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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.

Sweden, NATO's newest member, this week announced a three-year plan to provide additional support for Ukraine totaling more than $7 billion. The move comes amid concerns about Russia’s growing aggression. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports. Camera: Daniil Batushchak.

Bangkok — Interviews have begun with Myanmar refugees living in Thailand who are eligible for a new resettlement program in the United States, the Thai government said. Thailand said it hopes the first group may get to move by the end of the year. Some 90,000 refugees live in nine camps on the Thai side of the border to escape fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic minority rebel armies vying for autonomy. Some of the refugees were born in the camps, which started to form in the mid-1980s, and many have lived in them for decades. Persistent fighting in Myanmar, amplified by a military coup in February 2021, has kept most from returning home. Aiming to give the refugees a safe way out of the camps, Thailand, the United States and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees announced the resettlement plan in May 2023. One year on, Thailand’s Ministry of Interior says that the Thai government and UNHCR have finished checking the personal information of the refugees to verify their eligibility for the program. More than 80,000 refugees were deemed eligible, and nearly all of them told officials they wanted to resettle. “After that, the U.S. team went to the first two camps for interviews, which have already been done,” Zcongklod Khawjang, an interior ministry official in charge of overseeing the resettlement program, told VOA this week. The two camps — Ban Don Yang and Tham Hin — are among the smallest of nine and host about 8,750 refugees combined. Zcongklod said the U.S. Embassy in Thailand has not told the Thai government when the authorized refugees would be resettled or when interviews in the other seven camps would begin. But he added that Thailand was expecting the “first batch” to move to the U.S. sometime this year. Hayso Thako, a joint secretary with the Karen Refugee Committee, one of the charities working in the camps, said he received the same message from the UNHCR at a meeting in March. “They said most probably the first group would be able to leave by the end, almost the end of this year,” he said. The UNHCR declined to comment on when resettlement might begin and referred the question to the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok declined to provide a time frame. “Resettlement operations are ongoing in cooperation with the UNHCR and the Royal Thai Government,” the U.S. Embassy told VOA by email, attributing the comment to “a U.S. official.” The embassy also would not say how many of the 80,000-plus eligible refugees the U.S. was prepared to take in, either annually or in total. Zcongklod said the embassy has not provided the Thai government with those figures, either. The Border Consortium, a network of charities that coordinate much of the international aid that reached the camps, said it has not been provided with official figures but said plans for the program appear to have been scaled down over time. “Figures have changes. At the beginning, it was this number of people who could be resettled … and maybe now it could be a lower number of people who could be resettled,” Leon de Riedmatten, executive director of The Border Consortium, told VOA. Even so, he said, “It’s important for the residents in the camps themselves that there is still the possibility of resettlement. I think this is the main message, even if it’s not going to be so many people who are going to be resettled to the United States.” Thailand has denied the refugees a regular path to gaining permanent legal residence and keeps tight control over their movements in and out of the camps. Myanmar’s 2021 coup brought the country's brief experiment with democracy to a halt, plunging it into civil war and dashing hopes that the refugees could return safely anytime soon. Hayso Thako and de Riedmatten said it would help if other countries committed to taking in some of the refugees. Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told VOA it has encouraged more countries to join the resettlement program. A previous program ended about five years ago after resettling thousands of refugees in the United States and a few other countries. Without a clear idea of how many of the refugees the new program can handle, and no end in sight to the civil war raging in Myanmar, charities say the Thai government should also give the refugees the opportunity to settle permanently in Thailand. “I think it’s key. It’s very, very important, because we cannot expect that all these refugees will be resettled. We cannot expect also that a large part of these refugees will return to Myanmar. So the ones, the majority, who will be left in the camps should have a better future,” de Riedmatten said. Even after four decades, most of the camps still lack electricity and running water. Most homes are huts of bamboo and eucalyptus poles topped with thatched roofs. The refugees are mostly barred from studying or working outside of the camps, have few job opportunities inside and receive an average of about $9 in food aid a month. Some advocates say a growing sense of despair across the camps is causing a rise in domestic abuse, gang violence, drug use and suicide. “Living in the camps is not easy,” Eh Nay Moo, 30, who fled Myanmar with his parents when he was three years old, told VOA. “Here, we are just illegal people. … There is no freedom for us. Going here and there outside of the camp, we are not allowed,” he said from Mae La, the largest of the nine camps on the