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new york — Russia blocked a U.N. Security Council resolution Wednesday reaffirming the need to prevent a nuclear arms race in outer space. The measure was proposed jointly by the United States, a nuclear power, and Japan, the only nation ever to be attacked with nuclear bombs. “We have only begun to understand the catastrophic ramifications of a nuclear explosion in space,” said U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “How it could destroy thousands of satellites operated by countries and companies around the world — and wipe out the vital communications, scientific, meteorological, agricultural, commercial and national security services we all depend on.” The failed text recalled the responsibility of states to comply with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which is the basic framework on international space law. It says outer space is to be shared among nations and shall be free of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. The treaty also says the moon and other celestial bodies “shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes,” and astronauts shall be “regarded as the envoys of mankind.” The proposed resolution also called on states “not to develop nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction specifically designed to be placed in orbit around the Earth, or to be installed on celestial bodies, or to be stationed in outer space in any other manner.” Thomas-Greenfield noted that President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that Russia has no intention of deploying nuclear weapons in space. “And so, today’s veto begs the question: Why? Why, if you are following the rules, would you not support a resolution that reaffirms them?” she asked. “What could you possibly be hiding? It's baffling, and it’s a shame.” Thomas-Greenfield just returned from Japan, where she visited Nagasaki, a city on which the United States dropped one of two atomic bombs at the end of World War II. “It was a reminder of our profound responsibility to prevent the scourge of war and ensure that no place experiences the horror of nuclear weaponry ever again,” she said. “Adopting this draft resolution would have been a positive and practical contribution to the promotion of the peaceful use and exploration of outer space,” said Japanese Ambassador Kazuyuki Yamazaki. “If adopted, we could have demonstrated our unity in reaffirming the principle of no placement of any weapons of mass destruction in outer space and in opposing the development of such capabilities.” The proposed resolution, which had more than 60 co-sponsors, created no new international obligations, but reaffirmed existing ones. It was supported by 13 of the 15 council members. After failing to get an amendment added to it, Russia vetoed it and China abstained. “Today, our council is once again being involved in a dirty spectacle prepared by the U.S. and Japan,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “This is a cynical ploy. We are being tricked.” He said Moscow wanted a text that would have gone further, banning weapons of any kind in outer space. China’s new U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, echoed that, saying the draft needed “other substantive elements.”  US concerns In February, U.S. officials said Russia is developing a space-based weapon to attack satellites. They do not believe it would target people or cause destruction on Earth. Analysts at the Washington-based Safe World Foundation think tank say on their website that Russia is most likely developing a system “that would use a nuclear explosion to create weapons effects, most likely an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), that would in turn disable or destroy satellites.” There are thousands of satellites in space that run the gamut from sophisticated military purposes to running a car’s GPS or providing television programming. Although the U.S. resolution was not adopted, Thomas-Greenfield said Washington would continue to pursue bilateral arms control discussions with Russia in good faith. The U.S. also has concerns about China’s work in space, where officials say they are rapidly developing a range of counterspace weapons and using outer space to strengthen the capabilities of their military forces on Earth. “Over the last six years they have tripled the number of intelligent surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in orbit, and they have used their space capabilities to improve the lethality, the precision and the range of their terrestrial forces,” said General Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command. He spoke by phone to regional journalists Wednesday from Tokyo, where he is meeting with allies.

The U.S. invested more than $3 billion in Sahel’s security and trained nearly 86,000 counterterrorism troops in the region over the last two decades. Russia’s military presence is linked with aggravated violence and war crimes.

