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tripoli — At least one person was killed and six injured when fierce clashes broke out Saturday in the city of Zawiya in western Libya, prompting calls for a cease-fire to rescue families trapped in the conflict area, a Libyan TV channel said. Ali Ahneesh, head of the Red Crescent branch in Zawiya, told the Istanbul-based Libya Alahrar TV channel that 10 families had been evacuated, and called for "a cease-fire to evacuate families stuck in the areas where the clashes have taken place." Red Crescent volunteers had been receiving calls from families in the conflict area asking to be evacuated, he said. There was no immediate indication of who had taken part in the violence or why they were fighting. Libya has been plagued by unrest since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Imad Ammar, a member of Zawiya's elders and notables' council, said the fighting appeared to involve individuals rather than armed groups. Zawiya, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, is home to Libya's biggest functioning refinery, with a capacity of 120,000 barrels per day. "The clashes in the morning were fierce, and the casualties are one killed and six injured," Tripoli-based Ambulance and Emergency Services spokesperson Osama Ali told the TV channel. Ali said rescue teams had been unable to reach the conflict zone, and it was not clear if the casualties were civilians or military. Zawiya has witnessed repeated armed clashes that have at times forced the closure of the coastal road to the border with Tunisia. Reports of unrest in the city were circulated on the internet with unverified footage of gunmen exchanging fire. Libya's state electricity firm, GECOL, said that the unrest had led to power cuts in some areas in the city. "The situation was very bad in the morning. There is calm now, but the security and government authorities must use all their power to end this conflict," said Ammar. He said there had been no response from the city's security authorities to what he described as "a fight between persons and not specific parties" for which civilians were paying the price.

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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel's three-member War Cabinet, threatened on Saturday to resign from the government if it doesn't adopt in three weeks a new plan for the war in Gaza, a move that would leave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more reliant on his far-right allies.  His announcement escalates a divide within Israel's leadership more than seven months into a war in which it has yet to accomplish its stated goals of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages abducted in the October 7 attack.  Gantz spelled out a six-point plan that includes the return of scores of hostages, ending Hamas' rule, demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, and establishing an international administration of civilian affairs. It also supports efforts to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.  He said if it is not adopted by June 8, he will quit the government.  "If you choose the path of fanatics and lead the entire nation to the abyss — we will be forced to quit the government," he said.  Gantz, a popular politician and longtime political rival of Netanyahu, joined his coalition and the War Cabinet in the early days of the war.  The departure of the former military chief of staff and defense minister would leave Netanyahu even more beholden to far-right allies who have taken a hard line on negotiations over a cease-fire and hostage release, and who believe Israel should occupy Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there.  Gantz spoke days after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the third member of the War Cabinet, openly said he has repeatedly pleaded with the Cabinet to decide on a postwar vision for Gaza that would see the creation of a new Palestinian civilian leadership.  Netanyahu is under growing pressure on multiple fronts. Hard-liners in his government want the military offensive on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah to press ahead with the goal of crushing Hamas. The U.S. and others have warned against the offensive on a city where more than half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million had sheltered — hundreds of thousands have now fled — and they have threatened to scale back support over Gaza's humanitarian crisis.  The U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will be in Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend to discuss the war and is scheduled on Sunday to meet with Netanyahu, who has declared that Israel would "stand alone" if needed.  Many Israelis, anguished over the hostages and accusing Netanyahu of putting political interests ahead of all else, want a deal to stop the fighting and see them freed. There was fresh frustration Friday when the military said its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three hostages killed by Hamas in the October 7 attack. The discovery of the body of a fourth hostage was announced Saturday.  The latest talks in pursuit of a cease-fire, mediated by Qatar, the United States and Egypt, have brought little. A vision beyond the war is also uncertain.  The war began after Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.  The Israeli offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, local health officials say, while hundreds more have been killed in the occupied West Bank. 

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit an oil tanker in the Red Sea with a ballistic missile early Saturday, damaging the Panama-flagged, Greek-owned vessel in their latest assault over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, officials said. Although the Houthis did not immediately claim the assault, it comes as they claimed to have shot down a U.S. military MQ-9 Reaper drone over Yemen and have launched other attacks on shipping, disrupting trade on a key maritime route leading to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea. The attack around 1 a.m. struck the oil tanker Wind, which recently docked in Russia and was bound for China, the U.S. military's Central Command said. China and Russia maintain ties over military equipment and oil to Iran, the Houthis' main benefactor. The missile strike “caused flooding which resulted in the of loss propulsion and steering,” Central Command said on the social platform X. “The crew of M/T Wind was able to restore propulsion and steering, and no casualties were reported. M/T Wind resumed its course under its own power.” The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center and the private security firm Ambrey similarly acknowledged the attack earlier Saturday. Ambrey said it caused a fire aboard the Wind. It can take the Houthis hours — or even days — to claim their attacks. The Houthis have launched attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, demanding Israel ends the war in Gaza. The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sunk another since November, according to the U.S. Maritime Administration. Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Yemen. Even so, shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden still remains low because of the threat. The Houthis claimed that they shot down the Reaper on Thursday with a surface-to-air missile. They described the drone as “carrying out hostile actions” in Yemen’s Marib province, which remains held by allies of Yemen’s exiled, internationally recognized government. Since the Houthis seized the country’s north and its capital, Sanaa, in 2014, the U.S. military has previously lost at least five drones to the rebels. Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land.

