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Moscow, Russia — Russia said Saturday it had evacuated 4,500 people in the Orenburg region, in the southern Urals near Kazakhstan, because of flooding after a dam burst.    Emergency services had been working through the night after a dam burst in the city of Orsk, near the border with Kazakhstan.       The press service of the Orenburg governor said 4,402 people, including 1,100 children had been evacuated and more than 6,000 homes were affected by the flooding after torrential rain.     President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov to the region, a Kremlin spokesman said late Saturday.   Authorities also opened a criminal case for "negligence and violation of construction safety rules" over the burst dam, which was built in 2014.   Orenburg regional governor Denis Pasler said specialists assessed that the dam was built "for a different weight" and that the level of rainfall was "exceptional." Authorities said the situation was difficult throughout the region, warning of a dangerous water level on the Ural River in the main city of Orenburg. The mayor of the city of half a million people, Sergei Salmin, said authorities would forcibly evacuate people from flooded zones if they refused orders to leave. He said the water level of the Ural River had risen to 855 centimeters (about 28 feet) and "will rise" farther. He named several districts of the city and nearby villages likely to be affected. "The situation leaves you no choice. At night, the river can reach a critical level," he said. "I call on everyone in the flooded zone to leave their houses immediately. "There is no time for convincing," he added, saying that "those who refuse to leave the danger zone voluntarily, we will forcibly evacuate with the help of police officers." Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the floods were one of the worst natural disasters in Kazakhstan in 80 years. He called for authorities in the Central Asian country to be ready to help those affected. Russian emergency services published images of rescue workers going through villages on boats and hovercrafts. Several regions in the Urals and western Siberia have been affected by floods since the start of spring.

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NAZCA, Peru — Leandro Rivera says he chanced upon the cave in Peru's remote Nazca region that contained hundreds of pre-Hispanic artifacts – including human bodies with elongated heads and what appeared to be only three fingers on each hand.  The plateau is famous for the Nazca lines, incisions on the desert floor forming birds and other animals visible from the air. The ancient geoglyphs have long intrigued anthropologists and exert a powerful fascination over some believers in extraterrestrials.  Nazca is also known for salt flats that dehydrate and preserve human and animal remains, making it the site of important archeological finds that have deepened modern understanding of ancient cultures – and attracted grave robbers.  Rivera was convicted in 2022 of assault on public monuments for unearthing the artifacts. He received a four-year suspended sentence and was fined about 20,000 Peruvian soles ($5,190), short of the maximum penalty of an eight-year prison term.  His haul was thrust into the spotlight last year when two of the mummies ended up in Mexico as the centerpiece of congressional hearings on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Mexican journalist Jaime Maussan presented the bodies as a sign of life beyond Earth – a claim dismissed by scientists.  In an interview with Reuters, Rivera said he removed as many as 200 sets of remains from the cave, and some bodies had been smuggled out of Peru to France, Spain and Russia.  The presentation of bodies in Mexico – as well as Rivera's claims to have dozens more – have prompted some experts to ask whether Peru is losing the battle to stop the plunder of its archaeological sites to feed a lucrative black market for mummies and other pre-Hispanic artifacts.  "Peru has done a lot of work to try and control this trade," said Christopher Heaney, a Latin American history professor at Penn State University and author of a book on Peruvian mummies. "But this implies that these claims for government success need to be re-examined a bit if objects like (the bodies in Mexico) can leave the country."  Peru's Culture Ministry did not respond to questions about the effectiveness of its efforts to control trafficking.  Reuters was granted rare access to the ministry's anti-smuggling unit at Lima's international airport and spoke to four government officials who said stricter penalties, more resources and better coordination were needed to fight the looting.  Tomb raiders trade tips online  Archaeological materials including human remains command high prices on a black market controlled by well-organized criminal groups, experts said.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic, trafficking in cultural goods has exploded around the world, according to UNESCO and the World Customs Organization (WCO).  Antiquities stores that had previously relied on in-person shopping turned to online sales to survive.  Black-market sellers took advantage of the greater privacy online or resorted to encrypted channels.  The shift to an online black market also allowed buyers to seek out illegal goods rather than wait for invitations to in-person events, as the trade was typically run pre-pandemic, a WCO official told Reuters.  And tomb raiders went online to share information about how to locate and raid vulnerable sites.  "Social networks have become spaces for the sale of works of art and antiques of illegal origin, and unfortunately this traffic has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Enrique Lopez-Hurtado, who was until recently the coordinator of the culture sector of UNESCO Peru.  The sheer volume of online sales — and the demands of pandemic safety protocols — presented challenges for customs officials inspecting shipments and trying to intercept illegal goods, the WCO official said.  