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NIAMEY, niger — Niger's interior ministry said it had ordered search units to be on alert after inmates escaped Thursday from the high-security Koutoukale prison, whose inmates include Islamist militants.  The ministry statement did not say how many prisoners had escaped Koutoukale, which lies 50 kilometers northwest of the capital, Niamey, or how they had done so. In 2016 and 2019, attempted jail breaks at the facility were repelled.  The prison's inmates include detainees from the West African country's conflict with armed groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State and suspected Boko Haram insurgents.  Local authorities imposed an overnight curfew in the urban commune of Tillaberi, which is in the same region as the prison, but did not give further details.     Niger and its neighbors in the central Sahel region are on the front lines of the battle to contain a jihadist threat that has steadily grown since 2012, when al-Qaida-linked fighters first seized parts of Mali.  Thousands have been killed in the insurgencies and more than 3 million displaced, fueling a deep humanitarian crisis in some of the world's poorest countries.

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 — First lady Jill Biden is supporting her husband, President Joe Biden, as he tries to salvage his reelection campaign after a debate performance left a growing number of members of his own party questioning his decision to stay in the race. “She’s his biggest supporter and champion, because she believes in him, and she fears for the future of our country if it goes the other way,” Elizabeth Alexander, the first lady's communications director, said this week. “Just as he’s always supported her career, she supports his.” Jill Biden has been campaigning with her husband this week but also on her own at several stops. “For all the talk out there about this race, Joe has made it clear that he’s all in,” she said at each of her solo campaign stops. “That’s the decision he’s made. And just as he has always supported my career, I am all in, too. I know you are, too, or you wouldn’t be here today,” she told crowds in North Carolina, Florida and Georgia. As first lady, Jill Biden has spearheaded initiatives for military members and their families as well as cancer treatment. As a longtime teacher, she also prioritized programs focused on education. She has been involved in Joining Forces, a White House designed initiative to support military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors, according to the White House website. Joining Forces focuses on projects such as improving military spouse employment and military child education. In her first two years as first lady, Biden visited 24 military installations. She has also been a part of Cancer Moonshot, a program rejuvenated by the Bidens. According to its website, the project is committed to “ending cancer as we know it” by preventing more than 4 million cancer deaths by 2047. According to the American Cancer Society, a little more than 600,000 people died of cancer in 2021. The goals of Cancer Moonshot include increasing access to screenings and avoiding harmful environmental exposures. In addition to being the U.S. first lady, Biden is also an educator. Part of her focus while in the White House has been on academic initiatives aimed at recruiting and retaining teachers and lowering education costs. When Joe Biden became vice president under President Barack Obama, Jill Biden became the first-ever second lady to hold a paying job outside the White House. As first lady she has continued to teach writing at Northern Virginia Community College, just south of Washington, where she taught full time while her husband was vice president.    “Many of my students don’t know that I have two jobs,” she said in 2021.   Biden is very familiar with life in Washington, since her husband spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as vice president under Obama.   Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory gave Jill Biden the distinction of being the first presidential spouse to have earned a doctorate. Dr. Biden, 73, was born in New Jersey and grew up in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. She earned her doctorate in education from the University of Delaware.   Life with Joe Biden was complicated from the start. She was going through a divorce. He was grieving, raising two young sons alone after his wife and baby daughter died in a car crash. Jill and Joe married, after Joe asked five times.    “And the fifth time, I finally said to her, 'Jill, my Irish pride has gotten ahold of me. This is the last time I'm gonna ask you,” Biden said on the “Rachael Ray Show.” “I said, ‘You don't have to tell me when you will marry me, just if you'll marry me.’ She said yes.” Four years later, Jill gave birth to a daughter, Ashley. Tragedy would strike again in 2015 when Joe Biden’s 46-year-old son, Beau, died of brain cancer. “This is personal for me and my husband Joe,” she said. She was the author of the 2020 children’s book Joey: The Story of Joe Biden. It was about her husband’s early years, his competitiveness and resilience after being mocked over his stutter.     She displayed that protective streak during a campaign rally in March 2023, using her body on two occasions to block a protester from reaching her husband on stage.   Although they call the tiny Mid-Atlantic state of Delaware their home, Jill Biden has followed her husband through his career as U.S. senator, vice president and president. Now, she hopes to see him in the White House for another four years.

