Voice of America’s immigration news

Islamabad — Pakistan has temporarily shut down schools in most parts of the country to protect children from heatstroke and dehydration due to an ongoing climate-induced heat wave.  “At least 26 million children in Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, - or 52 percent of the country’s total number of pupils in pre-primary, primary and secondary education – will be out of school from 25 to 31 May,” Save the Children said Thursday. The education department in Punjab cited a temperature surge and a prolonged heat wave as reasons for shutting down all public and private schools across the province. However, it said that schools “will be allowed to conduct examinations as scheduled, with necessary precautions to ensure the safety of students.” On Thursday, doctors in major urban centers reported treating hundreds of patients for heatstroke. This is not the first time extreme weather has disrupted educational activities in the South Asian nation, which has a population of about 250 million people.  In 2022, Pakistan’s southern and southwestern regions experienced devastating floods triggered by climate change-induced erratic monsoon rains, which affected 33 million people and halted education activities.  "Pakistan ranks fifth among the countries most affected by global warming,” Rubina Khursheed Alam, the prime minister’s climate coordinator, told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday. She cited recent unusually heavy rains, floods, and soaring temperatures. Alam said 26 districts in Punjab, southern Sindh, and southwestern Baluchistan provinces are experiencing an intense heat wave, which will persist for at least a week.  She advised the public to minimize exposure to direct sunlight during peak heat hours and stay hydrated, warning that the extreme heat and dry conditions could spark bush fires and forest fires in vulnerable districts. This past April was the wettest in Pakistan since 1961, with more than double the usual monthly rainfall, killing scores of people and destroying property as well as farmland.  Offiicials say due to climate change, temperatures in some of the affected areas in Pakistan have already reached close to 50 degrees Celsius (over 127 degrees Fahrenheit). Meteorological Department officials said temperatures in northern and northwestern Pakistani areas would be “4-6 °C higher than normal" for the rest of the week. Pakistan contributes less than 1% to global carbon emissions but bears the brunt of climate change. Save the Children said the country “faces rates of warming considerably above the global average with a potential rise of 1.3°C–4.9°C by the 2090s, and the frequency of extreme climate events in Pakistan is projected to increase as well.” The flooding in 2022 resulted in at least 1,700 deaths, affecting 33 million people and submerging approximately one-third of Pakistan.  “Let’s stop sleepwalking towards the destruction of our planet by climate change,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said after visiting flood-hit areas in Pakistan. He said Pakistanis were “facing a monsoon on steroids — the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding.” The U.N. Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, said Thursday temperatures spiked to 43-47 degrees Celsius on Sunday across India’s many northern states, including New Delhi.  The agency warned in a statement that “the soaring temperatures across South Asia can put millions of children’s health at risk if they are not protected or hydrated.”  UNICEF noted that 76% of children under 18 in South Asia, about 460 million, were exposed to extremely high temperatures, with 83 or more days in a year exceeding 35 degrees Celsius. It estimated that 28% of children across South Asia were exposed to 4.5 or more heat waves per year, compared to 24% globally.

