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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A company has installed computerized vending machines to sell ammunition in grocery stores in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, allowing patrons to pick up bullets along with a gallon of milk. American Rounds said their machines use an identification scanner and facial recognition software to verify the purchaser's age and are as "quick and easy" to use as a computer tablet. But advocates worry that selling bullets out of vending machines will lead to more shootings in the U.S., where gun violence killed at least 33 people on Independence Day alone. The company maintains the age-verification technology means that the transactions are as secure, or more secure, than online sales, which may not require the purchaser to submit proof of age, or at retail stores, where there is a risk of shoplifting. "I'm very thankful for those who are taking the time to get to know us and not just making assumptions about what we're about," CEO Grant Magers said. "We are very pro-Second Amendment, but we are for responsible gun ownership, and we hope we're improving the environment for the community." There have been 15 mass killings involving a firearm so far in 2024, compared to 39 in 2023, according to a database maintained in a partnership of The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. "Innovations that make ammunition sales more secure via facial recognition, age verification, and the tracking of serial sales are promising safety measures that belong in gun stores, not in the place where you buy your kids milk," said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. "In a country awash in guns and ammo, where guns are the leading cause of deaths for kids, we don't need to further normalize the sale and promotion of these products." Magers said grocery stores and others approached the Texas-based company, which began in 2023, about the idea of selling ammunition through automated technology. The company has one machine in Alabama, four in Oklahoma and one in Texas, with plans for another in Texas and one in Colorado in the coming weeks, he said. "People I think got shocked when they thought about the idea of selling ammo at a grocery store," Magers said. "But as we explained, how is that any different than Walmart?" Federal law requires a person to be 18 to buy shotgun and rifle ammunition and 21 to buy handgun ammunition. Magers said their machines require a purchaser to be at least 21. The machine works by requiring a customer to scan their driver's license to validate that they are age 21 or older. The scan also checks that it is a valid license, he said. That is followed by a facial recognition scan to verify "you are who you are saying you are as a consumer," he said. "At that point you can complete your transaction of your product and you're off and going," he said. "The whole experience takes a minute and a half once you are familiar with the machine." The vending machine is another method of sale, joining retail stores and online retailers. A March report by Everytown for Gun Safety found that several major online ammunition retailers did not appear to verify their customers' ages, despite requirements. Last year, an online retailer settled a lawsuit brought by families of those killed and injured in a 2018 Texas high school shooting. The families said the 17-year-old shooter was able to buy ammunition from the retailer who failed to verify his age. Vending machines for bullets or other age-restricted materials is not an entirely new idea. Companies have developed similar technology to sell alcoholic beverages. A company has marketed automated kiosks to sell cannabis products in dispensaries in states where marijuana is legal. A Pennsylvania police officer created a company about 12 years ago that places bullet-vending machines in private gun clubs and ranges as a convenience for patrons. Those machines do not have the age verification mechanism but are only placed in locations with an age requirement to enter, Master Ammo owner Sam Piccinini said. Piccinini spoke with a company years ago about incorporating the artificial intelligence technology to verify a purchaser's age and identity, but at the time it was cost-prohibitive, he said. For American Rounds, one machine had to be removed from a site in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, because of disappointing sales, Magers said. Magers said much of the early interest for the machines has been in rural communities where there may be few retailers that sell ammunition. The American Rounds machines are in Super C Mart and Fresh Value grocery stores in small cities, including Pell City, Alabama, which has a population over 13,600, and Noble, Oklahoma, where nearly 7,600 people live. "Someone in that community might have to drive an hour or an hour and a half to get supplied if they want to go hunting, for instance," Margers said. "Our grocery stores, they wanted to be able to offer their customer another category that they felt like would be popular."