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 — Iran struggled to arrange absentee voting in the U.S. for the second round of its presidential election Friday, as a VOA investigation found that Tehran’s U.S. ballot stations suffered more setbacks than those it organized for the election’s first round a week prior. Tehran declared relative moderate former Iranian Health Minister Masoud Pezeshkian the winner of the July 5 runoff against ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Iran's interests section office in Washington began the absentee voting operation on U.S. soil by setting up ballot stations for the election’s first round on June 28. That first-round operation suffered some setbacks, according to an initial VOA investigation. Three of the 33 ballot station addresses listed online by the interests section office just hours before voting started quickly canceled their voting events under pressure from Iranian American activists and protesters who oppose Iran’s authoritarian Islamist rulers. VOA’s new investigation found that Iran’s U.S.-based agents encountered deeper problems with organizing ballot stations for the July 5 runoff. The findings conflict with Iran’s assertion, published by state news agency IRNA, that those agents were able to “increase” the number of ballot stations for the runoff, thanks to the “welcome” of Iranians living in the U.S. Almost half of the June 28 ballot stations were not relisted for use in the runoff, indicating difficulties for the organizers in rebooking some of the first-round venues. VOA also assessed that for the runoff, the locations where voting was canceled doubled, while ballot stations whose addresses were hidden to keep protesters away increased. Those addresses were accessible only by contacting a listed phone number or email address. A VOA review of the July 5 ballot station list, which was updated multiple times that day, found that it included street addresses of 32 venues. One additional venue near Boston had been exposed by activists online after they apparently accessed its unlisted address via email. The listed addresses included those of 16 hotels, six Islamic centers, and a variety of other venues. VOA assessed that voting events proceeded in at least 17 venues on the July 5 list, based on verbal confirmations from venue staff who answered phone calls that day and on videos of the sites posted by activists on social media and deemed to be credible. Fifteen of the identified July 5 ballot station locations had not been listed for the election’s first round, while 18 locations from the first round were relisted for round two. One of them was the main ballot station, in Iran’s Washington interests section office. That is where a VOA Persian reporter observed about 90 to 100 people entering the venue in a 10-hour period on July 5. Three of them told the reporter that most of the visitors were there filling out passport applications or other paperwork rather than voting. One man was at the office with his wife on July 5 specifically to vote. He told the VOA Persian reporter that voting is a pillar of democracy and could lead to positive change for Iran. Many diaspora Iranians denounced Iran’s presidential election as a sham, while the State Department called it neither free nor fair. The Islamic republic’s ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues. Iranian American activists opposed to Tehran's U.S. ballot stations protested peacefully on June 28 outside two venues that canceled voting events, and those activist told VOA they successfully appealed to a third to do the same. None of the three venues were relisted for the July 5 vote. One of them was the Congregational Church of Weston near Boston, Pastoral Resident Megan Strouse told VOA in an interview that those who rented the church on June 28 identified themselves as from Boston’s Iranian American community. "We thought their intention was to hold an election event for their local community, for a board or something of that nature," Strouse said. "That morning, we realized what the event was, and our senior pastor made the call to ask the renters to stop their event, as it did not align with our mission and purpose as a religious organization." VOA emailed the independently owned Biltmore Hotel Oklahoma in Oklahoma City on July 3, requesting confirmation of its use as a June 28 ballot station after Iran had identified it as such, and asking whether the hotel would host a voting event for the runoff. There was no response from the hotel, and it was left off the second-round ballot station list published on July 5. In another sign of the difficulties that Iran faced in its U.S. ballot station operation for July 5, VOA determined that voting was canceled in three of the 33 identified venues. Hotel staff who answered the phones at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Seattle North Lynnwood in Washington and at Marriott’s The Westin Tysons Corner in Virginia confirmed that the runoff voting events were called off following protest activity. Protesters also found the unlisted address of a second-round mobile ballot station that briefly operated out of a police station parking lot in the Boston suburb of Woburn. They posted social media images indicating the event was called off after they showed up at the site. Three additional U.S. cities initially appeared in Iran’s July 5 list as numbered voting precincts, but they were removed in updated versions of the list with no ballot station addresses having been displayed, indicating that voting plans for those locations had been canceled as well. These were Ontario, California; Oklahoma City; and Sterling, Virginia. Iran also hid the addresses of July 5 mobile voting stations that it listed for three parts of Los Angeles and for New York’s Manhattan borough and the Boston area, forcing both prospective voters and protesters to use the listed contact information for those stations to find their addresses. For the June 28 vote, only the mobile station for Manhattan had an unlisted address. U.S. advocacy group National Iranian American Council, which has adopted a positive view of Pezeshkian, Iran’s incoming president, decried what it called the protesters’ intimidation and harassment of Iranian Americans who voted at U.S. ballot stations on June 28. "We cannot be a community that stands for voter suppression and attacks against Iranians who dare to express their political agency," NIAC said in a July 2 statement. Andrew Ghalili, a senior policy analyst with National Union for Democracy in Iran, an Iranian American advocacy group that opposes the Islamic republic, told VOA that those who organized and participated in the U.S. voting events were helping the Iranian government boost its legitimacy at home and abroad. But Ghalili said the boycott of the vote by most diaspora Iranians and protest actions by some of them showed that they have lost faith in the Islamic republic’s ability to reform itself through elections. "Some of the protesters’ goals were accomplished, in terms of making Iran struggle with its election messaging, so I think they should be pleased with their efforts," he said. Soran Khateri of VOA’s Persian service contributed to this report from Washington.

