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GENEVA — The World Health Organization warns that millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are facing a health and humanitarian crisis because of escalating conflict and violence, mainly in the eastern part of the country in recent months. The agency said the surge in violence by armed groups, principally Rwandan-backed M23 Tutsi-led rebels, an accusation denied by the Rwandan government, is leading to “mass displacement, widespread disease, gender-based violence and severe mental trauma.” Dr. Adelheid Marschang, a WHO senior emergency officer, told journalists in Geneva Friday, “The DRC now has the highest number of people in need of humanitarian aid in the entire world, with 25.4 million affected.” She said the DRC “remains one of the most underfunded crises,” which hampers the ability of people to receive the relief supplies and care needed to protect them from infectious diseases, hunger, and sexual and gender-based violence. The United Nations’ $2.6 billion Humanitarian Response Plan, which aims to assist 8.7 million people in the DRC in 2024, is only 16% funded. Marschang said the WHO has received just $6.3 million of the $30 million it requires, at a minimum, until the end of the year “as the situation is expected to get worse.” “Mass movements of people overwhelm water and sanitation systems and bring an additional burden on the population’s scarce resources,” she said. “As a result, people are facing outbreaks of cholera, measles, meningitis, mpox and plague, all exacerbated by severe flooding and landslides affecting some parts of the country.” In the first half of this year, the WHO has reported more than 20,000 cases of cholera, including 274 deaths, most in North Kivu province, and 65,415 cases of measles, including 1,523 deaths. “The actual numbers are likely to be higher due to limited disease surveillance and data reporting,” Marschang said. She said armed conflict and mass displacement, compounded by widespread floods, were driving hunger and malnutrition to new heights, “by forcing families to leave their farms, leave their crops, leave everything they have to move wherever it is safe.” The latest IPC Chronic Food Insecurity report finds that about 40% of the DRC’s population — 40.8 million people — “face serious food shortages, with 15.7 million facing severe food insecurity and higher risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases.” Marschang said 1 million children out of 6.9 million are malnourished and at risk of becoming severely acutely malnourished if they do not receive specialized therapeutic treatment. She explained that children with this condition have a weakened immune system, which makes them susceptible to deadly infectious diseases. Severe acute malnutrition also has serious cognitive consequences for children “harming their prospects in life.” During a media briefing earlier this week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, warned of the global health threat posed by mpox, with 26 countries reporting nearly 98,000 cases to the WHO. Noting that the DRC was in the crosshairs of a growing epidemic, he said, “The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shows no sign of slowing, with more than 11,000 cases reported this year, and 445 deaths, with children the most affected.” Mpox, a viral disease, spreads through close contact with an infected person through contaminated materials, or with infected animals. Last month, scientists warned of a dangerous new strain of mpox in South Kivu, which could spread widely in overcrowded camps in and around Goma. “It is a reason for concern,” Marschang said, adding that two camps in North Kivu province are infected with the virus. “If we consider that we have military activities around those camps and some camps were actually targeted this year, I think it illustrates the increasing risk for this disease to spread and also the difficulties of containing it if security is not addressed,” she said. The U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO began winding down its operations in South Kivu in January. Marschang warned that “could create a security vacuum.” “This could throw us further into a situation of increasing numbers of displaced, of victims, of violence,” she said, “with the whole vicious cycle just continuing.”