Guido Lombardi, a medical doctor and anthropologist at the Peruvian University of Cayetano Heredia who specializes in mummy studies said he has received anonymous texts on WhatsApp offering looted objects for sale including terracotta figurines that are hundreds of years old.  Flavio Estrada, an archaeologist at the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Lima who assisted in the 2017 investigation of Rivera, said smuggling networks also market fakes, constructed out of animal bones and papier-mache.  In some cases, alien enthusiasts exploit a lack of understanding of cranial remodeling, a documented social practice in Pre-Colombian times that involved binding a child's head to manipulate the shape, Lombardi said.  "There were no people who were born like this, as some of the theorists of 'ancestral aliens' also try to make us believe," he said. "There's a whole contemporary mythology around this topic, and that generates a market."  While cranial modification was a practice in some of Peru's ancient cultures, Estrada said it is likely that grave robbers altered the Nazca remains to make it look like they had only three fingers on their hands in a bid to appeal to those who subscribe to the notion of extraterrestrials.  Changing attitudes  In recent years, there has been a global change in attitudes toward displaying the remains of Indigenous people. Reputable museums have begun to repatriate bodies to their countries of origin.  But there is still demand for remains and other artifacts from private collectors in the United States and Europe looking for status symbols and alien enthusiasts, 10 experts interviewed by Reuters said.  The WCO official also cited a social media market for buying skeletons and scalps, which has been growing in popularity over the last 10 years.  Stopping looted items from leaving Peru is challenging. Peru shares borders with five countries and has 27 border crossings.  At Lima's international airport, experts from Peru's culture ministry monitor security checkpoints for suspected cultural material picked up by x-ray scanners.  Officials seize between four and 10 items a year, compared to 200 a month in 2008, said Rolando Mallaupoma an archeology analyst in the recovery unit of the culture ministry.  Mallaupoma attributes the decline to the ministry's work educating vendors in tourist areas on how to identify authentic culture goods.  "In most cases what they [tourists] are going to say is that they didn't know, and there will not be any criminal action," Mallaupoma said. The item will be confiscated and turned over to the ministry. 

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BUDAPEST, Hungary — A rising challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban mobilized tens of thousands of supporters in Hungary's capital Saturday, outlining a plan to unite the country and bring an end to the populist leader's 14-year hold on power. At the center of the demonstration, the latest in a recent series of protests against Orban's right-wing nationalist government, was political newcomer Peter Magyar, a former insider within Hungary's ruling Fidesz party who has shot to prominence in recent weeks through his allegations of entrenched corruption and cronyism among the country's leaders. Magyar addressed a crowd that filled the sprawling square near the parliament building in Budapest, announcing his creation of a new political community aimed at uniting both conservative and liberal Hungarians disillusioned by Orban's governance and the fragmented, ineffectual political opposition. “Step by step, brick by brick, we are taking back our homeland and building a new country, a sovereign, modern, European Hungary,” Magyar said, adding that the protest was “the biggest political demonstration in years.” Magyar, 43, was once a member of Orban's political circle and is the ex-husband of former justice minister and Orban ally Judit Varga. But he broke ranks in February in the wake of a political scandal that led to the resignation of his ex-wife and the president and has amassed a large following with frequent media appearances where he portrays Hungary's political life as having been taken over by a privileged group of oligarchs and anti-democratic elites. He has argued that Orban’s government operates as a “mafia,” and advocated for a moral, political and economic transformation of the country that would rein in corruption and create a more pluralistic political system. “More than 20 years have passed as our elected leaders have incited the Hungarian people against each other. Whether the fate of our country went well, or we were close to bankruptcy, we were pitted against each other instead of allowing us to band together,” Magyar said. “We will put an end to this now.” Hungary's government has dismissed Magyar as an opportunist seeking to forge a new career after his divorce with Varga and his loss of positions in several state companies. But his rise has compounded political headaches for Orban that have included the resignation of members of his government and a painful economic crisis. Last month, Magyar released an audio recording of a conversation between him and Varga that he said proved that top officials conspired to manipulate court records to cover up their involvement in a corruption case. He has called on Orban's government to resign and for a restoration of fair elections. Orban’s critics at home and in the European Union have long accused him of eroding Hungary’s democratic institutions, taking over large swaths of the media and altering the country’s election system to give his party an advantage. The EU has withheld billions in funding to Budapest over alleged democratic backsliding, misuse of EU funds and failure to guarantee minority rights. One demonstrator on Saturday, Zoltan Koszler, said he wanted a “complete change in the system, which is now completely unacceptable to me.” “I want to live in a normal, rule-of-law state where the principles of the rule of law are really adhered to, not only on paper, but in reality,” he said. Magyar has said he will establish a new party that will run in EU and municipal elections this summer.

