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For the second year in a row, specialized summer camps are being held in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains for teens who have witnessed traumatic events during the war. Psychologists say instead of focusing on the trauma, they are helping these kids find friends and inner strength. Omelyan Oshchudlyak visited one such camp. Videographer: Yuriy Dankevych

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.

Copenhagen, Denmark — Swedish authorities on Thursday charged a 52-year-old woman associated with the Islamic State group with genocide, crimes against humanity and serious war crimes against Yazidi women and children in Syria — in the first such case of a person to be tried in the Scandinavian country. Lina Laina Ishaq, who's a Swedish citizen, allegedly committed the crimes from August 2014 to December 2016, in Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the self-proclaimed IS caliphate and home to about 300,000 people. The crimes "took place under IS rule in Raqqa, and this is the first time that IS attacks against the Yazidi minority have been tried in Sweden," senior prosecutor Reena Devgun said in a statement. In a separate statement, the Stockholm District Court said the prosecutor claims the woman detained a number of women and children belonging to the Yazidi ethnic group in her residence in Raqqa, and "allegedly exposed them to, among other things, severe suffering, torture or other inhumane treatment as well as for persecution by depriving them of fundamental rights for cultural, religious and gender reasons contrary to general international law." According to the indictment, the aim was "completely or partially annihilating the Yazidi ethnic group as such and were part of or otherwise related to an armed conflict," the court said. In 2014, IS militants stormed Yazidi towns and villages in Iraq's Sinjar region and abducted women and children. Women were forced into sexual slavery, and boys were taken to be indoctrinated in jihadi ideology. The woman earlier had been convicted in Sweden and was sentenced to three years in prison, for taking her 2-year-old son to Syria in 2014, in an area that was then controlled by IS. The woman had claimed that she had told the child's father that she and the boy were only going on a holiday to Turkey. However, once in Turkey, the two crossed into Syria and the IS-run territory. In 2017, when the Islamic State's reign began to collapse, she fled from Raqqa and was captured by Syrian Kurdish troops. She managed to escape to Turkey where she was arrested with her son and two other children, she had given birth to in the meantime, with an IS foreign fighter from Tunisia. She was extradited from Turkey to Sweden. Before her 2021 conviction, the woman lived in the southern town of Landskrona. The court said the trial was planned to start Oct. 7 and last approximately two months. Large parts of the trial are to be held behind closed doors.

Taliban officials in the northeastern province of Badakhshan announced the completion of a gravel road connecting Afghanistan to China early this year. Experts, however, doubt the road will become a trading route between the countries because it needs more work, and China still has security concerns. VOA’s Afghan Service has the story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.

