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New York — The United States announced Friday more than $315 million in additional humanitarian assistance to Sudan, where 14 months of war between rival generals has left nearly 25 million people in need of aid.  “This is the single largest humanitarian crisis on the planet,” USAID administrator Samantha Power told reporters on a conference call announcing the funding.  The United Nations warns that 5 million Sudanese are on the brink of famine.  Power expressed concern that the situation could be as bad as or worse than the 2011 drought-induced famine in Somalia that killed around 250,000 people, half of them children.  “The most worrying scenario would be that Sudan would become the deadliest famine since Ethiopia in the early 1980s,” she added.  Around 1 million Ethiopians perished over a two-year period in that historic famine. Millions more were displaced, and hundreds of thousands left Ethiopia.  Power said the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which are fighting each other, are actively blocking aid deliveries.  “It is obstruction, not insufficient stocks of food, that is the driving force behind the historic and deadly level of starvation in Sudan,” Power said. “That has to change immediately.”  Of the 25 million Sudanese in need of humanitarian aid and protection, the United Nations says 18 million are facing acute hunger, and that number will likely grow with the onset of the lean season this month.  The U.N. has been asking for months for both cross-border access from Chad and access across conflict front lines. It has also urged authorities to remove administrative barriers, including delays in travel authorizations for aid convoys.  Access impediments have made it almost impossible to move humanitarian supplies to parts of Darfur and Khartoum.  The situation in North Darfur’s capital city, El Fasher, is especially dire. The RSF has surrounded the city, burning and looting communities in its vicinity. They have advanced on the city, where an SAF infantry division is outnumbered and surrounded.  On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the RSF halt its siege and de-escalate the fight for El Fasher — where more than 800,000 civilians are sheltering — and allow aid in.  The World Food Program said Friday that a convoy carrying aid for about 160,000 people crossed into Darfur this week from Chad. It is only the third convoy to enter Sudan via the Tine border crossing from Chad in the past two months. The aid it is carrying is headed for people in Central, East and West Darfur.  Battle for El Fasher  Power said Washington is concerned about what will happen to the civilians in El Fasher, especially ethnically non-Arab communities, if the city falls to the RSF.  “Clearly the RSF is on the march,” she said. “And where the RSF has gone in the Darfur area historically, and this conflict, mass atrocities have followed.”  Arab Janjaweed fighters who carried out the genocide against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s, make up elements of today's RSF.  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on the call that there is no military solution to this conflict, and she criticized countries that are supporting the rival generals with arms and ammunition.  “We have been very, very clear with those actors, that they should cease their support for this war,” she said. “It is only exacerbating and prolonging the conflict, and it is making the situation more dire for the people of Sudan.”  She said the U.S. has spoken with the United Arab Emirates, which was implicated for sending military support to the RSF in a U.N. expert report earlier this year. The UAE denies it, saying it sends only humanitarian aid.  “We have engaged with the UAE; we have engaged with others,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “We know that the Russians and the Iranians are also providing support for the SAF. Both sides are getting this outside support, and we are pressuring all sides to discontinue.”  U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also expressed his concern about the fighting in El Fasher and across Sudan, saying a cease-fire is urgently needed to alleviate civilian suffering.