BUCHAREST, Romania — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned of threats posed by right-wing populists Saturday as he addressed a gathering of center-left European parties ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June.  Scholz arrived in Romania's capital Bucharest for a conference of the Party of European Socialists, part of the Socialists and Democrats group, the second biggest in the Parliament. Voters in the 27 EU member states go to the polls June 6-9.  "Right-wing populists are running election campaigns against our united Europe," the German leader said at the Palace of the Parliament, which hosted the conference. "They are ready to destroy what we have built for the kids; they stir up sentiment against refugees and minorities."  Opinion polls indicate a significant shift to the right in the upcoming election, with the radical right Identity and Democracy group likely to gain enough seats to become the third-largest group in the legislature, mainly at the expense of the Greens and the centrist Renew Europe group.  Scholz said a prosperous EU capable of "getting things done" is "the best response to populism and autocrats." He also pledged continued support for Ukraine, saying it's "key to restoring peace in Europe."  Scholz leads an unpopular three-party coalition. Recent national polls have shown his center-left party far behind Germany's main center-right opposition bloc and at best roughly level with the far-right Alternative for Germany party.  The Socialists and Democrats President Iratxe Garcia Perez also addressed the issue of rising populism in the June elections, saying those parties "only pose a threat to our European project."  The meeting comes after the EU's largest political party, the center-right European People's Party, met in Bucharest last month, where representatives endorsed Ursula von der Leyen's bid for a second five-year term leading the bloc's powerful Commission. Jobs and Social Rights Commissioner Nicolas Schmit from Luxembourg was chosen as the Socialists and Democrats lead candidate for Brussels' top job. The next Commission chief will require approval from leaders of all EU's member states. Almost half of the EU's 27 national leaders are members of the European People's Party. 

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PENTAGON — Russian microchip company AO PKK Milandr continued to provide microchips to the Russian armed forces at least several months after Russia invaded Ukraine, despite public denials by company director Alexey Novoselov of any connection with Russia’s military. A formal letter obtained by VOA dated February 10, 2023, shows a sale request for 4,080 military grade microchips for the Russian military. The sale request was addressed from a deputy commander of the 546 military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the commercial director of Russian manufacturer NPO Poisk to Milandr CEO S.V. Tarasenko for delivery by April 2023, more than a year into the war. The letter instructs Milandr to provide three types of microchip components to NPO Poisk, a well-established Russian defense manufacturer that makes detonators for weapons used by the Russian Armed Forces. “Each of these three circuits that you have in the table on the document, each one of them is classed as a military-grade component … and each of these is manufactured specifically by Milandr,” said Denys Karlovskyi, a research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. VOA shared the document with him to confirm its authenticity. In addition to Milandr CEO Tarasenko, the letter is addressed to a commander of the Russian Defense Ministry’s 514 military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense named I.A. Shvid. Karlovskyi says this inclusion shows that Milandr, like Poisk, appears to have a Russian commander from the Defense Ministry’s oversight unit assigned to it — a clear indicator that a company is part of Russia’s defense industry. Milandr, headquartered near Moscow in an area known as “Soviet Silicon Valley,” was sanctioned by the United States in November 2022, for its illegal procurement of microelectronic components using front companies. In the statement announcing the 2022 sanctions against Milandr and more than three dozen other entities and individuals, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, “The United States will continue to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s military supply chains and deny Russia the equipment and technology it needs to wage its illegal war against Ukraine.” Karlovskyi said that in Russia’s database of public contracts, Milandr is listed in more than 500 contracts, supplying numerous state-owned and military-grade enterprises, including Ural Optical Mechanical Plant, Concern Avtomatika and Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant, or IEMZ Kupol, which also have been sanctioned by the United States. “It clearly suggests that this entity is a crucial node in Russia’s military supply chain,” Karlovskyi told VOA. Novoselov, Milandr’s current director, told Bloomberg News last August that he was not aware of any connections to the Russian military. “I don’t know any military persons who would be interested in our product,” he told Bloomberg in a phone interview, adding that the company mostly produces electric power meters. The