Washington — A hearing to seek the release of imprisoned Americans in Beijing highlighted reasons for the U.S. to expand its list of U.S. citizens wrongly detained in China to prioritize their return. Members of Congress and witnesses argued at a congressional hearing this week that the U.S. government should expand the list of Americans that it designates as being “unjustly detained” in China. “More Americans should be considered to be unjustly detained by the State Department,” Representative Chris Smith, the chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said Wednesday in opening remarks at the CECC hearing. China is known for a justice system lacking transparency and arbitrarily detaining foreigners as well as its own citizens. The State Department officially had three Americans listed as unjustly detained in China including American Pastor David Lin, who has now been released by Beijing, the State Department announced on Sunday.  The other two are Kai Li and Mark Swidan. Li, a businessman from Long Island, was detained by China in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for espionage, which his family denies. Swiden, a Texas businessman, was detained in 2012 and convicted on drug-related charges in 2019. His supporters say there is evidence he was not in China at the time of the alleged offense. Although estimates vary, human rights organizations assess that more U.S. citizens are wrongly detained in China.  Dui Hua, a human rights group that advocates for clemency and better treatment of detainees in China, doubts about 200 Americans who are held under coercive measures in China and more than 30 who are barred from leaving the country. The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a group that seeks to free Americans held captive abroad, estimates that 11 U.S. nationals are wrongfully detained in China, including those subject to exit bans. In the opening statement of his testimony, Nelson Wells, the father of detained American citizen Nelson Wells, Jr., lamented that “Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or held unjust” by the State Department. Later, he added, “We tried to get Nelson’s name included” in the list and expressed his hope that the hearing will pave the way. Nelson Wells, Jr., from New Orleans, was arrested in 2014 in China and sentenced to life on drug-related charges, which his family denies. His term was reduced to 22 years in 2019, and he will remain in prison until 2041. The U.S. determines whether its citizens are detained “unlawfully or wrongfully” by either “a foreign government or a non-governmental actor” based on criteria set by the Levinson Act signed into law in 2020. Such criteria “can include, but is not limited to, a review of whether the individual is being detained to influence U.S. policy, whether there is a lack of due process or disparate sentencing for the individuals, and whether the person is being detained due to their U.S. connections, among other criteria,” said a spokesperson for the State Department in a statement to VOA Korean on Tuesday. “The Secretary of State has ultimate authority to determine whether a case is a wrongful detention. This determination is discretionary, based on the totality of the circumstances, and grounded in the facts of the case. We do not discuss the wrongful detention determination process in public,” the spokesperson continued. A spokesperson for the Foley Foundation told VOA that it believes 11 Americans currently detained in China meet “the criteria for wrongful detention, as specified in Levinson Act.” Its report, published in July, says China “remains the leading country in wrongfully detaining U.S. nationals,” based on the data collected by the Foley Foundation in the period from 2022 to 2024. Sophie Richardson, a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, told VOA China’s practice of arbitrary detention is harmful to its culture and economy. “It’s a big part of what is deterring people from going to the country,” including students who are interested in studying Chinese as well as business executives who are “concerned they might run afoul of certain kinds of data regulations and [be] arbitrarily detained,” said Richardson, a former China director at Human Rights Watch. A record number of approximately 15,200 high-net worth individuals are expected to leave China in 2024, according to New World Wealth, a wealth intelligence firm, cited by the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report. Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, said, “The Chinese government clearly wants more Americans to travel to China, but as long as our loved ones are being held, as long as there are so many people at risk, then that travel warning must be escalated.” The State Department currently advises Americans to “reconsider” traveling to the country “due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” including exit bans and wrongful detention. The next level of advisory would say “do not travel.” Bob Fu, the founder and president of China Aid, a human rights group that advocates for religious freedom, told VOA that “increasing international isolation” felt by the Chinese Communist Party could have led it to the release of David Lin.   He said the prospect for the release of other Americans would depend on “how much persistent pressure from the highest level of the U.S. government” is exerted on Beijing. The State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean that the U.S. has raised the case of “other wrongfully detained Americans” in addition to David Lin and will “continue to push for the release of other Americans.”

Sri Lanka will hold elections for a new president Saturday in the first polls since massive popular protests ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the height of a crushing economic downturn. It is a pivotal vote for the South Asian country where the new leader will have to steer the island nation toward economic revival and ensure political stability. Anjana Pasricha has this report.

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.