WENZHOU, China — At a factory in Zhejiang province on China's eastern coast, two mounds of discarded cotton clothing and bed linens, loosely separated into dark and light colors, pile up on a workroom floor. Jacket sleeves, collars and brand labels protrude from the stacks as workers feed the garments into shredding machines. It's the first stage of a new life for the textiles, part of a recycling effort at the Wenzhou Tiancheng Textile Company, one of the largest cotton recycling plants in China. Textile waste is an urgent global problem, with only 12% recycled worldwide, according to fashion sustainability nonprofit Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Even less — only 1% — are castoff clothes recycled into new garments; the majority is used for low-value items like insulation or mattress stuffing. Nowhere is the problem more pressing than in China, the world's largest textile producer and consumer, where more than 26 million tons of clothes are thrown away each year, according to government statistics. Most of it ends up in landfills. And factories like this one are barely making a dent in a country whose clothing industry is dominated by "fast fashion" — cheap clothes made from unrecyclable synthetics, not cotton. Produced from petrochemicals that contribute to climate change, air and water pollution, synthetics account for 70% of domestic clothing sales in China. China's footprint is worldwide: E-commerce juggernaut brands Shein and Temu make the country one of the world's largest producers of cheap fashion, selling in more than 150 countries. To achieve a game-changing impact, what fashion expert Shaway Yeh calls "circular sustainability" is needed among major Chinese clothing brands so waste is avoided entirely. "You need to start it from recyclable fibers and then all these waste textiles will be put into use again," she said. But that is an elusive goal: Only about 20% of China's textiles are recycled, according to the Chinese government — and almost all of that is cotton. Chinese cotton is not without a taint of its own, said Claudia Bennett of the nonprofit Human Rights Foundation. Much of it comes from forced labor in Xinjiang province by the country's ethnic Uyghur minority. "One in five cotton garments globally is linked to Uyghur forced labor," Bennett said. In May, the U.S. blocked imports from 26 Chinese cotton traders and warehouses to avoid goods made with Uyghur forced labor. But because the supply chain is so sketchy, Uyghur cotton is used in garments produced in other countries that don't bear the "made-in-China" label, Bennett said. "Many, many, many clothing brands are linked to Uyghur forced labor through the cotton," she said. They "hide behind the lack of transparency in the supply chain." While China is a global leader in the production of electric cars and electric-powered public transit and has set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, its efforts in promoting fashion sustainability and recycling textiles have taken a back seat. According to a report this year from independent fashion watchdog Remake assessing major clothing companies on their environmental, human rights and equitability practices, there's little accountability among the best-known brands. The group gave Shein, whose online marketplace groups about 6,000 Chinese clothing factories under its label, just 6 out of a possible 150 points. Temu scored zero. Also getting zero were U.S. label SKIMS, co-founded by Kim Kardashian, and low-price brand Fashion Nova. U.S. retailer Everlane was the highest-scorer at 40 points, with only half of those for sustainability practices. China's domestic policy doesn't help. Cotton recycled from used clothing is banned from being used to make new garments inside China. This rule was initially aimed at stamping out fly-by-night Chinese operations recycling dirty or otherwise contaminated material. But now it means the huge spools of tightly woven rope-like cotton yarn produced at the Wenzhou Tiancheng factory from used clothing can only be sold for export, mostly to Europe. Making matters worse, many Chinese consumers are unwilling to buy used items anyway, something the Wenzhou factory sales director, Kowen Tang, attributes to increasing household incomes. "They want to buy new clothes, the new stuff," he said of the stigma associated with buying used. Still, among younger Chinese, a growing awareness of sustainability has contributed to the emergence of fledgling "remade" clothing businesses. Thirty-year-old designer Da Bao founded Times Remake in 2019, a Shanghai-based brand that takes secondhand clothes and refashions them into new garments. At the company's work room in Shanghai, tailors work with secondhand denims and sweatshirts, stitching them into funky new fashions. The venture, which began with Da Bao and his father-in-law posting their one-off designs online, now has a flagship store in Shanghai's trendy Jing'an District that stocks their remade garments alongside vintage items, such as Levi's and Carhartt jackets. The designs are "a combination of the past style and current fashion aesthetic to create something unique," Bao said. Zhang Na has a fashion label, Reclothing Bank, that sells clothes, bags and other accessories made from materials such as plastic bottles, fishing nets and flour sacks. The items' labels have QR codes that show their composition, how they were made and the provenance of the materials. Zhang draws on well-established production methods, such as textile fibers made from pineapple leaf, a centuries-old tradition originating in the Philippines. "We can basically develop thousands of new fabrics and new materials," she said. Reclothing Bank began in 2010 to give "new life to old things," Zhang said of her store in a historic Shanghai alley with a mix of Western and Chinese architecture. A large used clothes deposit box sat outside the entrance. "Old items actually carry a lot of people's memories and emotions," she said. Zhang said she has seen sustainability consciousness grow since she opened her store, with core customers in their 20s and 30s. Bao Yang, a college student who dropped by the store on a visit to Shanghai, said she was surprised at the feel of the clothes. "I think it's amazing, because when I first entered the door, I heard that many of the clothes were actually made of shells or corn (husks), but when I touched the clothes in detail, I had absolutely no idea that they would have this very comfortable feel," she said. Still, she conceded that buying sustainable clothing is a hard sell. "People of my age are more addicted to fast fashion, or they do not think about the sustainability of clothes," she said. Recycled garments sold at stores like Reclothing Bank have a much higher price tag than fast-fashion brands due to their costly production methods. And therein lies the real problem, said Sheng Lu, professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware. "Studies repeatedly show consumers are not willing to pay higher for clothing made from recycled materials, and instead they actually expect a lower price because they see such clothing as made of secondhand stuff," he said. With higher costs in acquiring, sorting and processing used garments, he doesn't see sustainable fashion succeeding on a wide scale in China, where clothes are so cheap to make. "Companies do not have the financial incentive," he said. For real change there needs to be "more clear signals from the very top," he added, referring to government targets like the ones that propelled China's EV industry. Still, in China "government can be a friend to any sector," Lu said, so if China's communist leaders see economic potential, it could trigger a policy shift that drives new investment in sustainable fashion. But for now, the plastic-wrapped cones of tightly wound cotton being loaded onto trucks outside the Wenzhou Tiancheng factory were all headed to overseas markets, far from where their recycling journey began. "Fast fashion definitely is not out of fashion" in China, Lu said.