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BARI, Italy — Pope Francis challenged leaders of the world’s wealthy democracies Friday to keep human dignity foremost in developing and using artificial intelligence, warning that such powerful technology risks turning human relations themselves into mere algorithms.  Francis brought his moral authority to bear on the Group of Seven, invited by host Italy to address a special session at their annual summit on the perils and promises of AI. In doing so, he became the first pope to attend the G7, offering an ethical take on an issue that is increasingly on the agenda of international summits, government policy and corporate boards alike.  Francis said politicians must take the lead in making sure AI remains human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools always remain made by humans and not machines.  “We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we took away people’s ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, by dooming them to depend on the choices of machines,” he said. “We need to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: Human dignity itself depends on it.”  Francis is joining a chorus of countries and global bodies pushing for stronger guardrails on AI following the boom in generative artificial intelligence kickstarted by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.  The Argentine pope used his annual peace message this year to call for an international treaty to ensure AI is developed and used ethically. He argues that a technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness is too perilous to develop unchecked.  He didn't repeat that call explicitly in his speech Friday, but he made clear the onus is on politicians to lead on the issue. And he called on them to ultimately ban the use of lethal autonomous weapons, colloquially known as “killer robots.”  “No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being,” he said.  Directing himself to the leaders around the table, he concluded: “It is up to everyone to make good use of [AI] but the onus is on politics to create the conditions for such good use to be possible and fruitful.”  Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni invited Francis and announced his participation, knowing the potential impact of his star power and moral authority on the G7. Those seated at the table seemed duly awed, and the boisterous buzz in the room went absolutely quiet when Francis arrived.  “The pope is, well, a very special kind of a celebrity,” said John Kirton, a political scientist at the University of Toronto who directs the G7 Research Group think tank.  Kirton recalled the last summit that had this kind of star power, that then translated into action, was the 2005 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland. There, world leaders decided to wipe out the $40 billion of the debts owed by 18 of the world’s poorest countries to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.  That summit was preceded by a Live 8 concert in London that featured Sting, The Who and a reformed Pink Floyd and drew over a million people in a show of solidarity against hunger and poverty in Africa.  “Gleneagles actually hit a home run and for some it’s one of the most successful summits,” Kirton said.  No such popular pressure is being applied to G7 leaders in the Italian region of Puglia, but Francis knew he could wield his own moral authority to renew his demands for safeguards for AI and highlight the threats to peace and society it poses if human ethics are left to the side.  “To speak of technology is to speak of what it means to be human and thus of our singular status as beings who possess both freedom and responsibility,” he said. “This means speaking about ethics.”  Generative AI technology has dazzled the world with its capabilities to produce humanlike responses, but it’s also sparked fears about AI safety and led to a jumble of global efforts to rein it in.  Some worry about catastrophic but far off risks to humanity because of its potential for creating new bioweapons and supercharging disinformation. Others fret about its effect on everyday life, through algorithmic bias that results in discrimination or AI systems that eliminate jobs.  In his peace message, Francis echoed those concerns and raised others. He said AI must keep foremost concerns about guaranteeing fundamental human rights, promoting peace and guarding against disinformation, discrimination and distortion.  On the regulation front, Francis will in some ways be preaching to the converted as the G7 members have been at the forefront of the debate on AI oversight.  Japan, which held the G7’s rotating presidency last year, launched its Hiroshima AI process to draw up international guiding principles and a code of conduct for AI developers. Adding to those efforts, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last month unveiled a framework for global regulation of generative AI, which are systems that can quickly churn out new text, images, video, audio in response to prompts and commands.  The European Union was one of the first movers with its wide-ranging AI Act that’s set to take effect over the next two years and could act as a global model. The act targets any AI product or service offered in the bloc’s 27 nations, with restrictions based on the level of risk they pose.  In the United States, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on AI safeguards and called for legislation to strengthen it, while some states like California and Colorado have been trying to pass their own AI bills, with mixed results.  Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic have been scrutinizing big AI companies including Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI over whether their dominant positions stifle competition.  Britain kickstarted a global dialogue on reining in AI’s most extreme dangers with a summit last fall. At a follow-up meeting in Seoul, companies pledged to develop the technology safely. France is set to host another meeting in the series early next year. The United Nations has also weighed in with its first resolution on AI.  On the sidelines of his AI speech, Francis has a full day of bilateral meetings. He had meetings with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as invited leaders from Algeria, Brazil, India, Kenya, Turkey. He will also meet with G7 members, including Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a rapid-fire gun accessory that was used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The high court's conservative majority found that the Trump administration did not follow federal law when it changed course from previous administrations after a gunman in Las Vegas attacked a country music festival with assault rifles equipped with bump stocks. The accessory allows a rate of fire comparable to machine guns. The gunman fired more than 1,000 rounds in the crowd in 11 minutes, sending thousands of people fleeing in terror as hundreds were wounded and dozens were killed in 2017. The 6-3 majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas said a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock is not an illegal machine gun because it doesn’t make the weapon fire more than one shot with one pull of the trigger. “A bump stock does not alter the basic mechanics of bump firing, and the trigger still must be released and reengaged to fire each additional shot,” he wrote in an opinion that contained multiple drawings of guns’ firing mechanisms. He was joined by his fellow conservatives. Justice Samuel Alito wrote a short separate opinion to stress that Congress can change the law to equate bump stocks with machine guns. Changing the definition of a bump stock through regulation rather than legislation took pressure off Republicans in Congress to act or justify inaction in the face of the Las Vegas massacre during Trump's presidency. In a dissent joined by her liberal colleagues, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to the Las Vegas gunman. “In murdering so many people so quickly, he did not rely on a quick trigger finger. Instead, he relied on bump stocks,” she said, reading a summary of her dissent aloud in the courtroom. Sotomayor said that it’s “deeply regrettable” Congress has to act but that she hopes it does. Former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign team said it respects the court's decision in a statement that quickly pivoted to politics, touting his endorsement by the National Rifle Association. President Joe Biden did not have an immediate comment. The ruling came after a Texas gun shop owner challenged the ban, arguing the Justice Department wrongly classified the accessories as illegal machine guns. The Biden administration said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made the right choice for the gun accessories, which can allow weapons to fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute. It marked the latest gun case to come before the high court. A conservative supermajority handed down a landmark decision expanding gun rights in 2022 and is weighing another gun case challenging a federal law intended to keep guns away from people under domestic violence restraining orders. The arguments in the bump stock case, though, were more about whether the ATF had overstepped its authority than the Second Amendment. Justices from the court’s liberal wing suggested it was “common sense” that anything capable of unleashing a “torrent of bullets” was a machine gun under federal law. Conservative justices, though, raised questions about why Congress had not acted to ban bump stocks, as well as the effects of the ATF changing its mind a decade after declaring the accessories legal. The high court took up the case after a split among lower courts over bump stocks, which were invented in the early 2000s. Under Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, the ATF decided that bump stocks didn’t transform semiautomatic weapons into machine guns. The agency reversed those decisions at Trump’s urging after the shooting in Las Vegas and another mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that killed 17 people. Bump stocks are accessories that replace a rifle’s stock, the part that rests against the shoulder. They harness the gun’s recoil energy so that the trigger bumps against the shooter’s stationary finger, allowing the gun to fire at a rate comparable to a traditional machine gun. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have their own bans on bump stocks. The plaintiff, Texas gun shop owner and military veteran Michael Cargill, was represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a group funded by conservative donors such as the Koch network. His attorneys acknowledged that bump stocks allow for rapid fire but argued that they are different because the shooter has to put in more effort to keep the gun firing. Government lawyers countered that the effort required from the shooter is small and doesn’t make a legal difference. The Justice Department said the ATF changed its mind on bump stocks after doing a more in-depth examination spurred by the Las Vegas shooting and came to the right conclusion. There were about 520,000 bump stocks in circulation when the ban went into effect in 2019, requiring people to either surrender or destroy them, at a combined estimated loss of $100 million, the plaintiffs said in court documents.

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U.S. and NATO leaders in Brussels are at odds over the extent to which Ukrainians can use Western-provided weapons to hit military targets inside Russian territory. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has more.

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The lack of laws governing digital currencies has slowed their expansion in the United States. Cryptocurrency investors tell VOA’s Deana Mitchell they are encouraged that the U.S. House of Representatives is considering a new legal framework for electronic money.

Washington — The Swiss-hosted Ukraine Peace Summit will take place Saturday and Sunday at the Burgenstock Resort on Lake Lucerne with about 90 countries participating. The Swiss government says the summit aims to "inspire a future peace process" that could eventually involve Russia and build a "just and lasting peace" for Ukraine rooted in international law. It's been nearly 28 months since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, causing heavy casualties on both sides in a war that has displaced millions of Ukrainians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initiated the summit to gather international support for his peace plan. The 10 points in Zelenskyy's "peace formula" include the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and the restoration of Ukraine's territorial integrity, including Crimea and Russian-occupied areas in eastern and southern Ukraine. Russia has not been invited to the summit. The Swiss government says there was no invitation because Russia had no intention of attending. Moscow called a peace summit without its participation "futile." But Russia is not the only major player skipping the talks. Who is attending? Who is absent? China will also be absent from the summit. China’s Foreign Ministry said at the end of May that Beijing “is hardly able to take part in the meeting” because a peace summit without Russia would not meet China's expectations. Beijing said the peace conference "should have the recognition of Russia and Ukraine, equal participation of all parties, and fair discussion of all peace plans." China issued its “Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis" in February 2023, touting it as a peace plan. But the 12 principles in the plan were just repeats of Beijing’s long-held positions that critics say are more favorable to Russia. The United States and Ukraine have urged China to participate many times before.  Zelenskyy, at the Shangri-La Security Dialogue in Singapore earlier this month, accused China of pressuring other countries to boycott the peace summit, which Beijing denied. Kyiv has invited about 160 countries and organizations to attend the summit. The Swiss government said on Monday that about 90 countries — almost half of them from Europe — have confirmed their participation, and that most of the participants are heads of state or government. Ukraine's biggest ally, the United States, will send Vice President Kamala Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. President Joe Biden will reportedly miss the summit due to a campaign fundraiser. Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir Putin would give Biden's absence a "standing ovation." The White House told the media that the United States is a staunch supporter of Ukraine. In a June speech commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landing, Biden promised “we will not walk away” from Ukraine, connecting Europe’s World War II fight against Nazi invaders to Ukraine’s fight against Russian ones. Also confirmed are leaders of the European Union, the European Commission, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, Poland, Moldova, Ireland, Iceland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, Croatia, Luxembourg, Cape Verde and Chile. In addition to its Western allies, Kyiv has focused on inviting nations from the Global South — a term used to describe less-developed countries — and has made efforts to win their support for the summit. Compared with Western countries, most Global South countries are neutral or somewhat pro-Russian on the war. Winning the support of these countries is key for Ukraine to pressure Russia in future talks. "The more such countries we have on our side ... the more Russia will have to deal with this," Zelenskyy said last month in an interview with AFP. Turkey confirmed on Wednesday that it would send its foreign minister to the peace summit. India's Ministry of External Affairs said on Wednesday it would send officials of "appropriate level" to the summit, while confirming that it would not be newly reelected Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand have all confirmed their attendance, but with deputy ministerial-level officials instead of top leaders. Invited countries that have not yet confirmed include Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Pakistan. Although Pakistan and Ukraine have strong defense cooperation, Russia is also an important oil supplier to the country. What will be discussed? The Swiss government says the main task of the peace summit is to drive the future peace process, including: Beginning a dialogue on how to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine under international law and the U.N. Charter. Promoting consensus on a possible "peace framework." Determining a roadmap on how to involve both Russia and Ukraine in the process.   Ukraine has said the summit will focus on three issues that could win the support of various countries and produce action plans:  Freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, allowing Ukraine to export grains and protect global food security.  Agreement on a call to stop the bombing of nuclear energy infrastructure.  Release of all prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children who were taken to Russia. The International Criminal Court in March 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the abductions, which Russia has denied.   Mark Cancian, senior adviser for the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he expects many attendees to remain neutral on the war. "Zelenskyy will want to turn the conference into an anti-Russian coalition,” he told VOA.  “However, some of the attendees may want to explore end states that are short of what Ukraine wants — for example, some sort of in-place cease-fire.” Cancian said the peace summit’s final communique will be important because it will indicate whether Zelenskyy has sustained international support or whether “international desires for peace are overwhelming Ukraine's desire for victory." Zelenskyy’s three issues for the summit are part of a 10-point peace plan announced in 2022 that includes the "nonnegotiable" point of restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity.  The territories include not only eastern and southern Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since 2022 but also Crimea, which Russia has occupied since 2014. Russia has rebuffed Ukraine's peace proposals, saying it will not give up a single inch of Ukrainian territory it seized, which amounts to about a fifth of Ukraine's total area. Many analysts believe that Ukraine’s bargaining power in future negotiations with Russia depends mainly on its momentum in the war. The Ukrainian army is currently facing pressure on the battlefield, compared to last summer's offensive, with a shortage of ammunition and manpower and difficulty recruiting soldiers. Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, said in an article, "There will ultimately be a time for diplomacy, but Ukraine needs to make significant progress militarily for the time to be right." But many Ukrainians and their overseas supporters warn that a deal that allows Russia to gobble up large swathes of Ukrainian territory by force would weaken the West and embolden Moscow to take similar actions in the future. VOA’s Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

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The World Bank and other international bodies rank the Zimbabwean economy among the lowest in the region. The country has one of the highest extreme poverty rates and fails to pay on its more than $14 billion in external debts.

Seoul, South Korea — When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited eastern Russia in September, a big part of his mission seemed clear: look at as many Russian weapons as possible.   During his highly publicized multi-day visit, Kim climbed to the cockpit of one of Russia’s most advanced fighter jets, examined nuclear-capable strategic bombers, and toured a warship in Russia’s Pacific Fleet.   Russian President Vladimir Putin also gave Kim a personal tour of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, the country's most modern space rocket launch site, where he acknowledged that Russia would help North Korea build satellites.  Though the interactions underscored growing defense ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, no formal agreements were announced during the meetings, surprising some observers.   But when Putin soon visits North Korea for the first time in 24 years, there may be more than just handshakes, according to some analysts, who say the two sides have likely been working to cement burgeoning military cooperation.  “I would expect some sort of formal outcome from the visit, rather than an exchange of pleasantries,” said Alexey Muraviev, who focuses on national security and strategic studies at Australia’s Curtin University.  Russian authorities have confirmed Putin’s planned visit but have not provided any dates. On Wednesday, South Korean authorities said the visit would likely occur in the next “few days.”  On Friday, senior U.S. and South Korean diplomats held an emergency phone call about Putin’s impending visit. According to Seoul, both sides warned that Putin's trip should not result in any violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions, which ban a wide range of economic and military interaction with Pyongyang.  Ups and downs  Russia has for decades been one of North Korea's most important economic and military supporters, along with China. But ties have sometimes been rocky.   As recently as 2017, Russia — a permanent, veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council — supported international sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons advancements.   Since then, Putin and Kim have found reasons to work together, as each wages their own campaign against Western influence.  After walking away from talks with the United States in 2019, Kim has dramatically expanded his nuclear arsenal, which he says is aimed at deterring the United States and its regional allies. Putin, meanwhile, launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and has since fought Western-backed forces there.  Shortly after Russia’s invasion, Kim became one of only a handful of world leaders to express explicit support for Putin’s war.  Independent observers have found North Korean weapons, including missiles, on the Ukrainian battlefield, confirming U.S. government assertions that North Korea is providing Russia with munitions.   The development is consistent with Russia’s increasing boldness about conducting activities that may explicitly violate U.N. sanctions, which Moscow says it now opposes.  Putin’s visit  Putin may still proceed cautiously in Pyongyang. He is not likely to fully or explicitly abandon U.N. sanctions, since Moscow has an interest in portraying itself as a responsible stakeholder that respects international law, according to Muraviev.  Muraviev said Russia may “raise its middle finger to the West,” however, by continuing to gradually degrade U.N. sanctions against North Korea.   “Russia is now under even more sanctions than North Korea, so if Russia violates the international sanctions regime, what can Russia suffer from more than what’s already been coming its way as a result of its aggressive actions in Ukraine?” he asked.  Putin could also use his North Korea trip to underscore further support for North Korea’s satellite program.   Since Kim’s visit to Russia, North Korea has conducted two satellite launches. Though its most recent launch failed, defense analysts said North Korea’s use of a new type of carrier rocket suggested Russian assistance.  Though U.N. sanctions remain a significant restraint on Russia-North Korea cooperation, both sides may find economic ways to cooperate, such as sending North Korean laborers to Russia, said Artyom Lukin, a professor at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University.   “Russia has never said that it’s going to stop observing UNSC sanctions on North Korea. But you know, there are ways to manage some things like this — just look at China,” Lukin told VOA. “I think Russia might follow the same pattern in some ways.”   Lukin refused to speculate about how exactly Russia may support North Korea’s weapons programs, but he acknowledged that Russia “seems to be the only major power which can provide some stuff which can make North Korea feel safe.”   Lukin said it is impossible to know whether expanded Russia-North Korea cooperation will outlast the Ukraine war, but he hinted that longer-term interests were at play.   “I think it’s fair to call the relationship between Russia and [North Korea] a de facto alignment,” Lukin said. “We don’t know yet whether this alignment will transition to a real alliance or not, but I wouldn't rule it out.”  

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CAIRO — Sudan's army said on Friday it had killed Ali Yagoub Gibril, a senior commander for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who was under U.S. sanctions, during a battle in the besieged north Darfur city of al-Fashir. There was no immediate comment from the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Gibril was a leading commander for the RSF in al-Fashir, the last major city in the Darfur region of Sudan that the paramilitary force does not control. The army said in a statement Yacoub was killed as an RSF attack was thwarted early Friday by its troops and allied "joint forces" fighting alongside it — a reference to non-Arab former rebel groups from Darfur that are aligned with the army. The RSF has been besieging al-Fashir, a city of 1.8 million people, for weeks, and top United Nations officials have warned that the worsening conflict there could trigger widespread intercommunal violence. The U.N. Security Council called Thursday for a halt to the siege. War between the army and the RSF erupted over conditions for a transition to democracy in mid-April last year in the capital Khartoum, soon spreading to other parts of the country. The conflict has led to the world's largest displacement crisis, renewed ethnic violence in Darfur blamed on the RSF and its allies, and a sharp increase in extreme hunger.