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United Nations — The United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday to designate July 11 annually as an international day of reflection and commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serb forces. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs strongly opposed its adoption. “Perpetrated amidst the Bosnian War, this act of genocide led to the tragic death of the victims and to unimaginable suffering for survivors and their families,” German Ambassador Antje Leendertse said, introducing the resolution. “Our initiative is about honoring the memory of the victims and supporting the survivors who continue to live with the scars of that fateful time.” Germany and Rwanda co-led the negotiations on the resolution’s text over more than a month. The resolution received 84 votes in favor, 19 against and 68 abstentions. Only a simple majority of those countries present and voting “yes” or “no” was needed for the motion to pass. It was co-sponsored by more than 40 countries, including the western Balkan nations of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia and Slovenia, along with the United States. Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Denis Becirovic welcomed the resolution, saying it is an important step for the promotion of peace and reconciliation in the region and beyond. “Truth and justice won today in the U.N. General Assembly,” he told VOA after the vote. In addition to designating the annual international day of reflection and commemoration, which would start next year on the 30th anniversary of the massacres, the resolution also condemns genocide denial and the glorification of perpetrators. The U.N.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia concluded in 2004 that genocide had been committed in the small mountain town in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995. In 2007, the International Court of Justice also ruled that the massacres constituted genocide. Regional opposition The president of Bosnia’s Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has threatened to secede from the country if the resolution is adopted. Serbia’s government has also vigorously campaigned against the resolution, urging its co-sponsors to withdraw it, saying it unfairly targets Serbia and attributes moral responsibility for genocide collectively to its people and will hurt the fragile reconciliation process, a claim the authors deny. Montenegro suggested language that was added to the final text, clarifying that “criminal accountability under international law for the crime of genocide is individualized and cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious, or other group or community as a whole.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic traveled to New York for the vote. He urged the General Assembly to vote against the resolution, saying it was highly politicized and would only sow deeper divisions in the region. “This is not about reconciliation; this is not about memories,” he said. “This is something that will just open an old wound and that will create a complete political havoc — and not only in our region, but here in this hall.” On July 11, 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces. Over the next several days, at least 8,372 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were separated from their families, put on buses and taken to several locations including warehouses, schools and fields, where they were executed. Their bodies were dumped in several mass graves. Investigators said their remains were later exhumed and moved to secondary graves in an extensive cover up. Experts used DNA samples from relatives to identify thousands of the murdered men. The Hague-based tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted 16 people for crimes committed in Srebrenica, including eight men for the crime of genocide. The General Assembly resolution adopted Thursday is partly modeled on a 2003 resolution that established the international day of reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It has been observed at the United Nations every April 7 since 2004. Some countries that abstained or voted against Thursday’s Srebrenica resolution noted that there is also a day of remembrance for all victims of genocide, which the United Nations marks every December 9. Others noted that there was no consensus in the region on the resolution and that they did not want to contribute to tensions. Both the U.N. high commissioner for human rights and the special adviser on the prevention of genocide welcomed the resolution. “This resolution is further recognition of the victims and survivors and their pursuit of justice, truth and guarantees of non-recurrence,” human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu said the resolution is important in light of the trend toward genocide denial in the region. “Questioning the tragic reality of what happened in Srebrenica is not acceptable,” she said, adding it would only hurt peace and reconciliation efforts.

International investors have been lining up for South African nuclear energy technology this year. Two partnerships have been announced aimed at financing the manufacture of a new prototype, small-scale reactor developed in South Africa. One partner includes a collective of family farmers whose businesses are suffering from the country’s unreliable power grid. Marize de Klerk reports from South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