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Washington   — Largely overlooked in the massive foreign aid package signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday is a measure that targets the trafficking of a dangerous drug in Syria.  The Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act is part of the package providing military and other aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. It provides for new sanctions against individuals, entities and networks affiliated with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who produce and traffic Captagon.    Captagon is an addictive, amphetamine-like drug that is cheaply produced. Since the beginning of Syria’s civil war in 2011, the country has become a regional hub for the production and smuggling of Captagon.  “This is a good step towards accountability and hindering and dismantling Assad’s illicit drug trade in Syria and the Middle East,” the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a Washington-based advocacy group, said in a statement.   The measure is seen as a continuation of previous congressional actions that have targeted the growing Captagon trade in Syria.   Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, policy chief of the American Coalition for Syria, said the new measure was sought by the Syrian American community “to address Assad’s pervasive involvement in the Captagon drug trade, which has tragically transformed Syria into a narco-state.”  “We are encouraged by the enactment of this bill into law,” Ghanem told VOA in an email. “Its inclusion in the comprehensive legislative package which was signed by the president into law highlights Congress' dedication to the objectives laid out in the original Captagon Act that Congress passed in Dec 2022.”   The bill was introduced to Congress by Republican Representative French Hill from Arkansas, who said Wednesday on X, “With my bill now signed into law, those directly involved with the proliferation of this dangerous drug will be targeted and sanctioned.  “It’s crucial that we take further action to disrupt and dismantle the production and trafficking of captagon as it generates billions of illicit funding for the Assad regime and devastates families in the region,” he said.    Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, two major backers of the Syrian government, have also been involved in drug trafficking in Syria. Observers say the trade also has funded Tehran’s military activities in the region.    Caroline Rose, director of the Strategic Blind Spots Portfolio at the Washington-based New Lines Institute, said the bill is part of a broader U.S. strategy that seeks to curb Captagon trafficking and production in the Middle East.   “We have seen two rounds of sanctions against Captagon agents imposed by the U.S. Treasury in the last two years, so this will keep the pressure on the U.S. inter-agency strategy to identify more eligible Captagon producers and traffickers to target,” she said.

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.

Kirkuk, Iraq/Washington — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed with Iraqi officials to expand bilateral relations, an attempt that experts say will be challenged by neighbor Iran, which has established significant political clout in Iraq.  Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said at a joint news conference with Erdogan on Monday that the 26 memorandums of understanding he signed that day provided a “road map for sustainable cooperation” between Iraq and Turkey.   Erdogan, on his first visit to Iraq in 13 years, hailed the memorandums. "I believe that my visit and the agreements we signed will be a turning point in the relations between Iraq and Turkey,” he said.  The documents address key issues between the two countries, including security, water management and trade.   The two leaders also witnessed the signing of preliminary agreements among Iraq, Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a 1,200-kilometer highway and railway project known as the Development Road Project, which would connect the Persian Gulf countries to Turkey and Europe through Iraq.   However, some experts are skeptical about Turkey’s ability to expand its interests in Iraq. They think Iran, as a regional competitor with more influence in Iraq, will ultimately shape Ankara’s relations with Baghdad.   "Whether Iran will agree to a NATO member to become the main character in Iraq and Tehran’s competitor is questionable,” Sardar Aziz, a researcher at the Emirates Policy Center and a former senior adviser in the Kurdistan Regional Parliament, told VOA.   Aziz argued that the term of Iraq’s current Cabinet is approaching its end, adding more uncertainty for Turkey.   “Prime Minister al-Sudani has only one year left in office, and his chances of remaining in his position are very low,” he said. “Additionally, no money has been allocated in the Iraqi budget for these projects. These make it impossible for the agreements to become long term, unless Iran agrees to them.”   While competition between Turkey and Iran over influence in Iraq is not new, Tehran has had the most influence since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In 2014, the Popular Mobilization Forces, an organization of Iran’s Shiite proxy militias in Iraq, further solidified Iran’s hand in Iraq.   However, experts say Turkey is seeking to balance Iran’s dominance by supporting Iraq’s Sunni and Turkmen communities.   According to the Turkish presidency, Erdogan met with several representatives of Baghdad’s Turkmen community during his visit on Monday to Iraq. That meeting followed one with the Sunni community in the Iraqi capital.   Hassan Hanzal al-Nasir, an Iraqi writer and journalist in Baghdad, argued that Turkey’s influence over Iraqi Sunnis was unlikely to help Erdogan because of a stark division in the Sunni political base, particularly after the removal of Iraq’s parliamentary speaker.   Iraq’s Sunni parliament speaker, Mohamed al-Halbousi, was removed from his position in November 2023 by the overwhelmingly Shiite Iraqi Supreme Court over forgery allegations. Some Sunni political leaders condemned the decision as an attempt to further marginalize their community.   "Iraq’s Sunni political leaders are confused between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates and even Jordan. There is no consensus among the Iraqi Sunnis to fill the position of the parliament head,” al-Nasir told VOA.   Nazar Haidar, director of the Iraq Media Center based in Virginia, said Turkey is leveraging Iraq’s sectarian divisions as “a negotiating card.”  “Indeed, the Iraqi public has been shocked in the recent two days after seeing pictures of President Erdogan meeting with those he called the representatives of the Sunni community and the representatives of the Turkmen community. This is an extremely dangerous subject,” he told VOA.   “The Sunni and Turkmen communities see Ankara as a support force in the Iraqi political process, and Ankara sees the Sunni and Turkmen communities as the negotiating card with the Iraqi government,” Haidar added.  Experts predict Iran’s involvement will similarly complicate Iraq's and Turkey’s attempts to cooperate on security.   While speaking to reporters on his flight home, Erdogan said Iraqi officials had agreed to cooperate with his government against Turkey’s Kurdish PKK militants. He said he wished to see concrete results of Baghdad's labeling of the PKK as a "banned organization."   Aziz, of the Emirates Policy Center, told VOA, "It seems that Turkey did not achieve its goal of convincing Iraq to recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization.”   “In practice, Iraq's assistance to Turkey against the PKK is difficult, because the issue has geopolitical and regional dimensions,” he said, adding that Turkey’s possible military operations inside Iraq, particularly in the city of Sinjar, where the PKK and PMF simultaneously operate, could lead to direct involvement from Iran.   But Haidar predicted no Iranian objection to a future Turkish military operation against Kurdish militants in Iraq.   “Iran will agree on such an operation by Turkey because it will give [Iran] a good opportunity to further enhance its strategic interests inside the Iraqi territory. It will be a mutually beneficial scenario for Iran and Turkey,” Haidar said. This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.

