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Nairobi — Kenyan President William Ruto meets his US counterpart Joe Biden in Washington this week, with the crisis in Haiti and efforts to build trade ties likely to top the agenda. Billed as "historic" by Ruto's office, it is the first state visit by a Kenyan president to the United States in two decades and the first by an African leader since 2008. Thursday's Biden-Ruto talks will focus on trade and security partnerships including Kenya's pledge to lead a UN-backed multinational mission seeking to restore order in Haiti, which has been wracked by gang-fueled anarchy. Kenya has offered to send 1,000 personnel, along with forces pledged by several other countries, although the United States and other major nations have ruled out putting their own forces on the ground. A first batch of Kenyan police is expected to make the 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) journey to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince this week, security sources told AFP, despite a fresh court challenge in Nairobi against the deployment. Ruto has defended the undertaking as a "mission for humanity" in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation, which has suffered from poverty, political instability and natural disasters for decades. But a new lawsuit filed last week is seeking to hold Ruto's government in contempt for "blatantly" ignoring a January court order prohibiting the deployment as unconstitutional and illegal. Funding could also prove a stumbling block for the mission, analysts say. The United States is the largest backer of the force, pledging more than $300 million since the Haiti crisis intensified several years ago but other countries have been slow to offer support. Ruto will demand "the US do more to rally financial support for the UN basket fund," said Meron Elias, East and Southern Africa analyst at the International Crisis Group. "Kenya also wants the US to commit greater backing to stemming the flow of arms into Haiti, including from US ports in Florida," she said. Trade deal Ruto begins his visit on Monday in Atlanta, Georgia where he will visit the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, among other engagements. "His remarks here will underline the importance of democracies working collaboratively to tackle global challenges," State House spokesman Hussein Mohamed said. On Tuesday, he is due to visit studios owned by entertainment mogul Tyler Perry, who has championed greater diversity in Hollywood to "explore opportunities within the creative economy." Ruto will meet a Congressional delegation on Wednesday and call for the extension of a free trade agreement — the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) — which eliminates import tariffs on goods from eligible African nations. The pact expires in 2025, prompting African leaders to seek clarity on future arrangements. Most of Kenya's imports are from China — also one of its biggest bilateral creditors — and Washington has been keen to eat into Beijing's clout in the region. The East African nation began talks with the United States on a free trade agreement in 2020 but nothing has been signed. In 2022, the United States exported goods worth $604 million to Kenya while imports totaled $875 million, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative. Kenyan Trade Minister Rebecca Miano said there were "very big opportunities" for investment in the country. "We have prepared more than 30 bankable projects worth over $20.5 billion to interest American investors and the Kenyan diaspora," she told local media last week. 'Extremely disappointed' A request for Ruto to address a joint session of Congress fell through after House Speaker Mike Johnson of the Republican Party declined to extend an invitation. Lawmakers from Biden's Democratic Party last week accused Johnson of disrespecting Africa, saying they were "extremely disappointed" by the decision. The last African leader to address Congress was Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the continent's first female elected head of state, in 2006. The visit "feels a bit like a fig leaf" for Africa, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said, as it comes after Biden broke a promise to visit Africa last year. Kenyan historian Macharia Munene also cautioned that Nairobi's future relationship with Washington would hinge on the outcome of the November US presidential election. Ruto is currently "America's blue-eyed boy" and is "hobnobbing" with Biden, a situation that could change if Donald Trump wins the presidency again, he said in an opinion piece for The Standard newspaper.

