Voice of America’s immigration news

Kenyan police officer Stephen Ominde has his way of fighting crime. In 2020, he started the Mathare soccer team to keep young people off the streets and out of trouble. Four years on, the team is still going strong. Reporter Joel Masibo has more from Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Joseph Kinyua, Joseph Munyiri. In collaboration with Egab.co.

American Benjamin Hoerber says he has discovered his calling helping Ukraine’s military. He initially helped transport humanitarian aid. Now he also volunteers at a forge, making supports for trenches. Tetiana Kukurika has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Sergiy Rybchynski      

ALGIERS — President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been named the winner of Algeria's presidential election, granting him another term leading the gas-rich North African nation five years after pro-democracy protests led to the ouster of his predecessor.  In a result that surprised few observers internationally or in Algeria, the country's independent election authority on Sunday announced that Tebboune had won 94% of the vote, far outpacing his challengers Islamist Abdelali Hassani Cherif, who won 3% and socialist Youcef Aouchiche, who won 2.1%.  Election officials reported less than six million of the country's 24 million voters had turned out to vote on Saturday, perpetuating the low voter turnout rates that marred Tebboune's first term and raised questions about his popular support.  Algeria is Africa's largest country by area and, with almost 45 million people, it's the continent's second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world's population.  Throughout the campaign, activists and international organizations, including Amnesty International, railed against the campaign season's repressive atmosphere and the harassment and prosecutions of those involved in opposition parties, media organizations and civil society groups. Some denounced this election as a rubber stamp exercise that can only entrench the status quo.  But Tebboune and his two challengers each urged political participation and specifically made overtures to the Algerian youth, who make up a majority of the population and disproportionately suffer from poverty and unemployment.   

