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AHMEDABAD, India — At least 24 people, including many children, died in a fire that broke out Saturday evening in an amusement park in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a government official said.  The park is usually packed with families enjoying the summer vacation over the weekend.  Footage showed firefighters clearing debris around collapsed tin roof from structures that media reports said were used for bowling, go-karting and trampoline attractions.  With rescue efforts continuing at the park in the Rajkot district, the local mayor told Reuters the death toll was expected to rise.  "Our focus is on rescue operations and saving lives. We will ensure strict action is taken against the people who are responsible for this incident," Mayor Nayana Pedhadiya said.  Television images showed a massive fire engulfing the TRP game zone and thick clouds of smoke emanating from the site. The entire structure was gutted in the blaze.  A police official at the local civil hospital said some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that the local administration was working to help those affected.  "Extremely distressed by the fire mishap in Rajkot. My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones," Modi said in the post.  The district's chief fire officer, IV Kher, said firefighters had almost brought the fire under control.  "The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained," he told Reuters.  The amusement park was privately owned by Yuvraj Singh Solanki, and Police Commissioner Raju Bhargava said that police would file a case of negligence against him.  Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel said an investigation into the incident had been handed to a Special Investigation Team, and television reports said two people had been detained by Rajkot police in connection with the incident. 

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BEIRUT — A bomb attached to a car exploded early Saturday in the western part of the Syrian capital that is home to several diplomatic missions, killing one person and causing material damage, state media reported. Damascus’ Mazze neighborhood houses the Iranian consulate, which was destroyed last month in a strike blamed on Israel. The attack at the time killed seven people, including two Iranian generals and a member of Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah — and triggered a direct Iranian military assault on Israel for the first time, sparking fears of a regionwide war. Several airstrikes have hit the tightly secured neighborhood over the past months, mostly targeting Iranian officials. State news agency SANA didn't say who was killed but said the blast set two other cars ablaze. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the man killed in the explosion was a Mazze resident who carried a card identifying him as a Syrian army officer. Abdurrahman said the dead man had close ties to the Iranians. Hours after the blast in Damascus, an Israeli drone strike reportedly targeted a car and a truck outside the western Syrian town of Qusair, northwest of Damascus and close to Lebanon's border, the Observatory and a Beirut-based pan-Arab TV station reported. The strike hit the two vehicles near Dabaa air base. Qusair and its suburbs were struck several times over the past months by Israeli drones targeting Hezbollah fighters who have a presence in the area. The Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV didn't say if there were casualties, but the Observatory said two Hezbollah members were killed and several others wounded in the drone strike. Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israeli forces have traded cross-border fire on an almost daily basis since the day after the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7. More than 400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them Hezbollah fighters, and including more than 70 civilians and noncombatants, according to an Associated Press tally. Meanwhile, Israel says at least 15 soldiers and 10 civilians have so far been killed in the clashes. Tehran has been sending advisers to Syria since the country’s conflict, which later turned into civil war, began in March 2011 and has killed half a million people. Iran-backed fighters have helped tip the balance of power in favor of President Bashar Assad’s government. Iran’s military presence in Syria has been a major concern for Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment along its northern border. Syria has accused Israel of carrying out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts in recent years — but Israel has rarely acknowledged such strikes.