border. Having spent almost his entire life in the camps, Eh Nay Moo said he cannot imagine returning to Myanmar but sees no real future for himself in the camps. Eh Nay Moo said he has applied for the new resettlement program and is eagerly awaiting an interview. “If I get a chance to move to the U.S. … I believe that I will get more opportunity or freedom to do and live my life as a human being,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans again blocked a bill meant to clamp down on the number of migrants allowed to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sought Thursday to underscore GOP resistance to the proposal. The legislation, negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators, was already rejected by most Republicans in February when it was linked to a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies. But with immigration and border security becoming one of the top issues of this year's election, Democrats are looking for an answer to the barrage of GOP attacks, led by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.  "To those who've said for years Congress needs to act on the border, this bipartisan bill is the answer, and it's time to show we're serious about fixing the problem," Schumer, a New York Democrat, said ahead of the vote Schumer is trying to defend a narrow Senate majority in this year's election and sees the Republicans’ rejection of the deal they negotiated as a political "gift" for Democrats. While a majority of Senate Democrats again supported the procedural vote to begin debate on the bill Thursday, the proposal failed 43-50. When the proposal was brought up in February, a test vote failed 49-50 — well shy of the 60 votes needed to advance.  Not even some of the bill's primary authors, Sens. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, and Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona independent, voted for Schumer's move.  "Today is not a bill, today is a prop," Lankford said on the floor ahead of the vote. "Everyone sees it for what it is."  Sinema called the vote "political theater" that will do nothing to solve problems at the border.  "To use this failure as a political punching bag only punishes those who were courageous enough to do the hard work in the first place," she said.  Republican leaders spent much of the week decrying the vote as a bald-faced political maneuver and amplifying a well-worn criticism of President Joe Biden: That he bears responsibility for the historic number of migrants who have made their way to the U.S. in recent years.  "We're nearing the end of President Biden' s term, and the American people's patience for his failing to secure the southern border is running thin," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday Earlier in the week, McConnell told reporters, "The president needs to step up to it — do everything he can do on his own because legislation is obviously not going to clear this year." Since the collapse of the Senate's legislation in February, the Biden administration has been considering executive orders on border policy and immigration. It has already made some changes to the asylum system meant to speed up processing and potential removal of migrants. Yet the Senate's test vote this week was widely seen as part of a lead-up to Biden issuing more sweeping border measures, potentially as early as June. The Democratic president has considered using a provision in federal immigration law that gives leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the U.S. if it would be "detrimental" to the national interest of the United States. The authority was repeatedly tapped by Trump when he was in the White House, but some of those actions faced legal challenges. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters Monday that legislation to address problems at the border — as opposed to executive actions by the president — would be more effective. The Senate legislation would provide more money for Customs and Border Protection officials, asylum officers, immigration judges and scanning technology at the border — all things that officials have said the underfunded immigration and border protection system needs. "The legislation provides tools that executive action cannot," Mayorkas said. The Senate bill aimed at gaining control of an asylum system that has sometimes been overwhelmed in the last year. It would provide faster and tougher enforcement of the asylum process, as well as give presidents new powers to immediately expel migrants if the numbers encountered by border officials exceed an average of 4,000 per day over a week. Even before the bill was fully released earlier this year, Trump effectively killed the proposal by labeling it "meaningless" and a "gift" for Biden's reelection chances. Top Republicans soon followed his lead and even McConnell, who had initially demanded the negotiation over the border measures, voted against moving forward. A significant number of Democrats have also criticized the proposal, mostly because it does not include any broad relief for immigrants who have already established lives in the United States. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus said in a statement this week that the Senate's bill "fails to meet the moment by putting forth enforcement-only policies and failing to include provisions that will keep families together." Amid the tension, Biden's reelection campaign met with CHC leadership Wednesday to discuss outreach to Latino communities, and Biden spoke on the phone with Rep. Nanette Barragan, the chair of the group. Still, for Democratic senators facing tough reelection battles, the vote Thursday provided another opportunity to show they were supportive of stronger border measures as well as distance themselves from Biden's handling of the border.