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM — Typhoon Yagi, which hit Vietnam earlier this month, exposed the country's lack of preparedness for extreme weather and raised concerns more storms could hit the country this rainy season, experts told VOA. The storm hit northern Vietnam September 7. It resulted in 292 deaths. Thirty-eight people remain missing and over 73,000 homes have been flooded, authorities say. In northwestern Lao Cai province, an entire hamlet was swept away in a landslide on September 12, killing 30 people, while dozens are still missing.  Presiding over a conference on the aftermath of the typhoon this week, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh honed in on the need for accurate forecasting, timely communication and swift, effective decision-making. "We have tried our best. We've sought the best solutions available in these circumstances, but no loss can compensate for the lives lost and the suffering of the people," he said September 15. A 33-year-old Lao Cai schoolteacher called the storm's impact on his community devastating.  "My colleagues’ houses collapsed and their furniture floated away. Three or four of my students have family members who died from the landslide. Other students’ houses got flooded," he told VOA in Vietnamese on September 18, asking to withhold his name due to the sensitivity of speaking to the media.  "After the flood receded, the mud was up to my chest," he said.  The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry said Sunday that northern and north-central Vietnam may face one or two more typhoons before the end of September and there's still danger of landslides. "Even as rains subside, landslide risks remain high, especially on the slopes of mountainous regions in the north," the ministry stated. With heavy rains and rising water levels in the upper Mekong region, Vietnam's Southern Institute for Water Resources Planning issued a flood warning Monday for low-lying and riverside areas in the southern provinces of An Giang, Dong Thap, and Long An.  Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center's Southeast Asia Program in Washington and co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor, warned that the country will face more extreme weather.  "Storms like Yagi will only become more frequent. It's also possible that another one, two, or three will happen this wet season," he told VOA by phone September 13.  "Communities are still not ready and it is the responsibility of governments or international aid organizations to help these communities to better prepare," he said.  Unprepared Despite more than a week of advance warning, locals were poorly prepared for the typhoon, Eyler said. "Communities were not prepared for this and neither were government response mechanisms in any of the countries that were impacted," he said.   Eyler saw on social media that people were on boats in Halong Bay in northern Vietnam during the storm, people were standing next to glass windows and doors that could easily swing open, and in China, people stood in line at amusement parks during the storm.  "There's a large gap in emergency early-warning messaging from the government and then just a general lack of preparedness about what one should do as an individual during a time of extreme crisis," Eyler said.  The Lao Cai teacher said people in his town had been warned about the incoming typhoon but did not expect the severity of the storm.  "There was notice but the damage was not completely avoided," he said. "We did not predict such a strong storm. There has never been such a strong storm."  Vulnerable hit hardest Eyler said that during a climate change-intensified disaster like Typhoon Yagi, the effects are "amplified much more on the poorer and vulnerable people." "Those who were killed or those who were injured were out and about during the storm," he said. "They couldn't afford to stop what they are doing because they need to carry on their livelihoods."  Mimi Vu, a Ho Chi Minh City-based migration and trafficking expert, said that people who depend on day-to-day earnings are at greatest risk.  "For them to stop working means that they're not able to put food on the table," she said by phone Wednesday. "It's a matter of survival for a lot of them and they're willing to take the risk or to support their families." Vu said efforts to fight global warming are going too slowly to keep up with the needs of many affected by extreme weather.  "We're trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions… but it's not happening fast enough and by enough influential entities to make a difference right now," she said.  We need to help "these underserved communities prepare for the worst that's coming," she added. "Efforts have to be increased now in changing the way we live and operate in the world so that we can lessen the impact." A woman in her 30s in Bac Giang province told VOA she is helping to get necessities to people in Van Ha commune, a village in the Viet Yen district of Bac Giang, which has been isolated by floods and without power for a week.  "I work for the government and we are helping the people here," she said in Vietnamese on September 14, asking to withhold her name. "My duty is supporting other relief groups such as how to get into the village and how to transport food and goods."  Eyler said that governments need to increase data sharing to mitigate the impact of natural disasters and upstream dams in China and the damming of Southeast Asia's river systems more broadly increase the dangers of storms.  "The uses of dams are often described as having the potential for flood control but when these major events happen like this I think the myth of dams as flood control really comes undone," he said. "[Dams] exacerbate risks for vulnerable communities downstream."

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.

CHONBURI, Thailand — Only a month after Thailand's adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable both domestically and internationally. Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his care for about five years. He never imagined Khao Kheow Open Zoo's newborn pygmy hippo would become an internet megastar within weeks. Cars started lining up outside the zoo well before it opened Thursday. Visitors traveled from near and far for a chance to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in person at the zoo about 100 kilometers southeast of Bangkok. The pit where Moo Deng lives with her mom, Jona, was packed almost immediately, with people cooing and cheering every time the pink-cheeked baby animal made skittish movements. "It was beyond expectation," Atthapon told The Associated Press. "I wanted people to know her. I wanted a lot of people to visit her, or watch her online, or leave fun comments. I never would’ve thought (of this)." Moo Deng, which literally means "bouncy pork" in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans via a poll on social media, and it matches her other siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (sweet pork). There is also a common hippo at the zoo named Kha Moo (stewed pork leg). "She’s such a little lump. I want to ball her up and swallow her whole!" said Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya while visiting the zoo Thursday. Already, Moo Deng has been made into memes. Artists are drawing cartoons based on her. Social media platform X even featured her in its official account’s post. With all that fame, zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi said they have begun patenting and trademarking "Moo Deng the hippo" to prevent the animal from being commercialized by anyone else. "After we do this, we will have more income to support activities that will make the animals’ lives better," he said. "The benefits we get will return to the zoo to improve the life of all animals here." The zoo sits on 800 hectares of land and is home to more than 2,000 animals. It runs breeder programs for many endangered species like Moo Deng's. The pygmy hippopotamus that's native to West Africa is threatened by poaching and loss of habitat. There are only 2,000-3,000 of them left in the wild. To help fund the initiative, the zoo is making Moo Deng shirts and pants that will be ready for sale at the end of the month, with more merchandise to come. Narongwit believes a factor of Moo Deng's fame is her name, which compliments her energetic and chaotic personality captured in Atthapon's creative captions and video clips. Appropriately, Moo Deng likes to "deng," or bounce, and Atthapon got a lot of cute and funny moments of her giddy bouncing on social media. Even when she's not bouncing, the hippo is endlessly cute — squirming as Atthapon tries to wash her, biting him while he was trying to play with her, calmly closing her eyes as he rubs her pinkish cheeks or her chubby belly. Atthapon, who has worked at the zoo for eight years taking care of hippos, sloths, capybaras and binturongs, said baby hippos are usually more playful and energetic, and they become calmer as they get older. The zoo saw a spike in visitors since Moo Deng’s fame — so much that the zoo now has to limit public access to the baby's enclosure to five-minute windows throughout the day during weekends. Narongwit said the zoo has been receiving over 4,000 visitors during a weekday, up from around just 800 people, and more than 10,000 during a weekend, up from around 3,000 people. But the fame has also brought some hostile visitors to Moo Deng, who only wakes up ready to play about two hours a day. Some videos showed visitors splashing water or throwing things at the sleeping Moo Deng to try to wake her up. The hippo pit now has a warning sign against throwing things at Moo Deng — posted prominently at the front in Thai, English and Chinese. Narongwit said the zoo would take action under the animal protection law if people mistreat the animal. But clips emerged of people treating Moo Deng poorly, and the backlash was fierce. The zoo director said that since then, they haven’t seen anyone doing it again. For fans who can't make the journey or are discouraged after seeing the crowds for Moo Deng, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo set up cameras and plan to start a 24-hour live feed of the baby hippo in the coming week. 