WASHINGTON — Get ready for what nearly all the experts think will be one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record, thanks to unprecedented ocean heat and a brewing La Nina.  There's an 85% chance that the Atlantic hurricane season starting in June will be above average in storm activity, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday in its annual outlook. The weather agency predicted between 17 and 25 named storms will brew up this summer and fall, with eight to 13 achieving hurricane status (at least 75 mph sustained winds) and four to seven of them becoming major hurricanes, with at least 111 mph winds.  An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms — seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.  "This season is looking to be an extraordinary one in a number of ways," NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said. He said this forecast is the busiest that NOAA has seen for one of their May outlooks; the agency updates its forecasts each August.  About 20 other groups — universities, other governments, private weather companies — also have made seasonal forecasts. All but two expect a busier, nastier summer and fall for hurricanes. The average of those other forecasts is about 11 hurricanes, or about 50% more than in a normal year.  "All the ingredients are definitely in place to have an active season," National Weather Service Director Ken Graham said. "It's a reason to be concerned, of course, but not alarmed."  What people should be most concerned about is water because 90% of hurricane deaths are in water and they are preventable, Graham said.  When meteorologists look at how busy a hurricane season is, two factors matter most: ocean temperatures in the part of the Atlantic where storms spin up and need warm water for fuel, and whether there is a La Nina or El Nino, the natural and periodic cooling or warming of Pacific Ocean waters that changes weather patterns worldwide. A La Nina tends to turbocharge Atlantic storm activity while depressing storminess in the Pacific, and an El Nino does the opposite.  La Nina usually reduces high-altitude winds that can decapitate hurricanes, and generally during a La Nina there's more instability or storminess in the atmosphere, which can seed hurricane development. Storms get their energy from hot water. Ocean waters have been at record temperatures for 13 months in a row, and a La Nina is forecast to arrive by mid- to late summer. The current El Nino is dwindling and is expected to be gone within a month or so.  "We've never had a La Nina combined with ocean temperatures this warm in recorded history, so that's a little ominous," said University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher Brian McNoldy.  This May, ocean heat in the main area where hurricanes develop has been as high as it usually is in mid-August. "That's crazy," McNoldy said. It's both record warm on the ocean surface and at depths, which "is looking a little scary."  He said he wouldn't be surprised to see storms earlier than normal this year as a result. Peak hurricane season usually is mid-August to mid-October, with the official season starting June 1 and ending November 30.  A year ago, the two factors were opposing each other. Instead of a La Nina, there was a strong El Nino, which usually inhibits storminess a bit. Experts said at the time they weren't sure which of those factors would win out.  Warm water won. Last year had 20 named storms, the fourth-highest year since 1950 and far more than the average of 14. An overall measurement of strength, duration and frequency of storms last season was 17% bigger than normal.  Record hot water seems to be key, McNoldy said.  "Things really went of the rails last spring [2023], and they haven't gotten back to the rails since then," McNoldy said.  "Hurricanes live off of warm ocean water," said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. "That tends to basically be fuel for the hurricane. But also, when you have the warm Atlantic, what that tends to do is also force more air up over the Atlantic, more rising motion, which helps support strong thunderstorms."  There's the background of human-caused climate change that's making water warmer in general, but not this much warmer, McNoldy said. He said other contributors may include an undersea volcano eruption in the South Pacific in 2022, which sent millions of tons of water vapor into the air to trap heat, and a reduction in sulfur in ship fuels. The latter meant fewer particles in the air that reflect sunlight and cool the atmosphere a bit.  Seven of the last 10 Atlantic hurricane seasons have been more active than the long-term normal.  Climate change generally is making the strongest hurricanes even more intense, making storms rain more and making them rapidly intensify more, McNoldy said.  This year, Colorado State University — which pioneered hurricane season forecasting decades ago — is forecasting a season that's overall 71% stronger and busier than the average season with 23 named storms and 11 hurricanes.  That's at "levels comparable to some of the busiest seasons on record," said Klotzbach.  Klotzbach and his team gave a 62% probability that the United States will be hit with a major hurricane with winds of at least 111 mph. Normally the chance is 43%. The Caribbean has a two-out-of-three chance of getting hit by a major hurricane, and the U.S. Gulf Coast has a 42% likelihood of getting smacked by such a storm, the CSU forecast said. For the U.S. East Coast, the chance of being hit by a major hurricane is 34%.  Klotzbach said he doesn't see how something could shift soon enough to prevent a busy season this year.  "The die is somewhat cast," Klotzbach said. 

Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory to South Carolina Republicans on Thursday, ruling against a challenge to an electoral map they devised that moved 30,000 Black residents out of a congressional district. The justices in a 6-3 decision, with the conservative justices in the majority and liberal justices dissenting, reversed a lower court's ruling that the Republican-drawn map violated the rights of Black voters under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. The ruling was authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito.   The lower court on March 28, because of the length of time it took the Supreme Court to act, decided that the disputed map can be used in this year's congressional elections, a ruling that could undercut Democratic chances of winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The conservative majority on Thursday sided with South Carolina Republicans who argued that the first congressional district map was designed to secure partisan advantage, a practice that the Supreme Court in 2019 decided was not reviewable by federal courts - unlike map-drawing that is mainly motivated by race, which remains illegal. The majority found that the NAACP civil rights group and Black voters who challenged the map failed to prove that the map's design was chiefly motivated by race.   This case was being closely watched ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election in which the presidency and control of both chambers of Congress will be decided. Democrats lost their majority in the 435-seat House in the 2022 election and are hoping to overcome the slim Republican majority this year, with every competitive district crucial to the outcome.   Republicans hold a 217-213 margin in the House. Ongoing legal battles over redistricting in several other states could be enough to determine control of the House in the election. The South Carolina legal fight centered on a map adopted in 2022 by the Republican-led state legislature that redrew the boundaries of one of the state's seven U.S. House districts - one that includes parts of Charleston along the Atlantic coast. Alito wrote that "no direct evidence supports the district court's finding that race predominated in the design of District 1," and that "circumstantial evidence falls far short of showing that race, not partisan preferences, drove the districting process." A federal three-judge panel in January 2023 ruled that the map unlawfully sorted voters by race and deliberately split up Black neighborhoods in Charleston County in a "stark racial gerrymander."   Gerrymandering is a practice involving the manipulation of the geographical boundaries of electoral districts to marginalize a certain set of voters and increase the influence of others. In this case, the state legislature was accused of racial gerrymandering to reduce the influence of Black voters, who tend to favor Democratic candidates. The boundaries of legislative districts across the country are redrawn to reflect population changes measured by the census conducted by the U.S. government every decade. In most states, redistricting is done by the party in power. The new map in South Carolina increased the district's share of white voters while reducing its share of Black voters, which the lower court referred to as "bleaching."   The map shifted 30,000 Black residents who had been in the 1st congressional district into the neighboring 6th congressional district, which stretches 200 km inland from Charleston. These voters were unlawfully "exiled," the three-judge panel wrote.   The 6th district has been held for three decades by Democrat Jim Clyburn, one of the most prominent Black members of Congress. Clyburn's is the only one of South Carolina's House districts held by a Democrat. With the district's previous boundaries in place, Republican Nancy Mace only narrowly defeated an incumbent Democrat in 2020 - by just over 1 percentage point, or 5,400 votes. With the redistricting, Mace won re-election in 2022 by 14 percentage points. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in October. The parties in the dispute had asked the Supreme Court to decide the case by the end of 2023. In a separate redistricting ruling, the Supreme Court on May 15 restored a newly drawn Louisiana electoral map that includes two Black-majority U.S. House districts, rather than the one present in a previous version. The justices temporarily halted a lower court's decision throwing out the new map, allowing its use in this year's election.

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.