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.

Nairobi, Kenya — A record 75.9 million people are living in internal displacement due to conflict, and nearly half that number is in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a recent report. The report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, or IDMC, shows 34.8 million people in the region were displaced in 2023, up from the previous year. The biggest increase came in Sudan, which is currently in the midst of civil war. Sudanese doctor Aisha Hassan is among the millions of people newly displaced last year.  The doctor said that when she arrived for work at a hospital to tend to those injured in the country’s ongoing civil war, she faced threats from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and gangs. The RSF has been at war with the Sudanese armed forces since April of last year.  The threat forced her to leave her patients and her city, Omdurman, northwest of the capital, Khartoum. Hassan said she and her family fled to safety.  "From there I went to North Sudan Al-Shimaliyya, it's called Karima. We stayed there for three months, and my family and I went to Port Sudan. From there we displaced here to Uganda," she said.  Fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the RSF has displaced 9.1 million since April 2023, making Sudan the country with the most displaced people globally. According to the IDMC, the number marks “the most ever recorded in a single country since records began in 2008.”  The conflict has made it difficult for aid agencies to reach the millions in need, triggering more displacement as people search for food, water, medicine and safety.   Elsewhere, fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo between the army and rebels has displaced close to 7 million people. Conflict in Ethiopia that began with a two-year war in Tigray in 2020, and erupted in many parts of the country, displaced 790,000 people last year.   Africa's conflicts are usually over territory, community politics, and control over resources, with at least 10 African countries, predominantly in West Africa, dealing with terrorism-related conflicts.  Burkina Faso is the most affected of the West African countries, with 700,000 people displaced last year, up 61 percent from 2022.   "A rising conflict is really contributing to the rising trend, and especially weather-related disasters, including floods, storms, and drought, are also contributing to pushing the figures to an all-time high,” said Vicente Anzellini, coordinator and lead author of the IDMC report. “So all of this is really a concerning trend. It's important to underscore, however, that governments and humanitarian actors are taking more action and are producing more data. And this, of course, influences the trend."  Anzellini said governments need to improve their capabilities to resolve conflicts and cope with natural disasters.   "What we're really seeing in the region should be a reason for concern and more efforts need to be put in conflict resolution, of peace building, and disaster risk reduction across this region to reduce the trend that, again, highly influences the global trend,” Anzellini said. “So if internal displacement is addressed and reduced in Africa, the global trend will also successfully reduce. And it's unfortunately not a trend that we're seeing in the last couple of years. And for this to happen more government leadership and investments will be needed."  The Swiss-based agency says the overwhelming majority of the displaced stay in their own countries as they struggle to survive and rebuild their lives.  For Hassan, it was too dangerous for her to stay, as armed groups started to loot her family’s home while she was working in the hospital in Sudan.  "After two months or so, the Rapid Support team came and resided in our home,” she said. “Now they are living in our home. I don't know how many of them there are, but they told us they are living there. They took my father's car, and they are living there."  The IDMC says no country is immune to disaster displacement and that conflicts in Sudan, the DRC, and the Palestinian territories drove up the number around the world.

United Nations — The United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday to designate July 11 annually as an international day of reflection and commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serb forces. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs strongly opposed its adoption. “Perpetrated amidst the Bosnian War, this act of genocide led to the tragic death of the victims and to unimaginable suffering for survivors and their families,” German Ambassador Antje Leendertse said, introducing the resolution. “Our initiative is about honoring the memory of the victims and supporting the survivors who continue to live with the scars of that fateful time.” Germany and Rwanda co-led the negotiations on the resolution’s text over more than a month. The resolution received 84 votes in favor, 19 against and 68 abstentions. Only a simple majority of those countries present and voting “yes” or “no” was needed for the motion to pass. It was co-sponsored by more than 40 countries, including the western Balkan nations of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia and Slovenia, along with the United States. Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Denis Becirovic welcomed the resolution, saying it is an important step for the promotion of peace and reconciliation in the region and beyond. “Truth and justice won today in the U.N. General Assembly,” he told VOA after the vote. In addition to designating the annual international day of reflection and commemoration, which would start next year on the 30th anniversary of the massacres, the resolution also condemns genocide denial and the glorification of perpetrators. The U.N.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia concluded in 2004 that genocide had been committed in the small mountain town in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995. In 2007, the International Court of Justice also ruled that the massacres constituted genocide. Regional opposition The president of Bosnia’s Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has threatened to secede from the country if the resolution is adopted. Serbia’s government has also vigorously campaigned against the resolution, urging its co-sponsors to withdraw it, saying it unfairly targets Serbia and attributes moral responsibility for genocide collectively to its people and will hurt the fragile reconciliation process, a claim the authors deny. Montenegro suggested language that was added to the final text, clarifying that “criminal accountability under international law for the crime of genocide is individualized and cannot be attributed to any ethnic, religious, or other group or community as a whole.” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic traveled to New York for the vote. He urged the General Assembly to vote against the resolution, saying it was highly politicized and would only sow deeper divisions in the region. “This is not about reconciliation; this is not about memories,” he said. “This is something that will just open an old wound and that will create a complete political havoc — and not only in our region, but here in this hall.” On July 11, 1995, the U.N.-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica fell to Bosnian Serb forces. Over the next several days, at least 8,372 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were separated from their families, put on buses and taken to several locations including warehouses, schools and fields, where they were executed. Their bodies were dumped in several mass graves. Investigators said their remains were later exhumed and moved to secondary graves in an extensive cover up. Experts used DNA samples from relatives to identify thousands of the murdered men. The Hague-based tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted 16 people for crimes committed in Srebrenica, including eight men for the crime of genocide. The General Assembly resolution adopted Thursday is partly modeled on a 2003 resolution that established the international day of reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It has been observed at the United Nations every April 7 since 2004. Some countries that abstained or voted against Thursday’s Srebrenica resolution noted that there is also a day of remembrance for all victims of genocide, which the United Nations marks every December 9. Others noted that there was no consensus in the region on the resolution and that they did not want to contribute to tensions. Both the U.N. high commissioner for human rights and the special adviser on the prevention of genocide welcomed the resolution. “This resolution is further recognition of the victims and survivors and their pursuit of justice, truth and guarantees of non-recurrence,” human rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu said the resolution is important in light of the trend toward genocide denial in the region. “Questioning the tragic reality of what happened in Srebrenica is not acceptable,” she said, adding it would only hurt peace and reconciliation efforts.