NEW DELHI — Two years after massive popular protests in Sri Lanka ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the height of a crushing economic downturn, millions in the island nation will head to the polls Saturday to choose a new president. The rallying cry at the protest movement, called "aragalaya," or struggle, was for an overhaul of the political establishment that many perceived as corrupt. That anger, which continues to fester, along with economic hardship that millions suffer will influence the vote, according to political analysts. “They want a change of the system. That means that they don’t want the old ways where there was no transparency, no accountability,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo told VOA. “They want an alleviation of the economic hardship they are suffering.” As they seek to usher in change, the island nation’s 17 million voters will choose among three main contenders. President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was elected by Parliament to the top post after Rajapaksa’s exit, is running as an independent candidate. His main challengers are opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and the leader of a Marxist-led alliance, Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Wickremesinghe is wooing voters with the promise of building on the country’s fragile economic recovery that he has steered. He secured a nearly $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout, which pulled Sri Lanka back from the brink of bankruptcy, eased severe shortages of food and fuel and lowered runaway inflation. “Like the Titanic, Sri Lanka could have sunk,” Wickremesinghe told a rally. “There was no captain. I took responsibility for the ship.” Political analysts say he is attracting the support of people who respect him for restoring stability. “There are those who believe that he has gone to the IMF, he has got a deal with them and that we should continue with him to get out of the terrible mess that we got ourselves in and then start to rebuild again.” Saravanamuttu said. However, people still cope with massive economic woes. Wickremesinghe slashed subsidies and imposed higher taxes as part of IMF austerity measures, which are hurting millions. Living costs have surged while incomes have stagnated. At least a quarter of the country's 20 million people are reeling under poverty. Some also see Wickremesinghe as a part of the “old political guard” which protesters sought to overthrow. He has been accused of protecting the Rajapaksa political family and shielding them from prosecution. Tough measures he took to curb protests, including drafting new security laws, angered many. “I am voting for systematic change, not just a change of faces or end of the political elite that have run this country to the ground,” said Marisa De Silva, an activist in Colombo who took part in the 2022 protests. “We are proposing socialist policy changes for real change.” That deep discontent has catapulted left-wing leader Dissanayake, popularly known as AKD, from the margins to the center stage of the political race. A fiery orator, his rallies have attracted huge crowds as he taps into the anger among many voters. He has vowed to work toward ensuring that the rich pay more taxes under the IMF restructuring plan. There are no reliable polls, but he is seen as a frontrunner in the race. The National People’s Power alliance he heads is made up of different groups that include political parties, youth, civil society, women’s groups and trade unions. It is centered on the working class. “They have never really been in power themselves, so they are presenting themselves as the party that can come in and sweep out the old guys, particularly corruption which is a big problem in Sri Lanka and which many blame for the current crisis,” Alan Keenan, a senior consultant on Sri Lanka at the International Crisis Group, told VOA, “So he is seen as the big change agent,” he added. Opposition leader Premadasa, who also pledges to ease the burden on ordinary citizens, is also a strong contender. He wants to steer a middle path between the status quo and the radical change that Dissanayake wants to usher in. Another candidate is Namal Rajapaksa, the nephew of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was president when protesters stormed the presidential palace in 2022 after the economy collapsed. His father, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was also a former president. The Rajapaksas are widely blamed for the country’s financial mismanagement. Although Namal Rajapaksa is not a serious contender for power, his candidacy is a bid by the once-powerful political dynasty to win back their base, according to analysts. A significant number of uncommitted voters has made it hard to forecast the election.   “The question is do voters want a radical change with someone who is untested, do they want to stick with the current program, which is painful but perhaps might lead somewhere eventually, or do they go want to go with someone who is critical of the current approach but not quite as radical as Dissanayake?” asked Keenan.