Nairobi, Kenya — The Kenyan government is threatening to withhold the salaries and union remittances of striking doctors after failing to reach an agreement with doctors' union.  "We will be asking our counsel to appeal to the court to review the orders that had been issued initially so that we are allowed to take the necessary action to ensure that Kenyans continue to enjoy health care services," said Susan Nakhumicha, Kenya's is cabinet secretary for health, after three days of negotiations. Led by the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, the doctors went on strike on March 15 to demand a commitment from the government to fulfill collective bargaining agreements signed in 2017. The work stoppage has paralyzed medical services in public hospitals across the country. The government said it has addressed all issues raised by the medics — except for the salary of intern doctors — which union officials say is the deal breaker.  "We are not at any point going to support exploitation of workers, we are not at any point going to support wage-slavery," said Davji Atellah, the secretary-general of KMPDU. "Because we know that our vulnerable members, the intern doctors, once they are touched, once they are exploited, the next step would be the doctors working in the hospital; the next step will be the consultants. If you violate a document that is legal, like collective bargaining agreement, the part of doctor interns, which part of it is safe?"  Lucianne Odiero, a final year medical student at the University of Nairobi, said the government's move to reduce intern doctors' salary is demoralizing.  "The 70,000 shillings does not reflect the significant investment and research that interns have put in in their training and practice," said Odiero. "And that just goes to show that the government does not really value and does not prioritize health care in the country."  Seventy thousand shillings equals about $520 per month.  The ongoing strike has severely disrupted health services in public hospitals. The situation has been compounded by a strike by clinical and laboratory workers. The strikes haver left patients such as Conceptor Oginga in Nakuru County struggling to access care from expensive private hospitals, leading to worsening chronic illnesses and even death.  "The doctors' strike is really bad because it has really affected a lot of people, especially people who are not able to support themselves financially," said Oginga. "Like currently I'm sick and I'm unable to go to the hospital…the only thing I have managed to do is buy medicine over the counter."  Oginga said her friend lost a baby during birth because of the walkout. She appealed to the government to end the stalemate.  "My message to the government is to just try to have a dialogue with the doctors so that they can have a common ground and they can go back to doing their job so that not so many people will be suffering the way they are suffering right now," she said.  Kenya's health sector, which medical experts say is underfunded and understaffed, has seen a number of strikes over the years. A previous walkout in 2017 lasted 100 days.  Patients such as Oginga said they hope a lasting solution is found soon. 

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.

Paytm, a popular payment app in India, faces government restrictions on business because of its Chinese connections, local media say. India is ramping up scrutiny and restrictions on other Chinese tech companies, too, amid concerns about security and geopolitics. Henry Wilkins has the story from Mumbai.

Colombo, Sri Lanka — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said his country has proven the West doesn't have a monopoly on technology while inaugurating a hydropower and irrigation project in Sri Lanka on Wednesday. Raisi is the first Iranian leader to visit Sri Lanka since former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad visited the country in 2008. "The Western countries tried to convince all others that knowledge and technology is exclusive to those countries," Raisi said, addressing Sri Lanka's President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other top officials. He added the idea was rooted in "colonialism and arrogance" and that Iran was now able to share its knowledge with others, including projects in 20 countries. The Uma Oya project, in the central Badulla district, was constructed with Iranian technical assistance. Valued at $514 million, it was started in 2010 by Iran's FARAB engineering group and Iran initially provided $50 million. But in 2013, funding could not be continued because of international sanctions against Iran. The Sri Lankan government then decided to complete the project with its own funds using the same Iranian contractor. The project was scheduled for completion in 2015 but was delayed by international sanctions against Iran, technical issues and the COVID-19 pandemic, the government said in a statement ahead of Raisi's visit. The project will add 290 GWh of electricity annually to the national grid and irrigate 4,500 hectares (11,100 acres) of new land and 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of existing agricultural land. "Our enemies did not want Iran to develop and progress ... so the will and determination of the Iranian people were realized, and our enemies were disappointed," Raisi said. Raisi and Wickremesinghe are to witness the signing of five memoranda of understanding and to issue a joint statement. Raisi arrived in Sri Lanka from Pakistan, where the two countries agreed to strengthen economic and security cooperation. The Indian Ocean island nation declared bankruptcy in April 2022 with more than $83 billion in debt, more than half of it to foreign creditors. Wickremesinghe's government secured an IMF four-year bailout package to rescue the country from its worst economic crisis. Despite improving economic indicators, Wickremesinghe, who came to power in 2022, faces public backlash over heavy taxes and the high cost of living.

U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation Wednesday providing $95 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan after months of tense negotiations in Congress. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports on what's next.

Washington — Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors are holding out hope that America, based on its pledges at September’s C5+1 summit, will expand its role in this neighborhood. The wish list includes delivering more humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, facilitating the expansion of trade, and combating the threats of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.  Officials speaking with VOA suggest that more aid could be channeled into Afghanistan via Uzbekistan. Additionally, Washington could offer more military assistance to Central Asian states and tangibly support their regional connectivity initiatives.  While no country has formally announced diplomatic recognition of the Taliban government, Central Asian nations have been engaging with the Taliban based on mutual interests, such as security, trade, and water sharing. Uzbekistan, which has extensive political and economic ties with Kabul, has been urging the West and the larger international community not to isolate Afghanistan.  Nearly three years since the withdrawal of American forces, U.S. officials insist that they have not abandoned Afghanistan, pointing to ongoing efforts and consultations with Central Asian counterparts. However, they admit Washington’s priorities have shifted to other issues, such as Russia’s war on Ukraine.  “It will take the U.S. a decade or two to recover from the fact that we lost the war,” said David Sedney, a veteran diplomat and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. “It took us 20 years before we were able to engage in Vietnam in a productive way,” he told VOA.  Scott Worden, who heads the Afghanistan and Central Asia programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, thinks that Central Asian governments overestimate Washington’s leverage.  “There are a lot of issues in the world that have to be addressed simultaneously,” he noted in an interview with VOA. “They [the U.S.] are balancing the leverage that they have against issues that are manageable and maybe achievable versus ones like women's rights, which I think the administration cares strongly about.”  “It's just a really tough situation,” Worden added. “In my view, you should not condition humanitarian assistance. Any economic sanctions wind up hurting the Afghans that we want to support. It's a difficult balance, and so I don't think there is any obvious additional tool or leverage that could be deployed that they're withholding.”  Some Western nations including the United States, however, have filtered humanitarian aid programs through partner organizations that circumvent Taliban officials and deliver aid directly to Afghan civilians. According to USAID, the U.S. supplied nearly $81 million in Afghan humanitarian aid in fiscal year 2024, and has supplied total funding for Afghanistan of "more than $2 billion since August 2021 ... including more than $1.5 billion in [USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance] funding and nearly $550 million in [the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration] funding." “Provided through international partners on the ground,” says USAID, this assistance helps “meet the needs of the most vulnerable through food and cash support, nutrition, health care, protection for women and children, and agricultural inputs to support Afghans in meeting their immediate food needs.”  Like Sedney, Worden suggests being realistic. “There is ample opportunity for the U.S. and other international partners to talk to the Taliban when they want to.”  “This is all part of a very difficult global conversation,” he said.  But for Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, known for advocating closer ties with the region, Afghanistan is “utterly ignored right now.”  Starr emphasizes that this country is critical for regional integration and stability, two goals the U.S. has long vowed to support.  Sedney observes that "not many people want to talk about Afghanistan," not just in Washington but in other Western capitals as well.  Speaking last week at the American Foreign Policy Council, these experts stressed that America’s two decades of involvement in Afghanistan left it with an obligation to go beyond the status quo.  Starr approves of the steps Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have taken with Afghanistan, particularly regarding commerce, energy supply and water resources.  Other observers, however, warn about tensions between the Taliban and Tajikistan, which officially supports the National Resistance Front, an armed alliance of anti-Taliban forces that is loyal to the previous regime and carries out guerrilla attacks in Afghanistan. Dushanbe continues to host the previous government’s ambassador.  Worden identifies several key interests and objectives for Washington, most of which align with those of the region. The first and most important objective is counterterrorism, ensuring that Afghan territory is never again used to launch attacks on the U.S. or its allies.  Others include negotiations on American hostages; the evacuation of Afghans that the U.S. promised to help following its withdrawal; women's rights and other human rights; humanitarian assistance; and economic development.  Perhaps the most abstract interest, according to Worden, “is trying to maintain an international diplomatic consensus on the broad conditions and expectations that we have for the Taliban, which include in the endgame a more inclusive society that is not a threat to itself and for its neighbors as well as these U.S. interests.”  “It's remarkable that no country in the world has recognized the Taliban,” he said, adding, however, that he sees a divergence between Western-allied emphasis on human rights and women's rights and the neighboring countries’ economic and security concerns.  In Worden’s view, the U.S. is pursuing a policy of “quiet engagement” on humanitarian assistance and counterterrorism. At the same time, there is a firm position of non-recognition and not wanting to legitimize the Taliban.  “Can this dualism sustain over time?” asked Worden, who also sees a cleavage developing, where countries in the region will over time increase engagement with those in power in Afghanistan to achieve their economic and security interests. “Not that they like the Taliban, but they feel like talking to them is better than not.”  Regardless of who inhabits the White House next January, Worden doubts that U.S. attention toward Afghanistan will increase unless there is an “acute crisis.”  Republicans tend to “prefer coercion to engagement when you're talking about regimes that we don't have much in common with,” he said. “So yes, there is the wild card of potentially making a great deal, but I think the odds of support for armed opposition would increase.”  U.S.-based Afghan journalist Samy Mahdi, who runs Amu Television out of Virginia, points out that the Taliban enjoy close relations with America’s adversaries, such as Iran, Russia and China. He argues that U.S. assistance has brought about minimum results, and that the Taliban is as radical and dangerous as it was in the 1990s.  Mahdi recommends a full review of U.S. policy.  “More communication and transparency are needed on Afghanistan,” he said at the American Foreign Policy Council forum. “We don't hear much from the U.S. administration about Afghanistan.”

tehran, iran — An Iranian court has sentenced to death a popular rapper jailed for more than a year and a half for supporting nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death, local media reported Wednesday. Toomaj Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing the wave of demonstrations that erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Amini. The Iranian Kurdish woman had been detained by the morality police in Tehran over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress rules for women. Salehi was sentenced in 2023 to six years and three months in prison. But he was freed on bail on November 18, the singer's lawyer Amir Raisian said at the time, because the Supreme Court had found "flaws in the initial sentence" of six years in prison. The rapper was rearrested less than two weeks later. The Revolutionary Court added accusations against Salehi of "assistance in sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the system and calling for riots," Raisian said. "Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court ... sentenced Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth," Raisian said, quoted on Wednesday by the reformist Shargh newspaper. The court "in an unprecedented move, emphasized its independence and did not implement the Supreme Court's ruling," Raisian said, adding that "we will certainly appeal against the sentence." Months of unrest following Amini's death on September 16, 2022, saw hundreds of people killed including dozens of security personnel, and thousands more arrested. Iranian officials labeled the protests riots and accused Tehran's foreign foes of fomenting the unrest. Nine men have been executed in protest-related cases involving killings and other violence against security forces. After Amini's death, a growing number of women began appearing in public across the country without adhering to the dress code and the morality police had kept a low profile. However, since April 13, Iran's police have started to toughen controls on women who ignore the rules by deploying patrol vans on main Tehran squares, according to local media. The media reported that police in the capital had launched a campaign codenamed "Noor," the Persian word for light, in their efforts to double down on those who break the dress code, known as hijab, which makes it mandatory for women to cover their hair and bodies in public places. In an effort to tackle those breaking hijab laws, the authorities have also shut cafes and restaurants where the wearing of the hijab was not respected.