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HONOLULU, HAWAII — A former CIA officer and contract linguist for the FBI accused of spying for China for at least a decade pleaded guilty Friday in a federal courtroom in Honolulu. Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 72, has been in custody since his arrest in August 2020. The U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing it amassed “a war chest of damning evidence” against him, including an hourlong video of Ma and an older relative — also a former CIA officer — providing classified information to intelligence officers with China’s Ministry of State Security in 2001. The video shows Ma counting the $50,000 received from the Chinese agents for his service, prosecutors said. During a sting operation, he accepted thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for past espionage activities, and he told an undercover FBI agent posing as a Chinese intelligence officer that he wanted to see the “motherland” succeed, prosecutors said. The secrets he was accused of providing included information about CIA sources and assets, international operations, secure communication practices and operational tradecraft, the charging documents said. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Ma pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to gather or deliver national defense information to a foreign government. The deal calls for a 10-year sentence, but a judge will have the final say at Ma's sentencing, which is scheduled for September 11. Without the deal, he faced life in prison. Ma was born in Hong Kong, moved to Honolulu in 1968 and became a U.S. citizen in 1975. He joined the CIA in 1982, was assigned overseas the following year and resigned in 1989. He held a top-secret security clearance, according to court documents. Ma lived and worked in Shanghai, China, before returning to Hawaii in 2001. He was hired as a contract linguist in the FBI's Honolulu field office in 2004, and prosecutors say that over the following six years, he regularly copied, photographed and stole classified documents. He often took them on trips to China, returning with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, such as a new set of golf clubs, prosecutors said. In court Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson revealed that Ma's hiring as a part-time contract linguist was a “ruse” to monitor his contact with Chinese intelligence officers. The FBI had been aware of Ma's ties with the intelligence officers and “made the determination to notionally hire the defendant to work at an FBI off-site location in Honolulu,” the plea agreement said. In 2006, while Ma was living in Hawaii, Chinese intelligence officers sent him photos of people they were interested in, Sorenson said, and Ma contacted the co-conspirator relative and persuaded him to reveal at least two of the identities. Ma, in pleading guilty, said everything Sorenson described is true. Ma said he had signed nondisclosure agreements that he knew would be in effect even after leaving the CIA and that he knew the information he was providing to the Chinese intelligence officials could harm the United States or help a foreign nation. In 2021, Ma's former defense attorney told a judge Ma believed he was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and was having trouble remembering things. A defense motion noted that Ma’s older brother developed Alzheimer’s 10 years prior and was completely disabled by the disease. The brother is referred to as the co-conspirator in the indictment against Ma, but prosecutors didn’t charge him because of his incompetency due to Alzheimer’s, the motion said. The co-conspirator is now dead, Sorenson said in court Friday. Last year a judge found Ma competent and to not be suffering from a major mental disease, disorder or defect. Ma's plea agreement with prosecutors also says he will “provide more detailed facts relating to this case during debriefings with Government representatives,” and submit to polygraph examinations. “The defendant understands and agrees that his cooperation obligation represents a lifetime commitment by the defendant to the United States to cooperate as described in this agreement,” the court document said.

CAIRO — Yemen's Houthis said they had postponed the release of around 100 prisoners belonging to government forces to Sunday after it had previously been announced to take place on Saturday.  The head of the Houthi Prisoner Affairs Committee, Abdul Qader al-Murtada, said on X that the delay was caused by "technical reasons."  Al-Murtada said on Friday that the group would release more than 100 prisoners in what he called "a unilateral humanitarian initiative."  The Houthis, an Iran-aligned movement that controls part of Yemen, last released prisoners in April 2023 in an exchange of 250 Houthis for 70 government forces.  Yemen has been embroiled in years of civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people and left millions hungry.  The Houthis are the de facto authorities in northern Yemen, while the internationally recognized government is represented by the Political Leadership Council, which was formed under Saudi auspices last year and assumed power from Yemen's president-in-exile.

NAIROBI, Kenya — An illegal gold mine collapsed in northern Kenya, leaving at least five miners dead, police said Saturday. The collapse of the Hillo mine in the Dabel area near the Kenyan border with Ethiopia on Friday was attributed to a landslide. Marsabit County Police Commander Patrick Mwakio said the miners died on the spot after the debris covered them. No other miners have been found and it was not clear if anyone else was missing in the collapse. Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki in March declared the area disturbed and banned mining activities after clashes over a mining dispute led to the deaths of seven people. The mining activities were also in violation of the law because no environmental impact assessment had been done, and the tunnels were described as weak and on the brink of cave-in. Residents told media outlets that mining had continued despite the March ban and blamed authorities for allowing it.