NORTH CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Shalom Korai never knew his real name or his birthday. He was saved from the streets of a burning Warsaw neighborhood while he was a toddler during World War II, when the rest of his family was killed by Nazis in Poland.    He grew up and lived in Israel with no idea of his past. He never knew a hug from someone who shared his blood or his DNA — until Wednesday, when Korai walked off an airplane in the U.S. state of South Carolina and into the arms of Ann Meddin Hellman. Her grandfather was the brother of Korai's grandfather, making them second cousins.  It's a story that would have been impossible without modern DNA science and without a genetic test that Korai was given by a psychologist who studies children orphaned in the Holocaust.  Hellman's ancestors came to the United States while Korai's family stayed behind in Poland to run a family business. Decades later, they would be among the 6 million Jewish men, women and children systematically killed by the Germans in World War II.    "I feel like I've given somebody a new life. He's become my child. I have to protect him and take care of him," Hellman said, although she is a few years younger than Korai, who is about 83.  She beamed and gave Korai another hug as they waited for his luggage so they could start several days of parties with dozens of other relatives at Hellman's Charleston home.  Korai, who speaks mostly Hebrew, couldn't stop smiling even if he didn't quite understand the hubbub of camera crews and Southern hospitality swirling around him. He and Hellman spoke often since the DNA breakthrough, first in letters and later on video calls several times a week.    As Hellman waited at the end of the jetway, she nervously spoke to her brother and sister. "I can't wait to get my arms around him," she said.  What is known of Korai's story started with him alone. He was on a street in a burning Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1943 when a policeman scooped him up and took him to a convent. Nuns baptized him and started to raise him as a gentile with several other orphaned children.  Lena Kuchler-Silberman, a Jewish woman who was part of the resistance against the Nazis, heard of the children. She saved around 100 Jewish children, sometimes taking them in as she found them abandoned or alone or sometimes negotiating or paying to take them out of non-Jewish orphanages.  Korai was taken to a Jewish boarding school in Poland, then to France and eventually to Israel in 1949. He spent 35 years working on semi-trucks. Korai had three children and eight grandchildren. And he put out of his mind that he would never know his actual birthday, the name given to him at birth, how his father and mother met or what his grandfathers did for a living.  "You can't start searching for something you know nothing about," Korai said in Hebrew to the website for MyHeritage, the company whose DNA testing helped find his relatives.  MyHeritage offered Korai and other Holocaust orphans DNA testing in the summer of 2023. A few months later Hellman got a ping from a DNA sample she had given during her extensive research of her family tree. It was an unknown second cousin.  The name and other information was unfamiliar. On a hunch, she asked another cousin to test her DNA. It matched too. Hellman reached out to MyHeritage and requested a photo and other information. She remembers gasping when she saw Korai. He looked just like her brother.    "The picture gave it away," Hellman said.   The connection instantly fell into place. Hellman knew a branch of her family connected to her great uncle was killed during the Holocaust. Now she knew there was a survivor.  Hellman wasn't looking for anyone in particular when she took her DNA test, but sometimes wonderful surprises happen, said Daniel Horowitz, an expert genealogist at MyHeritage.  "All this family that he was always praying for came to him just like that," Horowitz said.    Some mysteries remain, thanks to the Nazi annihilation of people and many records of their existence. Hellman knows the name of Korai's aunt. "But I haven't been able to find his parents' names. That upsets me the most," she said.  Hellman has learned much about her cousin. He's shy and quiet. As Korai got off the plane Wednesday along with his travel companion and translator, Arie Bauer, he jokingly asked if he could stand behind Bauer. His friend told him to hug his family.  "It's slowly dawning on him," said Bauer. "He's getting used to, little by little, a brand new family he didn't know about."  It wasn't just Hellman at the airport. More than a dozen other relatives — Hellman's brother and sister, her husband and sons, a niece, sister-in-law and cousins were there to celebrate. Dozens more were gathered at Hellman's house for more parties and gatherings.  Korai smiled as each of his relatives hugged him. In quieter moments when they talked among themselves, he looked them over.  "He'll get to see himself in them in a way he has never gotten to see himself before," Hellman said. "And we get to give a family to someone who never thought one existed." 