Harare, Zimbabwe  — The annual report released Wednesday by Amnesty International paints a dismal picture of human rights repression and international rule-breaking worldwide, all in the midst of deepening global inequality and an escalating climate crisis. In the report, Amnesty had a rare note of commendation for Zimbabwe, praising the government for enacting the Children's Amendment Act of 2023, which criminalizes marriages of people under the age of 18.  But Lucia Masuka, head of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe, still had many critical things to say about President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government.  "We are mainly concerned with the issue of repression of dissent, which we noted, which was characterized by the severe restrictions in freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, particularly during the election period," said Masuka. "We are also concerned with the cases that are lost after the (2023) elections, cases of abductions, torture and in some cases, you know, killings where the perpetrators are not apprehended or brought to account."  Rights groups have harshly criticized Zimbabwe for human rights abuses for decades, going back at least to the early 2000s, when the government of then-President Robert Mugabe engaged in alleged election rigging and forced thousands of white commercial farmers off their land.  Farai Muroiwa Marapira, spokesman for the ruling ZANU-PF party, disputes Amnesty International's conclusions about Zimbabwe, saying the agency releases its reports "not based on facts, not based on merit, but based on agendaism. "We really do not have much respect for what they have to say, because they do not speak from a point of impartiality, they do not speak from a point of objectivity, and we cannot serve our people and our nation at the same time and attend to agendarists," said Marapira. "So, they are free to say what they want as usual, we will tell them what to do of it."  President Mnangagwa's government has rejected all criticism of the way the 2023 elections were conducted, despite critical reports from organizations such as the Southern African Development Community.  In a presentation of Amnesty's report, Deprose Muchena, a senior director in the rights group, touched on several other African crises.   Muchena noted that the conflict in Sudan has led to a major displacement internally. According to the United Nations, more than 9 million people have been internally displaced since April 2023, making Sudan the largest displacement crisis in the world. "Up to 1.8 million people are now refugees in neighboring countries, such as Chad, South Sudan, and Egypt," said Muchena. "The catastrophic humanitarian crisis is now approaching famine proportions as many people watch."   He also noted the chronic human rights crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where violence has forced millions of people from their homes, and the effects of conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region. War broke out in the Tigray region in November 2020 between the federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the party that dominated the region. The war lasted two years.  "Survivors and victims of this war in Ethiopia have faced horrendous human rights violations and neglect by Ethiopian authorities despite their persistent calls for justice," said Muchena. "After the guns were silenced in the Tigray region in 2022, two other armed conflicts in Oromia and Amara region continue to rage." Women in Ethiopia, he said, "continue to bear the ultimate brunt of this conflict in violation. In addition to conflict-related sexual violence faced by tens of thousands of women, we are seeing harmful practices such as abduction for marriage, which are putting Ethiopia at risk. Ethiopia remains another forgotten crisis."  The report also warned that the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence worldwide — and the disinformation that AI helps spread — could lead to further breakdowns in the international rule of law.   Some information for this report was provided by the Reuters news agency.

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.

As the legislative branch of the United States government, Congress is responsible for proposing and passing the nation’s laws. But in recent years, fewer and fewer laws have been making their way to the president’s desk to be signed.

tehran, iran — Iran on Wednesday condemned as illegal Argentina's request for Interpol to arrest Iran's interior minister in the 1994 bombing attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani "strongly condemned the repetition of illegal requests based on lies ... by some Argentine judges about Iranian nationals in the AMIA case," a statement from the ministry said. On April 12, a court in Argentina placed blame on Iran for the 1994 attack against the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and for a bombing two years earlier against the Israeli embassy, which killed 29 people. The Argentinean foreign ministry on Tuesday said the Iranian minister, Ahmad Vahidi, was part of a delegation from Tehran visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Interpol has issued a red notice seeking his arrest at the request of Argentina. Argentina has also asked those two governments to arrest Vahidi, it added in a statement. But Iran's official news agency IRNA reported that Vahidi was back in Iran on Tuesday, where he attended a ceremony to induct a provincial governor. An official from Sri Lanka's foreign ministry told AFP that Vahidi was not listed as part of an Iranian delegation that arrived in the country on Wednesday. "The accusations made in the AMIA case against Iranian citizens lacked any validity," the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said. Iran "supports the execution of justice and the prosecution of those who, by destroying documents, caused serious deviations in the course of the AMIA case and escaped punishment for this incident," he added. Kanani also urged the Argentine authorities to avoid "making baseless accusations against the citizens of other countries and not to be influenced by the enemies of the bilateral relations between Iran and Argentina."