U.S. allegations are “like a fantasy,” he said. “The United States’ State Department, they suppose that every electronics business in Russia is focused on the military. I think that is funny.” But a U.S. defense official told VOA that helping Russia’s military kill tens of thousands of people in an illegal invasion “is no laughing matter.” “The company is fueling microchips for missiles and heavily armored vehicles that are used to continue the war in Ukraine,” said the defense official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivities of discussing U.S. intelligence. Milandr’s co-founder Mikhail Pavlyuk was also sanctioned during the summer of 2022 for his involvement in microchip smuggling operations and was caught stealing from Milandr. Pavlyuk fled Russia and has claimed he was not involved. Officials estimate that 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed or injured in the war, with tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed in the fighting. “There are consequences to their actions, and the U.S. will persist to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s supply chain,” the U.S. defense official said.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Climate activist Greta Thunberg was among dozens of people detained Saturday by police in The Hague as they removed protesters who were partially blocking a road in the Dutch city. Thunberg was seen flashing a victory sign as she sat in a bus used by police to take detained demonstrators from the scene of a protest of Dutch subsidies and tax breaks to companies linked to fossil fuel industries. The Extinction Rebellion campaign group said before the demonstration that the activists would block a main highway into The Hague, but a heavy police presence, including officers on horseback, initially prevented the activists from getting onto the road. A small group of people managed to sit down on another road and were detained after ignoring police orders to leave. Extinction Rebellion activists have blocked the highway that runs past the temporary home of the Dutch parliament more than 30 times to protest the subsidies. The demonstrators waved flags and chanted: “We are unstoppable, another world is possible.” One held a banner reading: “This is a dead-end street.” In February, Thunberg, 21, was acquitted by a court in London of refusing to follow a police order to leave a protest blocking the entrance to a major oil and gas industry conference last year. Her activism has inspired a global youth movement demanding stronger efforts to fight climate change since she began staging weekly protests outside the Swedish parliament starting in 2018. She has repeatedly been fined in Sweden and the U.K. for civil disobedience in connection with protests.

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban's reclusive supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada urged his officials to set aside their differences and serve Afghanistan properly, according to a written statement released Saturday ahead of the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Public dissent within the Taliban is rare, but some senior figures have expressed their disagreement with the leadership's decision making, especially the bans on female education. Akhundzada, an Islamic scholar who almost never appears in public, rarely leaves the Taliban heartland in southern Kandahar province. He and his circle have been instrumental in imposing restrictions on women and girls that have sparked an international outcry and isolated the Taliban on the global stage. His message was distributed in seven languages including Uzbek and Turkmen — the Taliban are courting cash-rich Central Asian countries for investment and legitimacy — and it touched on diplomatic relations, the economy, justice, charity and the virtues of meritocracy. Akhundzada said Taliban officials should "live a brotherly life among themselves, avoid disagreements and selfishness." He said that the war against the Soviet invasion and communism failed due to disagreements within the Taliban and that they could not implement Shariah in Afghanistan due to these divisions. While he mentioned education, he said nothing about reopening schools and universities for girls and women. Nor did he refer to recent unconfirmed reports about him saying there would be a resumption of stoning Afghan women to death for adultery, a punishment previously carried out during the Taliban's first period of rule, in the late 1990s. Akhundzada in Saturday's message said security did not come from “being tough and killing more; rather, security is aligned with Shariah and justice." Hassan Abbas, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington and author of the “Return of the Taliban," said Akhundzada's message sounded “largely reasonable” and was focused on governance and anti-corruption matters. “I believe this message is carefully crafted to dispel the negative impression created by a recently released audio of his that gives a very dogmatic and regressive message, especially about public punishments and women rights,” Abbas told The Associated Press. “I think this new message is also intended as damage control.” Also Saturday, the Taliban-controlled Supreme Court said six people, including a woman, were publicly flogged on adultery charges in eastern Logar province.