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London — A British court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal against an order that he be extradited to the U.S. on espionage charges. Two High Court judges on Monday said Assange has grounds to challenge the U.K. government's extradition order. The ruling sets the stage for an appeal process likely to further drag out a years-long legal saga. Assange faces 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website's publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago. The Australian computer expert has spent the last five years in a British high-security prison after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years. Assange's lawyers have argued he was a journalist who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sending him to the U.S., they said, would expose him to a politically motivated prosecution and risk a "flagrant denial of justice." The U.S. government says Assange's actions went way beyond those of a journalist gathering information, amounting to an attempt to solicit, steal and indiscriminately publish classified government documents. In March, two judges rejected the bulk of Assange's arguments but said he could take his case to the Court of Appeal unless the U.S. guaranteed he would not face the death penalty if extradited and would have the same free speech protections as a U.S. citizen. The court said that if Assange couldn't rely on the First Amendment then it was arguable his extradition would be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which also provides free speech and media protections. The U.S. provided those reassurances, but Assange's legal team and supporters argue they are not good enough to rely on to send him to the U.S. federal court system because the First Amendment promises fall short. The U.S. said Assange could seek to rely on the amendment but it would be up to a judge to decide whether he could. Attorney James Lewis, representing the U.S., said Assange's conduct was "simply unprotected" by the First Amendment. "No one, neither U.S. citizens nor foreign citizens, are entitled to rely on the First Amendment in relation to publication of illegally obtained national defense information giving the names of innocent sources, to their grave and imminent risk of harm," Lewis said. The WikiLeaks founder, who has spent the past five years in a British prison, was not in court to hear his fate being debated. He did not attend for health reasons, Fitzgerald said. Commuters emerging from a Tube stop near the courthouse couldn't miss a large sign bearing Assange's photo and the words, "Publishing is not a crime. War crimes are." Scores of supporters gathered outside the neo-Gothic Royal Courts of Justice chanting "Free Julian Assange" and "Press freedom, Assange freedom." Some held a large white banner aimed at President Joe Biden, exhorting: "Let him go Joe." Assange's lawyers say he could face up to 175 years in prison if convicted, though American authorities have said any sentence would likely be much shorter. Assange's family and supporters say his physical and mental health have suffered during more than a decade of legal battles, which includes seven years spent inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London from 2012 until 2019. He has spent the past five years in a British high-security prison. His legal team is prepared to ask the European Court of Human Rights to intervene. But his supporters fear Assange could be transferred before the court in Strasbourg, France, could halt his removal. Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson may also postpone issuing a decision.  

Islamabad — Authorities in Afghanistan said Monday that a bomb blast had killed at least one person and injured three others in the southern city of Kandahar, the political headquarters of the country’s hardline Taliban rulers. The bomb was planted in a handcart on a road leading to the national capital, Kabul, and the victims were civilians, a Kandahar police statement said. It added that an investigation into the attack was underway to apprehend and bring to justice those responsible. Multiple sources claimed that the bombing had targeted Taliban security forces, and the death toll was significantly higher than what was officially reported. No group immediately took responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on a regional Islamic State affiliate, known as IS-Khorasan or IS-K, which routinely targets members of the Taliban and the country’s minority Shi’ite community. Bamiyan attack The bombing in Kandahar came a day after IS-K said it was behind a gun attack against foreign tourists in the central province of Bamiyan Friday. The shooting resulted in the deaths of three Spanish citizens and three Afghans, with four other tourists from Spain, Australia, Norway, and Lithuania sustaining injuries. Bamiyan is a popular designation for foreign tourists because it is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site and the remains of two giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban during their previous rule in 2001. Militant attacks are extremely rare in Kandahar, where the reclusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, lives and effectively governs Afghanistan from there through religious edicts stemming from his strict interpretation of Islam. The most recent IS-K-claimed bombing in the city, known as the historical birthplace of the Taliban, occurred in late March when a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of government employees collecting salaries outside a bank, killing at least three of them. The Taliban stormed back to power in Kabul in 2021 when the United States and NATO troops withdrew from the country after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.