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistan said Saturday that a newly secured multibillion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund would help improve the cash-starved country’s macroeconomic stability. The official reaction came hours after the Washington-based global lender announced its preliminary agreement with Islamabad for a “37-month” loan of about $7 billion under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility arrangement. “This agreement is subject to approval by the IMF’s executive board and the timely confirmation of necessary financing assurances from Pakistan’s development and bilateral partners,” stated Friday’s announcement by the IMF. It did not mention a date for board action, which typically is a formality before the disbursement of funds. “The new program aims to support the authorities’ efforts to cement macroeconomic stability and create conditions for a stronger, more inclusive and resilient growth,” said the IMF statement. On Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif shared the news while meeting with his finance team and praised them for negotiating the staff-level agreement. “The IMF [executive] board will now convene its meeting and will also approve it, God willing,” Sharif said in his televised remarks at a meeting of top finance ministry officials. He emphasized the importance of timely implementation of economic reforms and structural changes "to improve our macroeconomic indicators ... because only then can this be the final IMF program in the country's history.”  Pakistan's fiscal year, which started July 1, will see roughly $25 billion in external debt payments, a significantly higher amount than its current level of foreign exchange reserves. Sharif's coalition government has implemented several unpopular reforms — such as imposing unprecedentedly high taxes and raising energy costs — to meet IMF requirements and secure the loan, triggering strong public opposition. Inflation in Pakistan declined from 28% in January to 12% last month, but experts say the rate is still the highest in Asia. Since gaining independence in 1947, Pakistan has received 23 bailout packages from the IMF, the most of any country. Critics blame chronic financial mismanagement, rampant corruption and repeated military-led dictatorial rules for hindering economic progress in the South Asian nation of more than 240 million people. “The authorities have also committed to advance anti-corruption as well as governance and transparency reforms, and gradually liberalize trade policy,” Friday’s IMF statement quoted its mission chief to Pakistan, Nathan Porter, as saying. Pakistan’s finance minister, Muhammad Aurangzeb, has stated that the new IMF loan would unlock investments from other international financial institutions and friendly countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “Pakistan owes about $8.4 billion to the IMF, to be repaid over the next 3-4 years. The bailout package of $7 billion is less than this amount. There is nothing to celebrate,” Yousuf Nazar, a leading economic commentator and former Citigroup executive, wrote Saturday on social media platform X while commenting on the new IMF deal.

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Toronto, Canada — Canada says it is going shopping for 12 conventionally powered submarines capable of operating under the Arctic ice to enhance maritime security in a region that is fast gaining strategic significance in the face of climate change. The purchase is expected to help ease mounting pressure on Ottawa — one of the lowest-spending NATO members — to meet the alliance’s commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense. "As the country with the longest coastline in the world, Canada needs a new fleet of submarines," Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said in a statement Wednesday as NATO leaders were meeting in Washington. The ministry said it has begun meeting with manufacturers and will formally invite bids for the sale in the fall. “Canada’s key submarine capability requirements will be stealth, lethality, persistence and Arctic deployability — meaning that the submarine must have extended range and endurance,” the statement said. “Canada’s new fleet will need to provide a unique combination of these requirements to ensure that Canada can detect, track, deter and, if necessary, defeat adversaries in all three of Canada’s oceans while contributing meaningfully alongside allies and enabling the government of Canada to deploy this fleet abroad in support of our partners and allies.” A day later in Washington, Canada, the United States and Finland issued a joint statement announcing an agreement to build icebreakers for the Arctic region. The pact calls for enhanced information sharing on polar icebreaker production, allowing for workers and experts from each country to train in shipyards across all three, and promoting to allies the purchase of polar icebreakers from American, Finnish or Canadian shipyards for their own needs, The Associated Press reported. The AP quoted Daleep Singh, the White House deputy national security adviser for international economics, saying the agreement would demonstrate to Russia and China that the U.S. and allies will “doggedly pursue collaboration on industrial policy to increase our competitive edge.” Singh noted that the U.S. has two icebreakers, and both are nearing the end of their usable life. Finland has 12 icebreakers and Canada has nine, while Russia has 36, according to U.S. Coast Guard data. The same day in Washington, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government had signed “a trilateral letter of intent with Germany and Norway to establish a strategic partnership aimed at strengthening maritime security cooperation in the North Atlantic in support of NATO’s deterrence and defense.” Trudeau also said for the first time that Canada expects to reach NATO’s 2% of GDP spending target by 2032. Canada also pledged $367 million in new military aid to Ukraine ahead of a meeting Wednesday between Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The commitments come in the face of mounting pressure for Canada to spend more on defense. A founding member of NATO, it is the alliance’s fifth-lowest spending member relative to GDP and until this week had pledged only to spend 1.76% of GDP by the 2029-30 budget year. In a speech Monday, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson called Canada's level of defense spending "shameful." Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell posted, "It's time for our northern ally to invest seriously." NATO allies first agreed to the 2% defense spending threshold in 2006 and reaffirmed it in 2014 and 2023. This year, 23 of the 32 member states will meet or exceed that target. Several nations have been stepping up their military and commercial capabilities in the Arctic as the receding ice pack makes navigation and petrochemical exploration in the Arctic Ocean more practicable. A sea route across Russia’s Arctic coastline promises to provide a shorter sea route between China and Europe. Despite China's distance from the Arctic Ocean, Beijing has dubbed itself a "near-Arctic country" to try to stake a bigger claim in the region. VOA’s Zhang Zhenyu wrote this article and Adrianna Zhang contributed.