WASHINGTON — Hoor Mehtab, a Pakistani medical student in Kyrgyzstan, was among the first students to return to Pakistan following Kyrgyzstani mob attacks on foreign students, including Pakistanis and Indians, in various Bishkek universities and hostels May 17.    Mehteb said she and others were dining in a cafe serving Pakistani food when they received messages from classmates at their hostel that a mob had attacked the hostel and Avicenna International Medical University where they were students.   Mehteb said the cafe owner offered her and 59 other Pakistani and Indian students refuge in the basement, where they stayed for 14 hours.  “It was suffocating,” she told VOA.  Mehtab was among nearly 4,000 Pakistani students who left their studies in Bishkek and returned to Pakistan after the violence, which lasted for several hours over May 17 and 18.   Kyrgyzstan's Interior Ministry said in a statement on its website the day after the attack that the violence was triggered by the appearance of a social media video purportedly showing a group of “persons of Asian appearance,” said by eyewitnesses to be Egyptians, harassing foreign students on the night of May 13. The statement said the police charged four foreign students with hooliganism and detained them. Police did not release the students' identities.  Kyrgyz Deputy Education Minister Rasul Abazbek, speaking to reporters Monday in Bishkek, called the mass attacks on Pakistani and Indian students “shameful.”  “We must not lose this reputation to be hub of education,” Abazbek said.  Parents of students who are still in Bishkek say they are worried about the safety of their sons and daughters.    “My family is worried. I have to borrow $320 to send it to my daughter and son to buy air tickets so they can come back home,” Sardar Asif Ali, a Pakistani father in Mardan city, in Pakistan’s northwest, told VOA.  According to official estimates, there are 11,000 Pakistanis in Kyrgyzstan, mostly students.    Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar was in Bishkek this week to ensure the safety of the Pakistani students. At a press briefing Wednesday in Islamabad, Dar said about 4,000 Pakistanis are expected to return from Kyrgyzstan.   Pakistan has launched special flights to repatriate its citizens. A flight arranged by the Pakistani government arrived at Bacha Khan International Airport in the northwestern city of Peshawar early Wednesday, carrying 200 students from Bishkek.  Among them was Azra Alam, a Pakistani student in her third year of medical studies in Bishkek.  "We were stuck in our rooms for six days and scared every minute," she told VOA. She said she is uncertain about her future studies at Bishkek.  Medical schools in the former Soviet republics are popular among South Asian students because of lower costs, proximity and lower qualification requirements. Students and parents say the cost for a year of tuition for a medical school in Kyrgyzstan is roughly $3,000.  This story originated in VOA’s Deewa service with contributions by Urdu Service. Some information for this report came from Reuters. 

DAKAR, Senegal — Chad swore in Mahamat Deby Itno as the president on Thursday after holding elections earlier this month, completing a disputed transition to democratic rule after he seized power three years ago.  Deby Itno, also known as Mahamat Idriss Deby, took power after his father Idriss Deby Itno was killed fighting rebels in 2021 after ruling the country for three decades. The long-delayed May 6 election came after three years of military rule.  His main rival, Succes Masra, who contested the results earlier this month, resigned from his post as prime minister on Wednesday. Masra had been involved in protests against Deby Itno's decision to extend his time in power and fled the country in 2022. He was allowed to return last year and was appointed prime minister.  Masra, who claimed to have won the election, filed an appeal to challenge the preliminary results, which showed Deby Itno had won, but it was dismissed. The oil-exporting country of nearly 18 million people hasn't had a democratic transfer of power since it became independent in 1960, after decades of French colonial rule.  In his first presidential address, Deby Itno said his government would focus on boosting Chad's agricultural and farming sectors, and investing in education, access to water and health care.  "I've heard your yearning for change, and I've understood you. Let's all play our part, individually and collectively, to bring about the change we all hope, desire and expect," he said.  Western leaders congratulated Deby Itno despite irregularities in the vote, which included Chad's decision to ban 2,900 EU-trained observers from monitoring the election.  Chad is seen by the United States and France as one of the last remaining stable allies in the vast Sahel region following military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in recent years. The ruling juntas in all three nations have expelled French forces and turned to Russia's mercenary units for security assistance instead.  "Although there were troubling shortcomings, we welcome the milestones in Chad's transition process," the U.S. State Department said last week.  The British government also said the election marked an important milestone in the return to civilian rule. "The U.K. commends the engagement of the Chadian people and welcomes the largely peaceful way in which the elections and campaign were conducted," it said in a statement. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation Entertainment on Thursday, accusing them of running an illegal monopoly over live events in America — squelching competition and driving up prices for fans. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, was being brought with 30 state and district attorneys general and seeks to break up the monopoly they say is squeezing out smaller promoters and hurting artists. "We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. "The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster." The Justice Department accuses Live Nation of a slew of practices that allow it to maintain a stronghold over the live music scene, including using long-term contracts to keep venues from choosing rival ticketers, blocking venues from using multiple ticket sellers and threatening venues that they could lose money and fans if they don't choose Ticketmaster. The Justice Department says Live Nation also threatened to retaliate against one firm if it didn't stop a subsidiary from competing for artist promotion contracts. Live Nation has denied that it engages in practices that violate antitrust laws. When it was reported that the company was under federal investigation in 2022, the concert promoter said in a statement that Ticketmaster enjoys a such a large share of the market because of "the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system." But competitor ticket sellers have long complained that Live Nation makes it difficult for them to disrupt the market with practices such as withholding acts if those venues don't agree to use Ticketmaster's service. The lawsuit is the latest example of the Biden administration's aggressive antitrust enforcement approach targeting companies accused of engaging in illegal monopolies that box out competitors and drive up prices. In March, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Apple alleging that the tech giant has monopoly power in the smartphone market. The Democratic administration has also taken on Google, Amazon and other tech giants. "Today's action is a step forward in making this era of live music more accessible for the fans, the artists, and the industry that supports them," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. Ticketmaster, which merged with Live Nation in 2010, is the world's largest ticket seller, processing 500 million tickets each year in more than 30 countries. Around 70% of tickets for major concert venues in the U.S. are sold through Ticketmaster, according to data in a federal lawsuit filed by consumers in 2022. The company owns or controls more than 265 of North America's concert venues and dozens of top amphitheaters, according to the Justice Department. The ticket seller sparked outrage in November 2022 when its site crashed during a presale event for a Taylor Swift stadium tour. The company said its site was overwhelmed by both fans and attacks from bots, which were posing as consumers to scoop up tickets and sell them on secondary sites. The debacle prompted congressional hearings and bills in state legislatures aimed at better protecting consumers. The Justice Department allowed Live Nation and Ticketmaster to merge as long as Live Nation agreed not to retaliate against concert venues for using other ticket companies for 10 years. In 2019, the department investigated and found that Live Nation had "repeatedly" violated that agreement and extended the prohibition on retaliating against concert venues to 2025.  

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Bangkok — Many of the more seriously injured people who were on the Singapore Airlines flight that hit severe turbulence need operations on their spines, a Bangkok hospital said Thursday. Twenty people remained in intensive care and a 73-year-old British man died after the Boeing 777, which was flying from London's Heathrow airport to Singapore, descended following turbulent weather over the Andaman Sea on Tuesday. A public relations officer for Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, which has treated more than 100 people hurt from the ordeal, told The Associated Press that other local hospitals have been asked to lend their best specialists to assist in the treatments. He asked not to be named because of hospital policy. Passengers have described the "sheer terror" of the aircraft shuddering, loose items flying and injured people lying paralyzed on the floor of the plane. It remains unclear what exactly caused the turbulence that sent the plane, which was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members, on a 6,000-foot (around 1,800-meter) descent in about three minutes. The flight from London to Singapore was diverted to Thailand. In one of the latest accounts of the chaos on board, 43-year-old Malaysian Amelia Lim described finding herself face down on the floor.  "I was so afraid ... I could see so many individuals on the floor, they were all bleeding. There was blood on the floor as well as on the people," she told the online Malay Mail newspaper. The woman who had been seated next to her was "motionless in the aisle and unable to move, likely suffering from a hip or spinal injury," she added. The ICU patients included six Britons, six Malaysians, three Australians, two Singaporeans and one person each from Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the Philippines, Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital said. It said it had provided medical care to a total of 104 people. Thai authorities said the British man who died possibly had a heart attack. Passengers have described how the flight crew tried to revive him by performing CPR for about 20 minutes. Most people associate turbulence with heavy storms, but the most dangerous type is so-called clear air turbulence. Wind shear can occur in wispy cirrus clouds or even in clear air near thunderstorms, as differences in temperature and pressure create powerful currents of fast-moving air. According to a 2021 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence accounted for 37.6% of all accidents on larger commercial airlines between 2009 and 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration, another U.S. government agency, has said there were 146 serious injuries from turbulence from 2009 to 2021. Tourism and aviation expert Anita Mendiratta, who is based in London, said the extreme turbulence was "extremely unusual." She said passengers should listen to instructions to keep their seatbelts on, ensure that hand baggage is put away safely when not in use, and reduce items stowed in the overhead compartments. "When there is turbulence, those doors can open and all of the items up top, whether it's our hand baggage, our jackets, our duty free items, they become movable and they become a risk to us all," she told The Associated Press.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