BERLIN — Six climate activists broke through a security fence at the Munich airport Saturday and glued themselves to access routes leading to runways, temporarily halting flights.  The activists from the group Last Generation were protesting flying as the most polluting form of transportation, said the German news agency dpa. Police detained the six.  Some 60 flights were canceled during the disruption that lasted a couple of hours, and passengers were rebooked on alternative flights, airport spokesperson Robert Wilhelm told dpa. Fourteen flights that were due to land in Munich were diverted to other airports, according to police.  Last Generation accused the German government of downplaying the negative effects of flying on the environment instead of “finally acting sincerely,” in a post on the social media platform X.  German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for an end to such protests. “Such criminal actions threaten air traffic and harm climate protection because they only cause lack of understanding and anger,” she wrote on X.  Fraser also applauded police efforts to bring order back to the airport and called for airport safety measures to be checked.  Minister for Transport Volker Wissing said that his ministry was already working on further tightening existing laws.  The general manager of the German Airports Association, Ralph Beisel, also criticized the activists’ actions. “Trespassing the aviation security area is no trivial offense. Over hundreds of thousands of passengers were prevented from a relaxed and punctual start to their Pentecost holiday,” he told dpa.  Beisel also called for harsher penalties for activists who break into airports.  Climate activities blocked flights at Hamburg and Duesseldorf airports for several hours in July.  In January, Last Generation — known for its members gluing themselves to streets to block traffic, which has infuriated many Germans — said it would abandon the tactic and move on to holding what it calls “disobedient assemblies.” Their actions have been widely criticized, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz described them as “completely nutty.” 

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HANOI, VIETNAM — Vietnam's Communist Party has named police minister To Lam  president, the government said Saturday, and nominated a new head of the parliament in a major leadership reshuffle.  Unprecedentedly for a one-party nation once known for its stable politics, two state presidents and a parliament speaker have stepped down in less than 18 months, all for unspecified "wrongdoing" amid a major antigraft campaign that is unnerving foreign investors because of its chilling effect on bureaucracy.  After approval from parliament, which could come next week, Lam, 66, will replace Vo Van Thuong, who stepped down in March after being accused of violating party rules, just over a year after his appointment.  Widely considered one of the most powerful figures in the country, Lam was chosen by the party's Central Committee earlier this week, but authorities and state media revealed the nomination only on Saturday.  The president holds a largely ceremonial role but is one of the top four political positions. The others are the party chief, the prime minister and the parliament speaker.  Many observers see his appointment as a possible step toward becoming party chief, the country's top job, when current terms for leadership posts end in 2026 — or even earlier, if the aging General Secretary of the Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong steps down before his third mandate expires.  The party also named Tran Thanh Man as the new chairman of the National Assembly, replacing Vuong Dinh Hue, who resigned last month over "violations and shortcomings." Man, 61, has served as deputy chairman of the parliament since 2021.  The nominations of Lam and Man have received "broad support" from the Central Committee, the government said in a statement.  The nominations came as the party on Thursday named four new members of the Politburo, the country's top decision-making body, after removing its fifth-ranking leader, Truong Thi Mai, from the group. He was the sixth to leave the Politburo since late 2022. Gold steak Lam, a career police officer, has been Minister of Public Security since 2016 and was admitted to the Politburo in 2021.  He has also been deputy head of the party's anti-corruption steering committee since 2021, playing a crucial role in the antigraft campaign that has seen thousands of officials and high-profile corporate executives prosecuted or forced to step down.  His rise has not been without controversy.  In 2021, celebrity chef Salt Bae uploaded a video of himself feeding Lam a gold encrusted steak at his London restaurant while Vietnam was under COVID-19 lockdown. The video went viral before the Turkish chef Nusret Gokce removed it.  A noodle vendor who later posted a video imitating Salt Bae was sentenced to five years in prison for "antistate propaganda."  Lam was the head of the public security ministry when in 2017 Vietnam's security services allegedly carried out an extraordinary rendition of a Vietnamese business executive from Germany through Slovakia. The case rattled relations with both 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.

WARSAW, Poland — Poland is investing about $2.5 billion to step up security and deterrence on its border with Russia and its ally Belarus, the prime minister said Saturday. Donald Tusk said work on the Shield-East project, which includes building military fortifications, has already begun. Poland is on the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union, and Tusk stressed it bears additional responsibility for Europe's security. “We have taken the decision to invest into our safety and first of all, into a safe eastern border, some 10 billion zlotys,” