Voice of America’s immigration news

Just south of the Florida mainland lies a string of islands called the Florida Keys. The southernmost tip is Key West. Its location makes it a natural first stop — and eventual home — for migrants, especially those fleeing Haiti and Cuba. VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti takes a look at who’s settling there and how it’s changing the look and feel of Key West. VOA footage and video editing by Mary Cieslak.

UCLA molecular bioengineer Mireille Kamariza has developed a new tuberculosis test that tackles shortcomings of existing TB diagnostics. VOA’s Genia Dulot reports for this week’s episode of LogOn.

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.

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.

Colombo, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka will save $5 billion following the restructure of its bilateral debt, much of which is owed to China, through slashed interest rates and longer repayment schedules, the president said Tuesday. The island nation defaulted on its foreign borrowings in 2022 during an unprecedented economic crisis that precipitated months of food, fuel and medicine shortages. President Ranil Wickremesinghe said a deal struck last week had secured a moratorium on debt payments until 2028, extending the tenure of loans by eight years and cutting interest rates to an average of 2.1%. Wickremesinghe said bilateral lenders led by China, the government's largest single creditor, did not agree to take a haircut on their loans, but the terms agreed would nonetheless help Sri Lanka. "With the restructure measures we have agreed, we will make a saving of $5.0 billion," Wickremesinghe told parliament in his first address to the legislature since the debt deal. Some of Sri Lanka's loans from China are at high interest rates, going up to nearly 8.0% compared to borrowings from Japan, the second largest lender, at less than 1.0%. Sri Lanka struck separate deals with China and the rest of the bilateral creditors, including Japan, France and India. Bilateral creditors account for 28.5% of Sri Lanka's outstanding foreign debt of $37 billion, according to treasury data from March. This excludes government-guaranteed external loans. China accounts for $4.66 billion of the $10.58 billion that Sri Lanka has borrowed from other countries. Wickremesinghe said he expected to complete shortly the restructure of a further $14.7 billion in external commercial loans, including $2.18 billion from the China Development Bank. Sri Lanka's 2022 crisis sparked months of public protests that eventually forced the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa after an angry mob stormed his compound. Wickremesinghe said the nation was bankrupt when he took over and he hoped the $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout he secured last year would be the island's last. Colombo had gone to the IMF, the international lender of last resort, on 16 previous occasions and the debt restructuring is a condition of the IMF bailout.

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.

Chiang Mai, Thailand — When Myanmar's junta announced a conscription law to help crush a popular pro-democracy uprising, Khaing knew there was only one way to escape its clutches and she began planning her escape. Weeks later the former teacher was hidden in a smuggler's van heading into Thailand with little more than some clothes, cash and an ID card, not knowing when she would be able to return. Now scraping a living in Bangkok without papers, Khaing worries constantly about a tap on the shoulder by Thai police and deportation back to the junta. She is one of tens of thousands of young people rights groups estimate have fled Myanmar since the military introduced conscription in February to shore up its depleted ranks. The junta is battling widespread armed opposition to its 2021 coup and its soldiers are accused of bloody rampages and using air and artillery strikes to punish civilian communities. It says it wants to enlist 5,000 new people, each month, aged between 18-35, but details on how they will be chosen, and where and how they will serve are vague. Media reports of young men being dragged off the streets and into the army, which the military denies,have further added to the panic. "The conscription law means we have to kill each other," said Wai Yan, 26, from eastern Karen state, who in May crossed into Thailand. "We are not fighting a war against foreign enemies," he said from the Bangkok restaurant where he works without documents. "We are fighting each other." Smuggled for $220 Shortly after enacting the law, the junta tightened requirements for people crossing Myanmar's land borders, and temporarily halted issuing foreign work permits for young men. Yangon-based film critic Ngwe Yan Thun, a pseudonym, said he had "no choice" but to leave illegally. Through friends he contacted a "broker" who said he could be smuggled over the border into Thailand for around $220. Ngwe Yan Thun sold off all of his belongings, arranged for friends to look after his dog and bought an air ticket to Tachileik on the Thai border. At the airport, he had to pay "tea money" to officials at the airport who were suspicious of why he was traveling to the remote provincial town.   He was dropped at a safehouse near the border where around 30 others were waiting to be taken into Thailand. Then, at short notice, he was crammed into a car with 11 others and they set off. "I didn't feel like a human being, I felt like I was black market goods," Ngwe Yan Thun said from Thailand's Chiang Mai. 'Am I in Myanmar?' Thailand has long been home to a sizeable Myanmar community, with a bustling market in Bangkok and towns along the border. The conflict has made it difficult to conduct surveys or verify how many young people had fled abroad to escape conscription, said an official from the International Labour Organization. But the organization said it had received estimates from ground sources that suggested "hundreds of thousands" had fled the law. Wai Yan said he was surprised at how many people from Myanmar were in Thailand. "I even joke with my friends 'Am I still in Myanmar?'" 'Cried every day' After arriving in Bangkok, Khaing was unable to contact her parents as fighting around her home village cut internet and mobile networks. "I was worried about getting caught by the Thai police. So, I didn't dare to go outside when I arrived," she told AFP. "I cried every day in my first month here." She found part-time work at a friend's shop and returns in the evenings to her sparse room where she sells medicine and beauty products on TikTok. A large teddy bear gifted to her by a friend who knew she was feeling lonely takes up much of the bed. The first batch of conscripts finished their training and would soon be sent to their posts, state media reported last week, as fighting rages in the west and north of the country. Ngwe Yan Thun is grateful he is far away, but is kept up at night wondering what to do next. "I think about what I should do if I don't get a job and official documents to stay," he said. "I can't go back to Myanmar. I feel overwhelmed by thoughts and worries all the time."

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 — Candidates in France on Tuesday faced a deadline to register for the run-off round of a high-stakes parliamentary election, as President Emmanuel Macron's centrist camp and a left-wing alliance scrambled to prevent the far right from taking power. On Sunday, French people go to polls for the decisive final round of the snap election Macron called after his camp received a drubbing in European elections last month. His gamble appears to have backfired, with the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen scoring a victory in the first round of voting last Sunday. Macron's centrists trailed in third place behind the left-wing New Popular Front alliance. Faced with the prospect of the far right taking power in France for the first time since the country's occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II, Macron's camp has begun cooperating with the New Popular Front alliance which includes the hard-left France Unbowed party. The rivals are hoping that tactical voting will prevent the RN winning the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority. Macron has called for a "broad" democratic coalition against the far right, with the political crisis overshadowing France's preparations for the Olympic Games this summer. Speaking to broadcaster TF1 on Monday evening, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal once again urged voters not to give the far-right an absolute majority. "That would be catastrophic for the French," he said, adding that the far-right would fuel divisions in society. Third-place candidates who qualified for the second round have been urged to drop out to present a united front against the far right. The deadline to decide whether to stand down is 6 pm Tuesday. According to a provisional count by AFP, more than 150 left-wing or centrist candidates have already dropped out.            "Only a strong republican front, uniting the left, center and conservatives, can keep the far right at bay and prevent France from tipping over," daily newspaper Le Monde said in an editorial. Le Pen has urged voters to give the RN an absolute majority, which would see Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old RN chief with no governing experience, become prime minister. But most projections show the RN falling short of an absolute majority — although the final outcome remains far from certain. The RN garnered 33 percent of the vote last Sunday, compared to 28 percent for the New Popular Front alliance and just over 20 percent for Macron's camp. Speaking on television on Monday night, Bardella derided efforts by Macron's camp and the left-wing coalition to put up a united front, suggesting that the "dishonorable" alliance had been formed out of desperation. He accused the French president of coming "to the rescue of a violent extreme-left movement" he himself had denounced just days ago. Macron convened a cabinet meeting Monday to decide a further course of action. "Let's not be mistaken. It's the far right that's on its way to the highest office, no one else," he said at the meeting, according to one participant. The emotion was palpable, with several ministers dropping out of the race. "We've known happier meetings," one minister told Le Monde. Analysts say the most likely outcome of the snap election is a hung parliament that could lead to months of political paralysis and chaos. With a total of 76 candidates elected in the first round, the final composition of the 577-seat National Assembly will be clear only after the second round. The second round will see a three-way or two-way run-off in the remainder of the seats to be decided, although a tiny number of four-way run-offs are also possible.

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.

SYDNEY — Australia’s Labor government is facing a backlash from the Muslim community over its suspension of an Afghan-born lawmaker. Senator Fatima Payman, an Australian Muslim, says she has been exiled after voting against party lines on issues around Palestinian statehood. Australia advocates a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist within internationally recognized borders. Payman was suspended after voting against her own party to recognize Palestine as a state in federal Parliament.   The Kabul-born lawmaker told reporters that Australia “cannot believe in two state solutions and only recognize one.”  Payman has promised to defy the government again if the issue is again put to the vote.  The battle between the senator for Western Australia and the governing Labor party revolves around its so-called “solidarity” rule that requires all its lawmakers to vote as a bloc.  Senator Katy Gallagher, Australia’s federal Finance minister, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Tuesday that Payman has breached party regulations.  “These are decisions that she has taken knowing quite clearly what the consequences would be and, you know, she has continued to make those decisions," Gallagher said. "So, I certainly, and I know a lot of my colleagues, would want her to remain with the Labor caucus but she also has to give a commitment that some of the decisions she has taken in the last week would not be repeated.”    There is speculation the suspended senator could quit the Labor Party and stay in parliament as an independent, switch her political allegiance to the Australian Greens or form her own political party.    Reports also suggest she could join a new political organization called The Muslim Vote, which is planning to run candidates on a pro-Palestinian platform in some of the governing Labor party's safest parliamentary seats.  Under Australia’s voting electoral system, Payman was elected in May 2022 and would serve up to six years in parliament.  The campaign group, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, said in a statement it “stands firmly” with Payman and urged other lawmakers to follow her example.    The Muslim senator was born in Afghanistan and was a child when she arrived as a refugee in Australia with her family.    Her indefinite suspension from the governing party is a further sign that the war in Gaza is causing political and social tensions in Australia.  Community groups have reported an increase in Islamophobic and antisemitic abuse in Australia since Israel’s war in Gaza began almost nine months ago.    Australia has said Israel has the right to defend itself after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.   

