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Beijing — African leaders descend on China's capital this week, seeking funds for big-ticket infrastructure projects as they eye mounting great power competition over resources and influence on the continent. China has expanded ties with African nations in the past decade, furnishing them with billions in loans that have helped build infrastructure but also sometimes stoked controversy by saddling countries with huge debts. China has sent hundreds of thousands of workers to Africa to build its megaprojects, while tapping the continent's vast natural resources, including copper, gold, lithium and rare earth minerals. Beijing has said this week's China-Africa forum will be its largest diplomatic event since the COVID-19 pandemic, with leaders of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and other nations confirmed to attend and dozens of delegations expected. African countries were "looking to tap the opportunities in China for growth," Ovigwe Eguegu, a policy analyst at consultancy Development Reimagined, told AFP. China, the world's No. 2 economy, is Africa's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade hitting $167.8 billion in the first half of this year, according to Chinese state media. Beijing's loans to African nations last year were their highest in five years, research by the Chinese Loans to Africa Database found. Top borrowers were Angola, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya. But analysts said an economic slowdown in China has made Beijing increasingly reluctant to shell out big sums. China has also resisted offering debt relief, even as some African nations have struggled to repay their loans -- in some cases being forced to slash spending on vital public services. Since the last China-Africa forum six years ago, "the world experienced a lot of changes, including COVID, geopolitical tension and now these economic challenges," Tang Xiaoyang of Beijing's Tsinghua University told AFP. The "old model" of loans for "large infrastructure and very rapid industrialization" is simply no longer feasible, he said. Stalled megaprojects The continent is a key node in Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project and central pillar of Xi Jinping's bid to expand China's clout overseas. The BRI has channeled much-needed investment to African countries for projects like railways, ports and hydroelectric plants. But critics charge Beijing with saddling nations with debt and funding infrastructure projects that damage the environment. One controversial project in Kenya, a $5 billion railway -- built with finance from Exim Bank of China -- connects the capital Nairobi with the port city of Mombasa. But a second phase meant to continue the line to Uganda never materialized, as both countries struggled to repay BRI debts. Kenya's President William Ruto last year asked China for a $1 billion loan and the restructuring of existing debt to complete other stalled BRI projects. The country now owes China more than $8 billion. Recent deadly protests in Kenya were triggered by the government's need "to service its debt burden to international creditors, including China," said Alex Vines, head of the Africa Program at London's Chatham House. In light of such events, Vines and other analysts expect African leaders at this week's forum to seek not only more Chinese investment but also more favorable loans. 'Lack leverage' In central Africa, Western and Chinese firms are racing to secure access to rare minerals. The continent has rich deposits of manganese, cobalt, nickel and lithium -- crucial for renewable energy technology. The Moanda region of Gabon alone contains as much as a quarter of known global reserves of manganese, and South Africa accounts for 37% of global output of the metal. Cobalt mining is dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, which accounts for 70% of the world total. But in terms of processing, China is the leader, at 50%. Mounting geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, which are clashing over everything from the status of self-ruled Taiwan to trade, also weigh on Africa. Washington has warned against what it sees as Beijing's malign influence. In 2022, the White House said China sought to "advance its own narrow commercial and geopolitical interests [and] undermine transparency and openness." Beijing insists it does not want a new cold war with Washington but rather seeks "win-win" cooperation, promoting development while profiting from boosted trade. "We do not just give aid, give them help," Tsinghua University's Tang said.    "We are just partners with you while you are developing. We are also benefiting from it." But analysts fear African nations could be forced to pick sides. "African countries lack leverage against China," Development Reimagined's Eguegu said. "Some people ... think you can use the U.S. to balance China," he said. "You cannot."

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian health authorities and United Nations agencies on Sunday began a large-scale campaign of vaccinations against polio in the Gaza Strip, hoping to prevent an outbreak in the territory that has been ravaged by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Authorities plan to vaccinate children in central Gaza until Wednesday before moving on to the more devastated northern and southern parts of the strip. The campaign began with a small number of vaccinations on Saturday and aims to reach about 640,000 children. Israel has agreed to limited pauses in fighting to facilitate the campaign, according to the World Health Organization. Hospitals in Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat confirmed that the campaign had begun on Sunday. The campaign comes after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization says the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren't showing symptoms. Most people who have polio do not experience symptoms, and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure, and when polio causes paralysis, it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal. The vaccination campaign faces a host of challenges, from ongoing fighting to devastated roads and hospitals. Around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, with hundreds of thousands crammed into squalid tent camps. WHO said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in the fighting to allow for the vaccination campaign to take place. Israel said Saturday that the vaccination program would continue through September 9 and last eight hours a day.

