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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Research into online abuse and hate speech reveals most women in Ethiopia face gender-targeted attacks across Facebook, Telegram and X. The abuse and hate speech are prompting many Ethiopian women to withdraw from public life, online and off, according to the recent research. The Center for Information Resilience, a U.K.-based nonprofit organization, spearheaded the study. The CIR report, released Wednesday, says that women in Ethiopia are on the receiving end of abuse and hate speech across all three social media platforms, with Facebook cited as the worst. Over 2,000 inflammatory keywords were found in the research, which looked at three Ethiopian languages — Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna — as well as English. The list is the most comprehensive inflammatory word lexicon in Ethiopia, according to the researchers. Over 78% of the women interviewed reported feelings of fear or anxiety after experiencing online abuse. It is highly likely similar problems exist in areas of society that have not been analyzed yet, said Felicity Mulford, editor and researcher at CIR. “This data can be used by human rights advocates, women’s rights advocates, in their advocacy,” she said. “We believe that it’s incredibly impactful, because even though we’ve only got four languages, it shows some of the [trends] that exist across Ethiopia.” Online abuse is so widespread in Ethiopia that it has been “normalized to the point of invisibility,” the report’s authors said. Betelehem Akalework, co-founder of Setaset Power, an Afro-feminist movement in Ethiopia, said her work has opened doors to more-serious, targeted attacks. “We [were] mentally prepared for it to some extent,” she said. “We [weren’t] surprised that the backlash was that heavy, but then we did not anticipate the gravity of that backlash. So, we took media training, and we took digital security trainings.” The Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Center, established three years ago, offers protection for human rights defenders and social media activists in the country. The center’s program coordinator, Kalkidan Tesfaye, said there must be more initiative from the government in education and policymaking to help women protect themselves from online abuse. “In our recommendation earlier, we were talking about how the Ministry of Education can incorporate digital safety training ... a very essential element to learning about computers or acquiring digital skills,” Tesfaye said. The researchers also investigated other protected characteristics under Ethiopian law, including ethnicity, religion and race. The findings showed that women face compounded attacks, as they are also often targeted for their ethnicity and religion.

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U.S. Senator Bob Menendez — the former head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee — is set to go on trial next week for allegedly using his position for personal gain. Jury selection in the federal corruption case is expected to begin in New York on Monday. Aron Ranen has more from New York.

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united nations — The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Friday in a show of support for Palestinian statehood, and as a cease-fire remains out of reach in the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas militants that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. “A ‘yes’ vote is a vote for Palestinian existence; it is not against any state,” Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour said before the vote in an emotional speech. “But it is against attempts to deprive us of our state.” The General Assembly voted 143 in favor, nine against, with 25 abstentions, for a resolution that “determines that the State of Palestine is qualified” for U.N. membership under the organization’s charter and recommending that the U.N. Security Council “reconsider favorably” its full membership in the United Nations. The 15-nation council must recommend a potential member’s application to the General Assembly for final approval and admission. The United States used its Security Council veto on April 18, to stop the process. It voted “no” again Friday in the General Assembly. “Our vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood; we have been very clear that we support it and seek to advance it meaningfully,” Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood said. “Instead, it is an acknowledgement that statehood will come only from a process that involves direct negotiations between the parties.” Israel’s envoy voiced loud opposition to the resolution, saying it would give rights to Hamas terrorists. “So here it is, I present to you the future outcome of today’s vote: soon-to-be President Yahya Sinwar, tyrant of the state of Hamas, sponsored by the U.N.,” Ambassador Gilad Erdan said, holding up a placard with a photo of the Hamas leader with the words “President Sinwar” printed on it. “And he owes his deepest gratitude to you – the General Assembly.” The Palestinians are represented at the United Nations by the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, and the two groups have long been at odds with each other. Israel says it will continue its war in Gaza until Hamas is eliminated. Practical effects General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but they do carry the moral weight of the international community. The support of 143 countries sends a clear signal of how the international community feels about the issue of Palestinian statehood. “I think the vote shows that most U.N. members not only want a cease-fire in Gaza, but actually want a more fundamental long-term solution to the Palestinian question based on a two-state solution,” Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group told VOA. U.S. envoy Wood indicated that if the matter returns to the Security Council, Washington’s position would remain unchanged — that statehood must come through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The Palestinians currently have nonmember observer state status, which means they cannot vote, but they can participate in meetings and can join U.N. bodies like the World Health Organization and the International Criminal Court. Wood emphasized that Friday’s resolution would not enhance their rights. “As a result of this vote, the Palestinian nonmember state observer mission has not gained the right to vote in the General Assembly,” Wood said. “It also has not gained the right to put forward candidates in U.N. organs or to be elected as a member of the Security Council. In short, the Palestinians’ nonmember state observer mission does not have the same standing as a member state after this vote.” That could also be a message to the U.S. Congress, which under legislation from the 1990s has the power to cut funding to the United Nations should it unilaterally admit the Palestinians. On Thursday, 25 Republican senators, led by Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, introduced legislation to update the existing law. Calling it the “No Official Palestine Entry Act of 2024,” or “NOPE,” it would limit funds to the United Nations and other organizations “that provide any status, rights, or privileges beyond observer status” to the Palestinians. Analyst Gowan said the final text was carefully written not to trigger a U.S. funding freeze. “I think U.S. diplomats and their allies had made it very clear to the Palestinians that they could unintentionally blow up the U.N., and they should have avoided this,” Gowan said. “But if Congress now changes the rules, in line with Romney's proposal yesterday, there could still be a blowback for the U.N. budget.”