KYIV, Ukraine — An oil depot caught fire in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region Saturday following a Ukrainian drone attack in the early hours, local officials said, in the latest long-range strike by Kyiv’s forces on a border region. Ukraine has in recent months stepped up aerial assaults on Russian soil, targeting refineries and oil terminals in an effort to slow down the Kremlin’s war machine. Moscow’s army is pressing hard along the front line in eastern Ukraine, where a shortage of troops and ammunition in the third year of war has made defenders vulnerable. Rostov regional Governor Vasily Golubev said a drone attack had caused a blaze spanning 200 square meters (2,100 square feet), but there were no casualties. Some five hours after he reported the fire on Telegram, Golubev said the fire had been extinguished. In addition to two drones being intercepted over the Rostov region, Russian air defense systems overnight destroyed two drones over the country’s western Kursk and Belgorod regions, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Saturday. Ukraine’s air defenses, meanwhile, intercepted four of the five drones launched by Russia overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said Saturday morning. Mykola Oleschuk, commander of Ukraine’s Air Forces, said the fifth drone left Ukrainian airspace in the direction of Belarus. In other developments, Vadym Filashkin, the Ukrainian governor of the partly occupied eastern Donetsk region, said Saturday that Russian attacks on Friday killed six people and wounded a further 22. Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of the Kherson region that is also partly occupied, said Saturday that one person had been killed and six wounded as a result of Russian shelling over the previous day.

Taipei, Taiwan — China says the number of foreigners entering the country in the first half of 2024 leaped by more than 150%, a huge increase for the world’s second-largest economy as it continues to recover from the COVID pandemic. Although China’s state-run media touted the country's expanded visa-free policy as a key contributing factor, the numbers released last week tell only part of the story. The number of foreigners traveling to the country is a third of what it was in 2019. According to Chinese government statistics, 287 million people entered and left China between January and June of this year. Of those, 29.2 million were foreigners — about 10% of the total — and just 8.5 million used visa-free entry. In 2019, nearly 98 million foreign visitors entered and left China. When asked about the increase at a press conference earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said he was glad to see travel to China was becoming more popular and talked up the benefits of expanded visa-free travel. Late last year, China extended visa-free travel for up to 15 days to a dozen European countries. “As more and more countries benefit from the visa-free policy and as China adopts more measures to ease cross-border travel, ‘on-a-whim travel’ to China is becoming a reality,” Lin said. He also said the government expects more foreigners to travel to the country in the second half of the year. Tourism experts and observers, however, say that China's grim political atmosphere, post-pandemic safety concerns and the high cost of long-distance travel are still obstacles for foreign tourists hoping to visit the country. A German man who has lived in Shanghai for many years and did not want to be named in order to speak more freely with VOA said that since the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s international image has declined. “Even if European travelers are allowed to enter China without a visa, they may not be enthusiastic enough to do so,” he said. Tang, a Taiwanese tourism scholar who didn't want to be identified because of frequent travel to China, told VOA that because inbound statistics do not distinguish between tourism and business travel, government numbers can be misleading. He said travelers from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan — who account for more than 40% of visitors — are mostly business travelers who would come to China regardless of the visa-free policy. Tang also said that high air ticket prices — brought on by pilot shortages, the failure to reinstate some popular routes and a general imbalance between supply and demand — are also hampering the recovery of long-distance tourism. In a further effort to boost tourism, China expanded the 15-day visa-free entry to travelers from New Zealand and Australia starting on July 1. China also has a 144-hour transit visa-free policy for 54 countries. However, Tang said China's visa-free policies are unlikely to have much of an impact, especially for U.S. and European travelers. To Europeans and Americans, he said, "China has the appeal of a mysterious and ancient country.”  