berlin — Weeks after topping a state vote for the first time and nearly winning another, Germany's far-right is taking aim at Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) in another regional election that could shape his political future. Sunday's tight-looking vote in Brandenburg, the swampy lakeland round the capital Berlin, takes place in a region the SPD has ruled since reunification more than three decades ago. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), with its nationalist demands for halts to immigration, windfarm construction and arming Ukraine, has a narrow roughly three-point lead in polls with nearly 30% of voting intentions. The SPD has been battered by the federal government's unpopularity amid high inflation, the Ukraine war impact and high migrant influxes, but it has closed the gap recently in Brandenburg polling. "Brandenburg is historically an SPD stronghold," said Philipp Thomeczek, politics professor at Potsdam University. "If they don't win here that would be a massive break." Coming a year ahead of a national election, the vote could trigger a party backlash against Scholz or, if the SPD holds the state, confirm him as their candidate for 2025. His conservative opponents are far ahead with their bloc commanding around a third of the vote in most nationwide polls, while the SPD and AfD vie for a distant second. The conservatives this week settled on their chancellor candidate for next year: Friedrich Merz, a sharp-tongued arch-conservative. But Scholz and many Social Democrats believe the gaffe-prone Merz's low personal popularity gives them a chance. Though none will yet say it openly, some in Scholz's party believe he should follow his idol Joe Biden and step aside for a more charismatic champion like defense minister Boris Pistorius. But a win in Scholz's home state -- his constituency is in the state capital Potsdam and his wife is a Brandenburg minister -- may quell the murmurs against him. The party has made barely any mention of Scholz in the campaign, relying instead on the popularity of state premier Dietmar Woidke, a trained food chemist. He said that if the AfD wins most votes he would step aside and not even offer himself as a candidate to lead any potential coalition. "The aim is to stop the AfD from winning," he said. 'Mordor' windmills Unable to form a coalition despite winning most votes in Thuringia state earlier this month, the AfD has almost no chance of forming a regional or federal government given every other party refuses to work with a movement security services class as extremist. The AfD has faced -- and denies -- accusations of racism and of harboring agents for China and Russia. Brandenburg presents a mixed economic picture: it is home to Tesla's first factory in Europe and has wealthy parts within the Berlin commuter belt. But some of its outlying villages and farmscapes have been shrinking for decades. As well as concern over Ukraine and migration, the AfD has channeled public anxiety over energy transition: its state head Hans-Christoph Berndt likened windfarms to "unbearable horror landscapes like Mordor," the fictional land of evil. He provoked mockery -- but also some approval -- when in one debate he reinterpreted religious doctrine to say: "As a Catholic I think loving your neighbor means looking out for your own countrymen." Should the SPD struggle on Sunday, that could open the way for Merz's Christian Democrats to form a coalition in Brandenburg, perhaps with the backing of a new party, the socially conservative, economically left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, and others. Unseating the SPD in its stronghold would be a boost for Merz, fresh from his anointment, and could tip an already restive SPD into open revolt against the chancellor.

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OSLO, Norway — A Norwegian human rights foundation gave its annual prize on Thursday to jailed Cuban dissident leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara for his "fearless opposition to authoritarianism through art." Four past laureates of the Rafto prize — Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor's Jose Ramos-Horta, South Korea's Kim Dae-jung and Iran's Shirin Ebadi — later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This year's Peace Prize will be announced on Oct. 11 in Oslo. "The 2024 Rafto prize aims to highlight the importance of the work of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and other artists in challenging power structures and defending democracy and human rights, both in Cuba and globally," the Norwegian foundation said in a statement. A Cuban court sentenced the artist-dissident in 2022 to five years in jail in a high-profile case that human rights groups branded a "farce" but that Cuban state media said was a fair trial over "common crimes." The 36-year-old artist was a prominent member of the Havana-based San Isidro Movement, an artists collective that led a number of protests over two years. Many of the group have since left Cuba, alleging government repression. On Thursday, the Rafto foundation called on the Cuban government to release him, joining similar calls by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The laureate is awarded a diploma and prize money of $20,000.

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.