Kabul, Afghanistan — At least 50 people, mainly women and children, died Friday in flash flooding that ripped through Afghanistan's Baghlan province, in the north of the country, a local official told AFP.  "So far, the number of dead is 50 as per the hospital authorities of Baghlan-e-Markazi district of Baghlan province," said Hedayatullah Hamdard, the head of the provincial natural disaster management department, adding that the toll could rise.  The official explained that heavy seasonal rains sparked the flooding and that residents were unprepared for the sudden rush of water.  Emergency personnel were "searching for any possible victims under the mud and rubble, with the help of security forces from the national army and police," Hamdard said late Friday.  "The weather is very gloomy right now and might pour down again," he said.  Dozens of tents, blankets and food were provided to those who lost their homes, the official said.  Video footage seen on social media showed torrents of muddy water swamping roads and bodies shrouded in white and black cloth.  In one video clip, children are heard crying, and a group of men are looking at floodwaters in which bits of broken wood and debris from homes can be seen.  Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods have left about 100 people dead in 10 of Afghanistan's provinces, with no region entirely spared, according to authorities.  Farmland has been swamped in a country where 80% of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive.  Afghanistan had a relatively dry winter that is making it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainfall.  The nation, ravaged by four decades of war, is one of the poorest in the world and, according to scientists, one of the worst-prepared to face the consequences of climate change. Afghanistan, which is responsible for 0.06% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, ranks sixth on the list of countries most at risk from climate change, experts say.  Half of Afghanistan's population lives under the poverty line, and 15 million people are experiencing food insecurity, according to the World Bank. 

WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be-released Biden administration review of Israel's use of U.S.-provided weapons in its war in Gaza does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for their use, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter.  The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel, even though it doesn't conclude that Israel violated terms of U.S.-Israel weapons agreements, according to one U.S. official.  The administration's findings on its close ally's conduct of the war, a first-of-its-kind assessment that was compelled by President Joe Biden's fellow Democrats in Congress, comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.  Biden has tried to walk an ever-finer line in his support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war against Hamas. He has faced growing rancor at home and abroad over the soaring Palestinian death toll and the onset of famine, caused in large part by Israeli restrictions on the movement of food and aid into Gaza. Tensions have been heightened further in recent weeks by Netanyahu's pledge to expand the Israeli military's offensive in the crowded southern city of Rafah, despite Biden's adamant opposition.  Biden faces demands from many Democrats that he cut the flow of offensive weapons to Israel and denunciation from Republicans who accuse him of wavering on support for Israel at its time of need.  Two U.S. officials and a third person briefed on the findings of the national security memorandum to be submitted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Congress discussed the findings before the report's release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public.  A senior Biden administration official said the memorandum is expected to be released later Friday but declined to comment on its conclusions.  Axios first reported on the memorandum's findings.  The Democratic administration took one of the first steps toward conditioning military aid to Israel in recent days when it paused a shipment of 3,500 bombs out of concern over Israel's threatened offensive on Rafah, a southern city crowded with more than a million Palestinians, a senior administration official said.  The presidential directive, agreed to in February, obligated the Defense and State departments to conduct "an assessment of any credible reports or allegations that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, have been used in a manner not consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law."  The agreement also obligated them to tell Congress whether they deemed that Israel has acted "arbitrarily to deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly," delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.  Lawmakers and others who advocated for the review said Biden and previous American leaders have followed a double standard when enforcing U.S. laws governing how foreign militaries use U.S. support, an accusation the Biden administration denies.  They had urged the administration to make a straightforward legal determination of whether there was credible evidence that specific Israeli airstrikes on schools, crowded neighborhoods, medical workers, aid convoys and other targets, and restrictions on aid shipments into Gaza, violated the laws of war and human rights.  Their opponents argued that a U.S. finding against Israel would weaken it at a time it is battling Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. Any sharply critical findings on Israel are sure to add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel's military and further heighten tensions with Netanyahu's hard-right government over its conduct of the war against Hamas.  Any finding against Israel also could endanger Biden's support in this year's presidential elections from some voters who keenly support Israel. Former president Donald Trump is the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee facing off against Biden. At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to head off moves from Democratic lawmakers and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to start restricting shipments of weapons to Israel.  Israel launched its offensive after an October 7 terror attack by Hamas into Israel killed about 1,200 people. Two-thirds of the Palestinians killed since then have been women and children, according to local health officials. U.S. and U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions on food shipments since October 7 have brought on full-fledged famine in northern Gaza.  Human rights groups long have accused Israeli security forces of committing abuses against Palestinians and have accused Israeli leaders of failing to hold those responsible to account. In January, in a case brought by South Africa, the top U.N. court ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering an end to the military offensive.  Israel says it is following all U.S. and international law, that it investigates allegations of abuse by its security forces and that its campaign in Gaza is proportional to the existential threat it says is posed by Hamas.  Biden in December said "indiscriminate bombing" was costing Israel international backing. After Israeli forces targeted and killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in April, the Biden administration for the first time signaled it might cut military aid to Israel if it didn't change its handling of the war and humanitarian aid.  Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in the 1980s and early 1990s, were the last presidents to openly hold back weapons or military financing to try to push Israel to change its actions in the region or toward Palestinians.  A report to the Biden administration by an unofficial, self-formed panel including military experts, academics and former State Department officials detailed Israeli strikes on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other sites. They argued that the civilian death toll in those strikes — such as an October 31 strike on an apartment building reported to have killed 106 civilians — was disproportionate to the blow against any military target.