But as far as that audience is concerned, he said, "the pandemic started in China. Have the concerns over China's tourism safety and health been addressed? That's the point." Lan, a Taipei-based overseas representative of a U.S. state-level tourism bureau who did not want to reveal her identity because she is not authorized to speak on the topic, said that while Chinese culture attracts foreign tourists, China's political atmosphere has long been a key factor that keeps foreigners away. "China has a good tourism environment, but in general, foreigners are less likely to agree with its politics," she said. Lan said that given political tensions between the United States and China, tourism between the two countries has reached a freezing point. In August 2023, China ended its stringent pandemic restrictions on group tours to most countries. The U.S. State Department’s current travel advisory for China is set at level three or “reconsider travel,” just one below its level four “do not travel” warning. Lan said that right now, Americans are reluctant to visit China and Chinese tourists are staying away from the U.S. resorts where they used to flock. VOA’s Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

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Quito, Ecuador — An Ecuadorian court sentenced a gang member to nearly 35 years in prison Friday for plotting and ordering from his cell the murder of a journalist turned anti-corruption presidential candidate. Five people were handed hefty prison sentences for their role in the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot dead last year just before the country's election. Gang member Carlos Angulo, 31, was given 34 years and eight months in prison for having planned and ordered the murder, according to the sentence read out in court. Another defendant, Laura Castillo, received the same for providing weapons, money, vehicles and motorcycles to the Colombian hitmen who fatally shot Villavicencio on August 9, 2023, as he was leaving a rally in Quito. Villavicencio, a former investigative journalist who vowed to combat political corruption and drug trafficking, was killed days before the first round of voting in the presidential election. Six Colombian men were arrested hours after the shooting, but all of them were killed while in prison two months later. Seven additional suspects were later arrested, one of whom died; another was acquitted. The remaining five went on trial. Accomplices Erick Ramirez, Victor Flores and Alexandra Chimbo were each handed a 12-year prison term. According to prosecutors, Flores handled security for the motorcycle on which the hitman who shot Villavicencio was traveling, while Chimbo was in charge of alerting the gunmen about the candidate's departure. Ramirez did logistics work. Some of the suspects were accused of ties to Los Lobos, one of the main gangs in Ecuador fighting for control of the drug trade that has led to a spike in violence in recent years within the small South American country. 'Jail for cowardly murderers' A witness who testified during the trial claimed there was a $200,000 bounty on Villavicencio's head due to his campaign against gangs and corruption. The witness also accused the suspects of working for people tied to the administration of former Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who is in exile after he was convicted on corruption charges in 2020. The former president, who lives in Belgium, denies any link to the assassination. "We need to know the whole truth and make sure this is not repeated again," Amanda Villavicencio, daughter of the assassinated candidate, wrote on the social media platform X. Outside the court, relatives and supporters chanting slogans held up posters on which was written "jail for cowardly murderers" and pictures of Villavicencio. Villavicencio's work as an investigative journalist exposed high-ranking officials, including Correa's allies. Since 2023 nearly a dozen politicians have been assassinated in Ecuador. The once-peaceful nation is enduring an unprecedented wave of violence linked to narcotics trafficking. With ports on the Pacific, the country serves as a transit point for cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru and sent to the United States and Europe. The homicide rate in Ecuador, a country of about 17 million people, soared from 6 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to 47 per 100,000 last year.

CAIRO — Israeli Army Radio said on Saturday its military had targeted Hamas' military chief in a strike on Khan Younis in Gaza, in a strike that the enclave's Health Ministry said killed at least 20 Palestinians. Army Radio said it was unclear whether Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif was killed. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report. The Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement that Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis received 20 bodies and 90 wounded. The statement didn't give a final figure of victims moved to other medical facilities. The Hamas-run media office said at least 100 people were killed and wounded, including members of the Civil Emergency Service. A senior Hamas official did not confirm whether Deif had been present. "The Israeli allegations are nonsense, and they aim to justify the horrifying massacre. All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence," Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, according to Israeli tallies. Israel has retaliated by military action in Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, medical authorities in Gaza say.

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NEW DELHI — When the son of Asia’s richest man gets married, the celebrations are expected to be lavish. But the breathtaking scale of the festivities held for the youngest son of Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani has become the talk of the country. Anant Ambani tied the knot with his fiancée, Radhika Merchant, Friday in Mumbai at a star-studded event where the guests included reality TV star, Kim Kardashian, actors Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra and John Cena, former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, as well as the who’s who of India from Bollywood stars and politicians to top businessmen. The nuptials marked neither the start nor the end of the extravaganza. More parties are in store for the weekend. They will cap monthslong prewedding bashes where international pop stars Justin Bieber and Rihanna have performed, and India’s most popular actors have shaken a leg. In India, where weddings have long been a display of status and wealth, the Ambani gala has surpassed anything the country has seen so far. For some it marked the arrival of Indian billionaires and their growing global clout. Others saw the glitzy celebrations as shining a light on the country’s growing wealth inequalities. Mukesh Ambani’s wealth is estimated at $124 billion, according to Forbes. The family’s sprawling business empire, Reliance Industries, spans interests in petrochemicals and oil and gas to telecoms and retail. "If you look at it, in the past, it was the great Indian maharajas who lived and celebrated on this scale. The maharajas of this new era in India are really the billionaires," Harish Bijoor, a brand consultant, told VOA in a phone interview. "When guests come from across continents, it shows not just that they know how to do it in style, but also the influence they command," he added. Declaring the wedding a public event, Mumbai police blocked key roads around the Ambani-owned Jio Convention Center where ceremonies began last Friday. Many offices in the busy business hub where it is situated declared work-from-home for their staff. The celebrations have set off a social media frenzy, with millions of Indians transfixed by the events. They have closely scrutinized the grand, sequin-studded outfits and stunning jewelry that included outsized emeralds and diamonds worn by the Ambani family. There has been huge speculation around how much the parties cost. The wedding invitations were made of silver and gold, according to local media reports. While the events were private, leaked videos have made the rounds on social media. Reliance's official Facebook page has also shared some video clips of dance performances and photographs of the events. The list of VIP’s who have joined in the celebrations is long. In March, at a three-day prewedding event in Ambani’s ancestral hometown of Jamnagar, among the 1,200 guests were tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and a string of Bollywood stars. One hundred chefs whipped up some 500 dishes. Rihanna performed for the guests. In May, the Ambanis went on a four-day European cruise on a chartered luxury ship that began in the Sicilian city of Palermo and ended in Rome. Videos showed performances on the liner by the Backstreet Boys, Pitbull and David Guetta and singer Katy Perry belting out numbers at a masquerade ball in Cannes. In Indian living rooms, where cricket, Bollywood and politics usually hog the conversation, the Ambani wedding has become the hot topic of conversation, with opinion divided on whether the celebrations are too ostentatious or the billionaire family had the right to spend their money as they want in a country where the big fat Indian wedding is the norm for even the middle class. India’s wedding industry is worth $130 billion, nearly double that of the United States, according to a report by Jefferies, a global investment firm. "Why should the Ambanis make it a small affair? If they have the money, then why should they not splash on their wedding when the average Indian also does the same?" Bindu Sachthey, a New Delhi resident told VOA. "I don’t agree with people who criticize or troll them for this gala affair. I am enjoying having a peek into how the ultrarich celebrate." As the Ambani fortunes have grown in recent decades, the family has scaled up its lifestyle. Their Mumbai residence, built in 2010, is a 27-story private apartment building, with three helipads, a private movie theater and a hanging garden. Some said the ostentatious celebrations made them uncomfortable in a country where millionaires and billionaires are multiplying as the economy grows, but the per capita annual income is still about $2,700. India has 200 billionaires, worth around $1trillion in wealth, nearly a quarter of the country’s 2023 gross domestic product, according to Forbes. "I am very ambivalent about these celebrations. I would rather Indian billionaires do more for philanthropy and use their wealth for society rather than spend in this manner," said author Gurcharan Das, author and former top business executive told VOA. "But if some of the influential and rich foreign guests who came here decide that this is the time to invest in a rising India, I would say brilliant, the wedding would have served a purpose." 

SYDNEY — Russia has accused Australia of inciting "anti-Russian paranoia" for charging a Russian-born couple with espionage, the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported Saturday. The married couple, who hold Australian citizenship, were arrested on charges of working to access material related to Australia's national security, though no significant compromise had been identified, the Australian Federal Police said on Friday. The woman, 40, an information systems technician in the Australian Army, traveled to Russia and instructed her husband in Australia to log into her official account to access defense materials, police said. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking to reporters on Friday, warned that "people will be held to account who interfere with our national interests and that's precisely what these arrests represent." Russia's embassy in the capital, Canberra, said a press conference by Australian authorities on Friday about the arrests "was clearly intended to launch another wave of anti-Russian paranoia in Australia," the ABC said, citing an embassy statement. The embassy requested written information from the Australian authorities on the couple's situation and was considering "appropriate measures of consular assistance," the ABC reported. The embassy did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. On Friday, Igor and Kira Korolev appeared in the magistrate's court in Brisbane, court filings show, charged with one count each of preparing for an espionage offense, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail. The charges are the first under laws introduced in 2018. They did not apply for bail and were remanded in custody until September 20 when they are next due to appear, media reported. Australia, one of the largest non-NATO contributors to the West's support for Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion, announced a A$250 million ($170 million) military aid package for Kyiv on Thursday at a NATO summit in Washington. Canberra has been supplying defense equipment to Kyiv, banned exports of aluminum ores to Russia and sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities.