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TOKYO — One by one, the students, lawyers and others filed into a classroom in a central Tokyo university for a lecture by a Chinese journalist on Taiwan and democracy — taboo topics that can't be discussed publicly back home in China. "Taiwan's modern-day democracy took struggle and bloodshed, there's no question about that," said Jia Jia, a columnist and guest lecturer at the University of Tokyo who was briefly detained in China eight years ago on suspicion of penning a call for China's top leader to resign. He is one of tens of thousands of intellectuals, investors and other Chinese who have relocated to Japan in recent years, part of a larger exodus of people from China. Their backgrounds vary widely, and they're leaving for all sorts of reasons. Some are very poor, others are very rich. Some leave for economic reasons, as opportunities dry up with the end of China's boom. Some flee for personal reasons, as even limited freedoms are eroded. Chinese migrants are flowing to all corners of the world, from workers seeking to start businesses of their own in Mexico to burned-out students heading to Thailand. Those choosing Japan tend to be well-off or highly educated, drawn to the country's ease of living, rich culture and immigration policies that favor highly skilled professionals, with less of the sharp anti-immigrant backlash sometimes seen in Western countries. Jia initially intended to move to the U.S., not Japan. But after experiencing the coronavirus outbreak in China, he was anxious to leave and his American visa application was stuck in processing. So he chose Japan instead. "In the United States, illegal immigration is particularly controversial. When I went to Japan, I was a little surprised. I found that their immigration policy is actually more relaxed than I thought," Jia told The Associated Press. "I found that Japan is better than the U.S." It's tough to enter the U.S. these days. Tens of thousands of Chinese were arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border over the past year, and Chinese students have been grilled at customs as trade frictions fan suspicions of possible industrial espionage. Some U.S. states passed legislation that restricts Chinese citizens from owning property. "The U.S. is shutting out those Chinese that are friendliest to them, that most share its values," said Li Jinxing, a Christian human rights lawyer who moved to Japan in 2022. Li sees parallels to about a century ago, when Chinese intellectuals such as Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of modern China, moved to Japan to study how the country modernized so quickly. "On one hand, we hope to find inspiration and direction in history," Li said of himself and like-minded Chinese in Japan. "On the other hand, we also want to observe what a democratic country with rule of law is like. We're studying Japan. How does its economy work, its government work?" Over the past decade, Tokyo has softened its once-rigid stance against immigration, driven by low birthrates and an aging population. Foreigners now make up about 2% of its population of 125 million. That's expected to jump to 12% by 2070, according to the Tokyo-based National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. Chinese are the most numerous newcomers, at 822,000 last year among more than 3 million foreigners living in Japan, according to government data. That's up from 762,000 a year ago and 649,000 a decade ago. In 2022, the lockdowns under China's "zero COVID" policies led many of the country's youth or most affluent citizens to hit the exits. There's even a buzzword for that: "runxue," using the English word "run" to evoke "running away" to places seen as safer and more prosperous. For intellectuals like Li and Jia, Japan offers greater freedoms than under Chinese leader Xi Jinping's increasingly repressive rule. But for others, such as wealthy investors and business people, Japan offers something else: property protections. A report by investment migration firm Henley & Partners says nearly 14,000 millionaires left China last year, the most of any country in the world, with Japan a popular destination. A major driver is worries about the security of their wealth in China or Hong Kong, said Q. Edward Wang, a professor of Asian studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. "Protection of private property, which is the cornerstone of a capitalist society, that piece is missing in China," Wang said. The weakening yen makes buying property and other local assets in Japan a bargain. And while the Japanese economy has stagnated, China's once-sizzling economy is also in a rut, with the property sector in crisis and stock prices stuck at the level they were in the late 2000s. "If you are just going to Japan to preserve your money," Wang said, "then definitely you will enjoy your time in Japan." Dot.com entrepreneurs are among those leaving China after Communist Party crackdowns on the technology industry, including billionaire Jack Ma, a founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who took a professorship at Tokyo College, part of the prestigious University of Tokyo. So many wealthy Chinese have bought apartments in Tokyo's luxury high-rises that some areas have been dubbed "Chinatowns," or "Digital Chinatowns" — a nod to the many owners' work in high-tech industries. "Life in Japan is good," said Guo Yu, an engineer who retired early after working at ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Guo doesn't concern himself with politics. He's keen on Japan's powdery snow in the winter and is a "superfan" of its beautiful hot springs. He owns homes in Tokyo, as well as near a ski resort and a hot spring. He owns several cars, including a Porsche, a Mercedes, a Tesla and a Toyota. Guo keeps busy with a new social media startup in Tokyo and a travel agency specializing in "onsen," Japan's hot springs. Most of his employees are Chinese, he said. Like Guo, many Chinese moving to Japan are wealthy and educated. That's for good reason: Japan remains unwelcoming to refugees and many other types of foreigners. The government has been strategic about who it allows to stay, generally focusing on people to fill labor shortages for factories, construction and elder care. "It is crucial that Japan becomes an attractive country for foreign talent so they will choose to work here," Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said earlier this year, announcing efforts to relax Japan's stringent immigration restrictions. That kind of opportunity is exactly what Chinese ballet dancer Du Hai said he has found. Leading a class of a dozen Japanese students in a suburban Tokyo studio one recent weekend, Du demonstrated positions and spins to the women dressed in leotards and toe shoes. Du was drawn to Japan's huge ballet scene, filled with professional troupes and talented dancers, he said, but worried about warnings he got about unfriendly Japanese. That turned out to be false, he said with a laugh. Now, Du is considering getting Japanese citizenship. "Of course, I enjoy living in Japan very much now," he said.

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Thousands of homes and buildings were threatened Sunday by an out-of-control wildfire burning in the foothills of a national forest east of Los Angeles, amid a days-long heat wave that pushed temperatures into the triple digits across the region. State firefighters said 8,733 structures were threatened, including single and multi-family homes and commercial buildings. The so-called Line Fire was burning along the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest, about 105 kilometers east of LA. As of Sunday morning, the blaze had charred about 70 square kilometers of grass and chaparral, leaving a thick cloud of dark smoke blanketing the area. County officials declared an emergency Saturday evening. “Extreme temperatures, wind and lightning strikes have allowed the fire to grow rapidly,” the county said in a statement. More firefighters were expected to arrive Sunday. State officials said vegetation is critically dry in the area and temperatures reached more than 38 degrees Celsius on Saturday with relative humidity dipping to provide ideal conditions for fire growth. The fire began Thursday evening, and the cause is under investigation.  About 500 firefighters were battling the blaze, supported by water-dropping helicopters that hovered over homes and hillsides, along with aircraft. The fire produced coiling clouds of dense smoke, and flames could be seen cresting hillside ridges. No injuries were reported, and no homes or other structures had been damaged or destroyed. The National Weather Service said downtown Los Angeles hit a high of 44 degrees Celsius Friday, which marked the third time since 1877 that a temperature that high has been reached there.