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GENEVA — Reports are emerging of new atrocity crimes being committed in a concerted campaign of violence and destruction by Myanmar’s military against the largely Muslim Rohingya people in northern Rakhine state. “We are receiving frightening and disturbing reports from northern Rakhine state in Myanmar of the impacts of the conflict on civilian lives and property,” Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Friday in a briefing to journalists in Geneva. “Some of the most serious allegations concern incidents of killing of Rohingya civilians and the burning of their property,” she said, noting that tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent days by fighting in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships. She said that information gathered in testimony from victims, eyewitnesses, satellite images, and online video and pictures over the last week indicate that “Buthidaung town has been largely burned.” “We have received information indicating that the burning started on 17 May, two days after the military had retreated from the town and the Arakan Army claimed to have taken full control,” she said. Speaking in Bangkok, James Rodehaver, head of Myanmar Team, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said his team had spoken to many sources on the ground and reviewed numerous materials, many of which “were deemed to be credible.” “Our offices are corroborating information further, particularly in establishing who were the perpetrators of the burning. “One survivor described seeing dozens of dead bodies as he fled the town. Another survivor said that he was among a group of displaced persons numbering in the tens of thousands, who attempted to move outside of the town to safety but were blocked by the Arakan Army,” Rodehaver said, pointing out that the Arakan Army had abused survivors and extorted money from them as they fled the town. The Arakan Army is an armed ethnic group fighting as part of an alliance against the Myanmar military. Rodehaver said, “In the weeks leading up to the burning of Buthidaung, the Myanmar team of the U.N. human rights offices has documented renewed attacks on Rohingya civilians by both the Arakan Army and by the military in northern Rakhine state,” including many by aerial strikes and drones. He said his office also has received reports of shooting at unarmed fleeing villagers, multiple disappearances and burnings of homes, and has confirmed four cases of beheadings. Rodehaver said the military has been actively targeting the Rohingya for years and has “actively enforced draconian and discriminatory restrictions affecting all aspects of their lives.” “It is one of the reasons why the Rohingya, whenever they were asked to leave Buthidaung and other villages, have been very reluctant to move because they have needed special permission to move outside of their township of residence. They also have nowhere else to go. “They, of course, have learned very hard lessons in 2017, knowing that whenever movement starts, it usually ends [with] them leaving their homes, never to see them again,” he said. In August 2017, more than a million Rohingya fled to Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh to escape violence and persecution in Myanmar. Currently, an estimated 600,000 Rohingya live in Rakhine state. Although they have lived in Myanmar for generations, the government considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and refuses to grant them citizenship. The Myanmar junta, which has been at war with its people for decades, recently has suffered many defeats. One consequence is young men have been conscripted from the Rohingya to fight its battles, by promising them many benefits, such as more food rations for their families and a promise of citizenship. Rodehaver calls that an insidious ploy by military leaders. “They know that most of these men have never had any sort of combat training or self-defense training. So, they are largely being sent to the front lines as human shields or as cannon fodder, and the military knows that very well. “The military also told the Rohingya, if you run away and you do not serve, we will arrest you or cut the rations to your family. So, they use a variety of pressures to convince the Rohingya to join. We have had reports that from 1,500 to 2,000 men have been recruited at this point,” he said. Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, warned Thursday of “ominous signs of another Rohingya bloodbath in Rakhine state” if the international community were to continue to turn a blind eye and fail to take action to save the lives of thousands of Rohingya. “Once again, the world seems to be failing a desperate people in their hour of peril, while a hate-driven unnatural disaster unfolds in real time in Myanmar’s Rakhine state,” he said. Mirroring that assessment, U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk is calling for “an immediate end to the violence, and for all civilians to be protected without any distinction based on identity. “Prompt and unhindered humanitarian relief must be allowed to flow, and all parties must comply fully and unconditionally with international law,” he said.

