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Taipei, Taiwan — Authorities in China and Hong Kong are tightening control over civil society as people in more than a dozen cities around the world commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on Tuesday. Ahead of the anniversary, Hong Kong authorities arrested eight people over social media posts commemorating June Fourth, which the police claim were aimed at using “an upcoming sensitive date” to incite hatred against the Hong Kong government and contained seditious intentions. Most prominent among those arrested is human rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung, who has been detained since 2021 for organizing an annual Tiananmen Vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, which has been banned since Beijing imposed the controversial National Security Law on the former British colony in 2020. Other individuals arrested by Hong Kong police include Chow’s mother and uncle and former members of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance, which used to organize the annual vigil and in which Chow served as vice chairwoman before its dissolution. In addition to the eight people arrested for social media posts commemorating June Fourth, Hong Kong police detained performance artist Sanmu Chen Monday in the busy shopping district Causeway Bay, which was near Victoria Park. Local media reports said Chen pretended to drink in front of a police van and write or draw in the air. This is the second year that Chen was detained by police on the eve of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Instead of the now-prohibited Tiananmen vigil, several pro-Beijing community organizations are holding a “food carnival” from June 1 to June 5 at Victoria Park, a move that some activists characterized as ironic. In China, authorities sentenced former Tiananmen Student leader Xu Guang to four years in jail on April 3 for demanding that the Chinese government acknowledge the massacre and for holding a sign calling for government compensation in front of a local police station in May 2022. Apart from Xu’s jail sentences, some family members of Tiananmen victims or former Tiananmen student leaders have also been put under strict police surveillance ahead of Tuesday’s anniversary, according to Human Rights Watch. Chinese authorities have also censored a wide range of words, phrases, and even emojis due to their connection to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Chinese activist Li Ying, who became a prominent source of news during China’s “white paper movement” in 2022, disclosed that Chinese authorities have banned the use of the candle emoji in China, which was commonly used for posts related to the Tiananmen Massacre. Some analysts say the increased crackdown on civil society initiated by Hong Kong and Chinese authorities ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary reflects their attempt to remove memories related to the tragic event. “The Hong Kong government is sending a message that June Fourth is a clear national security red line for Hong Kong and they want to make sure there is no commemoration or no memory of June Fourth in public,” Maya Wang, the interim China director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA by phone. While the two national security laws that the Hong Kong government has implemented since 2020 have essentially outlawed public commemoration of June Fourth, Wang said some people in the city are still using veiled references to commemorate the event. “June Fourth continues to be a collective memory among people in Hong Kong and you do see some of them make veiled references to the date by wearing black or through other gestures,” she said, adding that the effect of the authorities’ attempts to remove memories associated with June Fourth remains unclear. A Christian newspaper in Hong Kong that used to release information about the Tiananmen vigils published an almost blank front page on Sunday as their response to the upcoming anniversary. Hong Kong’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Stephen Chow called for forgiveness and vaguely referenced the Tiananmen anniversary in an article he published.  Despite the lack of public commemoration in China and Hong Kong, several cities around the world, including Tokyo, Paris, London, New York, Boston, and Taipei, have each organized events to commemorate the event, which occurred when government troops fired on student-led pro-democracy protestors on June 4, causing what are thought to be thousands of deaths.    Zhou Fengsuo, a former Tiananmen student leader, told VOA that the dozens of commemorative events abroad play an important role in pushing back against the Chinese government’s efforts to erase memories related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. “When the Chinese government tries to intensify crackdowns on the commemoration of June Fourth, more people in the diaspora community feel compelled to help organize or participate in commemorations of the tragic event around the world,” he said in a phone interview. Zhou has attended more than 20 Tiananmen commemorative events around the world this year and he said many events are organized or attended by young people or new immigrants from China. “I met a lot of Chinese people at the June Fourth Memorial Museum in New York, and they are all actively participating in this year’s commemorative events,” he said. As people around the world take part in commemorations of the Tiananmen Massacre, some activists say they remain hopeful that this decades-long tradition will be passed down to the next generation. “I was encouraged to see a lot of young people, including Japanese people, take part in the June Fourth commemoration in Tokyo,” said Patrick Poon, a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, adding that young people’s involvement in the event made him believe the tradition will be continued. Through the efforts to organize commemorations of the Tiananmen Square Massacre around the world, Wang at Human Rights Watch said the Tiananmen anniversary is helping to strengthen linkages among different groups in the diaspora community that focus on pushing back against the Chinese government’s crackdown on civil society. “Through these linkages, there is a growing solidarity of resistance on the state,” she told VOA.   