maputo, mozambique — Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi has promised to continue supporting Mozambique in its fight against violent extremism in the oil-and-gas rich province of Cabo Delgado, even after the imminent departure of southern African troops from the troubled region.     Addressing a media conference upon his arrival in the Mozambican capital Maputo late Wednesday, Masisi said the withdrawal of troops from Cabo Delgado does not mark the end of his country's support in combating violent extremism.   Masisi said Botswana remains ready to assist Mozambique.     "In the military and security space, we are going to share our know-how and expertise because we are to you what you are to us," said Masisi. "And just to make it clear, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Mozambique in the quest for peace, so any instability such as we witnessed, we will be ready to intervene."     Botswana is the second country, following Tanzania to pledge continued support for Mozambique after the departure of troops from SADC, the Southern African Development Community.  The SADC troops are due to leave Mozambique on July 15 due to financial issues.    After holding official talks with Masisi at his seaside palace in Maputo late Wednesday, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi thanked his visitor for Botswana's role in the fight against terrorism in Cabo Delgado.     "Together, we work to combat these attacks and this help does not end,"  said Nyusi. "There are many ways Masisi is supporting Mozambique and that will continue. We are training our officers, our military personnel in Botswana. And the flow will continue because these are the ones who must ensure the continuation of the fight."    The SADC mission consisted of troops from Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, working in collaboration with the Mozambican defense forces and Rwandan troops to combat acts of terrorism and violent extremism.     The mission, known as SAMIM, has been in Mozambique since July of 2021 and was able to destroy the terrorist bases, reduce the number of attacks, and restore normal functioning to public and private institutions. However, Webster Zambara, a senior project leader of peace-building initiatives at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in South Africa, predicted a long road ahead before terrorism is vanquished in northern Mozambique.   Zambara spoke with VOA Thursday from his base in Cape Town over WhatsApp.     "If you look at Boko Haram in West Africa, it has been there for 15 years now. If you look at al-Shabab in East Africa, it has been there for more than 10 years," said Zambara. "So, anyone who thought that rising extremism in northern Mozambique is going to be a short war would not have looked at how terrorists have operated, not only in Africa, but even globally.  "  The insurgency in northern Mozambique began in 2017 and already has caused close to 6,000 deaths, leading to the displacement of more than 1 million people. Multinational oil and gas firms operating in the region, such as Exxon Mobil and Total, were forced to suspend operations over security concerns. 

abuja, nigeria — A regional African court has ruled that Nigerian authorities violated the rights of protesters during mass demonstrations against police brutality in 2020. The protests, dubbed End SARS, called for disbanding the Special Anti-Robbery Squad after allegations of torture, extortion and extrajudicial killings. A coalition of human rights activists and organizations sued in late 2021. Applicants  Obianuju Udeh, Perpetual Kamsi and Dabiraoluwa Adeyinka alleged severe human rights violations by state agents as they put down the street protests. In its verdict issued Wednesday, a three-member panel of the Court of Justice - linked with the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS - determined that Nigerian authorities had used disproportionate force in their response to the protests. The panel said security agents had violated the African Charter on Human and People's Rights as well as several international human rights laws. Bolaji Gabari, lead counsel representing the applicants, welcomed the verdict. "Justice is finally achieved and obtained. ... What we were really looking for was to get an affirmation that this really happened," Gabari said. "This judgment just affirms what we have been saying. The other applicants that came forward initially considered their safety and withdrew." The ECOWAS court ordered the Nigerian government to compensate each applicant with $6,400, or about 10 million naira; to investigate the rights abuses; and to show progress on holding offenders responsible within six months. The court also stated that the use of live rounds against protesters at the Lekki toll gate on October 20, 2020, caused fear, and that the Nigerian government did not present evidence refuting those allegations. Authorities have not responded to the court ruling, and a national police spokesperson did not take VOA's calls for comment. But human rights groups like Amnesty International and some activists welcomed the court’s decision as a significant victory for human rights in Nigeria. Nelson Olanipekun, a human rights lawyer and founder of Citizens' Gavel, a civic organization that seeks to improve the pace of justice delivery through the use of technology, said, "The ECOWAS court judgment came at a right time, especially now that Nigerians are going through tough times. And there's also a regional move where Africans largely are recognizing their power as citizens. For example, what happened in Kenya — people demanding accountability from their government — was also similar to what happened during End SARS."  Olanipekun said, however, that more work needs to be done. "What is the next move? Since End SARS, even though the police have tried, there has been reoccurrence of incidents of police brutality in the country," he said. "It has not abated. There's no sufficient accountability and oversight over government organizations. Also, the Nigerian court has been weak, inefficient and corrupt. They're not independent enough." Thousands of young Nigerians poured into the streets in October 2020 to demand the dissolution of the SARS unit, but the protest soon expanded to call for better governance before it was forcefully quelled on October 20. Last October, Amnesty International said at least 15 End SARS protesters languished in a Lagos jail while activists marked the third anniversary of the protests.