MELBOURNE, Australia — An emergency convoy was delivering food, water and other provisions Saturday to stunned survivors of a landslide that devastated a remote village in the mountains of Papua New Guinea and was feared to have buried scores of people, officials said. An assessment team reported “suggestions” that 100 people were dead and 60 houses buried by the mountainside that collapsed in Enga province a few hours before dawn Friday, said Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the International Organization for Migration’s mission in the South Pacific island nation. Aktoprak conceded that if the number of buried houses estimated by local authorities was correct, the death toll could be higher. “The scale is so big, I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be more casualties than the earlier reported 100,” Aktoprak said. “If 60 houses had been destroyed, then the number of casualties would definitely be much higher than the 100." Only three bodies had been recovered by early Saturday from the vast swath of earth, boulders and splintered trees that struck Yambali, a village of nearly 4,000 people that is 600 kilometers (373 miles) northwest of the capital, Port Moresby. Medical treatment was provided to seven people, including a child, Aktoprak said. He had no information about the extent of their injuries. “It is feared that the number of casualties and wounded will increase dramatically,” said Aktoprak, who is based in Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said Friday he would release information about the scale of the destruction and loss of life when it becomes available. All food gardens that sustain the village's subsistence farming population were destroyed and the three streams that provide drinking water were buried by the landslide, which also blocked the province’s main highway. A convoy left the provincial capital of Wabag carrying food, water and other essentials to the devastated village 60 kilometers (37 miles) away, Aktoprak said. Village resident Andrew Ruing said the survivors were in desperate need. “People — they cannot cry, or they cannot do anything, because it’s difficult for them,” Ruing said in a video shown by Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Because such a situation has never happened in history. And therefore, we are calling on the national government, the people on the ground, or the business houses, the heights from everywhere, anywhere — we are seeking assistance from.” Aktoprak said that besides food and water, the villagers had an urgent need for shelters and blankets. Relief would be targeted to the most vulnerable, including children, women, and disabled and older people, he said. The relief effort was delayed by the landslide closing the province’s main highway, which serves the Porgera Gold Mine and the neighboring town of Porgera. The landslide debris, 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep, also knocked out power in the region, Aktoprak said. The unstable soil posed risks to the relief effort as well as to communities downhill. Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation of mostly subsistence farmers with 800 languages. There are few roads outside the larger cities. With 10 million people, it is the most populous South Pacific nation after Australia, which is home to about 27 million. The United States and Australia are building closer defense ties with the strategically important nation, where China is seeking closer security and economic ties. U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said their governments stood ready to help respond to the landslide.

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TEL AVIV, Israel — Egypt said Friday it has agreed to send United Nations humanitarian aid trucks through Israel’s main crossing into the Gaza Strip, but it was unclear if they will be able to enter the territory as fighting raged in the southern city of Rafah amid Israel’s escalating offensive there. Gaza’s humanitarian crisis has spiraled as the U.N. and other aid agencies say the entry of food and other supplies has plunged dramatically since Israel’s Rafah offensive began more than two weeks ago. On Friday, the top U.N. court — the International Court of Justice — ordered Israel to halt the Rafah offensive, although Israel is unlikely to comply. At the heart of the problem lie the two main crossings through which an average of 300 trucks of aid a day had been entering Gaza before the offensive began. Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been inoperative since. The nearby Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza has remained open, and Israel says it has been sending hundreds of trucks a day into it. But while commercial trucks have successfully crossed, the U.N. says it cannot reach Kerem Shalom to pick up aid as it enters because fighting in the area makes it too dangerous. As a result, the U.N. says it has received only 143 trucks from the crossing in the past 19 days. Hundreds of truckloads have been sitting on the Gaza side of the crossing unretrieved, according to Israeli officials, who say U.N. manpower limitations are to blame. U.N. and other aid agencies had to rely on the far smaller number of trucks entering daily from a single crossing in northern Gaza and via a U.S.-built pier bringing supplies by sea. Humanitarian groups are scrambling to get food to Palestinians as some 900,000 people flee Rafah, scattering across central and southern Gaza. Aid workers warn that Gaza is near famine. UNRWA, the main U.N agency in the humanitarian effort, had to halt food distribution in Rafah because it had run out of supplies. The Egyptian announcement appeared to resolve a political obstacle on one side of the border. Israel says it has kept the Rafah crossing open and asked Egypt to coordinate with it on sending aid convoys through it. Egypt refused, fearing the Israeli hold will remain permanent, and demanded Palestinians be put back in charge of the facility. The White House has been pressing Egypt to resume the flow of trucks. In a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi agreed to allow trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel to go to the Kerem Shalom crossing until a solution is found for the Rafah crossing, el-Sissi’s office said in a statement. But it remained unclear whether the U.N. will be able to access additional trucks coming from Egypt. UNRWA did not immediately reply to requests for comment. In a post on social media outlet X on Thursday, it said, “We could resume [food distribution in Rafah] tomorrow if the crossing reopened & we were provided with safe routes.” Mercy Corps, an aid group operating in Gaza, said in a statement Friday that the offensive had caused the “functional closure … of the two main lifelines” of aid and “has brought the humanitarian system to its knees.” “If dramatic changes do not occur, including opening all border crossings to safely surge aid into these areas, we fear that a wave of secondary mortality will result, with people succumbing to the combination of hunger, lack of clean water and sanitation, and the spread of disease in areas where there is little medical care,” it said. Fighting appeared to escalate in Rafah. Witnesses said bombardment intensified Friday in eastern parts of the city, near Kerem Shalom, but shelling was also taking place in central, southern and western districts closer to the Rafah crossing. Israeli leaders have said they must uproot Hamas fighters from Rafah to complete the destruction of the group after its October 7 terror attack. Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted roughly 250 others in its October 7 attack. Around half of those hostages have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November. Israel’s campaign of bombardment and offensives in Gaza has killed more than 35,800 Palestinians and wounded more than 80,200, the Gaza Health Ministry said Friday. Its count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