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.

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Mexico has elected its first woman president and the first with a Jewish background in the nation’s history. Experts say Claudia Sheinbaum will face a series of major challenges when she becomes the chief of Mexico, a top U.S. ally. VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports from the capital, Mexico City.

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.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday downplayed the immediate prospects for a cease-fire in the war with Hamas in Gaza, saying that a deal proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden to halt the fighting and release militant-held hostages was a partial outline. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused China of pressuring other countries to not attend an upcoming Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland later this month, a summit Vice President Kamala Harris will attend according to a statement released Monday. Hundreds of millions of European Union citizens will be able to vote June 6-9 to choose the 720 members of the next European Parliament. Young Europeans reflect on past promises and future hopes for the bloc, two decades since most of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU in 2004.

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.

Elections in the United States are some of the most expensive in the world, with campaign spending far outpacing that in most countries. The 2020 U.S. presidential and congressional races cost $16.4 billion and experts say the cost of the 2024 races are likely to be much higher.

Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian workers' unions launched a nationwide strike protesting the failure to implement a new minimum wage to help workers cope with the high cost of living amid economic reforms. The strike began Monday morning following a notice by the Nigerian Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress — the NLC and TUC respectively — on Friday. There was widespread compliance as workers across various sectors abstained from duty. Union representatives said the strike was triggered after weeks of failed negotiations to implement a new minimum wage. The unions had proposed $370 as the new monthly minimum wage, citing soaring costs of living caused by government policies. NLC spokesperson Benson Upah said unions have been patient with authorities. "As far as we know, no government has been this lucky," Upah said. "And for our uncommon understanding and patience with this administration, we have been called names. Yet this government does not want to wake up." Nigeria’s government is proposing about $49 dollars as the new minimum wage up from about $24. Authorities have condemned the nationwide strike calling it illegal and unnecessary. On Sunday, a Nigerian senate committee met with the unions in a bid to settle the dispute. But after long negotiations, the NLC and TUC said they failed to reach an agreement. After Sunday's meeting with unions, Senate president Godswill Akpabio told journalists whatever agreement is reached "will be mutually beneficial to all, both the government and the workers." In May 2023, President Bola Tinubu introduced economic reforms including the scrapping of fuel subsidy and currency unification with the aim of boosting the economy. But the policies have been blamed for raising the cost of living, sparking strikes by workers who want policies reversed or a higher minimum wage. Upah said the government is implementing foreign policies without considering Nigeria's needs. "We do not know who the beneficiaries of these policies are, because we the workers are dying. Manufacturers are dying. Other entities are dying," he said. "No reasonable government leaves their national currency to the stumps of the market. They do something behind the scenes quietly. But we took a dictation from the World Bank, IMF, hook, line and sinker."

U.S. citizens elect a president and a Congress to steer the country. But presidents have certain tools enabling them to alter policies on their own. One that’s gotten a lot of recent attention is the executive order.

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.

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022, was back before Congress on Monday, calling Republican allegations that he'd tried to cover up origins of the COVID-19 pandemic “simply preposterous.”  A GOP-led subcommittee has spent over a year probing the nation's response to the pandemic and whether U.S.-funded research in China may have played any role in how it started — yet found no evidence linking Fauci to wrongdoing.  He'd already been grilled behind closed doors, for 14 hours over two days in January. But Monday, Fauci testified voluntarily in public and on camera at a hearing that quickly deteriorated into partisan attacks.  Republicans repeated unproven accusations against the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist while Democrats apologized for Congress besmirching his name and bemoaned a missed opportunity to prepare for the next scary outbreak.  “He is not a comic book super villain,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, adding that the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic had failed to prove a list of damaging allegations.  Fauci was the public face of the government's early COVID-19 response under then-President Donald Trump and later as an adviser to President Joe Biden. A trusted voice to millions, he also was the target of partisan anger and choked up Monday as he recalled death threats and other harassment of himself and his family, the threats he said continue. Police later escorted hecklers out of the hearing room.  The main issue: Many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, the city in China where the outbreak began. There’s no new scientific information supporting that the virus might instead have leaked from a laboratory. A U.S. intelligence analysis says there’s insufficient evidence to prove either way — and a recent Associated Press investigation found the Chinese government froze critical efforts to trace the source of the virus in the first weeks of the outbreak.  Fauci has long said publicly that he was open to both theories but that there’s more evidence supporting COVID-19’s natural origins, the way other deadly viruses including coronavirus cousins SARS and MERS jumped into people. It was a position he repeated Monday as Republican lawmakers questioned if he worked behind-the-scenes to squelch the lab-leak theory or even tried to influence intelligence agencies.  “I have repeatedly stated that I have a completely open mind to either possibility and that if definitive evidence becomes available to validate or refute either theory, I will readily accept it,” Fauci said. He later invoked a fictional secret agent, decrying a conspiracy theory that “I was parachuting into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak.”  Republicans also have accused Fauci of lying to Congress in denying that his agency funded “gain of function” research — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential real-world impact — at a lab in Wuhan.  NIH for years gave grants to a New York nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance that used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses commonly carried by bats. Last month, the government suspended EcoHealth's federal funding, citing its failure to properly monitor some of those experiments.  The definition of “gain of function” covers both general research and especially risky experiments to “enhance” the ability of potentially pandemic pathogens to spread or cause severe disease in humans. Fauci stressed he was using the risky experiment definition, saying "it would be molecularly impossible” for the bat viruses studied with EcoHealth’s funds to be turned into the virus that caused the pandemic.  In an exchange with Rep. H. Morgan Griffith, a Republican from Virginia, Fauci acknowledged that the lab leak is still an open question since it's impossible to know if some other lab, not funded by NIH money, was doing risky research with coronaviruses.  Fauci did face a new set of questions about the credibility of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he led for 38 years. Last month, the House panel revealed emails from an NIAID colleague about ways to evade public records laws, including by not discussing controversial pandemic issues in government email.  Fauci denounced the actions of that colleague and insisted that “to the best of my knowledge I have never conducted official business via my personal email.”  The pandemic's origins weren't the only hot topic. The House panel also blasted some public health measures taken to slow spread of the virus before COVID-19 vaccines, spurred by NIAID research, helped allow a return to normalcy. Ordering people to stay 6 feet apart meant many businesses, schools and churches couldn't stay open, and subcommittee chairman Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a Republican from Ohio, called it a “burdensome” and arbitrary rule, noting that in his prior closed-door testimony Fauci had acknowledged it wasn't scientifically backed.  Fauci responded Monday that the 6-feet distancing wasn't his guideline but one created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before scientists had learned that the new virus was airborne, not spread simply by droplets emitted a certain distance.

Much of stand-up comedy in the United States is rooted in the country’s freedoms of speech. In Southern California, that attracts immigrant comedians eager to express their opinions and make people laugh. Genia Dulot reports.

The debate over ethics in the U.S. Supreme Court renewed this week as congressional Democrats called on conservative Associate Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from two cases relating to the 2020 election. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.