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.

BERLIN — Two state elections in eastern Germany on Sunday offer the far-right Alternative for Germany the chance to become the strongest party for the first time and could produce painful results for the unpopular national government. A new party founded by a prominent leftist also hopes to make an immediate impact. About 3.3 million people are eligible to vote in Saxony and nearly 1.7 million in Thuringia. Sunday's elections are being watched nervously in Berlin: While the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition were weak there already, they risk dropping under the 5% support threshold needed to stay in the state legislatures at all. A third election follows September 22 in another eastern state, Brandenburg, currently led by Scholz's center-left Social Democrats. Germany's next national election is due in a little over a year. Alice Weidel, a national co-leader of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has described Sunday's votes as "an important milestone for the national parliamentary election next year." The party secured its first mayoral and county government posts last year, and now says it wants to govern at state level, too. But with polls putting AfD's support around 30% in both states, it would most likely need a coalition partner to govern, and it's highly unlikely anyone else would agree to put it in power. Even so, its strength could make forming new state governments extremely difficult. AfD is at its strongest in the formerly communist east, and the domestic intelligence agency has the party's branches in both Saxony and Thuringia under official surveillance as "proven right-wing extremist" groups. Its leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, has been convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan at political events, but is appealing. Germany's main opposition conservative party hopes to keep AfD at bay in Saxony and Thuringia after winning the European Parliament election in June. The Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, has led Saxony since German reunification in 1990 and is banking on incumbent governor Michael Kretschmer to push it past AfD. In Thuringia, surveys show it trailing AfD, but candidate Mario Voigt hopes to cobble together a governing coalition. Depending how badly the parties in the national government perform, that could be very tricky. Two of those parties, Scholz's Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens, are the junior partners in both states' outgoing governments. Thuringia's politics are particularly complicated because the Left Party of Governor Bodo Ramelow has slumped into electoral insignificance nationally. Sahra Wagenknecht, long one of its best-known figures, left last year to form a new party — the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW — which is now outperforming it. The CDU has long refused to work with the Left Party, descended from East Germany's ruling communists. It hasn't ruled out working with Wagenknecht's BSW, but that would be far from an obvious combination. High ratings for both AfD and BSW have been fed by discontent with a national government notorious for infighting. Both are strongest in the less prosperous east. AfD has tapped into high anti-immigration sentiment in the region. It remains to be seen whether and how last week's knife attack in the western city of Solingen in which a suspected extremist from Syria is accused of killing three people, prompting the government to announce new restrictions on knives and new measures to ease deportations, will affect Sunday's elections. Wagenknecht's BSW combines left-wing economic policy with an immigration-skeptic agenda. The CDU also has stepped up pressure on the national government for a tougher stance on immigration. Germany's stance toward Russia's war in Ukraine is also an issue. Berlin is Ukraine's second-biggest weapons supplier after the United States; those weapons deliveries are something both AfD and BSW oppose. Wagenknecht also has assailed a recent decision by the German government and the U.S. to begin deployments of long-range missiles to Germany in 2026.

