike that sparked a fire and killed dozens in a displacement camp at the weekend drew a wave of fresh condemnation. Witnesses said Friday Israeli strikes hit the Rafah area as well as central Gaza's Nuseirat, and an AFP correspondent reported intense bombardment in the north. Strikes on two separate locations killed a total of 11 people overnight, medical sources at a hospital in Deir al-Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp reported. The Israeli military said its troops "continue... operational activities" in the Rafah area, and found rocket launchers, weapons and "tunnel shafts" in the city center. An air strike "targeted and eliminated" a militant in that area, it added. In central Gaza, further air strikes "eliminated several terrorists who operated near" troops, the military said without elaborating. Israel, which has repeatedly vowed to destroy Hamas after the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, said on Wednesday its forces had taken over the 14-kilometer Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, where it alleges weapons were being smuggled. Egypt, a longtime mediator in the conflict, has yet to officially comment on the Israeli takeover, which officials have previously said could violate the two countries' 1979 peace deal. Amid stalled diplomatic efforts towards a ceasefire, Hamas said it had informed mediators it would only agree a "comprehensive" truce agreement including a hostage-prisoner swap if Israel halts its "aggression." On Thursday, Israel said its forces had killed about 300 Palestinian militants in Rafah since launching its military operation in the city. A stream of civilians fled Rafah, taking their belongings on their shoulders, in cars or on donkey-drawn carts. Aid at sea Before the Rafah offensive began, the United Nations said up to 1.4 million people were sheltering in the city. Since then, 1 million have fled the area, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has said. The United Nations has warned of looming famine in Gaza. The Israeli seizure of the Rafah crossing has further slowed sporadic deliveries of aid for Gaza's 2.4 million people and effectively shuttered the territory's main exit point. However, Israel said at the weekend that aid deliveries had been stepped up, including through its Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza. Cyprus, the European Union's easternmost member, said humanitarian aid shipped to Gaza was being kept at sea off the territory's coast, after a U.S.-built pier was damaged in bad weather. In an interview on French channel LCI, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed as "anti-Semitic slander" accusations Israel was deliberately targeting and starving Gazan civilians. Netanyahu, who has often spoke to foreign media during the war but largely avoided interviews with Israeli outlets, said the ratio of militants to civilians killed so far in the Israeli offensive was "the lowest rate we have seen in an urban war." Hundreds of demonstrators rallied late Thursday outside the offices of private broadcaster TF1, LCI's parent company, in Paris's western suburbs, to protest the broadcast. Wearing black and white keffiyeh scarves and waving Palestinian flags, the protesters chanted: "Gaza, Paris is with you." Car, house hit The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,224 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. A medical official at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah said eight people, including two children, were killed in an air strike that hit a house in Al-Bureij refugee camp. Another source at Nuseirat's Al-Awda Hospital reported three deaths in a strike on a car. An AFP correspondent saw Israeli military vehicles southwest of Gaza City, in the territory's north. Sunday's Israeli strike and resulting fire at the Rafah displacement camp killed 45 people, according to Gaza officials, and prompted two days of discussions at the U.N. Security Council. Israel has said it targeted a Hamas compound and killed two senior members. After the strike, Algeria presented a draft resolution to the U.N. Security Council demanding an immediate cease-fire and the release of all hostages, but it was unclear when it would be voted on. Amid the fighting, Israeli war Cabinet minister Benny Gantz's centrist party submitted a bill to dissolve parliament for an early election, drawing criticism from Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party.

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.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, in person for the first time Friday on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the details.