The Supreme Court handed a momentous victory to supporters of deregulation on June 28 in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, discarding the long-standing doctrine known as Chevron deference. The decision will almost certainly lead to a sea-change in how federal agencies are able to do their work, with huge and likely devastating impacts on the […]

The post Immigrants May Benefit While Others Lose Out From the Supreme Court’s Decision Overruling Chevron appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Members of the world’s largest military alliance converge in Washington to commemorate NATO's 75th anniversary. Explore the pressing issues of European security and Ukraine’s defense. Plus, catch up on the latest developments in elections across Britain, France, and the United States.

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.

Water for irrigation is once again flowing from Syria’s Al Balaa reservoir after it was rehabilitated recently following years of wartime attacks. With Moawia Atrash and Ahmad Fallaha, Dorian Jones reports the dam’s restoration has opened a lifeline for besieged farmers in the face of a continuing war, rising unemployment, and food insecurity. (Camera: Moawia Atrash, Ahmad Fallaha)

nairobi, kenya — The combination of climate change and a growing world population may threaten global food security. As the United Nations marks World Population Day, changes in agriculture, especially in Africa, may be the only way forward. The global population is expected to grow over the next 60 years, from 8.2 billion today to 10.3 billion in the 2080s. Much of that growth will occur in Africa, where many countries still have high fertility rates. The United Nations Population Fund said climate change is expected to exacerbate global inequalities and trigger national and international migration. U.N. agencies say 1 billion of the 1.3 billion people living in Africa struggle to afford healthy diets and hunger worsened between 2019 and 2022. Food needs grow, farmland shrinks Africa's farmland has been shrinking because of persistent drought, while the growing population leaves less space to farm. Chris Ojiewo, principal scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, said African farmers need to produce a lot of food in small spaces to feed the growing population. "We cannot even think of a human way ... or ethical way to stop population growth, so let it grow but let us people able to produce more within a small area," said Ojiewo. "For example, where we are able to produce only one ton of maize per hectare, why don't we work and that is what we are doing to improve this productivity to go beyond 1 ton to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 10 tons per hectare, considering developing varieties but also production systems that enable us to produce in the intensified system but also to produce even when there is drought." Speaking at a conference in Mexico this week, Ann Vaughan, deputy assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said scientific research and technology can help farmers cope with climate change and assist them in cultivating diverse crops. "To help make sure we are accelerating smart innovations so that farmers are getting access so even in the face of horrific drought, they are still able to produce food for themselves and their families," said Vaughan. "... what that looks like is making sure we have the right science, the right seeds, the right private sector partners who are pulling and creating a demand for these types of seeds, diversifying so that you are not just growing maize but you are also growing cowpeas and other things which are more resilient to climate change and the brighter type of practices so that you are mixing intercropping and having less tilt." Initiative promotes sustainable practices In 2010, the U.S. government launched Feed the Future, an initiative aimed at addressing the causes of hunger and poverty in developing countries worldwide. The program improved African agriculture systems by promoting sustainable practices that considered climate challenges. That helped increase economic opportunities, employment and trade. In some African countries, the dominance of maize crops as the primary source of food has worried experts. The crop relies on rain, and climate change is causing unpredictable rainfall patterns. African farmers must change when and what they grow to produce enough food, said Ojiewo. "Ensuring that production and productivity continue, whether in season or off-season, does not necessarily mean relying 100 percent on rain-fed agriculture," said Ojiewo. "Diversification, as I mentioned here, does not mean overlying on one single crop for population survival. I know many countries are relying on maize in terms of cereals and ignoring some of the other crops that will fit into these systems." Due to increasing drought in several African countries, farmers are urged to cultivate crops such as cassava, sorghum, pigeon peas, and pearl millet, which are resilient to unpredictable and harsh conditions.