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Saturday denounced Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh’s “provocative remarks” threatening to enter Pakistan and kill suspects who escape over its border after carrying out terrorist attacks in India. Singh made the controversial remarks in an interview with an Indian TV news channel that aired Friday when asked for his reaction to a recent British media report accusing the Indian government of killing some 20 people in Pakistan since 2020. "India's assertion of its preparedness to extrajudicially execute more civilians, arbitrarily pronounced as ‘terrorists,' inside Pakistan constitutes a clear admission of culpability," said a Pakistani foreign ministry statement. It said the Indian minister’s claims backed Islamabad’s “irrefutable evidence” linking New Delhi to an alleged campaign of “extrajudicial and transnational assassinations” on Pakistani soil. Islamabad cautioned that Indian officials' “myopic and irresponsible behavior” could put regional peace at risk. Singh said in his interview that his government would give a “befitting reply” to “any terrorist from a neighboring country” who tries to disrupt peace or conducts "terrorist activities” in India. “If he escapes to Pakistan, we will go to Pakistan and kill him there,” he said. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported earlier this week, quoting interviews with Pakistani and Indian intelligence officials, that New Delhi had been plotting the assassinations of individuals in Pakistan as part of a wider strategy to eliminate anti-India “terrorists living on foreign soil.” The newspaper said the killings were carried out by operatives of the Research and Analysis Wing, the Indian spy agency, which is directly controlled by the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi is running for a third term in office in elections later this month. Last year, Canada and the United States accused India of killing or attempting to kill people in their respective territories. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in September that his government was pursuing “credible allegations” linking the Indian government to the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada. New Delhi rejected the charges as "absurd and motivated.” In November, Washington said it had thwarted an Indian plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader and announced charges against a person U.S. officials said had worked with India to orchestrate the attempted murder. New Delhi has pledged to investigate any information it receives on the matter. Pakistan’s traditionally troubled relations with India have deteriorated since a 2019 suicide bombing of a military convoy in the Indian-administered part of the disputed Kashmir region that killed 144 Indian soldiers. The attack was reportedly claimed by a Pakistan-based outlawed militant group, prompting India to carry out aerial strikes against what it said were militant bases in the Pakistani-administered portion of Kashmir. Islamabad rejected Indian claims of sheltering militants and denounced the Indian military attack. It then carried out retaliatory airstrikes against several targets in Indian-controlled Kashmir. During an ensuing skirmish, Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet and briefly held its pilot captive before returning him to India.

Washington — The past 2½ years have been “very tough” for 28-year-old Maryam Maroof Arvin, as she has been “deprived of all her rights” under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Arvin was a master’s degree student in a private university in Kabul in December 2022 when the Taliban, the de facto government of Afghanistan, barred women from universities. “It has created in me a feeling of depression. I am under mental and psychological pressure, and I feel very angry,” said Arvin who dreamed of becoming a politician to raise the voices for Afghan women. A U.N. report, released in September 2023, stated that under the Taliban, who seized power in 2021, the mental health of women in Afghanistan deteriorated. According to the report, more than two-thirds of women in Afghanistan reported “feelings of anxiety, isolation and depression” between April and June. “Women spoke of psychological issues, including depression, insomnia, loss of hope and motivation, anxiety, fear, aggression, isolation and increasingly isolationist behavior, and suicidal ideation,” the report stated. The Taliban have steadily imposed repressive measures against women in Afghanistan, banning them from the workplace, secondary and university education, long-distance traveling without a close male relative, beauty salons, gyms and public parks. Arvin said that she can’t believe that all her freedoms and two decades of gains in women’s rights were lost in the past 2½ years of the Taliban’s rule. “I wish it was a dream. And I could wake up and go back to the university,” she said. Before the Taliban’s takeover, about 3.5 million girls out of roughly 9 million students were going to school. Thirty-three percent of about 450,000 students enrolled in universities were young women. About 30% of the civil servants and 28% of parliamentarians in Afghanistan were women. Mawloda Tawana, an Afghan women’s rights activist, told VOA that the exclusion of women from the workplace and society adversely affected most women’s psychological and emotional well-being. “Women are locked up at home, and the unhappiness and frustration from this could promote domestic violence and suicide attempts,” said Tawana. Media outlets also reported a surge in suicides by women in Afghanistan. The Taliban have not published any data on suicide rates, and they have prohibited Afghan health officials from providing information on the topic. Sahar Fetrat, a researcher with the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, or HRW, told VOA that women’s mental health in Afghanistan has deteriorated because of the repressive restrictions imposed on them. “Women feel as if they have essentially been banned from participating in life. They have become stripped of basic rights, such as receiving health care,” said Fetrat. In a report released in February, HWR said the health care crisis in Afghanistan has “disproportionately” affected women. “The Taliban’s restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and employment with humanitarian and other organizations have gravely impeded women and girls’ access to health services, while bans on education for women and girls have blocked almost all training of future female health care workers in the country,” stated the HWR report. Fetrat said the international community should acknowledge and understand the gravity of the situation. She says the world must listen to the Afghan women and other individuals who have risked their lives to share their messages. “Women in Afghanistan are fighting for their basic rights,” said Arvin, urging the international community to stand behind them. Roshan Noorzai from VOA's Afghan Service contributed to this report, which originated in VOA's Afghan Service.