International investors have been lining up for South African nuclear energy technology this year. Two partnerships have been announced aimed at financing the manufacture of a new prototype, small-scale reactor developed in South Africa. One partner includes a collective of family farmers whose businesses are suffering from the country’s unreliable power grid. Marize de Klerk reports from South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

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 — In early 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a handful of citizen journalists emerged as voices from the epicenter. Among them was Zhang Zhan, then a 36-year-old former lawyer who bravely chronicled the unfolding crisis in the city where the virus first surfaced. Standing in front of a Wuhan train station in her final YouTube video on May 13, 2020, she voiced concerns about the human rights abuses she witnessed during the lockdown and criticized police involvement in enforcing containment measures. Following “this last video,” she vanished, according to Jane Wang, a U.K.-based activist who launched the Free Zhang Zhan campaign. “The date of her arrest should be 14th May, but it could have happened on the evening of the 13th, so we aren't sure,” Wang told VOA. “The time she spent on the train escorted by police to Shanghai from Wuhan is in between.” In December 2020, the Chinese government sentenced her to four years in prison for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” On Monday, Wang posted a 28-second video to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which Zhang confirmed her release from prison on May 13 and wished well to the people who were concerned about her well-being. “Hello, everyone, I am Zhang Zhan. At five o'clock in the morning on May 13, the police brought me to my brother's home in Shanghai. Thank you all for your help and concern for me. Hope everyone is well. I really don't have anything to say,” Zhang said in the video. The video came one week after Zhang was expected to be released from Shanghai Women’s Prison on May 13, but she did not publicly surface for several days. On May 17, the U.S. State Department issued a statement expressing concern about her disappearance after her apparent release. “The United States has repeatedly expressed our serious concerns about the arbitrary nature of her detention and authorities’ mistreatment of her,” the State Department said at that time. “We reiterate our call for the PRC [People's Republic of China] to respect the human rights of Ms. Zhang, including by immediately ending the restrictive measures that she and all journalists in the PRC face.” The State Department urged China to ensure the safety and freedom of journalists in the country, emphasizing the importance of enabling them to report freely. Additionally, the State Department’s recently released human rights report on China pointed out “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression and media, including criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others.” It also cited the arrest of “countless citizens” for allegedly “spreading fake news.” Several other citizen journalists faced disappearances like Zhang’s and later were sentenced to prison for documenting the initial stages of the pandemic in China. Any expression of views differing from the government on pandemic-related matters continues to be a sensitive issue in China, according to Lin Shengliang, founder of the China Human Rights Accountability Database. “The Chinese authorities often resort to both soft and hard tactics to the parties involved in order to silence them,” Lin told VOA. According to Li Yong, a Wuhan citizen who shared the U.S. State Department’s statement on Zhang in a WeChat group, the Chinese State Security forces warned him not to share information about Zhang. “The local community’s state security officer said, ‘These posts are no longer allowed. Be silent. Things involving Zhang Zhan are not allowed [to be shared].’ Anyway, I promised not to post it again," Li told VOA. According to Li, he befriended Zhang when she came to Wuhan in 2020. “I advised her to take a step back [in her criticism of the government]. But she was a person of faith and was more persistent at that time,” Li said. According to Wang, the U.K.-based activist, Zhang is a “devoted Christian” who openly expressed her faith. “Her church was shut down [four years ago] and banned from gathering before she went to Wuhan,” Wang said. “It's a big question mark whether she [currently] is allowed to travel to another city or even attend a church gathering in Shanghai.” Wang said that Zhang’s situation may change “dramatically” when and if the authorities decide to step up surveillance against her. “Right now, guards are watching her apartment, and she is being followed everywhere, but she still can leave her flat and has her phone and WeChat account,” Wang said, citing a friend of Zhan’s, whose name she didn’t want to disclose for safety reasons. “The worst is for plainclothes [police] to break in and stay in the home, taking her phone away.”