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New Delhi — Millions of Indians lined up Saturday at polling booths to cast their votes in the penultimate phase of the country’s multistage election in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term in office. The polling was held in 58 constituencies across eight states and federal territories amid a scorching heat wave that has seen temperatures in parts of north India soar to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in the past week. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, which is pitted against an opposition alliance of the Congress Party and regional parties, is widely expected to win the elections. Among the most closely watched contests are seven parliamentary seats in the capital, Delhi, where the BJP faces a joint fight mounted by the Aam Aadmi Party headed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress Party. Kejriwal, who was arrested in March in connection with corruption allegations, was released on bail by the Supreme Court earlier this month to allow him to campaign. In fiery speeches, Kejriwal has accused Modi of sending opposition leaders to jail to cripple his political rivals. “People are voting in large numbers against dictatorship, inflation and unemployment,” he said after casting his vote. Political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said, “I think Kejriwal’s release and his campaign [have] given a huge momentum to the opposition. Many people do see the allegations against him as politically motivated and believe he was arrested to prevent him from campaigning.” The BJP’s optimism about returning to power relies largely on Modi’s popularity, especially in populous northern states. The party had won 45 of the 58 seats where polling was conducted on Saturday. In a message on social media platform X, Modi called on people, especially women and youth, to vote in large numbers. "Democracy thrives when its people are engaged and active in the electoral process." Among those who cast their vote early was Sanjay Jha, a fruit seller in New Delhi. “Modi is a very good leader for the country. There is nobody like him,” said Jha, folding his hands as a mark of respect for the Indian leader. Jha cites Modi’s inauguration of a grand Hindu temple earlier this year on the site of a mosque destroyed three decades ago among the reasons for his support. In the Hindu majority country, the BJP’s Hindu nationalist policies have won Modi wide support, but critics call him a polarizing leader. During the campaign, he has been accused of using divisive rhetoric — at rallies he and other top leaders of the BJP have said the Congress Party plans to favor Muslims at the expense of Hindus if voted to power. Modi has said he is not against Islam or Muslims. In a country where the opposition has been weakened over the last decade by the rise of the BJP, lawyer Vartika Sharma, a New Delhi resident, said she wants to see both a strong government and a strong opposition. “I am happy that the BJP government took some strong decisions that were good for the country, but somewhere the radicalization that is happening, I am not able to agree to it,” said Sharma after casting her vote. “Whichever government comes should uphold the constitution principles and weed out corruption.” Before elections began, Modi had set a goal of attaining a supermajority by winning, along with his party’s allies, 400 of the 543 elected seats in the lower house of parliament. While the BJP is expected to emerge ahead of other parties, the opposition is hoping to make gains amid disaffection on the ground over joblessness and rising prices. The Congress party has flagged the need to address rising unemployment and alleviate rural distress and has focused its campaign on the need for social justice. “The BJP appeared to be supremely confident when the election got underway. But Modi has failed to construct an overarching national narrative, as a result of which the election is now focused on local constituency level issues. There is no one single issue binding the campaign,” according to analyst Mukhopadhyay. As the heat wave raised fears for voters who often have to wait in long lines at polling stations, the Election Commission put up tents and mist fans and deployed paramedics at polling stations in Delhi. The blistering weather did not deter 90-year-old K.C. Gupta in New Delhi from casting his vote. “I think something must be done to improve the lives of people in this country, especially the lower strata. They should be helped as much as possible,” he said. The final round of voting will be held on June 1, and votes will be counted on June 4. The results are expected the same day.

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.