BANGKOK — Thailand on Monday officially began the selection of new senators, a process that has become part of an ongoing war between progressive forces hoping for democratic political reforms and conservatives seeking to keep the status quo. Hopeful candidates headed to district offices across the country on the first day of registration to compete for one of the 200 seats in Parliament’s upper house. The power of the Senate — although limited compared to the House of Representatives, which is tasked with law-making responsibilities — was demonstrated dramatically when it blocked the progressive party that won the most seats in last year's election from forming a new government. The senators were able to do so because of the 2017 Constitution, passed under a military government, which requires the prime minister to be approved by a joint vote of the elected House and the Senate, which was appointed by the military regime. The Move Forward Party was opposed by senators who disapproved of its vow to seek reforms of Thailand’s monarchy. The process of selecting the new senators will include three rounds of voting: district, provincial and national. Unlike the elected lower house legislators, the senators will be chosen by their fellow applicants, competing in 20 categories such as occupation or social position, including women, the elderly and the disabled. The final results are expected to be announced in July. The selection process in the Constitution is so complicated and unclear that critics say it was deliberately designed to discourage public participation. Critics say the Constitution also allows the state bureaucracy to hold more power than directly elected political officeholders. The new senators will no longer be able to take part in selecting a prime minister but will retain the power to approve legislation passed by the House. They also have the power to select members of nominally independent regulatory bodies such as the Election Commission and the Constitutional Court, whose work has been widely seen as impeding efforts at political reform and crippling proponents with legal penalties, including prison. The Senate’s votes are also required to amend the Constitution. The governing Pheu Thai party is pushing for a new charter to replace the 2017 one to facilitate certain reform efforts promised during the campaign. Civil society groups have campaigned to raise public awareness and encourage those favoring democratic reforms to enter the Senate selection process. Law reform advocate Yingcheep Atchanont of the group iLaw has been organizing public discussions on the importance of the Senate and workshops to help would-be applicants understand how the selection process works. “We are telling people what to do if they want change. There have been calls in recent years to reduce the power of the Senate, to get rid of the Senate," he said. "All of this can only happen if we can amend the Constitution, and we need enough votes from the senators for that.” Candidates must be more than 40 years old and have more than 10 years of experience in their chosen occupational group, the latter provision not applying for those competing in one of the social identity groups. They also cannot campaign or do anything that can be interpreted as campaigning. Even the Election Commission has acknowledged how complicated the process is but says it will be able to carry it out smoothly and transparently. Purawich Watanasukh, a political science lecturer at Bangkok's Thammasat University, said he thinks the complicated rules were intentionally designed to reduce public participation. “This is the contest of the people to debug not just the Senate itself, but the Constitution, which would lead to a new political landscape in Thailand,” he said, ““It will be the next battleground between the progressive movement and the establishment.”

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Mexico City — Less than two weeks from national elections, opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez hit away on security, one of Mexico's most stubborn challenges, in her final debate Sunday night with governing party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum. Sheinbaum, the frontrunner in the race, defended the security record of her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, while Gálvez accused the administration of playing nice with the country’s powerful drug cartels. “What has been this administration’s strategy? Give the country to organized crime,” said Gálvez, a former senator and tech entrepreneur. But Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor and climate scientist, maintained the conservative strategy that she employed in two previous debates, not taking the bait when Gálvez attacked. Gálvez promised to keep and strengthen the National Guard that López Obrador created, but also strengthen state and local police forces. “Hugs for criminals are over,” she said in reference to López Obrador’s oft-repeated slogan, “Hugs, not bullets.” She also promised to personally lead the meetings of the National Search Commission, which is supposed to help locate the 100,000 Mexicans listed as missing. Both candidates said they would lean heavily on the National Guard, saying they would continue to expand it. In one potential difference, Gálvez said she wants it under civilian leadership. Sheinbaum promised to continue López Obrador’s efforts to address the social ills that he says feed cartel recruitment. “The drug war continued until President Andrés Manuel López Obrador arrived and changed the policy of declaring war to building peace,” Sheinbaum said. Sheinbaum did not make any major stumbles and it seemed unlikely Gálvez would eat into the comfortable lead that Sheinbaum has maintained in polls in recent months. Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the small Citizen Movement party continued to focus his attention on the country’s youth, repeating his promises of a five-day work week and more spaces in public universities. He has trailed Sheinbaum and Gálvez who are vying to become Mexico’s first woman president in the June 2 election. Mexico is extremely polarized ahead of the June 2 presidential election. López Obrador regularly rails against reporters, the middle class, businessmen and people he calls “individualists” and social climbers. Earlier Sunday, tens of thousands of mostly opposition supporters protested against the president in the capital's vast colonial-era main plaza. The protesters carried signs saying “We are Mexicans,” referring to what they claim are attempts by López Obrador to divide the country. The protest was originally called to defend independent electoral agencies that the president wants to reduce or de-fund. But many protesters carried banners supporting Gálvez. Mexican presidents are limited to a single six-year term. Mexico City resident Joel Guerra, 59, carried a sign that read “Reclaim Mexico.” “The president says that only his supporters are ‘the good people’ of Mexico, and the rest of us don't have rights,” Guerra said. “We are people, too.” Guerra was particularly concerned by a new law that López Obrador has passed that seizes unclaimed personal pension accounts to hand out to other retirees. “Unfortunately, the people governing us right now have completely divided the country,” businesswoman Alana Leal said. “There are two groups of Mexicans, and that's not fair. It's not fair to create so much hate, because at the end of the day, we're all in the same boat, and we are all working for the country's progress.” López Obrador frequently attacks anyone who disagrees with him as “racist, classist, conservative.” He also favors state-owned companies and government hand-out programs and derides the accumulation of personal wealth. Sheinbaum has pledged to try to reconcile Mexicans if she wins, but Leal said he doubted she would. “I think it will be very difficult to achieve a reconciliation between the two groups,” she said, adding, “That is very regrettable.”