Fine dining in space — if you can stomach the price tag. Plus, a new understanding of the sun’s magnetic field, and Europe’s newest astronauts get their mission assignments. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space

Washington — With major military setbacks in recent years, supporters of the Islamic State terror group are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to generate online propaganda, experts said. A new form of propaganda developed by IS supporters is broadcasting news bulletins with AI-generated anchors in multiple languages. The Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP) group, an IS affiliate active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, produced in a video an AI-generated anchorman to appear reading news following an IS-claimed attack in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan on May 17 that killed four people, including three Spanish tourists. The digital image posing as an anchor spoke the Pashto language and had features resembling local residents in Bamiyan, according to The Khorasan Diary, a website dedicated to news and analysis on the region. Another AI-generated propaganda video by Islamic State appeared on Tuesday with a different digital male news anchor announcing IS’s responsibility for a car bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. “These extremists are very effective in spreading deepfake propaganda,” said Roland Abi Najem, a cybersecurity expert based in Kuwait. He told VOA that a group like IS was already effective in producing videos with Hollywood-level quality, and the use of AI has made such production more accessible for them. “AI now has easy tools to use to create fake content whether it’s text, photo, audio or video,” Abi Najem said, adding that with AI, “you only need data, algorithms and computing power, so anyone can create AI-generated content from their houses or garages.” IS formally began using the practice of AI-generated news bulletins four days after an attack at a Moscow music hall on March 22 killed some 145 people. The attack was claimed by IS. In that video, IS used a “fake” AI-generated news anchor talking about the Moscow attack, experts told The Washington Post last week. Mona Thakkar, a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, said pro-IS supporters have been using character-generation techniques and speech-to-text AI tools to produce translated news bulletins of IS's Amaq news agency. “These efforts have garnered positive responses from other users, reflecting that, through future collaborative efforts, many supporters could produce high quality and sophisticated AI-powered propaganda videos for IS of longer durations with better graphics and more innovation techniques,” she told VOA. Thakkar said she recently came across some pro-IS Arabic-speaking supporters on Telegram who were recommending to other supporters “that beginners use AI image generator bots on Telegram to maintain the high quality of images as the bots are very easy and quick to produce such images.” AI-generated content for recruitment While IS’s ability to project power largely decreased due to its territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq, experts say supporters of the terror group believe artificial intelligence offers an alternative to promote their extremist ideology. “Their content has mainly focused on showing that they’re still powerful,” said Abi Najem. “With AI-generated content now, they can choose certain celebrities that have influence, especially on teenagers, by creating deepfake videos.” “So first they manipulate these people by creating believable content, then they begin recruiting them,” he said. In a recent article published on the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, researcher Daniel Siegel said generative AI technology has had a profound impact on how extremist organizations engage in influence operations online, including the use of AI-generated Muslim religious songs, known as nasheeds, for recruitment purposes. “The strategic deployment of extremist audio deepfake nasheeds, featuring animated characters and internet personalities, marks a sophisticated evolution in the tactics used by extremists to broaden the reach of their content,” he wrote. Siegel said that other radical groups like al-Qaida and Hamas have also begun using AI to generate content for their supporters. Cybersecurity expert Abi Najem said he believes the cheap technology will increase the availability of AI-generated content by extremist groups on the internet. “While currently there are no stringent regulations on the use of AI, it will be very challenging for governments to stop extremist groups from exploiting these platforms for their own gain,” he said. This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.

After international condemnation, Israel reversed its decision this week to cut the Associated Press’ live feed of Gaza, this comes as challenges are increasing for journalists and media outlets in Israel. Russia has a weapon in space and is beginning drills with tactical nuclear weapons as Ukraine is pressuring Washington to lift restrictions on using American-made weapons on Russian territory. Plus, the reaction of the Iranian opposition to president Raisi’s death and the aftermath of devastating floods in Brazil.

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.