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seoul, south korea — North Korea has denounced a declaration at a recent NATO summit that condemned Pyongyang's weapons exports to Russia, calling the document "illegal," state media said Saturday. In a joint declaration this week, NATO leaders condemned North Korea for "fueling Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," by "providing direct military support" to Moscow. NATO leaders also voiced "profound concern" over China's industrial support to Russia. Pyongyang has repeatedly denied allegations that it is shipping weapons to Moscow, but in June leader Kim Jong Un and Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement that included a pledge to come to each other's military aid if attacked. Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday that the foreign ministry "most strongly denounces and rejects" the NATO declaration. Citing a ministry spokesman, the agency said the declaration "incites new Cold War and military confrontation on a global scale," and requires "a new force and mode of counteraction." On the sidelines of the NATO summit, Seoul and Washington this week also signed guidelines on an integrated system of deterrence for the Korean peninsula to counter North Korea's nuclear and military threats. South Korea's presidential office said Seoul and Washington will carry out joint military drills to help implement the newly announced guidelines, which formalize the deployment of U.S. nuclear assets on and around the Korean peninsula to deter and respond to potential nuclear attacks by Pyongyang. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with Pyongyang ramping up weapons testing as it draws closer to Russia. After Pyongyang sent multiple barrages of trash-carrying balloons across the border, Seoul last month fully suspended a tension-reducing military deal and resumed live-fire drills on border islands and by the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean peninsula.

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MIAMI — The Biden administration on Thursday sanctioned a Venezuelan gang allegedly behind a spree of kidnappings, extortion and other violent crimes tied to migrants that have spread across Latin America and the United States. The U.S. also offered a $12 million reward for the arrest of three leaders of Tren de Aragua, which now joins the MS-13 gang from El Salvador and the Mafia-styled Camorra from Italy on a list of transnational criminal organizations banned from doing business in the U.S. "Tren de Aragua poses a deadly criminal threat across the region," the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement, adding that it often preys on vulnerable populations such as migrant women and girls for sex trafficking. "When victims seek to escape this exploitation, Tren de Aragua members often kill them and publicize their deaths as a threat to others," the statement added. The Tren de Aragua traces its origins to more than a decade ago, to an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua where a number of hardened criminals were held. But it has expanded in recent years as millions of desperate Venezuelans fled President Nicolás Maduro's rule and migrated to other parts of Latin America or the U.S. Authorities in countries such as Colombia, Peru and Ecuador — with large populations of Venezuelan migrants — have accused the group of being behind a spree of violent crimes in a region that has long had some of the highest murder rates in the world. Initially its focus was exploiting Venezuelan migrants through loan sharking, human trafficking and the smuggling of contraband goods to and from Venezuela. But as the Venezuelan diaspora has settled more permanently abroad, it has joined — and sometimes clashed — with homegrown criminal syndicates engaged in drug trafficking, extortion of local businesses and murders for hire. Among the groups the Treasury Department said the gang has teamed up with is Primeiro Comando da Capital, a notorious organized crime group out of Brazil that has also been sanctioned by the U.S. Earlier this year, prosecutors in Chile blamed the gang, whose name means "train" in Spanish, for the killing of a Venezuelan army official who had sought refuge in that country after partaking in a failed plot to overthrow Maduro. "The Tren de Aragua is not a vertically integrated criminal structure, but rather a federation of different gangs," said Jeremy McDermott, the Colombia-based co-director of InSight Crime, which this month published a report on the gang's expansion. "It has now become a franchise name for Venezuelan criminal structures operating in the region, with weakening coherence now that its home prison base is no more," McDermott said. The group is led by Hector Guerrero, who was jailed years ago for killing a police officer, according to InSight Crime. Guerrero, better known by his alias El Nino, or Spanish for "the boy," later escaped and then was recaptured in 2013, returning to the prison in Aragua where the criminal enterprise was then headquartered. He fled prison again more recently, as Venezuelan authorities tried to reassert control over its prison population. His current whereabouts are unknown but the U.S. State Department, which has offered up to $12 million for his arrest and that of two other gang leaders, said it believes Guerrero and Giovanny San Vicente, another target of the U.S. bounty, are believed to be living in Colombia. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who co-chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has warned that if left unchecked, the Tren de Aragua could also start terrorizing American cities. Among the nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants that have crossed into the U.S. in recent years are suspected gang members tied to police shootings, human trafficking and other crimes although there's no evidence that the gang has set up an organizational structure in the U.S., McDermott said. "Now we are seeing evidence that they have made it into the United States. Every single day, we're seeing reports from Chicago, South Florida, and New York that these gang members are here," Rubio said at a Senate hearing in April. The White House, in a statement on Thursday, said the Department of Homeland Security has implemented enhanced screening to vet and better identify known or suspected gang members, including Tren de Aragua members. Maduro's government has accused opponents of exaggerating the reach of Tren de Aragua to tarnish its reputation and said that authorities dismantled the group last year when security forces retook control of the prison that had served as its hub of illicit activity. Hours after the U.S. sanctioned the gang, the government announced that a brother of the gang's leader, who was arrested in Barcelona earlier this year, arrived home pursuant to a Venezuelan extradition request to Spain. Attorney General Tarek William Saab said that Gerso Guerrero, who was arrested earlier this year in Barcelona, faces up to 30 years in prison — the maximum in Venezuela — on multiple criminal charges including extortion, money laundering, weapons trafficking and terrorism.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A World War I veteran is the first person identified from graves filled with more than a hundred victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that devastated the city's Black community, the mayor said Friday. Using DNA from descendants of his brothers, the remains of C.L. Daniel from Georgia were identified by Intermountain Forensics, said Mayor G.T. Bynum and officials from the lab. He was in his 20s when he was killed. "This is one family who gets to give a member of their family that they lost a proper burial, after not knowing where they were for over a century," Bynum said. A white mob massacred as many as many as 300 Black people over the span of two days in 1921, a long-suppressed episode of racial violence that destroyed a thriving community known as Black Wall Street and ended with thousands of Black residents forced into internment camps overseen by the National Guard. Brenda Nails-Alford, a descendant of massacre survivors and a member of the committee overseeing the search for victims, said the identification brought her to tears. "This is an awesome day, a day that has taken forever to come to fruition," Nails-Alford said. More than 120 graves were found during searches that began in 2020, with forensic analysis and DNA collected from about 30 sets of remains. Daniel's remains are the first from those graves to be linked directly to the massacre. The breakthrough for identifying Daniel came when investigators found a 1936 letter from his mother's attorney seeking veteran's benefits. Alison Wilde, a forensic scientist with Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Forensics, said the letter provided by the National Archives convinced investigators that Daniel was killed in the massacre. No members of Daniel's family, many of whom don't know each other, attended the news conference announcing the identification, which was made earlier this week, Wilde said. "I think it's shocking news, to say the least" for the family, Wilde said. "We know we've brought a lot into their lives." The massacre began when a white mob, including some deputized by authorities, looted and burned Tulsa's Greenwood District. More than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches were destroyed from May 31-June 1. Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield said Daniel's remains were fragmented and a cause of death could not be determined. "We didn't see any sign of gunshot wounds, but if the bullet doesn't hit bone or isn't retained within the body, how would we detect it?" Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said the remains that were exhumed, including Daniel, were found in simple wooden boxes — and Daniel's was too small for him. "They had to bend his legs somewhat at the knee in order to get him to fit," Stackelbeck said. "His head and his feet both touched either end of the casket." Stackelbeck said investigators were searching for simple caskets because they were described in newspaper articles at the time, death certificates, and funeral home records as the type used for burials of massacre victims. Bynum said the next search for victims will begin July 22. "We'll continue the search until we find everybody that we can," Bynum said. A lawsuit by the two known living survivors of the massacre was dismissed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June. Attorneys for the two, Viola Fletcher, 110, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, 109, are asking the court to reconsider the decision. Attorneys are also asking the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into the massacre under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, which allows for the reopening of cold cases of violent crimes against Black people committed before 1970.