New York — Does American tennis have a pickleball problem? Even as the U.S. Open opened this week with more than a million fans expected for the sport's biggest showcase, the game's leaders are being forced to confront a devastating fact — the nation's fastest-growing racket sport (or sport of any kind) is not tennis but pickleball, which has seen participation boom 223% in the past three years. "Quite frankly, it's obnoxious to hear that pickleball noise," U.S. Tennis Association President Dr. Brian Hainline grumbled at a recent state-of-the-game news conference, bemoaning the distinctive pock, pock, pock of pickleball points. Pickleball, an easy-to-play mix of tennis and ping pong using paddles and a wiffleball, has quickly soared from nearly nothing to 13.6 million U.S. players in just a few years, leading tennis purists to fear a day when it could surpass tennis' 23.8 million players. And most troubling is that pickleball's rise has often come at the expense of thousands of tennis courts encroached upon or even replaced by smaller pickleball courts. "When you see an explosion of a sport and it starts potentially eroding into your sport, then, yes, you're concerned," Hainline said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That erosion has come in our infrastructure. ... A lot of pickleball advocates just came in and said, 'We need these tennis courts.' It was a great, organic grassroots movement but it was a little anti-tennis." Some tennis governing bodies in other countries have embraced pickleball and other racket sports under the more-the-merrier belief they could lead more players to the mothership of tennis. France's tennis federation even set up a few pickleball courts at this year's French Open to give top players and fans a chance to try it out. But the USTA has taken a decidedly different approach. Nowhere at the U.S. Open's Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is there any such demonstration court, exhibition match or any other nod to pickleball or its possible crossover appeal. In fact, the USTA is flipping the script on pickleball with an ambitious launch of more than 400 pilot programs across the country to broaden the reach of an easier-to-play, smaller-court version of tennis called "red ball tennis." Backers say it's the ideal way for people of all ages to get into tennis and the best place to try it is (wait for it) on pickleball courts. "You can begin tennis at any age," USTA's Hainline said. "We believe that when you do begin this great sport of tennis, it's probably best to begin it on a shorter court with a larger, low-compression red ball. What's an ideal short court? A pickleball court." And instead of the plasticky plink of a pickleball against a flat paddle, Hainline said, striking a fuzzy red tennis ball with a stringed racket allows for a greater variety of strokes and "just a beautiful sound." Players can either stick with red ball tennis or advance through a progression of bouncier balls to full-court tennis. "Not to put it down," Hainline said of pickleball, "but compared to tennis … seriously?" So what does the head of the nation's pickleball governing body have to say about such comments and big tennis' plans to plant the seeds of its growth, at least in part, on pickleball courts? "I don't like it but there is so much going on with pickleball, so many good things, I'm going to stick to what I can control, harnessing the growth and supporting this game," said Pickleball USA CEO Mike Nealy. Among the positive signs, Nealy said, is the continuing construction of new pickleball courts across the country, raising the total to more than 50,000. There's also growing investment in the game at clubs built in former big-box retail stores, pro leagues with such backers as Tom Brady, LeBron James and Drake, and the emergence of "dink-and-drink" establishments that tap into the social aspect of the game by allowing friends to enjoy pickleball, beer, wine and food under the same roof. "I don't think it needs to be one or the other or a competition," Nealy said of pickleball and tennis. "You're certainly going to have the inherent frictions in communities when tennis people don't feel that they're getting what they want. … They're different games but I think they are complimentary. There's plenty of room for both sports to be very successful." Top-ranked American tennis player Taylor Fritz agreed. "There are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that's fine. But for me, I don't really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. … I don't see any reason why both of them can't exist."

PATERZELL, Germany — How do you teach a bird how, and where, to fly? The distinctive northern bald ibis, hunted essentially to extinction by the 17th century, was revived by breeding and rewilding efforts over the last two decades. But the birds — known for their distinctive black-and-iridescent green plumage, bald red head and long curved beak — don't instinctively know which direction to fly to migrate without the guidance of wild-born elders. So a team of scientists and conservationists stepped in as foster parents and flight instructors. "We have to teach them the migration route," said biologist Johannes Fritz. The northern bald ibis once soared over North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and much of Europe, including southern Germany's Bavaria. The migratory birds were also considered a delicacy, and the bird, known as the Waldrapp in German, disappeared from Europe, though a few colonies elsewhere survived. The efforts of Fritz and the Waldrappteam, a conservation and research group based in Austria, brought the Central European population from zero to almost 300 since the start of their project in 2002. The feat moved the species from a "critically endangered" classification to "endangered" and, Fritz says, is the first attempt to reintroduce a continentally extinct migratory bird species. But while northern bald ibises still display the natural urge to migrate, they don't know which direction to fly without the guidance of wild-born elders. The Waldrappteam's early reintroduction attempts were largely unsuccessful because, without teaching the birds the migration route, most disappeared soon after release. Instead of returning to suitable wintering grounds such as Tuscany, Italy, they flew in different directions and ultimately died. So the Waldrappteam stepped in as foster parents and flight instructors for the Central European population, which was made up of descendants from multiple zoo colonies and released into the wild in the hopes of creating a migratory group. This year marks the 17th journey with human-led migration guides, and the second time they've been forced to pilot a new route to Spain due to climate change. To prepare them for travel, the chicks are removed from their breeding colonies when they are just a few days old. They are taken to an aviary that's overseen by the foster parents in the hopes of "imprinting" — when the birds will bond with those humans to ultimately trust them along the migration route. Barbara Steininger, a Waldrapp team foster mother, said she acts like "their bird mom." "We feed them, we clean them, we clean their nests. We take good care of them and see that they are healthy birds," she said. "But also we interact with them." Steininger and the other foster parents sit on the back of a microlight aircraft, waving and shouting encouragement through a bullhorn as it flies through the air. It's a bizarre scene: The aircraft looks like a flying go-kart with a giant fan on the back and a yellow parachute keeping it aloft. Still, three dozen birds follow the contraption, piloted by Fritz, as it sails over alpine meadows and foothills. Fritz was inspired by "Father Goose" Bill Lishman, a naturalist who taught Canadian geese to fly alongside his ultra-light plane beginning in 1988. He later guided endangered whooping cranes through safe routes and founded the nonprofit "Operation Migration." Lishman's work prompted the 1996 movie "Fly Away Home" but features a young girl as the geese's "mother." Like Lishman, Fritz and his team's efforts have worked. The first bird independently migrated back to Bavaria in 2011 from Tuscany. More have flown the route that's upward of 550 kilometers (342 miles) each year, and the team hopes the Central European population will be more than 350 birds by 2028 and become self-sustaining. But the effects of climate change mean the Waldrapp are migrating later in the season now, which forces them to cross the Alps in colder, more dangerous weather — without the aid of warm currents of air, known as thermals, that rise upward and help the birds soar without expending extra energy. In response, the Waldrappteam piloted a new route in 2023, from Bavaria to Andalusia in southern Spain. This year, the route is roughly 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) — some 300 kilometers (186 miles) longer than last year's path. Earlier this month from an airfield in Paterzell, in upper Bavaria, the team guided 36 birds along one stage through bright blue skies and a tailwind that increased their speed. The entire journey to Spain could take up to 50 days and end in early October. But Fritz says the effort is bigger than just the northern bald ibises: It's about paving the way for other threatened migratory species to fly.