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran's first Vice President Mohammad Mokhber was appointed as acting president of the Islamic Republic on Monday after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in the country's northwest.  Mokhber, 68, largely has been in the shadows compared to other politicians in Iran's Shiite theocracy. Raisi's death under the constitution thrust Mokhber into public view. He is expected to serve as caretaker president for some 50 days before mandatory presidential elections in Iran.  Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the announcement of Mokhber’s appointment in a condolence message he shared for Raisi’s death in the crash Sunday. The helicopter was found Monday in northwestern Iran.  Despite his low-key public profile, Mokhber has held prominent positions within the country's power structure, particularly in its bonyads, or charitable foundations. Those groups were fueled by donations or assets seized after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, particularly those previously associated with Iran's shah or those in his government.  Mokhber oversaw a bonyad, or charitable trust in Iran, known in English as the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, or EIKO, referring to the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.  The U.S. Treasury said the organization oversaw billions of dollars in assets as “a business juggernaut under the direct supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that has a stake in nearly every sector of the Iranian economy, including energy, telecommunications, and financial services.” “EIKO has systematically violated the rights of dissidents by confiscating land and property from opponents of the regime, including political opponents, religious minorities, and exiled Iranians,” the Treasury said in 2021 in sanctioning Mokhber. The European Union also had sanctioned Mokhber for a time with others over concerns then about Iran's nuclear program.  As the head of EIKO, Mokhber oversaw an effort to make a COVID-19 vaccine during the height of the pandemic, pledging to make tens of millions of doses. Only a fraction of that ever made it to the public, without explanation.  Mokhber previously worked in banking and telecommunications. He also worked at the Mostazafan Foundation, another bonyad that's a major conglomerate that manages the country’s mega-projects and businesses. While there, he found himself entangled in a bitter legal dispute between mobile phone service providers Turkcell and South Africa's MTN over potentially entering the Iranian market. MTN ended up entering Iran. A Turkcell filing alleged Mokhber sought MTN's help in securing “certain defense equipment” in exchange for potentially working with it as opposed to Turkcell.  Mokhber used “improper influence up to and including negotiating with and on behalf of the Supreme Leader in MTN’s favor,” Turkcell later alleged in a legal filing. An MTN report later said there were no arms transfers, though it acknowledged Mokhber was a player in Iran's decision to go with MTN. Iranian media reports suggest Mokhber, who holds a doctorate in international law, was crucial in Iranian efforts to bypass Western sanctions on its oil industry.  Mokhber has been a member of Iran’s Expediency Council since 2022, which advises the supreme leader, as well as settles disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog that also oversees the country’s elections.  Mokhber was born Sept. 1, 1955, in Dezful in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan province to a clerical family. He served as an officer in the Revolutionary Guard's medical corps during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, according to the pressure group United Against Nuclear Iran. “Mokhber used the vast wealth accumulated by EIKO — at the expense of the Iranian people—to reward regime insiders like himself,” UANI said. “Managing the patronage network endeared him to the supreme leader, but at a cost.”