MANILA — A Filipino preacher accused of sexual abuse and human trafficking in the Philippines and similar charges in the United States has been captured, officials said Sunday.  Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos announced the arrest of Apollo Quiboloy in a brief statement on his Facebook account but did not provide other details. Philippine police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil confirmed Quiboloy’s arrest without elaborating.  Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest and several others on suspicion of child and sexual abuse. The Philippine Senate has separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest for refusing to appear in committee hearings that were looking into criminal allegations against him.  President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has urged Quiboloy to surrender and assured him of fair treatment by authorities.  The preacher and his lawyer have denied the allegations against him, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from the religious group.  In 2021, United States federal prosecutors announced the indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and  “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.”  Quiboloy and two of his top administrators were among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges, including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.  The U.S. Embassy in Manila referred requests for comments to Philippine authorities.  In August, about 2,000 police backed by riot squads raided a vast religious compound of Quiboloy’s group, called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, in southern Davao city. The police brought equipment that could detect people hiding in underground tunnels but did not find him in the 30-hectare (75-acre) compound that includes a cathedral, a stadium, a school, a residential area, a hangar and a taxiway leading to Davao International Airport.  In 2019, Quiboloy claimed he stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.  He was also a close supporter and spiritual adviser of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is being investigated by the International Criminal Court in connection with the extrajudicial killings by police of thousands of drug suspects. 

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MIP Africa — an event that matches African film and TV creatives to the people and countries that produce their work, wrapped up last week [Sept. 4] with several signed deals. Industry members and legislators from film meccas worldwide attended the event, part of the larger Fame Week Africa conference for creative professionals. Reporter Vicky Stark has the story from Cape Town, South Africa.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Volkswagen is considering closing some factories in its home country for the first time in the German automaker's 87-year history, saying it otherwise won't meet the cost-cutting goals it needs to remain competitive. CEO Oliver Blume also told employees Wednesday that the company must end a three-decade-old job protection pledge that would have prohibited layoffs through 2029. The statements have stirred outrage among worker representatives and concern among German politicians. Here are some things to know about the difficulties at one of the world’s best-known auto brands: What is Volkswagen proposing and why? Management says the company’s core brand that carries the company’s name needs to achieve 10 billion euros in cost savings by 2026. It recently became clear the Volkswagen Passenger Car division was not on track to do that after relying on retirements and voluntary buyouts to reduce the workforce in Germany. With Europe’s car market smaller than before the coronavirus pandemic, Volkswagen says it now has more factory capacity than it needs — and carrying underused assembly lines is expensive. Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz explained it like this to 25,000 workers who gathered at the company’s Wolfsburg home base: Europeans are buying around 2 million cars per year fewer than they did before the pandemic in 2019, when sales reached 15.7 million. Since Volkswagen has roughly a quarter of the European market, that means “we are short of 500,000 cars, the equivalent of around two plants,” Antlitz told the workers. “And that has nothing to do with our products or poor sales performance. The market simply is no longer there,” he said. Does Volkswagen make money? The Volkswagen Group, whose 10 brands include SEAT, Skoda, CUPRA and commercial vehicles, turned an operating profit of 10.1 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in the first half of this year, down 11% from last year’s first-half figure. Higher costs outweighed a modest 1.6% increase in sales, which reached 158.8 billion euros but were held down by sluggish demand. Blume called it “a solid performance” in a “demanding environment.” Volkswagen’s luxury brands, which include Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini, are selling better than VW models. So why is Volkswagen struggling? The discussion about reducing costs focuses on the core brand and its workers in Germany. Volkswagen's passenger car division recorded a 68% earnings drop in the second quarter, and its profit margin was a bare 0.9%, down from 4% in the first quarter. One reason is the division took the bulk of the 1 billion euros that went to job buyouts and other restructuring costs. But growing costs, including for higher wages, and sluggish sales of the company’s line of electric vehicles are a deeper problem. On top of that, new, competitively priced competitors from China are increasing their share of the European market. Volkswagen must sell more electric cars to meet ever-lower European Union emission limits that take effect starting next year. Yet the company is seeing lower profit margins from those vehicles due to high battery costs and weaker demand for EVs in Europe due to the withdrawal of consumer subsidies and the slow rollout of public charging stations. Meanwhile, VW's electric vehicles also face stiff competition in China from models made by local companies. The world’s automakers are in a battle for the future, spending billions to pivot to lower-emission electric cars in a race to come up with vehicles that are competitive on price and have enough range to persuade buyers to switch. China has dozens of carmakers making electric cars more cheaply than their European equivalents. Increasingly, those cars are being sold in Europe. Profits have also declined at Germany’s BMW and Mercedes-Benz thanks to the same pressures. Why are VW's proposed factory and job cuts a big deal in Germany? Volkswagen has 10 assembly and parts plants in Germany, where 120,000 of its 684,000 workers worldwide are based. As Europe’s largest carmaker, the company is a symbol of the country’s consumer prosperity and economic growth after World War II. It has never closed a German factory before. VW last closed a plant in 1988 in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania; its Audi division is in discussions about closing an underutilized plant in Belgium. Far-right parties fueled by popular disenchantment with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s quarreling, three-party coalition government scored major gains in Sept. 1 elections in Thueringia and Saxony states, located in the former communist East Germany. Nationwide polls show the government's approval rating at a low point. Plant closings are the last thing the Scholz government needs. The chancellor spoke with VW management and workers after the possible plant closings became known but was careful to stress that the decision is a matter for the company and its workers. Why hasn't Volkswagen already made the cost cuts management wants? Employee representatives have a lot of clout at Volkswagen. They hold half the seats on the board of directors. The state government, which is a part-owner of the company, also has two board seats — together with the employee representatives a majority — and 20% of the voting rights at the company. Lower Saxony Gov. Stephan Weil has said the company needs to address its costs but should avoid plant closings. That means management will have to negotiate — a process that will take months. What does the employee side say? Managers at the employee assembly faced several minutes of boos, whistles and tooting horns before they could start their presentation on the potential explanation. “We are Volkswagen, you are not,” workers chanted. Daniela Cavallo, who chairs the company works council representing employees, said the council “won't go along with plant closings.” Reducing labor costs won't turn around Volkswagen's financial situation, she argued. “Volkswagen’s problem is upper management isn’t doing its job,” Cavallo said. “There are many other areas where the company is responsible... We have to have competitive products; we don't have the entry-level models in electric cars.”

Kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian drone violated Romania's airspace during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, the NATO member reported Sunday, urging Moscow to stop what it described as an escalation. The incident occurred as Russia carried out attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube River in Ukraine, Romania's Ministry of National Defense said. Romania deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace, and NATO allies were kept informed, the ministry said. Romanian emergency authorities also issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. Preliminary data indicates there may be an “impact zone” in an uninhabited area near the Romanian village of Periprava, the ministry said. It added that an investigation is underway. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions and as recently as July this year. The Romanian Defense Ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks on Ukraine, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law.” Mircea Geoana, NATO's outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania's former top diplomat, said the military alliance also condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Civilians reported killed in Ukraine In Ukraine, two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a nighttime Russian airstrike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, the administration said. In the Kharkiv region in the east, overnight shelling killed two elderly women, according to local Governor Oleh Syniehubov. During the night, Ukrainian air defenses shot down one of four cruise missiles and 15 of 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, Ukraine's air force reported. It added that none of the cruise missiles had hit targets. Later Sunday, three women were killed after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Elsewhere in the province, rescue teams pulled the bodies of two men from the rubble of a hotel that was destroyed Saturday evening in a Russian airstrike, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. That same day, the death toll rose to 58 from the massive Russian missile strike that blasted a military academy Tuesday and a nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Governor Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded. Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack. Poltava is about 350 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Kyiv, on the main highway and rail route between Kyiv and Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is close to the Russian border. The attack happened as Ukrainian forces sought to carve out their holdings in Russia’s Kursk border region after a surprise incursion that began Aug. 6, as the Russian army hacks its way deeper into eastern Ukraine. Russian forces continued their monthslong grinding push toward the city of Pokrovsk, and ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove farther south, Ukraine's General Staff reported. Russia's Defense Ministry said Sunday its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 19 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of the Pokrovsk district. Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region. 