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A "mega den" of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born. Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They're observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks. The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chat room and to scientists by names including "Woodstock," "Thea" and "Agent 008." The live feed, which draws as many as 500 people at a time online, on Thursday showed a tangle of baby snakes with tiny nubs for rattles. They have a lot of growing to do: A rattlesnake adds a rattle segment each time it sheds its skin a couple times a year, on average. The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite.  Rattlesnakes are not only among the few reptiles that care for their young. They even care for the young of others. The adults protect and lend body heat to pups from birth until they enter hibernation in mid-autumn, said Max Roberts, a CalPoly graduate student researcher. "We regularly see what we like to call 'babysitting,' pregnant females that we can visibly see have not given birth, yet are kind of guarding the newborn snakes," Roberts said Wednesday. As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which the researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers. Once the weather warms, only pregnant females remain while the others disperse to nearby territory. This year, the scientists keeping watch over the Colorado site have observed the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies. They've also seen how the snakes react to birds swooping in to try to grab a scaly meal. The highlight of summer is in late August and early September when the rattlesnakes give birth over a roughly two-week period. "As soon as they're born, they know how to move into the sun or into the shade to regulate their body temperature," Roberts said. There are 36 species of rattlesnakes, most of which inhabit the U.S. They range across nearly all states and are especially common in the Southwest. Those being studied now are prairie rattlesnakes, which can be found in much of the central and western U.S. and into Canada and Mexico. Like other pit viper species but unlike most snakes, rattlesnakes don't lay eggs. Instead, they give birth to live young. Eight is an average-size brood, with the number depending on the snake's size, according to Roberts. Roberts is studying how temperature changes and ultraviolet sunlight affect snake behavior. Another graduate student, Owen Bachhuber, is studying the family and social relationships between rattlesnakes. The researchers watch the live feed all day. "We are interested in studying the natural behavior of rattlesnakes, free from human disturbance. What do rattlesnakes actually do when we're not there?" Roberts said. Now that the Rocky Mountain summer is cooling, some males have been returning. By November, the camera running on solar and battery power will be turned off until next spring, when the snakes will re-emerge from their "mega den."