Washington — While much of the focus at the NATO summit in Washington has been on providing additional support for Ukraine, some Western officials are equally intent on confronting another challenge unleashed by Russia’s invasion: a nascent arms race with global implications. The officials argue it is no longer enough to try to ensure Ukraine has the weapons and systems it needs to keep pace with Russia’s unrelenting attacks. They say NATO must simultaneously prepare to outspend, outpace and outproduce the fledgling alliance that has kept the Russian military on the move. “There is no time to lose,” a NATO official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the growing defense cooperation among Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. “This must be a key priority for all our allies, because it is not just about spending more,” the official said. “It is also on getting those capabilities.” Officials have repeatedly accused China of playing a critical role in sustaining Russia’s military by sending Moscow raw materials and so-called dual-use components needed to produce advanced weapons and weapons systems. In April and May, the United States and Britain levied new sanctions against Iranian companies and officials involved in the production of drones for the Russian military. And declassified U.S. intelligence has noted Russia’s use of North Korean ballistic missiles, while South Korean officials said earlier this year that Pyongyang has so far sent Russia at least 6,700 containers which could contain more than 3 million artillery shells.  The NATO official who spoke to VOA said the support from China, Iran and North Korea has significantly altered Russia’s posture on the battlefield, rendering intelligence assessments that Russia’s military “will require years of rebuilding” obsolete.   “When you look at the assessments of the pace of reconstitution of the Russian armed forces and the Russian defense industrial and technological base, those assessments were made without taking into account how much China would be stepping in,” the official said. And there are concerns this is just the beginning. The prospect for increased cooperation between Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, “essentially underlines the urgency of the task at hand,” the official said. Some U.S. officials have taken to calling the growing alliance a new “axis of evil.” “We ought to act accordingly,” former commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific Admiral John Aquilino told lawmakers in March.  Some analysts are also alarmed, seeing signs that the defense relationship between Russia and the other countries is moving beyond a series of bilateral efforts to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine. “What we are seeing now is … an intensification, a deepening of these strategic partnerships,” said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Whether or not they're 100% aligned all the time, every day, what's important is that on the strategic capabilities that they're building in partnership, they are aligned,” Goldberg, a U.S. National Security Council official under former President Donald Trump, told VOA. “Our response has to view them as an axis, not individual parts.” But how quickly that axis evolves into a true rival to NATO is less certain. “There are still significant tension points between the four countries that prevent the formation of a more cohesive alliance,” said Michelle Grisé, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “Within the Russia-Iran relationship, for example, friction points include competition for energy markets and for influence in the Caucasus, as well as — at least historically —divergent approaches to Israel,” Grisé told VOA. “The Russia-China-North Korea-Iran axis poses a serious threat to U.S. and NATO interests, but I don’t think this axis is an unsurmountable rival,” she said. “To form a more cohesive alliance, they’ll have to translate their shared opposition to the Western-led international order into a coherent, shared vision for the future, which I expect they’ll struggle to do.” NATO allies, however, are not ready to take such struggles by the evolving Russian-Chinese-North Korean-Iranian axis for granted. In a speech July 9 at the NATO Summit Defense Industry Forum in Washington, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks noted the “rapid defense industrial expansion of our strategic competitors,” while urging NATO allies to expand cooperation on weapons procurement and development. As an example, Hicks cited an effort by the U.S., Germany, Spain and others to produce interceptors for Patriot air defense batteries in Europe while praising a U.S.-Turkish effort to produce 155-millimeter artillery shells in the southern U.S. state of Texas. “None of us should think it’s enough,” she said. “Expanding transatlantic defense industrial capacity is not a nice-to-do. It is a need-to-do, a must-do for the NATO alliance.” Even if the NATO efforts to boost weapons production are not enough, some officials see them as a reason to believe the West can retain an upper hand. “I think that the steps and the progress we're making is really delivering results,” the NATO official told VOA, adding, they “wouldn't be overly pessimistic.” “On issues like ammunitions, you're starting to see the ramping up actually materializing,” the official said. “And I think if we look at the year to come, we're going to have much better, much better numbers.”