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Washington — In early 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a handful of citizen journalists emerged as voices from the epicenter. Among them was Zhang Zhan, then a 36-year-old former lawyer who bravely chronicled the unfolding crisis in the city where the virus first surfaced. Standing in front of a Wuhan train station in her final YouTube video on May 13, 2020, she voiced concerns about the human rights abuses she witnessed during the lockdown and criticized police involvement in enforcing containment measures. Following “this last video,” she vanished, according to Jane Wang, a U.K.-based activist who launched the Free Zhang Zhan campaign. “The date of her arrest should be 14th May, but it could have happened on the evening of the 13th, so we aren't sure,” Wang told VOA. “The time she spent on the train escorted by police to Shanghai from Wuhan is in between.” In December 2020, the Chinese government sentenced her to four years in prison for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” On Monday, Wang posted a 28-second video to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which Zhang confirmed her release from prison on May 13 and wished well to the people who were concerned about her well-being. “Hello, everyone, I am Zhang Zhan. At five o'clock in the morning on May 13, the police brought me to my brother's home in Shanghai. Thank you all for your help and concern for me. Hope everyone is well. I really don't have anything to say,” Zhang said in the video. The video came one week after Zhang was expected to be released from Shanghai Women’s Prison on May 13, but she did not publicly surface for several days. On May 17, the U.S. State Department issued a statement expressing concern about her disappearance after her apparent release. “The United States has repeatedly expressed our serious concerns about the arbitrary nature of her detention and authorities’ mistreatment of her,” the State Department said at that time. “We reiterate our call for the PRC [People's Republic of China] to respect the human rights of Ms. Zhang, including by immediately ending the restrictive measures that she and all journalists in the PRC face.” The State Department urged China to ensure the safety and freedom of journalists in the country, emphasizing the importance of enabling them to report freely. Additionally, the State Department’s recently released human rights report on China pointed out “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression and media, including criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others.” It also cited the arrest of “countless citizens” for allegedly “spreading fake news.” Several other citizen journalists faced disappearances like Zhang’s and later were sentenced to prison for documenting the initial stages of the pandemic in China. Any expression of views differing from the government on pandemic-related matters continues to be a sensitive issue in China, according to Lin Shengliang, founder of the China Human Rights Accountability Database. “The Chinese authorities often resort to both soft and hard tactics to the parties involved in order to silence them,” Lin told VOA. According to Li Yong, a Wuhan citizen who shared the U.S. State Department’s statement on Zhang in a WeChat group, the Chinese State Security forces warned him not to share information about Zhang. “The local community’s state security officer said, ‘These posts are no longer allowed. Be silent. Things involving Zhang Zhan are not allowed [to be shared].’ Anyway, I promised not to post it again," Li told VOA. According to Li, he befriended Zhang when she came to Wuhan in 2020. “I advised her to take a step back [in her criticism of the government]. But she was a person of faith and was more persistent at that time,” Li said. According to Wang, the U.K.-based activist, Zhang is a “devoted Christian” who openly expressed her faith. “Her church was shut down [four years ago] and banned from gathering before she went to Wuhan,” Wang said. “It's a big question mark whether she [currently] is allowed to travel to another city or even attend a church gathering in Shanghai.” Wang said that Zhang’s situation may change “dramatically” when and if the authorities decide to step up surveillance against her. “Right now, guards are watching her apartment, and she is being followed everywhere, but she still can leave her flat and has her phone and WeChat account,” Wang said, citing a friend of Zhan’s, whose name she didn’t want to disclose for safety reasons. “The worst is for plainclothes [police] to break in and stay in the home, taking her phone away.”

Fine dining in space — if you can stomach the price tag. Plus, a new understanding of the sun’s magnetic field, and Europe’s newest astronauts get their mission assignments. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space