UNITED NATIONS — The number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million and is climbing because nations have failed to tackle the causes and combatants are refusing to comply with international law, the U.N. refugee chief said Thursday. In a hard-hitting speech, Filippo Grandi criticized the U.N. Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, for failing to use its voice to try to resolve conflicts from Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan to Congo, Myanmar and many other places. He also accused unnamed countries of making "short-sighted foreign policy decisions, often founded on double standards, with lip service paid to compliance with the law, but little muscle flexed from the council to actually uphold it and — with it — peace and security." Grandi said non-compliance with international humanitarian law means that "parties to conflicts — increasingly everywhere, almost all of them — have stopped respecting the laws of war," though some pretend to do so. The result is more civilian deaths, sexual violence is used as a weapons of war, hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure are attacked and destroyed, and humanitarian workers become targets, he said. Calling himself a frustrated humanitarian and looking directly at the 15 council members, Grandi said that instead of using its voice, "the council's cacophony has meant that you have instead continued to preside over a broader cacophony of chaos around the world." The high commissioner for refugees told the council it's too late for the tens of thousands who have been killed in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and other conflicts. "But it is not too late to put your focus and energy on the crises and conflicts that remain unresolved, so that they are not allowed to fester and explode again," Grandi said. "It is not too late to step up help for the millions who have been forcibly displaced to return home voluntarily, in safety and with dignity." It's also not too late to save millions of people from the scourge of war, the refugee chief said. But the Security Council is increasingly polarized, and its five veto-wielding permanent members are at odds, with the U.S., Britain and France often strongly opposed to the views of Russia and China. On the Gaza war, the council has not called for a cease-fire because of opposition from the United States, Israel's closest ally. And on Ukraine, the council has been ineffective as Russia, a key party to the conflict after Moscow invaded its smaller neighbor in February 2022, would veto almost any resolution. Grandi called what's happened in Gaza since Hamas' surprise attack on October 7 and the "atrocious" recent events in the southern city of Rafah after an Israeli airstrike led to a deadly fire at a camp for displaced Palestinians an example of the "brutal conduct of hostilities meant not only to destroy but also to terrify civilians," who increasingly more often have no choice but to flee. He said Gaza is also "a tragic reminder of what happens when conflicts (and by extension a refugee crisis) are left unattended" for decades. He also pointed to Syria where after 13 years of conflict, 5.6 million Syrian refugees remain in neighboring countries including Lebanon and Jordan which also host Palestinian refugees. Grandi said violations of international law, including forcing people to flee, are having a devastating effect on people around the world. For example, in Myanmar, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting since October, bringing the total to over 3 million, "with many trying to seek refuge in neighboring countries," he said. In Ukraine, international humanitarian law is violated every day with Russian attacks on the country's power networks, houses and other civilian infrastructure, he said. And in Congo, Grandi said, "violence between men with guns is so common that no other place on Earth is as dangerous for women and children than the east of that country." "But how can members of the United Nations, how can 'we the peoples' pay so little attention and have so much inaction in a place where sex with a child can be bought for less than a cold drink?" the refugee chief asked. "What a shameful stain on humanity!" Grandi said.