Johannesburg — South Africa's top court says graft-tainted former president Jacob Zuma is not eligible to run for parliament in the country's May 29 general election. Zuma left office in 2018, dogged by corruption allegations, and was briefly jailed for contempt. He has since founded a party to challenge his successor Cyril Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC). The ANC has won every South African election since the country became a democracy in 1994, and Zuma served as the party's fourth president between 2009 and 2018. But his era has become synonymous with the corruption allegations haunting the former anti-apartheid movement, and electoral authorities argued that Zuma's 2021 conviction barred him from the ballot. Zuma and his new party, named uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) after the ANC's former armed wing, challenged that ruling which has now been upheld by the constitutional court. After a South African general election, the president is chosen by MPs from among their own ranks, so if Zuma is not on the ballot he could not become president. Tight race Under section 47 of the South African constitution, anyone convicted of an offense and sentenced to a year or more cannot stand for office until five years after the end of their jail term. Monday's ruling could have deep and destabilizing political consequences. Ramaphosa's ANC is still all but certain to remain South Africa's largest party after the May 29 vote, but some polls indicate that it may struggle for the first time to win an absolute majority. Zuma's MK does not poll well nationwide but in his native KwaZulu-Natal province and among Zulus he retains support — more than 30,000 supporters cheered him at a Soweto stadium rally Saturday. If Zuma’s party cuts into the ANC's traditional support base, Ramaphosa may be forced to negotiate a coalition with one or more of the country's many small opposition parties to ensure he is re-elected to the presidency. Strike Zuma from the ballot may also trigger a deadly wave of unrest. Rioting after his 2021 imprisonment left more than 350 people dead. Soaring unemployment South Africa's respected Independent Electoral Commission says ballot papers have already been printed with Zuma's image on them, but he will be unable to sit as an MP. The ANC was the leading political force in the struggle of black South Africans against the former apartheid regime, and has led the country for 30 years. But late liberation leader Nelson Mandela's party has struggled in the polls in the run up to this year's vote, dogged by corruption allegations and soaring crime and unemployment rates. Just under a third of the working-age population is unemployed and the murder rate has reached 84 a day. But Ramaphosa's party still has a formidable nationwide electoral machine and has overseen the creation of a broad social welfare system. Many older South Africans remain loyal to its historic role.   

Vienna — The UN nuclear watchdog on Monday called for "vigilance" against trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material, saying it has recorded more than 4,200 thefts or other incidents over the past 30 years. Last year, 31 countries reported 168 incidents "in line with historical averages," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. Six of those were "likely related to trafficking or malicious use," it added. Since 1993, the IAEA has recorded 4,243 incidents, with 350 of them connected or likely to be connected to trafficking or malicious use. "The reoccurrence of incidents confirms the need for vigilance and continuous improvement of the regulatory oversight to control, secure and properly dispose radioactive material," said Elena Buglova, director of the IAEA's nuclear security division. Most incidents are not connected to trafficking or malicious use, involving for example scrap metal found to be contaminated. The IAEA noted a decline in incidents involving nuclear material, such as uranium, plutonium and thorium. But Buglova warned dangerous materials remain vulnerable, especially during transport, stressing the "importance of strengthening transport security measures." The Vienna-based IAEA released the data as it opens its fourth international conference on nuclear security, which runs until Friday in the Austrian capital. The previous one was also held in Vienna in 2020. A total of 145 states currently report to the IAEA about incidents that involve nuclear or other radioactive material lost, stolen, improperly disposed of or otherwise neglected. Many radioactive substances are used in hospitals, universities and industry worldwide. The big worry is that extremists could get hold of the materials and use them in a "dirty bomb" — a device whereby conventional explosives disperse radioactive materials. Although the damage and loss of life caused by such a "dirty bomb" would be a fraction of that unleashed by a fission or fusion atom bomb, it could still cause mass panic in an urban area.

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SYDNEY — Researchers in Australia and the United States say that a new artificial intelligence tool has allowed them to classify brain tumors more quickly and accurately.   The current method for identifying different kinds of brain tumors, while accurate, can take several weeks to produce results.  The method, called DNA methylation-based profiling, is not available at many hospitals around the world. To address these challenges, a research team from the Australian National University, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute in the United States, has developed a way to predict DNA methylation, which acts like a switch to control gene activity.   This allows them to classify brain tumors into 10 major categories using a deep learning model. This is a branch of artificial intelligence that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by a human brain. The joint U.S.-Australian system is called DEPLOY and uses microscopic pictures of a patient’s tissue called histopathology images. The researchers see the DEPLOY technology as complementary to an initial diagnosis by a pathologist or physician. Danh-Tai Hoang, a research fellow at the Australian National University, told VOA that AI will enhance current diagnostic methods that can often be slow. “The technique is very time consuming," Hoang said. "It is often around two to three weeks to obtain a result from the test, whereas patients with high-grade brain tumors often require treatment as soon as possible because time is the goal for brain tumor(s), so they need to get treatment as soon as possible.” The research team said its AI model was validated on large datasets of approximately 4,000 patients from across the United States and Europe and an accuracy rate of 95 percent. Their study has been published in the journal Nature Medicine.

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.