Washington — With major military setbacks in recent years, supporters of the Islamic State terror group are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to generate online propaganda, experts said. A new form of propaganda developed by IS supporters is broadcasting news bulletins with AI-generated anchors in multiple languages. The Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP) group, an IS affiliate active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, produced in a video an AI-generated anchorman to appear reading news following an IS-claimed attack in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan on May 17 that killed four people, including three Spanish tourists. The digital image posing as an anchor spoke the Pashto language and had features resembling local residents in Bamiyan, according to The Khorasan Diary, a website dedicated to news and analysis on the region. Another AI-generated propaganda video by Islamic State appeared on Tuesday with a different digital male news anchor announcing IS’s responsibility for a car bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. “These extremists are very effective in spreading deepfake propaganda,” said Roland Abi Najem, a cybersecurity expert based in Kuwait. He told VOA that a group like IS was already effective in producing videos with Hollywood-level quality, and the use of AI has made such production more accessible for them. “AI now has easy tools to use to create fake content whether it’s text, photo, audio or video,” Abi Najem said, adding that with AI, “you only need data, algorithms and computing power, so anyone can create AI-generated content from their houses or garages.” IS formally began using the practice of AI-generated news bulletins four days after an attack at a Moscow music hall on March 22 killed some 145 people. The attack was claimed by IS. In that video, IS used a “fake” AI-generated news anchor talking about the Moscow attack, experts told The Washington Post last week. Mona Thakkar, a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, said pro-IS supporters have been using character-generation techniques and speech-to-text AI tools to produce translated news bulletins of IS's Amaq news agency. “These efforts have garnered positive responses from other users, reflecting that, through future collaborative efforts, many supporters could produce high quality and sophisticated AI-powered propaganda videos for IS of longer durations with better graphics and more innovation techniques,” she told VOA. Thakkar said she recently came across some pro-IS Arabic-speaking supporters on Telegram who were recommending to other supporters “that beginners use AI image generator bots on Telegram to maintain the high quality of images as the bots are very easy and quick to produce such images.” AI-generated content for recruitment While IS’s ability to project power largely decreased due to its territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq, experts say supporters of the terror group believe artificial intelligence offers an alternative to promote their extremist ideology. “Their content has mainly focused on showing that they’re still powerful,” said Abi Najem. “With AI-generated content now, they can choose certain celebrities that have influence, especially on teenagers, by creating deepfake videos.” “So first they manipulate these people by creating believable content, then they begin recruiting them,” he said. In a recent article published on the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, researcher Daniel Siegel said generative AI technology has had a profound impact on how extremist organizations engage in influence operations online, including the use of AI-generated Muslim religious songs, known as nasheeds, for recruitment purposes. “The strategic deployment of extremist audio deepfake nasheeds, featuring animated characters and internet personalities, marks a sophisticated evolution in the tactics used by extremists to broaden the reach of their content,” he wrote. Siegel said that other radical groups like al-Qaida and Hamas have also begun using AI to generate content for their supporters. Cybersecurity expert Abi Najem said he believes the cheap technology will increase the availability of AI-generated content by extremist groups on the internet. “While currently there are no stringent regulations on the use of AI, it will be very challenging for governments to stop extremist groups from exploiting these platforms for their own gain,” he said. This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.

After international condemnation, Israel reversed its decision this week to cut the Associated Press’ live feed of Gaza, this comes as challenges are increasing for journalists and media outlets in Israel. Russia has a weapon in space and is beginning drills with tactical nuclear weapons as Ukraine is pressuring Washington to lift restrictions on using American-made weapons on Russian territory. Plus, the reaction of the Iranian opposition to president Raisi’s death and the aftermath of devastating floods in Brazil.