ACCRA, Ghana — Meet Ace-Liam Ankrah, a Ghana toddler who has set the record as the world's youngest male artist. His mother, Chantelle Kukua Eghan, says it all started by accident when her son, who at the time was 6 months old, discovered her acrylic paints. Eghan, an artist and founder of Arts and Cocktails Studio, a bar that that offers painting lessons in Ghana's capital, Accra, said she was looking for a way to keep her son busy while working on her own paintings. "I spread out a canvas on the floor and added paint to it, and then in the process of crawling he ended up spreading all the colors on the canvas," she said. And that's how his first artwork, "The Crawl," was born, Eghan, 25, told The Associated Press. After that and with his mother's prodding, Ace-Liam kept on painting. Eghan decided to apply for the record last June. In November, Guinness World Records told her that to break a previous record, her son needed to exhibit and sell paintings. She arranged for Ace-Liam's first exhibition at the Museum of Science and Technology in Accra in January, where nine out of 10 of his pieces listed were sold. She declined to say for how much the paintings sold. They were on their way. Then, Guinness World Records confirmed the record in a statement and last week declared that "at the age of 1 year 152 days, little Ace-Liam Nana Sam Ankrah from Ghana is the world's youngest male artist." Guinness World Records did not immediately respond to an Associated Press query about the previous youngest male artist record holder. The overall record for the world's youngest artist is currently held by India's Arushi Bhatnagar. She had her first exhibition at the age of 11 months and sold her first painting for 5,000 rupees ($60) in 2003. These days, Ace-Liam, who will be 2 years old in July, still loves painting and eagerly accompanies his mom to her studio, where a corner has been set off just for him. He sometimes paints in just five-minute sessions, returning to the same canvas over days of weeks, Eghan says. On a recent day, he ran excitedly around the studio, with bursts of energy typical for boys his age. But he was also very focused and concentrated for almost an hour while painting — choosing green, yellow and blue for his latest work-in-progress and rubbing the oil colors into the canvas with his tiny fingers. Eghan says becoming a world record holder has not changed their lives. She won't sell "The Crawl" but plans on keeping it in the family. She added that she hopes the media attention around her boy could encourage and inspire other parents to discover and nurture their children's talents. "He is painting and growing and playing in the whole process," she says.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A former speaker of Iran's parliament registered Friday as a possible candidate in the Islamic Republic's June 28 presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this month with seven others. Ali Larijani is the first high-profile candidate to register for the contest. He and other serious contenders against Raisi had been barred from running in the 2021 election. Larijani, 66, is viewed as a conservative within Iran's narrow political scene. However, he has increasingly allied himself with former President Hassan Rouhani, whose administration reached a 2015 nuclear deal with a group of world powers. Larijani had positioned himself as a pragmatic candidate in the 2021 vote in which hard-liner Raisi, a protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was elected. Larijani had posted online and made comments in recent days all but confirming he would be a candidate. The Larijani family has long been powerful in Iran's Shiite theocracy. "Solving the issue of sanctions for an economic opening will be among the priorities of diplomacy" for Iran, Larijani told journalists. All candidates must be approved by Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei. That panel has never accepted a woman or anyone calling for radical change within the country’s governance. Who will run — and potentially be accepted — remains in question. The country’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, a previously behind-the-scenes bureaucrat, could be a front runner because he has already been seen meeting with Khamenei. Also discussed as possible aspirants are former hard-line President Mohammad Ahmadinejad and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, but whether they would be allowed to run is another question. The five-day registration period will close on Tuesday. The Guardian Council is then expected to issue its final list of candidates within 10 days. That will allow for a shortened two-week campaign before the vote in late June. The new president will take office while the country is enriching uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and is hampering international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine and launched a drone and missile attack on Israel during the war in Gaza. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia. Meanwhile, Iran’s economy has faced years of hardship over its collapsing rial currency. Widespread protests have swept the country, most recently over the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody in September 2022 after being detained for allegedly violating Iran’s mandatory headscarf law. A U.N. panel said the Iranian government is responsible for the "physical violence" that led to Amini’s death. 