QUITO, Ecuador — The Mexican president quickly moved to break off diplomatic ties with Ecuador after police broke into the Mexican Embassy to arrest a former vice president who had sought political asylum there after being indicted on corruption charges. In an extraordinarily unusual move, Ecuadorian police on Friday forced their way into the embassy in the capital, Quito, to arrest Jorge Glas, who had been residing there since December. On Saturday, he was taken from the attorney general's office to a detention facility in an armored vehicle followed by a convoy of military and police vehicles. People who had gathered outside the prosecutor's office yelled “strength” as the vehicles began to move. The raid prompted Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to announce the break of diplomatic relations with Ecuador Friday evening. Glas has been convicted on bribery and corruption charges. Ecuadorian authorities are still investigating more allegations against him. “This is not possible. It cannot be. This is crazy,” Roberto Canseco, head of the Mexican consular section in Quito, told local press while standing outside the embassy. “I am very worried because they could kill him. There is no basis to do this. This is totally outside the norm.” Defending its decision, Ecuador's presidency said in a statement: “Ecuador is a sovereign nation, and we are not going to allow any criminal to stay free.” Lopez Obrador fired back, calling Glas' detention an “authoritarian act” and “a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico." Alicia Barcena, Mexico's secretary of foreign relations, posted on the social platform X that several diplomats suffered injuries during the break-in, adding that it violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomatic premises are considered “inviolable” under the Vienna treaties and local law enforcement agencies are not allowed to enter without the permission of the ambassador. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lived inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years because British police could not enter to arrest him. Barcena said that Mexico would take the case to the International Court of Justice “to denounce Ecuador’s responsibility for violations of international law.” She also said Mexican diplomats were waiting for the Ecuadorian government to offer the necessary guarantees for their return home. Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry and Ecuador’s Ministry of the Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Mexican Embassy in Quito remained under heavy police guard late Friday. A day earlier, tensions between the two countries escalated after Mexico's president made statements that Ecuador considered “very unfortunate” about last year's election, won by Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa. In reaction, the Ecuadorian government declared the Mexican ambassador persona non grata.

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Tehran, Iran — Iranian police have arrested three suspected members of the Islamic State group who were plotting attacks at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, state media reported Saturday.  Those arrested in the city of Karaj in the northwestern province of Alborz included Mohammed Zaker, who was identified as "a senior member" of the group, according to the official IRNA news agency.  "The police in Alborz province arrested three members of the Islamic State group who were planning a suicide attack during the end of Ramadan celebrations," IRNA said.  It was not immediately clear when the arrests took place or whether they included foreign nationals.  IRNA also reported the arrest of eight "accomplices" but did not elaborate.  Local media reported Tuesday about the arrest of two alleged IS members in the holy city of Qom.  In January, IS claimed responsibility for twin bombings in the southern Iranian city of Kerman that killed more than 90 people.  The attacks took place at a ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the death of Qasem Soleimani, a top Revolutionary Guards general killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in 2020.  Iran has been battling jihadi and other militant groups for years.   On Saturday, IRNA reported that the number of "martyrs" killed in recent attacks by jihadis near the border with Pakistan had risen to 16, all members of the security forces.  It said the toll, one of the deadliest in years, includes members of law enforcement, Guards, and paramilitary Basij forces.  State media had earlier reported that 10 security personnel and 18 members of the Jaish al-Adl jihadi group were killed in the clashes.  The Sunni Muslim rebel group Jaish al-Adl was formed in 2012 and is listed by Iran and the United States as a "terrorist" organization. 