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 UN General Assembly votes to allow the Security Council to once again take up the question of Palestinian membership. The U.S. is making its final preparations to send aid to Gaza using the newly completed pier in the Mediterranean. A conversation with an aid group about the needs in Gaza and the effect of military actions in Rafah on humanitarian operations. Russia is making military advances in eastern Ukraine as the EU is debating whether or not to seize Moscow’s assets to fund Ukraine's defense. Plus, election results from Chad.

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court panel on Friday upheld the criminal conviction of Donald Trump's longtime ally Steve Bannon for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol.  A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected Bannon's challenges to his contempt of Congress conviction for which he was sentenced in 2022 to four months in prison. The judge overseeing the case has allowed him to remain free while he pursues his appeal.  Bannon's attorneys didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment. His lawyers could ask the full appeals court to hear the matter.  Bannon was convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition and the other for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.  Bannon had initially argued that his testimony was protected by Trump's claim of executive privilege. But the House panel and the Justice Department contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the riot.  Bannon's lawyers argued at trial that he wasn't acting in bad faith but was trying to avoid running afoul of executive privilege objections Trump had raised. The onetime presidential adviser said he wanted to have a Trump lawyer in the room for his appearance, but the committee wouldn't allow it.  Bannon's lawyers told the appeals court that the conviction should be overturned because, among other reasons, they said the committee's subpoena was invalid. Bannon also argued that the judge that oversaw the trial wrongly quashed subpoenas seeking testimony and records from the committee's own members, staffers and counsel his lawyers argued could have bolstered his defense.  The appeals court said all of his challenges lacked merit.  "We conclude that none of the information sought in the trial subpoenas was relevant to the elements of the contempt offense, nor to any affirmative defense Bannon was entitled to present at trial," the judges wrote.  A second Trump aide, trade adviser Peter Navarro, was also convicted of contempt of Congress and reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence. Navarro has maintained that he couldn't cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But courts have rejected that argument, finding Navarro couldn't prove Trump had actually invoked it.