SANTIAGO, Chile — The presidential residence of Gabriel Boric, the leftist millennial leader of Chile elected three years ago in the wake of public unrest over income inequality, shares a street in downtown Santiago with an overwhelmed homeless shelter. The sight of cardboard boxes and blankets strewn across sidewalks in Boric's bohemian neighborhood serves as a sharp reminder of his struggle to fulfill his promise to give Chileans "a better life." A pandemic-induced recession combined with a housing crunch and a major immigration influx have expanded Chile's homeless population like never before. Over the last four years, the rate of homelessness in one of South America's richest economies has jumped more than 30%, transforming the streets of a country that prides itself on its prosperity. "The resources allocated to combat homelessness have been reduced, and the homeless population has increased," said Rosario Carvajal, a city councilor in the capital, Santiago. Even in the "barrios altos" — the well-heeled areas that presidents before Boric called home — destitute families have increasingly turned benches into beds and trees into toilets. In the beachside tourist hub of Viña del Mar, huddles of improvised tents have overshadowed the trendy art scene. Chile said it has registered 21,126 homeless people this year, compared to 15,435 in 2020. Government figures rely on single-night snapshots by municipalities. Social workers put the real count around 40,000. Last month, the government announced that, for the first time, it would include the homeless in its national census. Aid workers say that a better number, however flawed, will better reflect the scope of the problem and the country's progress — or lack thereof — toward fixing it. "This should force the government to implement more effective social policies," said Andrés Millar, from Chilean charity Hogar de Cristo. The sheer visibility of so many homeless people in Chile — a country considered far wealthier and more stable than its neighbors — has pushed the problem up on the agenda. "There is a lot of pressure from the neighbors to recover the public spaces," said Carvajal. Chilean police, reviled by the left for their harsh handling of the mass 2019 protests, have taken to tearing down encampments, joining municipal workers in routinely removing rough sleepers from parks and plazas. "Police come and take everything, my tent, my blankets, my HIV medication," said 43-year-old Paris López who sleeps outside in downtown Santiago. She stays up all night, she said, fearing violence from police as much as assaults from criminal gangs that have recently gained a foothold in Chile. "It's dangerous," Victoria Azevedo, a homeless mother of two, said of life on the streets in Santiago — particularly amid a crime wave that has driven Chile's homicide rate up 50% since 2018. "If you are a woman and have children, it's worse." In recent years, Chile has seen a demographic shift in its homeless population. Although there won't be an official breakdown until the census comes out next year, experts say that the country's affordable housing crunch has pushed more women and children onto the streets. "Entire families have lost their resources to pay rent," said Ximena Torres, another advocate from Hogar de Cristo. Pandemic lockdowns wreaked hardship on Chile's economy while it was struggling to recover from the 2019 mass protests that cost the country at least $3 billion, Chile's national insurance organization estimated. Lavish pandemic aid — including a measure allowing Chileans to withdraw their pensions early — stoked inflation. The unemployment rate doubled to a record-breaking 13% from 2019 to 2020, making it difficult for many to pay rent. The central bank raised interest rates, lenders hiked the cost of loans and a housing crisis was born. Housing prices jumped 70% over the last decade, said economist Gonzalo Durán from SOL Foundation, a Chilean think tank. "I'm extremely broken inside," said Moka Valdés, bursting into tears as she tried to describe the shock of having landed on the street last November after losing her job. Migration on the rise Many families bouncing between Chile's tent camps are undocumented migrants lured to the country by its reputation as South America's most successful economy. Government data shows that nearly 1.6 million of Chile's 19 million inhabitants are registered migrants, up from 1.3 million in 2018. The number of undocumented migrants has also soared, from 16,000 in 2020 to a staggering 53,875 two years later, according to the Observatory of Responsible Migration, a Chilean watchdog. As the economy has slumped and public backlash against migrants intensified, Chile tightened visa requirements for Venezuelans — the largest group of recent arrivals. And last year President Boric deployed armed forces to the northern border with Peru, a key migration pass, to check migrants' documents and arrest smugglers. After fleeing Venezuela and finding life as a migrant intolerable in Colombia and then Ecuador, 34-year-old Karen Salazar dreamed of Chile. Via foot and pick-up truck, Salazar, her husband and their two small children braved freezing cold mountains, rough desert terrain and predatory smugglers, lured by Chile's reputation as a rare upwardly mobile nation in the region. They didn't find what they hoped for. At first, they lived in a flimsy tent encampment in northern Chile. Then they moved to Santiago, where they slept outside in a public park. "We know why we're in this situation, but to see the children like this is heart-breaking," Salazar said from the shelter on Boric's street, where she queues for free meals. As the crisis mounts, aid groups have intensified their pressure on the government. There are fewer than 200 homeless shelters nationwide, barely enough to accommodate 13% of Chile's current homeless population, said local advocate Rodrigo Ibarra Montero. Upon taking office in March 2022, Boric vowed to build 260,000 new government-sponsored houses during his four-year term. Given the scale of the problem, many fear that will not be enough. But the president hopes it will. "We are making steady progress," he insisted in a recent speech inaugurating a new public housing development in Santiago. "You should judge us by the end of our term."