JERUSALEM — It’s the last wish of a dying mother, to be with her daughter once more. But six months into Israel's war against Hamas, time is running out for Liora Argamani, who hopes to stay alive long enough to see her kidnapped daughter come home. “I want to see her one more time. Talk to her one more time,” said Argamani, 61, who has stage four brain cancer. “I don’t have a lot of time left in this world.” Noa Argamani was abducted from a music festival October 7 when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 260 hostages. The video of her abduction was among the first to surface, images of her horrified face widely shared — Noa detained between two men on a motorcycle, one arm outstretched and the other held down as she screams “Don't kill me!” There's been little news about Noa, 26. But in mid-January, Hamas released a video of her in captivity. She appears gaunt and under duress, speaking about other hostages killed in airstrikes and frantically calling on Israel to bring her and others home. Half a year into Israel’s war, agonized families such as the Argamanis are in a race against time. In November, a weeklong cease-fire deal saw the release of more than 100 hostages. But the war is dragging on, with no end in sight and no serious hostage deal on the table. Israel says more than 130 hostages remain, with about a quarter of those believed dead, and divisions are deepening in the country over the best way to bring them home. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to both eliminate Hamas and bring all the hostages back, but he's made little progress. He faces pressure to resign, and the U.S. has threatened to scale back its support over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Israelis are divided into two main camps: those who want the government to put the war on hold and free the hostages, and others who think the hostages are an unfortunate price to pay for eradicating Hamas. “They have these two goals and the assessment of the type of risk they’re willing to take to get the hostages back — this is where you see divisions,” said Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and analyst for Israeli public television station Kan News. On-and-off negotiations mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt have yielded little. If a viable deal emerges, decisions will become harder and the divisions sharper, Rosner said. But for most families and friends whose loved ones are in captivity, there is no choice but to bring them home. Many are concerned in particular about the women held in Gaza and say, based on testimonies from freed hostages, they fear those remaining could be suffering from sexual abuse. Before a recent parliamentary committee meeting, attendees held posters showing the hostages. Yarden Gonen, whose 23-year-old sister, Romi, also was taken from the October 7 music festival, criticized what she said was the government's inaction. “What are we fighting for?" she said. "What is more important than this?” Outside an art installation mimicking the Gaza tunnels where some hostages are believed to be held, Romi’s mother said she can’t believe it’s been half a year, with much of the world wanting to forget or ignore such a horrible situation. “We are doing everything we can so the world will not forget," Merav Leshem Gonen said. “Every day we wake up and take a big breath, deep breath, and continue walking, continue doing the things that will bring her back.” When Yonatan Levi saw the video of his friend Noa Argamani in captivity, he said he could barely recognize the smart, free spirit of the woman who loved parties and traveling and was studying computer science. “When I saw that video, I thought maybe she’s living physically but has died inside,” said Levi, who met Argamani during a diving course in the southern Israeli city of Eilat. A few months before her abduction, Argamani asked Levi to help navigate insurance issues for her mom, he said. As an only child, she was a big part of her mother's life and care, and she seemed hopeful she would be OK, Levi said. But Liora Argamani's cancer has worsened, according to a video released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. In it, Liora and her husband tearfully thumb through childhood photos of Noa. From her wheelchair, Liora addresses the camera — and U.S. President Joe Biden directly. Behind her rests an enlarged photo of Noa's pained face as she's dragged into Gaza, on a posterboard with her words overtop: “DON'T KILL ME!” “My heart really hurts,” Liora, a Chinese immigrant, says slowly in accented Hebrew. “I am asking you, President Joe Biden. ... I am really begging you." The stress of missing a loved one like Noa is hard on the healthiest of people, and it will only exacerbate a condition like cancer, said Ofrit Shapira Berman, a psychoanalyst who heads a group of health professionals treating freed hostages, families and survivors.