LOS ANGELES — Engineers who specialize in building NASA spacecraft to explore distant worlds are designing a fleet of underwater robot probes to measure how rapidly climate change is melting vast ice sheets around Antarctica and what that means for rising sea levels. A prototype of the submersible vehicles, under development by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles, was tested from a U.S. Navy laboratory camp in the Arctic, where it was deployed beneath the frozen Beaufort Sea north of Alaska in March. "These robots are a platform to bring science instruments to the hardest-to-reach locations on Earth," Paul Glick, a JPL Robotics engineer and principal investigator for the IceNode project, said in a summary posted Thursday on NASA's website. The probes are aimed at providing more accurate data gauging the rate at which warming ocean water around Antarctica is melting the continent's coastal ice, allowing scientists to improve computer models to predict future sea level rise. The fate of the world's largest ice sheet is a major focus of nearly 1,500 academics and researchers who gathered this week in southern Chile for the 11th Scientific Committee on Antarctica Research conference. A JPL analysis published in 2022 found that thinning and crumbling away of Antarctica's ice shelf had reduced its mass by some 12 trillion tons since 1997, double previous estimates. If melted completely, according to NASA, the loss of the continent's ice shelf would raise global sea levels by an estimated 60 meters. Ice shelves, floating slabs of frozen freshwater extending miles from the land into the sea, take thousands of years to form and act like giant buttresses holding back glaciers that would otherwise slide off easily into the surrounding ocean. Satellite images have shown the outer "calving" off into icebergs at a higher rate than nature can replenish shelf growth. At the same time, rising ocean temperatures are eroding the shelves from underneath, a phenomenon scientists hope to examine with greater precision with the submersible IceNode probes. The cylindrical vehicles, about 2.4 meters long and 25 centimeters in diameter, would be released from boreholes in the ice or from vessels at sea. Although equipped with no form of propulsion, the robot probes would drift in currents, using special software guidance, to reach "grounding zones" where the frozen freshwater shelf meets the ocean saltwater and land. These cavities are impenetrable to even satellite signals. "The goal is getting data directly at the ice-ocean melting interface," said Ian Fenty, a JPL climate scientist. Upon arrival at their targets, the submersibles would drop their ballast and float upwards to affix themselves to the underside of the ice shelf by releasing three-pronged "landing gear" sprung from one end of the vehicle. The IceNodes would then continuously record data from beneath the ice for up to a year, including seasonal fluctuations, before releasing themselves to drift back to the open seas and transmit readings via satellite. Previously, thinning of the ice shelf was documented by satellite altimeters measuring the changing height of the ice from above. During the March field test, an IceNode prototype descended 100 meters into the ocean to gather salinity, temperature and flow data. Previous tests were conducted in California's Monterey Bay and below the frozen winter surface of Lake Superior, off Michigan's upper peninsula. Ultimately, scientists believe 10 probes would be ideal to gather data from a single ice shelf cavity, but "we have more development and testing to go" before devising a timeline for full-scale deployment, Glick said.

Blantyre, Malawi — A 72-year-old woman has shot to music stardom in Malawi, challenging societal norms in a country where elderly people are often abused, tortured or even killed over false accusations of witchcraft. Christina Malaya, now popularly known by her stage name, Jetu, is breaking the internet with her amapiano-style tracks. Jetu started her music career last year, at the age of 71 — soon after the death of her husband, in central Malawi, where she was staying. Relatives suggested she go to Blantyre to stay with grandchildren. Those grandchildren were “doing music,” she said, and asked her to join them as a way to overcome her loneliness and boredom. Under the management of her grandson, musician Blessings Kazembe, popularly known as Emmu Dee, Jetu has released three powerful singles: “Wakalamba Wafuna,” “Chakwaza” and “Simunatchene.” Her fans and admirers have crowned her the Malawian queen of amapiano — a subgenre of South African house music — which dominates the music scene in Malawi. Jetu is excited that music has allowed her to go places she never dreamed of visiting, including Johannesburg and Cape Town when she performed in South Africa in June. Her talent has earned her recognition as an ambassador for elderly people in Malawi, helping to reduce attacks and killings. Older people in Malawi are faced with attacks and killings on suspicion of practicing witchcraft even though Malawi law does not recognize witchcraft. Andrew Kavala, executive director of the Malawi Network of Older Persons' Organizations, told VOA that in 2023, his organization recorded 25 killings and 87 cases of violence, including setting fire to homes and assault. That was up from 2022’s 17 deaths. So far in 2024, he said, 17 elderly people have been killed and 89 have been abused. Kavala said his organization chose Jetu as an ambassador for elderly Malawians because of her strong appeal to youth, who studies show make 86% of the witchcraft accusations. “We are trying to explore means through which Jetu can use her platform to convey the message to the youth, ‘Stop bullying, stop abusing elderly persons,’” he said. Malawi’s youthful and renowned fashion designer Xandria Kawanga, owner of the House of Xandria fashion brand, has started to dress Jetu for events. “Most people at her age have already given up or they feel they cannot do anything, entertainment or arts, because they are old now,” Kawanga said “So, I thought one of the best ways [to help] is to complement her art and to give her that push.” Jetu and her grandson/manager, Emmu Dee, are working to promote their new song, which has a video that was was produced this month.