MOUNT STORM, West Virginia — Down a long gravel road, tucked into the hills in West Virginia, is a low-slung building where researchers are extracting essential elements from an old coal mine that they hope will strengthen the nation's energy future. They aren't mining the coal that powered the steel mills and locomotives that helped industrialize America — and that is blamed for contributing to global warming. Rather, researchers are finding that groundwater pouring out of this and other abandoned coal mines contains the rare earth elements and other valuable metals that are vital to making everything from electric vehicle motors to rechargeable batteries to fighter jets smaller, lighter or more powerful. The pilot project run by West Virginia University is now part of an intensifying worldwide race to develop a secure supply of the valuable metals and, with more federal funding, it could grow to a commercial scale enterprise. "The ultimate irony is that the stuff that has created climate change is now a solution, if we're smart about it," said John Quigley, a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. The technology that has been piloted at this facility in West Virginia could also pioneer a way to clean up vast amounts of coal mine drainage that poisons waterways across Appalachia. The project is one of the leading efforts by the federal government as it injects more money than ever into recovering rare earth elements to expand renewable energies and fight climate change by reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. For the U.S., which like the rest of the West is beholden to a Chinese-controlled supply of these valuable metals, the pursuit of rare earth elements is also a national security priority. Those involved, meanwhile, hope their efforts can bring jobs in clean energy to dying coal towns and clean up entrenched coal pollution that has hung around for decades. In Pennsylvania alone, drainage from coal piles and abandoned mines has turned waterways red from iron ore and turquoise from aluminum, killing life in more than 8,000 kilometers of streams. Federal statistics also show about 1,200 square kilometers of abandoned and unreclaimed coal mine lands host more than 200 million tons of coal waste. The metals that chemists are working to extract from mine drainage here are lightweight, powerfully magnetized and have superior fluorescent and conductive properties. One aim of the Department of Energy is to fund research that proves to private companies that the concepts are commercially viable and profitable enough for them to invest their own money. Hundreds of millions of dollars from President Joe Biden's 2021 infrastructure law is accelerating the effort. Department officials hope that by the middle of the 2030s this infusion will have spawned full-fledged commercial enterprises. The two most advanced projects funded by the department are the one in West Virginia treating mine drainage and another processing coal dug up by lignite mining in North Dakota. The first could be an important source of a number of critical metals, such as yttrium, neodymium and gadolinium, used in catalysts and magnets. The latter could be a major source of germanium and gallium, used in semiconductors, LEDs, electrical transmission components, solar panels and electric vehicle motors. Researchers at each site are designing a commercial-scale operation, based on their pilot projects, in hopes of landing a massive federal grant to build it out. The alternative would be to develop new mines, disturb more land, get permits, hire workers, build roads and connect power supplies, tasks that take years. "With acid mind drainage, that's already done for you," said Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the Water Research Institute at West Virginia University. Ziemkiewicz began the mine drainage project almost a decade ago, helped by federal subsidies. He had envisioned it as a way to treat runoff, recover critical minerals and raise money for more mine cleanups in West Virginia. But the Biden administration's ambitious funding for clean energy and a domestic supply of critical minerals broadened that goal. At the facility, drainage from a one-time coal mine — now closed and covered by a grassy slope — emerges from two pipes, and dumps about 3,028 liters per minute into a retention pond. From there the water is routed through massive indoor pools and a series of large tanks that, with the help of lime to lower the acidity, separate out most of the silicate, iron and aluminum. That produces a pale powdery concentrate that is about 95% rare earth oxides, plus water clean enough to return to a nearby creek. The Department of Energy is funding research on coal wastes in various states. "There are literally billions of tons of coal ash and coal waste lying around, across the country. And so if we can go back in and remine those, there's decades worth of materials there," said Grant Bromhal, the acting director of the Department of Energy's Division of Minerals Sustainability. Not only coal, but old copper and phosphate mines also hold potential, Bromhal said. The country won't be able to recover metals from all of them right away, but technologies the department is helping develop can satisfy a substantial part of demand in the next 20 to 30 years, Bromhal said. "So if we get into the tens of percents or 50%, I think that's in the realm of possibility," he said. Other solutions to obtain more of these metals are retrieving them from discarded devices and shifting sourcing to friendly nations and away from geopolitical rivals or unstable countries, analysts say. For now, there is only a handful of critical or rare