geneva — In what they are calling an “unprecedented emergency,” U.N. agencies are warning that humanitarian operations throughout the Gaza Strip will cease within a matter of days if Israel does not reopen border crossings and allow critical fuel supplies to enter the Palestinian territory. “For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Hamish Young, UNICEF’s senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip said Friday. Speaking from Rafah, Young told journalists in Geneva that “This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt.” The UNICEF official said that he has been working on large-scale humanitarian emergencies for the last 30 years but that he has “never been involved in a situation as devastating, complex or erratic as this.” “When I arrived in Gaza in the middle of November, I was shocked by the severity of the impact of this conflict on children and, impossibly, it has continued to worsen,” he said. Israeli forces seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Tuesday, bringing a halt to all aid shipments into Gaza. Israel said Wednesday it had reopened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza after several days of closure, but the U.N. said no humanitarian aid was going through. COGAT, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, says aid is entering Gaza in other ways, noting that limited shipments of aid are going in through the Erez crossing. But the World Food Program says it last received food supplies for Gaza in mid-April. Both WFP and UNRWA (U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) warn they will “run out of food for distribution in the south by Saturday.” The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, reports that the closure of the Rafah crossing has severed access to fuel for humanitarian activities and curtailed the movement of staff, as well as the entry of food and other lifesaving humanitarian items. Georgios Petropoulos, head of OCHA’s sub-office in Gaza, said OCHA and several other U.N. agencies went to the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings this week to assess the security situation and found that those highly militarized areas “are not secure, they are not safe, and they are not logistically viable.” Speaking from Rafah Friday, he said “There is a lot of work that we have to do to get into that state. We are working hard with member states to find ways to bring in supplies and to make sure that aid workers can get in and out. For this solution to be sustainable, we have to bring some kind of predictability to the aid here. “Unless these solutions come quickly, our aid activities, our communication, lack of fuel, banking activities will halt within the next two days. Not having fuel will affect life-critical sectors.” Shortages have already created higher prices in the market, Petropoulos said, with vulnerable members of society being forced to make difficult or dangerous choices to access what is available. The United Nations reports Israel’s recent evacuation orders, which are linked to military operations in Rafah, have led to the forcible displacement of at least 110,000 people, many of whom already have been displaced multiple times. UNICEF’s Young said that Thursday he walked around al-Mawasi, the so-called humanitarian zone where Israel has told people in eastern Rafah they should move. He described the area as being jammed with trucks, buses, cars, and donkey carts loaded with people and their possessions. “People I speak with tell me they are exhausted, terrified and know life in al-Mawasi will, again, impossibly, be harder. Families lack proper sanitation facilities, drinking water and shelter,” Young said. “Displaced people are subject to even greater risk of disease, infections, malnutrition, dehydration and other protection health concerns. Beyond a few mobile health points and field hospitals with limited capacity, the closest hospital is at least four kilometers away, assuming that the road to it is safe to use,” he said. OCHA says within the next 24 hours, numerous health facilities will run out of fuel. Among those affected are five Ministry of Health-run hospitals, 28 ambulances, 17 primary health care centers, five field hospitals and 10 mobile clinics “which provide immunizations, trauma care and malnutrition services.” Amid the gloomy picture, World Health Organization spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris noted “one bright spot.” Thanks to international support, she said the Naser Medical Complex, which had been severely damaged during shelling by Israeli forces, has been made partially functional. The hospital is accepting dialysis patients and the laboratories are able to perform some blood tests, she said. “But as has been made absolutely clear, without fuel all that stops,” Harris said. “All the things a hospital does, the lifesaving treatments, no longer can be done. “If you have got somebody back from the brink, you have operated on them, you have put them on a ventilator, and the ventilator stops, they no longer breathe,” she said. “So, without fuel, no matter what everybody has done, the whole system collapses.” Harris said WHO missions currently have been suspended in the north “to try to ensure that we can provide as much fuel as possible to hospitals in the south to keep them going.” She said work was continuing to repair the sewage system in the Naser Medical Complex, adding that “this is something that has to be done throughout the Gaza strip.” “A lack of sewage services, lack of clean water means if the bombs do not get you, you die of thirst, infectious diseases or simply hunger,” she said.

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VOA Connect Episode 330 - Enhancing water safety and addressing glacier melt’s impact on rising sea levels.

Amy Heape is an open water swim coach. Open water swimming is a swimming discipline which takes place in outdoor bodies of water such as oceans, lakes and rivers. Amy trains individuals first in the pool to enhance their swimming technique so they can then enjoy the freedom and joy of swimming in open waters. Camera | Producer | Editor: Gabrielle Weiss

Maira Thomas is a scuba diving instructor. She wanted to involve more women in the sport, so several years ago she started ScubaMAR Maids, an online community of women, who travel and dive together. We'll be joining them on their upcoming trip to Panama. Camera | Producer | Editor: Genia Dulot)

Thwaites Glacier located in Antarctica, is an unusually broad and vast glacier. Known as The 'Doomsday Glacier', scientist say it is rapidly melting. Sridhar Anandakrishnan is a glaciologist and professor at Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. He explains the danger of global warming's effect on Thwaites Glacier, with the increased melting from the glacier causing sea level rise across the globe. Reporter | Camera:  Aaron Fedor, Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin, Editor: Kyle Dubiel