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.

washington — The United States has handed over to the Uzbek government possession of aircraft that former Afghan air force personnel flew to Uzbekistan after the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA on Thursday that the ownership of “some aircraft” was transferred to Uzbekistan as part of the Department of Defense’s Excess Defense Articles program. “This transfer was agreed in the context of our strong bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism, counternarcotics and enhanced border security,” the spokesperson told VOA in an email, without saying how many aircraft were transferred to the Uzbek government. The fate of aircraft that were flown to Uzbekistan after the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban has been a bone of contention between the Taliban and Uzbekistan for three years. Afghan air force personnel flew about 46 aircraft — 22 military planes and 24 helicopters — to Uzbekistan as the government in Afghanistan collapsed in the face of the Taliban’s advances in August 2021.   The Taliban, who consider the aircraft to be Afghan property, objected to the handover of the aircraft to Uzbekistan. “The Ministry of Defense [of the Taliban] clearly declares that the United States has no right to donate or confiscate the property of the Afghan people,” the spokesperson of the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense said in an audio message sent to media this week. The Taliban spokesperson also called on Uzbekistan to make a “reasonable decision” to return the aircraft to the Taliban. Local media in Uzbekistan reported last week that the U.S. ambassador said the aircraft had already been transferred. Tashkent has not commented yet on the transfer. However, Uzbek authorities previously said that the aircraft belonged to the United States because the U.S. government paid for them and that it would not return the military equipment to the Taliban. Tashkent-Taliban relations Alisher Hamidov, an expert on Central Asia, told VOA that the transfer of aircraft to Uzbekistan may complicate the relations between Tashkent and the Taliban. “The situation with the planes may now endanger Uzbekistan’s diplomatic relations,” he said, adding that Tashkent has been playing mediator between Kabul and other countries over the past three years. “The main goal was to bring Afghanistan [Taliban] to the international arena, restore relations and, of course, strengthen Uzbekistan’s economy and foreign policy,” Hamidov added. Uzbekistan has cultivated close relations with the Taliban, though it does not officially recognize the Taliban’s government in Afghanistan. On Thursday, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar, attended the inauguration ceremony of the Termez International Trade Center in Uzbekistan’s border town of Termez. On August 17, the prime minister of Uzbekistan, Abdulla Aripov, visited Kabul and signed 35 trade and investment agreements valued at $2.5 billion. Malik Mansur of VOA's Uzbek Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA's Afghan Service.

REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware — Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages in Gaza, including that of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, U.S. President Joe Biden said late Saturday. "Earlier today, in a tunnel under the city of Rafah, Israeli forces recovered six bodies of hostages held by Hamas," Biden said in a statement issued by the White House. "I am devastated and outraged." The Israeli military said in a statement early on Sunday that the bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino had been brought to Israel. At least 40,691 Palestinians have been killed and 94,060 injured in Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7, the enclave's health ministry said in a statement on Saturday. The war was triggered when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. On Saturday, clashes broke out between Israeli troops and Palestinian fighters in the occupied West Bank as Israel pushed ahead with a military operation in the flashpoint city of Jenin. Hundreds of Israeli troops have been carrying out raids since Wednesday in one of their largest actions in the West Bank in months. Goldberg-Polin, captured at a music festival near Gaza, appeared in a video released by Hamas in late April. "He had just turned 23. He planned to travel the world," Biden said. His parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, "have been courageous, wise, and steadfast, even as they have endured the unimaginable," Biden said. "They have been relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express," the president said. Biden vowed that "Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages." Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement, "I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world.” Harris, the Democratic candidate running to succeed Biden, said she and he would never waver in their commitment to free the Americans and all those held hostage in Gaza. Earlier, speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden said he was "still optimistic," about a cease-fire deal to stop the conflict. "I think we're on the verge of having an agreement," he said. "It's time this war ended." Biden added that "people are continuing to meet." "We think we can close the deal, they’ve all said they agree on the principles."

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.