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 — Many South African political parties are using populist rhetoric ahead of what is being described as the most important election in 30 years. One South African political party running in the May 29 elections wants mass expulsions of foreign migrants and the return of the death penalty. Another party regularly sings about killing White farmers. Yet another pushes for changing from “Roman-Dutch law” to African traditions and wants to send teenage mothers to a former prison island. Gayton McKenzie, the leader of a small opposition party named the Patriotic Alliance and who spent 17 years in jail for robbery, speaks a law-and-order message. “As a person that grew up as a gangster, that grew up as a criminal, a person that understands the underworld, I’m here today to tell you the only way to stop the crime, the killings,” he said at a rally earlier this year. “Under my regime, if you kill somebody, you shall be killed also. ... We want law and order back in South Africa.” Like populist leaders the world over, he positions himself as an outsider taking on a supposedly elite and corrupt establishment. Beyond advocating for the death penalty, he has also promised to “bring God back into schools.” Immigration is his other key theme, in which he constantly rails against undocumented migrants from other African nations, blaming them for most of the country’s woes — from the unemployment crisis to crime. He’s even raised the idea of building a border wall. Political analyst Tessa Dooms said she sees similarities between the political rhetoric in South Africa and the United States under former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a return to power in November. “I think what’s becoming clear in this election is that there is almost a Trumpian type of moment that is developing where people are resisting establishment politics and big political parties particularly because they feel like those parties are far removed from them, are not accountable to them, and are not engaged with them,” Dooms said. The Economic Freedom Fighters, or EFF — the nation’s third-largest party — is South Africa’s original populist rabble-rouser. Its red-beret-wearing leader, Julius Malema, has twice been charged with hate speech and for firing a gun at a public rally. The EFF advocates “radical economic transformation” — the nationalization of land and banks. Malema has also suggested arming the Hamas militant group. Established less than a year ago, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or the MK party, which is predicted to get the third- or fourth-largest share of the vote, has also assumed the populist mantle. It’s led and represented by former President Jacob Zuma, although he can’t run for parliament due to a 2021 prison sentence he was given for contempt of court. Zuma, who was forced to resign as president in 2018 due to corruption scandals, has an axe to grind with his former party, the governing African National Congress. He also retains considerable popularity among fellow ethnic Zulus in his home province, despite allegations against him. On the campaign trail this year, he has railed against South Africa’s progressive constitution, what he calls “white law,” and argued that traditional chiefs and leaders should be given more power. He’s made derogatory comments about LGBTQ+ rights — which are protected by law in South Africa. Zuma has also floated the idea of dealing with teenage pregnancy by sending young mothers to continue their education on Robben Island — the former prison where he and Nelson Mandela, who would also go on to become president, were jailed under Apartheid. Another party, the right-wing Afrikaans party Freedom Front Plus, advocates for the secession of the Western Cape province, dubbed CapeXit. As a country, South Africa has many conditions that make it fertile breeding ground for populism, analysts say. Unemployment is among the highest in the world, many still live in dire poverty, there are almost daily power cuts due to a flailing electricity grid, and there are high rates of murder and sexual violence. “People are just exhausted and just want to know there are people who are going to fix things fast and are willing to do whatever it takes to get those things resolved,” Dooms said. This month’s elections are being seen as pivotal, because 30 years after the end of apartheid, some polls project the ANC could get under 50% for the first time and be forced to enter a coalition government. But with small populist parties on the rise, the concern now is who they would join with.

Turkey is watching closely to see who will succeed the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after his recent death in a helicopter crash. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, relations between the two regional powers are at a pivotal moment.

Under the Biden administration, U.S. veterans have received more than $5.7 billion in expanded health care benefits. But former President Donald Trump argues that veterans were better off when he was in the White House. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at what the veteran population will likely need from the next president.

Kathmandu, Nepal — A climber from Kenya attempting to scale the world's highest mountain has been found dead near the summit, officials said Thursday. The body of Cheruiyot Kirui was found on Mount Everest, said Khim Lal Gautam, a government official at the mountain's base camp. It was unclear when the body would be recovered because it would be difficult to carry at that altitude due to the low oxygen level. The climb by Kirui, a 40-year-old banker at Kenya Commercial Bank, had been closely followed in Kenya, and fellow climber James Muhia had posted frequent updates about the attempt online. "It is a sad day," Muhia wrote Thursday on X. "Our brother is now one with the mountain. It will be a difficult time. Go well my brother." Kenyan foreign ministry secretary, Korir Sing'oei, said he had met with Kirui before his trip to Nepal, and described him as fearless and audacious. "Really gutted by this news," Sing'oei wrote on X. "I have been following his exploits until this unfortunate end. He is a fearless, audacious spirit, and represents the indomitable will of many Kenyans. We shall miss him." Officials said more than 450 climbers have scaled Mount Everest from the Nepali side of the peak in the south this season. Three climbers were reported killed and four are still missing on Mount Everest this season, which ends in a few days. Most climbing of Everest and nearby Himalayan peaks is done in April and May when weather conditions are most favorable.

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.