earth mineral mines in the United States, although many more are being proposed. One final subsidy will be required from the federal government: buy the reclaimed metals at a price that guarantees a commercially viable operation, Ziemkiewicz said. That way China can't simply buy up the product or use its market dominance to drive down prices and scare away private investors, he said. Quigley, a former environmental protection secretary of Pennsylvania and a one-time small-city mayor in coal country, hopes to see a facility like Ziemkiewicz's come to the Jeddo mine tunnel system in northeastern Pennsylvania. The Jeddo has defied decades of efforts to treat its flow, which drains a vast network of abandoned underground mines. It is a massive source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, producing an estimated 114,000 to 151,000 liters per minute. Bringing the Little Nescopeck Creek back to life could put people to work cleaning up the stream and creating recreational opportunities from a newly revived waterway, Quigley said. "This could mean a lot to coal communities, to a lot of people in the coal region," Quigley said. "And to the country."

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.

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.

bangkok — Anti-junta forces captured a vital town near Myanmar's heartland this week, bolstering their position against the military junta. The offensive, in northern Shan state, involved a coordinated effort by various resistance groups, including the People’s Defense Forces (Mandalay) and the Three Brotherhood Alliance. The PDF (Mandalay) is made up largely of young, educated professionals and is one of several armed groups formed by Myanmar's shadow government, the National Unity Government (NUG), which hopes to restore democratic rule in the country. During a weekslong battle that culminated Wednesday with the seizure of Nawnghkio Township, the resistance forces seized a large cache of weapons and ammunition from several government army bases surrounding the town. These included a multi-rocket launcher system, providing a significant boost to anti-junta military capabilities. In an interview with VOA on Thursday, PDF (Mandalay) spokesperson Aw Sa Mon emphasized the importance of capturing Nawnghkio, highlighting its strategic military value and the potential to shift the balance of power in the region. "Nawnghkio town borders the Mandalay region and Mount Shan. Therefore, we were able to seize a geographically important place,” he said. “The operation started on June 25, coinciding with the second part of the 1027 operation, and the town was completely captured on July 10, two weeks later.” Operation 1027 refers to a highly successful rebel offensive begun on October 27, 2023. The PDF (Mandalay) was joined in the assault by elements of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLF), an ethnic force based in northern Shan state. The PDF (Mandalay) confirmed Thursday in a separate statement that the combined forces had captured the junta's last remaining military base in Nawnghkio Township. "All the weapons and ammunition we have seized will be used to eradicate the military dictatorship," said the PDF (Mandalay) spokesperson, who added that the resistance fighters had captured more than 100 prisoners. "Among the prisoners taken by us, some willingly surrendered and some were captured during battle,” said the spokesperson. “We also arrested Lieutenant Colonel Than Tun Aung, as he was attempting to escape from his base camp” near Mandalay. “We pursued him and were finally able to catch him and put him under arrest." Key town at crossroads  In a phone interview with VOA, former army Major Naung Yoe explained the strategic significance of the region. Naung Yoe, along with other former soldiers from the Myanmar military, fled the country after the 2021 coup and joined a civil disobedience group known as Peoples Goal, based in the Thai-Myanmar border region. "By capturing Nawnghkio, the resistance forces can now control the Mandalay-Lashio road,” Naung Yoe said. The army still controls the supply route from Mandalay to Pyin Oo Lwin, another strategically important town near Mandalay and home to one of the military’s primary training academies. But the military has “now lost the Mandalay-Lashio route, showing that junta forces can't completely secure their ground supply routes to this and other areas in upper Shan state." Naung Yoe also said the road running through Nawnghkio was the starting point for the military junta to send support overland to its troops in northern Shan state. “Now the junta can no longer use these crucial routes." Trade route with China Nawnghkio is also located on Myanmar's most important trade route between Mandalay and China. “This route is now controlled by revolutionary forces, delivering a major trade blow to the junta,” Naung Yoe said. “China will need to reach an agreement to reopen the route, since it has a such significant impact on trade." The former army major also pointed to the significance of weapons captured by the resistance forces, many of which the rebels could not buy. "The seized arsenal includes advanced weaponry such as howitzers, missile battalions, 84 mm Carl Gustaf anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns and infantry-support machine guns. These tactical military weapons will aid in offensives in heartland areas," he said. "The anti-aircraft weapons obtained from the PDF (Mandalay) can now threaten the junta's aircraft, providing a significant strategic advantage,” Naung Yoe added. “In terms of military strategy, these captured weapons make the resistance forces more capable and enhance their