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.

Paris — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday urged President Emmanuel Macron to hold a referendum on key issues such as immigration, suggesting that giving the French a direct vote might help break the political deadlock. Last week Macron appointed the center-right Michel Barnier, a 73-year-old former foreign minister who acted as the European Union's Brexit negotiator, as prime minister, seeking to move forward after June-July snap elections that resulted in a hung parliament. But analysts say the country is set for a period of instability, with Barnier's hold on power seen as fragile and dependent on support from Le Pen's eurosceptic, anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party, which is the largest party in the new National Assembly. A left-wing coalition, which emerged as France's largest political bloc after the elections, although short of an overall majority, is also piling pressure on Barnier. More than 100,000 left-wing demonstrators rallied across France on Saturday to protest against his nomination and denounce Macron's "power grab." Le Pen, who leads RN lawmakers in parliament, has said her party would not be part of the new cabinet. 'Power to decide directly' On Sunday, she urged Macron to conduct a referendum on key issues such as immigration, health care and security to give the people a direct vote. The RN "will unreservedly support any approach aimed at giving people the power to decide directly", Le Pen said, speaking in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont, the far-right's traditional stronghold. "Emmanuel Macron himself, in the chaos he has created, has levers to keep our democracy live," she added. To prevent the RN from having an absolute majority and forming a government, around 200 candidates stood down ahead of the final round of the snap legislative polls in July, sparking the far-right's outrage. Le Pen also indicated she would watch Barnier's every move. "If, in the coming weeks, the French are once again forgotten or mistreated, we will not hesitate to censure the government," she added. Speaking to reporters, Le Pen, 56, also said she expected France to hold new legislative elections "within a year." "This is good because I think that France needs a clear majority," she said. The left-wing coalition has also vowed to topple Barnier with a no-confidence motion. The alliance wanted Lucie Castets, a 37-year-old economist, to become prime minister, but Macron quashed that idea, arguing that she would not survive a confidence vote in the hung parliament. Competent and likeable According to a poll released on Sunday, the French are largely satisfied with the appointment of Barnier as prime minister, but believe he will not last long in his new post. Fifty two percent of people polled said they were satisfied with the appointment of Barnier, according to the Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche. By comparison, 53% of respondents approved the nomination of Barnier's predecessor, Gabriel Attal, when he was appointed prime minister in early January, becoming France's youngest-ever premier at 34. According to the poll, a majority of respondents see Barnier, the oldest prime minister in the history of modern France, as competent (62%), open to dialogue (61%) and likeable (60%). However, 74% of respondents polled believe he would not last long in the post. Ifop polled 950 adults online on September 5-6. The margin of error was up to 3.1 points.

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Port Sudan, Sudan — Sudan has rejected a call by U.N. experts for the deployment of an "independent and impartial force" to protect millions of civilians driven from their homes by more than a year of war. The conflict since April last year, pitting the army against paramilitary forces, has killed tens of thousands of people and triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The independent U.N. experts said Friday their fact-finding mission had uncovered "harrowing" violations by both sides, "which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity." They called for "an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians" to be deployed "without delay." The Sudanese foreign ministry, which is loyal to the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said in a statement late Saturday that "the Sudanese government rejects in their entirety the recommendations of the UN mission." It called the UN Human Rights Council, which created the fact-finding mission last year, "a political and illegal body", and the panel's recommendations "a flagrant violation of their mandate." The UN experts said eight million civilians have been displaced and another two million people have fled to neighboring countries. More than 25 million people upwards of half the country's population — face acute food shortages. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on a visit to Sudan on Sunday, said: "The scale of the emergency is shocking, as is the insufficient action being taken to curtail the conflict and respond to the suffering it is causing." In Port Sudan, where government offices and the United Nations have relocated to due to the intense fighting in the capital Khartoum, Tedros called on the "world to wake up and help Sudan out of the nightmare it is living through". The Sudanese foreign ministry statement accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Burhan's former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, of "systematically targeting civilians and civilian institutions". "The protection of civilians remains an absolute priority for the Sudanese government," it said. The statement added that the UN Human Rights Council's role should be "to support the national process, rather than seek to impose a different exterior mechanism". It also rejected the experts' call for an arms embargo.

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.