The White House — The United States will designate Kenya as its first major non-NATO ally in sub-Saharan Africa, the White House said as President Joe Biden on Thursday welcomed President William Ruto for a state visit. The significant strategic move signals the shifting of U.S. security cooperation to East Africa just as U.S. troops prepare to depart Niger, leaving a vacuum that Russian forces have begun to fill. The designation gives non-members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization access to military and financial advantages that NATO members enjoy, but without the mutual defense agreement that holds NATO together. A senior administration official told reporters late Wednesday that Biden would inform Congress of the designation, which takes 30 days to take effect. The official said the move aims at "elevating and really acknowledging that Kenya is already a global partner of ours." In the meantime, Ruto and Biden are using their daylong deliberations to iron out Kenya’s plan to send 1,000 security officers to the fragile, chaotic Caribbean nation of Haiti. The initiative, toward which the United States has pledged $300 million in support, faces stiff political and legal challenges in Kenya. The mission was also delayed when Haitian armed gangs took control while the nation’s leader, Ariel Henry, was visiting Kenya in March. Henry resigned in April and has not returned to the island. The official said that Ruto would meet with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss the mission but promised no progress. "This is definitely an ongoing area of collaboration," the official said. And the White House on Thursday also rolled out a number of security-related agreements, which include training opportunities and military exercises, assistance in managing refugees, U.S. investments in Kenya’s security sector, counterterrorism efforts including increased information sharing and, on top of all this, 16 helicopters and 150 armored vehicles. From bombs to bonbons Washington also made millions of dollars of commitments toward a number of efforts the U.S. sees as key to development. Those include areas like democracy, health, education, arts and culture, climate management, trade, technology, and the one item Ruto said was his main priority on his four-day swing through the United States: work to restructure African nations’ crippling debt to the world’s largest creditor, China. But the lengthy list of American pledges was absent the roads, bridges and railroad projects that African leaders have long said they need to keep up with their exploding populations. For those, they turn to China’s sprawling Belt and Road Initiative, which counts the African continent as the largest beneficiary of its massive, $1 trillion global project. This, analysts say, represents Africa’s new stance as its young democracies mature, less than a century after liberation from colonialism: In a world of competition among the world’s great powers, they want to be somewhere in the middle. "I think many U.S. officials see this very much as a zero-sum game in this kind of great power competition to gain influence," said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "African countries don't see it that way. They actually see the benefit of being able to partner with China on trade, with Russia on security and with Washington on development, and they don't see any inconsistency in that approach." "And I think unless and until Washington becomes much more comfortable with seeing their privileged relationships become partnerized with other countries, I think it's going to be very difficult for Washington to really chart a course forward with many of these countries," he added. This is the first White House state visit by an African leader in nearly 16 years, and that significance was not lost on first lady Jill Biden, who, ahead of her sixth state dinner, spoke of a glass-ceilinged pavilion set under the stars, of a gospel choir and shag carpets and "the glow of candles in a space saturated with warm pinks and reds." White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford narrated a menu of chilled green tomato soup touched with sweet onions and drizzled with white balsamic vinegar and fine Californian olive oil, of butter-poached lobster and seasonal bounties reminiscent of American summer. She lavished words on the bed of kale and roasted corn and corn puree and roasted turnips and sweet potatoes and squash but touched just briefly on the one item that is seen as a hallmark of a fine Kenyan feast: "Red meat," she said. Specifically, she said, they are marinated and smoked short ribs, perched atop that farmers’ market worth of produce. But it was the unnamed administration official who teased the star that could outshine all the others on this glittering night: the first and only American president of Kenyan ancestry. When asked by a journalist if former President Barack Obama – born to a Kenyan father and an American mother – would make an appearance at the lavish dinner, the official hesitated. "I'll go to a quote from another former president, President Trump," the official finally replied. And then: "‘We'll see what happens.’"

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.