long-term prospects.” Junta response  As of Friday, the Myanmar junta had not officially addressed its losses in Nawnghkio. On Tuesday, however, it released a video about recent battles for the nearby town of Lashio, headquarters of the junta’s northeastern command. Attacks on the town, led by the PDF (Mandalay), TNLF and another ethnic armed group known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, were briefly successful in capturing a military base but were largely thwarted by junta airstrikes. In the video, junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun blames civilian deaths on rebel forces. "The combined armed group started attacks against Lashio on July 3, firing short-range rockets and launching drone attacks randomly against the town daily from afar,” Min Tun asserted. “As a result, 18 innocent civilians were killed and another 24 were wounded." The junta spokesperson went on to describe what he called an alliance between the MNDAA and the National Unity Government, which has yet to acknowledge any such alliance. TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo told VOA by phone that the deaths of civilians in Lashio were the result of the military’s shelling, not attacks by the resistance groups. Operation 1027, Phase II  “In the 16 days of the second phase of the 1027 Operation [started June 25], more than 40 military bases in northern Shan state have been captured by the TNLA and the combined resistance armed groups,” Yay Oo said. “Since the first phase of the operation, our joint forces have more experience, so this time around it is easier to face the military, because we know what to expect,” she said. “Also, some of soldiers from the junta military have deserted and have joined our side.” Yay Oo said the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which comprises her TNLA and two other ethnic armies, has joined forces for the second phase with other rebel forces including the PDF (Mandalay) and other PDF groups. “That is the way this revolution will be won, by fighting together to abolish and end the military dictatorship in the country,” she said. 

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.

The NATO alliance completed its annual summit this week in Washington, celebrating its 75th anniversary and making long-term commitments of military support for Ukraine. It promised the country’s future is in NATO, while calling out China, Iran and North Korea for enabling Russian belligerence. Jeff Custer reports.

washington — At the NATO summit this week, South Korea found narrow options to deal with security threats it faces from Russia-North Korea military cooperation, but concrete actions to boost Pacific security are likely to follow, analysts said. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with NATO allies and partners at the summit in Washington where discussions involved their support for Ukraine and Euro-Atlantic cooperation with the Indo-Pacific. At a meeting between NATO allies and the IP4 partnering Indo-Pacific countries of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea on Thursday, Yoon underlined threats that deepening Moscow-Pyongyang ties pose to Seoul. "Military and economic support that Russia can provide North Korea will increase threats posed to the security of the Korean Peninsula and the Indo-Pacific," Yoon said, calling for cooperation between the two countries to be "thoroughly blocked." Following their meeting, IP4 countries issued a joint statement condemning "the illicit military cooperation" between Russia and North Korea. Washington and Seoul have estimated that North Korea has sent about 10,000 containers of munitions to Russia. Moscow and Pyongyang denied any arms transactions. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a forum Tuesday that the U.S. is "watching carefully to see what Russia provides" to Pyongyang in return and "what impact that has on the security of the Indo-Pacific." A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA's Korean Service on Friday that "efforts by Russia to bolster [North Korea] militarily will only lead to a strengthening of our security partnership with allies across the Indo-Pacific and Europe." Analysts said NATO's response to Russia-North Korea military cooperation in East Asia is limited for now to include joint drills and naval patrols, but closer cooperation among IP4 countries is expected. Evans Revere, who served as the acting assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the George W. Bush administration, said, "The emerging partnership between NATO and IP4 is a work in progress, and the coming months will see new cooperative efforts between and among the partners." He said that could include a U.S. effort to institutionalize IP4 by adding "substance and action-oriented specifics to this group." Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in an interview with South Korean news agency Yonhap on Wednesday that the U.S. wants to "institutionalize" IP4, which would involve Seoul playing a "global role going forward."   Joint drills NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at a public forum Wednesday that NATO allies are actively looking into how they can have naval exercises with Asia-Pacific partners in addition to air drills. Japan is scheduled to hold a series of joint air drills with Germany, Spain and France — all NATO members — in July. Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, said, "Selective NATO member states capable of exercising with South Korea and Japan and other Indo-Pacific partners underscores international support for Seoul's national interest in maintaining peace in its region." Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution, said, "I wouldn't be surprised if there are more, more coordinated types of exercise so that if there were conflict that would erupt, there would be ways of different militaries to cooperate." Maritime patrols At a NATO public forum Thursday, Yoon underlined significant contribution to the region provided by joint maritime patrols that some NATO members conduct to enforce sanctions on North Korea. Canada and the United Kingdom as well as IP4 members Australia, Japan and New Zealand have been participating in maritime patrols to enforce those sanctions. However, there are limits to what these patrols can do, according to Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow on Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation. Klingner said, "The lack of authority to intercept violating ships limits the missions to monitoring violations." He continued, "Maritime shipments cannot be intercepted since U.N. resolutions against North Korea were implemented with Chapter 7, Article 41 authority, which does not allow for interceptions on the high seas. Any international response will be in term[s] of [a] punitive economic response or providing additional military assistance to Ukraine or Indo-Pacific nations threatened by North Korea." US nuclear deterrence Yoon and President Joe Biden met on the sidelines of the NATO summit Thursday and later issued a joint statement on guidelines for nuclear deterrence and operations on the Korean Peninsula. The guidelines, signed by defense officials, provide ways to integrate Seoul's conventional weapons and Washington's nuclear weapons in various contingencies. The U.S. and South Korea will conduct joint exercises to implement the deterrence guidelines, Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea deputy national security director, told a news conference Thursday in Washington. "At the end of the day, the security architecture in Asia depends fundamentally on the U.S. relationship with the ROK, Japan, Australia and New Zealand," said Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea's official name. "Even though the U.S. would like to see something like NATO in Asia, we haven't reached that point yet, though there are small steps in that direction, like joint exercises," he continued. UN Command At a meeting with Yoon on Wednesday, Germany expressed its willingness to join the U.N. Command (UNC), a multinational military body created at the beginning of the Korean War of 1950-53 to defend against North Korean aggression. "NATO has no direct role" on the Korean Peninsula, said Robert Rapson, who served as charge d'affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. But he said several key NATO members "have a security-related presence" in the UNC and could "contribute towards maintaining security and stability" there. Pyongyang on Monday said it would regard a U.S. attempt to revive the U.N. Command as "the second version" of NATO.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United States should realize that Iran will not respond to pressure, President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement published Saturday, in which he also highlighted his country's friendship with China and Russia. Pezeshkian, a relative moderate who beat a hardline rival in elections, also reiterated that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, adding that Tehran would expand ties with neighbors and engage with Europe. "The United States ... needs to recognize the reality and understand, once and for all, that Iran does not — and will not — respond to pressure (and) that Iran’s defense doctrine does not include nuclear weapons," Pezeshkian said in the statement, titled "My message to the new world" and published in the daily Tehran Times. Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon, has pledged to promote a pragmatic foreign policy, ease tensions over now-stalled negotiations with major powers to revive a 2015 nuclear pact and improve prospects for social liberalization and political pluralism. However, many Iranians are skeptical about his ability to fulfill his campaign promises as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, not the president, is the ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic. "China and Russia have consistently stood by us during challenging times. We deeply value this friendship,” Pezeshkian said. "Russia is a valued strategic ally and neighbor to Iran and my administration will remain committed to expanding and enhancing our cooperation," he said, adding that Tehran would actively support initiatives aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine. "The Iranian people have entrusted me with a strong mandate to vigorously pursue constructive engagement on the international stage while insisting on our rights, our dignity and our deserved role in the region and the world. "I extend an open invitation to those willing to join us in this historic endeavor," Pezeshkian said.

A growing number of Democrats in Congress are publicly calling on President Joe Biden to end his reelection bid against Republican rival Donald Trump. Jessica Taylor analyst with the Cook Political Report talks about the challenges facing Biden's campaign. NATO leaders wrapped up their summit in Washington Friday with unity in support for Ukraine and as the political turmoil in the U.S. lingered under the cloud of uncertainty in its most powerful member – the United States. Rose Gottemoeller, lecturer at Stanford University, research fellow at the Hoover Institute and deputy secretary-general of NATO from 2016 to 2019 joins us for insights.

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