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.

Immigration is one of the most important issues in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. In Washington, there is a restaurant advocating for immigration reform while fostering community and driving social change through food. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. Camera: Saqib Ul Islam

Mexico will make history on June 2nd, when voters elect a woman as its new leader in a process in which thousands of local and state positions are up for grabs. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports from Mexico City. Camera: Miguel Angel Boizo

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.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is guilty of falsifying financial records to hide a payment to an adult film star to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. Tina Trinh reports from New York.

BRUSSELS — Youth leader Rareș Voicu remembers like it was yesterday when he went to the polls five years ago for the European Union elections in his Romanian hometown of Brăila. The problem was that he was 16 years old at the time and not eligible to cast a ballot. Once his family went into the voting booths, he knew he could not. "I had done so much research on the parties and on the candidates, and I knew who I would have voted for," Voicu said. "So I know firsthand the frustration, and how frustrating it can be as a young person when you're 16, when you're 17." Now 21, Voicu is leading a drive to make sure as many 16- and 17-year-olds as possible go to the June 6-9 polls in the five member states of the 27-nation bloc that allow them to vote. In the other nations, the minimum voting age still stands at 18, like it is in the United States. The voting age is set at 16 in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Malta and 17 in Greece. In Belgium, voting is mandatory. Nateo Carnot from Celles in southern Belgium, who is 16, won't have to deal with the issue Voicu had, but he knows that teens like him will have to step up and overcome political apathy, even helplessness. "Youth sees politics as something from up high — men in big ties in big cars that won't listen. So there is a disinterest," he said. "Whatever we do. It won't change anything. They won't listen," is the reasoning of many. Yet lowering the bar to 16, as Belgium did for these elections, shows improvement, Carnot said. "It shows politicians start to show interest in us and realize that we are mature enough to express our voice." Some see the lowering of the minimum voting age as a ploy to get an easy vote from unwitting teens who have barely outgrown childhood. Voicu vehemently disagrees. "When you're 16, when you're 17, you often have the right to make medical decisions for your own body. You have the obligation to pay taxes if you have a job. You can enter civil partnerships or you can get married. So you have all of these duties, all of these obligations," he said. "What we're asking for is for the democratic rights of young people to match their responsibilities. We think it's only fair," said Voicu, who also wants more countries to lower the voting age. Their demands can be heard by the exceptionally young, too, since late teens can also run for office in many nations. The United States has a minimum age of 25 years to run for Congress, but most EU nations allow anyone 18 years or up to represent their electorate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, and Brussels. Kira Marie Peter-Hansen was shocked when she found herself elected to the European Parliament on a Danish Independent Greens party ticket five years ago, at barely 20 years old. "I never expected to get elected, so I never planned for that either. And it wasn't part of my childhood dreams." Yet, she was thrown into EU politics at the deep end. Working the hallowed halls of Parliament early on not only had her puzzled but EU politicians and staff too. "People thinking I'm an intern. And then checking my badge," she said. "The first half year was super difficult and confusing." But she grew into it. "So the last time I was the youth candidate. Now, I am the leading candidate while being young," Peter-Hansen said. If there is one thing she has learned over the past five years, it is that there are few specific youth-versus-elderly issues that need specific approaches. "A lot of younger (and) a lot of older voters are concerned by the climate crisis, the nature crisis. So there are some places where we can meet across generations," she said. Many members of extreme right and populist parties expect that the youngsters will unite with the elderly in rejecting the traditional powers and parties that have ruled the EU Parliament for so long. "They look at the future and the future looks grim," said Tom Vandendriessche of the far-right Flemish Interest party, which is part of the Identity and Democracy Group. "How could they have trust in these traditional parties ... that have been governing us for decades and who brought us into this mess," he said, mentioning the issues of migration and terrorism. "They are looking for answers which are different." Manon Aubry, a member of Parliament from the hard left France Unbowed party, pointed to different issues for the young to get riled up about, such as social exclusion, inequality and poverty. Aubry insisted the elections are the ideal moment to stand up to anyone from the Hungarian prime minister to the French president to the head of the world's largest luxury goods company. "It's the only time, the only place when you, me, any youth has as much power as Viktor Orban, as Emmanuel Macron, as Bernard Arnault, one of the richest guys in the European Union," she said.