CAIRO — Two basic mistakes, according to the Israeli military. First, officers overlooked a message detailing the vehicles in the convoy. Second, a spotter saw someone boarding a car, carrying something — possibly a bag — that he thought was a weapon. Officials say the result was the series of Israeli drone strikes that killed seven aid workers on a dark Gaza Strip road. The Israeli military has described the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy as a tragic error. Its explanation raises the question: If that's the case, how often has Israel made such mistakes in its six-month-old offensive in Gaza? Rights groups and aid workers say Monday night’s mistake was hardly an anomaly. They say the wider problem is not violations of the military’s rules of engagement but the rules themselves. In Israel’s drive to destroy Hamas after its October 7 terror attacks, the rights groups and aid workers say, the military seems to have given itself wide leeway to determine what is a target and how many civilian deaths it allows as “collateral damage.” More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says that it is targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that it tries to minimize civilian deaths. It blames the large number of civilian casualties on militants and says it's because they operate among the population. Israel says each strike goes through an assessment by legal experts, but it has not made its rules of engagement public.  Other strikes  In the thousands of strikes Israel has carried out, as well as shelling and shootings in ground operations, it's impossible to know how many times a target has been wrongly identified. Nearly every day, strikes level buildings with Palestinian families inside, killing men, women and children, with no explanation of the target or independent accountability over the proportionality of the strike. Sarit Michaeli, spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, said the World Central Kitchen strike drew world attention only because foreigners were killed.  “The thought that this is a unique case, that it’s a rare example — it’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has been following the situation,” she said. She said a broader investigation is needed into the rules of engagement. “The relevant questions aren’t asked because the investigations only deal with specific cases, rather than the broader policy.” Israel’s chief military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, acknowledged, “Mistakes were conducted in the last six months.” “We do everything we can not to harm innocent civilians,” he told reporters. “It is hard because Hamas is going with civilian clothes. … Is it a problem, is it complexity for us? Yes. Does that matter? No. We need to do more and more and more to distinguish.” But the military hasn't specified how it will achieve this. Brigadier General Benny Gal, who was part of the investigation into the World Central Kitchen strikes, was asked whether more questions should be asked before a strike is authorized. “This was not our standards,” he said. “The standard is more questions, more details, more crossing sources. And this was not the case.”  White flags  Palestinian witnesses have repeatedly reported people, including women and children, being shot and killed or wounded by Israeli troops while carrying white flags. Several videos have surfaced showing Palestinians being fired at or killed while seeming to pose little threat to Israeli forces nearby.  In March, the military acknowledged it shot dead two Palestinians and wounded a third while they were walking on a Gaza beach. It said troops opened fire after the men allegedly ignored warning shots. It reacted after the news channel Al Jazeera showed footage of one of the men falling to the ground while walking in an open area and then a bulldozer pushing two bodies into the garbage-strewn sand. It said at least two of the three men were waving white flags.  Aid groups have also reported strikes on their personnel.  Medical Aid for Palestine said its residential compound in the southern area of Muwasi — which the military had defined as a safe zone — was hit in January by what the United Nations determined was a 1,000-pound bomb. Several team members were injured and the building damaged, the group said.  The group said the Israeli military gave it multiple explanations — denying involvement, saying it was trying to hit a target nearby and blaming a missile that went astray. “The variety of responses highlights a continued lack of transparency,” the group said.  The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said a tank shelled a house sheltering its staff and their families in Muwasi in February, killing one staffer's wife and daughter-in-law.  Both groups said they had informed the military repeatedly of their locations and clearly marked the buildings.  Israeli admissions of mistakes are rare.  In December, after a strike killed at least 106 people in the Maghazi camp, the military said buildings near the target were also hit, likely causing “unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians.” It also admitted soldiers mistakenly shot to death three Israeli hostages who were waving white flags after getting out of Hamas captivity in Gaza City.  “The pattern”  In Israel’s ground assaults, troops are operating in urban environments, searching for Hamas fighters while surrounded by a population hunkering in their homes and in motion, trying to flee or find food and medical care.  Some Israeli politicians and news outlets regularly proclaim there are no innocents in Gaza. And in some videos circulated online, soldiers talk of getting vengeance for the October 7 Hamas terror attacks that sparked the war.  In that atmosphere, Palestinians and other critics say, soldiers on the ground appear to have wide liberty in deciding whether to target someone as suspicious. Residents and medical staff in Gaza say they see the result.  Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a doctor with Medical Aid for Palestinians who just returned from two weeks at a Gaza hospital, said staff regularly treated children and elderly shot by snipers.  “It’s not an anomaly. It’s actually the pattern,” she told journalists in a briefing this week. “I don’t think it’s that children in particular are singled out as targets. The understanding and kind of the conclusion you reach … is that everybody’s a target.”  Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army and weapons expert who's done research and security missions in Gaza, said that if there was a breakdown in communication in the case of the World Central Kitchen strike, “for a professional army, this is inexcusable.”  “There seems to be a consistent pattern of utterly reckless behavior,” said Cobb-Smith, who helped investigate the Doctors Without Borders shelling.

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.