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Over 20 years ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stood before a crowd at Friday prayers to denounce the United States for its disenchanted electorate. “It is disgraceful for a nation to have a 35% or 40% voter turnout, as happens in some of the nations that you see having presidential elections,” Khamenei said in 2001. “It is obvious that their people do not trust their political system, that they do not care about it and that they have no hope.” Iran now faces what the ayatollah described. Iran will hold a runoff presidential election Friday, only its second since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, after only 39.9% of its voting public cast a ballot the previous week. Of over 24.5 million votes, more than 1 million ballots were later rejected — typically a sign of people feeling obligated to head to the polls but wanting to reject all the candidates. Meanwhile, public rage simmers after years of Iran's economy cratering to new lows, along with bloody crackdowns on dissent, including over the mass protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini after her detention by the country's morality police allegedly over not wearing her headscarf to their liking. Tensions with the West remain high as Iran enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Now, hard-line former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili faces the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon who likely needs a widespread turnout to win the presidency. Pezeshkian's supporters warn of dark days ahead under Jalili. Meanwhile, many people are unconvinced that their vote even matters. “I did not vote and I will not, since nobody apologized because of Mahsa and later miseries that young people face, neither the reformists nor the hard-liners," said Leila Seyyedi, a 23-year-old university student studying graphic design. Iranian election law requires a candidate to get over 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff. In results released Saturday, Pezeshkian got 10.4 million votes while Jalili received 9.4 million. Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf came in third with 3.3 million, while Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi had over 206,000. Most voters for Qalibaf, a former general in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and national police chief known for his crackdowns against students and for corruption allegations, likely will break for Jalili after Qalibaf endorsed him, analysts say. That has put Jalili, a 58-year-old known as the “Living Martyr” for losing a leg in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, in the lead position for the runoff. But his recalcitrant reputation among Western diplomats during negotiations over Iran's nuclear program is paired with concern at home over his views. One politician who has aligned himself with the moderates, former Iranian Information and Communications Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, put the choice between Jalili and Pezeshkian more starkly. “We will not let Iran fall into the hands of the Taliban,” he wrote on social platform X. But even such dark warnings seemingly failed to have an effect. On the streets of Tehran after the June 28 vote, many told The Associated Press they didn't care about the election. “I did not vote, as former presidents failed to realize their promises," said Ahmad Taheri, a 27-year-old psychology student. “I will not vote this coming Friday either.” Mohammad Ali Robati, a 43-year-old electronic engineer and a father of two, said Iranian officials' apparent indifference to people's economic pressures caused him not to vote. “After years of economic difficulties, I have no interest in politics,” Robati said, though he held out the possibility of voting Friday. At the time of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the exchange rate for Iran's currency was 32,000 rials to $1. Today, it’s 617,000 rials to $1 — and many have found the value of their bank accounts, retirement funds and other holdings gouged by years of depreciation. It's nearing its record low of 700,000 rials, briefly reached after Iran's unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia — A Cambodian court on Tuesday sentenced 10 environmentalists to between six and eight years in jail for plotting to commit crimes in their activism, the latest legal crackdown on the country's green campaigners. The campaigners from Mother Nature, one of Cambodia's few environmental activism groups, denied the charges, which they said were politically motivated. Am Sam Ath, operations director of rights group LICADHO, told AFP the court sentenced the activists to jail terms ranging from six to eight years. He said three of them, including Mother Nature co-founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, a Spaniard deported from Cambodia in 2015, were sentenced to eight years for plotting against the government and insulting the king. Seven others were sentenced to six years in prison on unspecified plotting charges. Six of the defendants were sentenced in absentia, while the four who were present were seized by police outside the court and taken away, according to an AFP journalist. Human Rights Watch (HRW) last month condemned the trial as an attempt to "muzzle criticism of governmental policies." HRW said Mother Nature had campaigned for more than a decade against damaging infrastructure projects and "exposed corruption in the management of Cambodia's natural resources." The charges against the 10 activists related to Mother Nature's activism between 2012 and 2021. The group raised issues around the filling-in of lakes in Phnom Penh, illegal logging, and the destruction of natural resources across the country. The tussle over protecting or exploiting Cambodia's natural resources has long been a contentious issue in the kingdom, with environmentalists threatened, arrested and even killed in the past decade. Three of the activists sentenced Tuesday had previously been jailed for organizing a peaceful march protesting the filling-in of a lake in the capital to create land for real estate developments. From 2001 to 2015, a third of Cambodia's primary forests, some of the world's most biodiverse and a key carbon sink, were cleared, and tree cover loss accelerated faster than anywhere else in the world, according to the World Resources Institute. Much of the cleared land has been granted to businesses in concessions that experts say have driven deforestation and dispossession in the country.