GRINDAVIK, Iceland — Lava continued to spurt from a volcano in southwestern Iceland on Thursday but the activity had calmed significantly from when it erupted a day earlier. The eruption Wednesday was the fifth and most powerful since the volcanic system near Grindavik reawakened in December after 800 years, gushing record levels of lava as its fissure grew to 3.5 kilometers in length. Volcanologist Dave McGarvie calculated that the amount of lava initially flowing from the crater could have buried the soccer pitch at Wembley Stadium in London under 15 meters of lava every minute. "These jets of magma are reaching like 50 meters, into the atmosphere," said McGarvie, an honorary researcher at Lancaster University. "That just immediately strikes me as a powerful eruption. And that was my first impression ... then some numbers came out, estimating how much was coming out per minute or per second and it was, 'Wow.'" The activity once again threatened Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people, and led to the evacuation of the popular Blue Lagoon geothermal spa, one of Iceland's biggest tourist attractions. Grindavik, which is about 50 kilometers southwest of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, has been threatened since a swarm of earthquakes in November forced an evacuation in advance of the initial December 18 eruption. A subsequent eruption consumed several buildings. Protective barriers outside Grindavik deflected the lava Wednesday but the evacuated town remained without electricity and two of the three roads into town were inundated with lava. "I just like the situation quite well compared to how it looked at the beginning of the eruption yesterday," Grindavik Mayor Fannar Jónasson told national broadcaster RUV. McGarvie said the eruption was more powerful than the four that preceded it because the largest amount of magma had accumulated in a chamber underground before breaking the earth's surface and shooting into the sky. The rapid and powerful start of the eruption followed by it diminishing quickly several hours later is the pattern researchers have witnessed with this volcano, McGarvie said. It's unknown when eruptions at this volcano will end. "It could go on for quite some considerable time," McGarvie said. "We're really in new territory here because eruptions like this have never been witnessed, carefully, in this part of Iceland." Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, sees regular eruptions. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe. None of the current cycle of eruptions have had an impact on aviation.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico goes into Sunday's election deeply divided: friends and relatives no longer talk politics for fear of worsening unbridgeable divides, while drug cartels have split the country into a patchwork quilt of warring fiefdoms. The atmosphere is literally heating up, amid a wave of unusual heat, drought, pollution and political violence. It's unclear whether Mexico's next president will be able to rein in the underlying violence and polarization. Soledad Echagoyen, a Mexico City doctor who supports President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Morena party, says she can no longer talk about politics with her colleagues. "In order to not lose friendships, we decided not to bring up politics starting six years ago, because we were arguing, and the attacks started to get personal," said Echagoyen. Being a critic of the current administration does not appear to be easier. "There's too much hate," said Mexico City student Luis Ávalos, 21. He said some of his friends accuse him of "betraying the country" for not supporting López Obrador. Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez has focused her ire on López Obrador's "hugs not bullets" policy of not confronting the drug cartels. She faces former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is running for López Obrador's Morena party. Sheinbaum, who leads in the race, has promised to continue all of López Obrador's policies. López Obrador himself likes to depict every issue as a struggle between the forces of the "good people" and shadowy conservative conspiracies, and he has done a lot to stoke the flames of division and anger. "More than an election, this is a referendum to choose the kind of country we want," López Obrador said recently. And it really is a referendum on him: he — much like Donald Trump in the United States — is the central figure in the campaign. In Mexico, just as across the globe, forces of angry, charismatic populism are fighting it out with an income-polarized liberal democracy. Issues of national identity, the influence of foreigners and economic exclusion have divided the country into warring camps. "In this country, what's being built isn't a sense of citizenship, but rather of voter bases," said Gloria Alcocer, the director of the civic-minded magazine Voz y Voto, roughly "Voice and Vote." López Obrador is prohibited by law from running for reelection to another six-year term. The battle lines are drawn: the ruling Morena Party already holds the governorships of 23 of the country's 32 states, and is going for them all. It already has a simple majority in both houses of Congress, and wants a two-thirds majority so it can amend the constitution at will. It is hard to describe how chilling that is for some Mexicans who spent more than four decades trying to build a formal democracy, with checks and balances, watchdog agencies and strict electoral rules, almost all of which Morena has said it would like to defund or eliminate if it gets the chance. Like the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party — which held Mexico's presidency without interruption for a record 70 years — Morena hasn't hesitated to use the government's power to influence elections, hand out money or embark on big building schemes that may never be truly finished. But it's also hard to describe how attractive López Obrador policies have been for many Mexicans who have felt excluded under 40 years of what he calls "neo-liberal," market-oriented administrations. Under López Obrador, Mexico has more than doubled its still-tragically low minimum wage (now about $15 per day, or about $2 per hour). While that's not going to change anybody's life — a Big Mac now costs about $5.19 in Mexico, compared to an average of $5.69 in the U.S. — it is the underlying appeal of Morena's platform that draws many voters. The implicit message for many Mexicans during market-oriented governments over the decades was that they were somehow wrong for not learning more English, working in manual labor and not in the tech economy, receiving government subsidies and living in a traditional, family-dominated culture. López Obrador turned this narrative on its head: he intentionally mispronounces English phrases, glorifies manual labor, says subsidies are good, favors state-run companies and says Mexico is strong precisely because of its family values and Indigenous culture: he has even claimed those same values make Mexicans immune to drug addiction. López Obrador says fighting the drug cartels — which have taken over large swaths of Mexico, extorting protection money from all walks of life — is a foreign idea, one imposed on Mexico by the United States. He has opted instead for a "hugs not bullets" approach and limiting cooperation with U.S. authorities in fighting the gangs. Sheinbaum is an academic who lacks López Obrador's charisma, folksy style and mass appeal. She says her administration will follow the outgoing president's policies, but with more data to back up her decisions. Gálvez, a woman who went from a poor Indigenous town to starting her own tech firm, has been the wild card in the race: her plain-spoken, folksy approach has produced both punchy phrases and monumental gaffes. Both women are 61. A third little-known male candidate from a small party has trailed far behind both women. Sunday's elections — which will also decide congressional seats and thousands of local posts — are different from those of the past in other ways. About 27 candidates — mostly running for mayor or town councils — have been killed so far this year. While that number is not much higher than in some past elections, what is unprecedented is the mass shootings: candidates used to be murdered in direct attacks that killed only them, but now criminals have taken to spraying whole campaign events with gunfire. And, as international studies professor Carlos A. Pérez Ricart notes, "where there are no shootings, it's because (local government) institutions have already been taken over" by the cartels. Mexico has also been baking under a heat wave so intense that howler monkeys have literally been dropping dead from the trees. Almost all of the country is suffering some level of water shortage and air pollution has been so bad in the capital, that a fifth of the cars have been banned from driving. All of that is not exactly helping cool tempers or drawing people toward reconciliation. In the present scenario, perhaps the only positive thing is that it doesn't appear the election will be particularly tight. "This country couldn't really handle a narrow margin of victory," said Pérez Ricart. "We are lacking true democrats on both sides."

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.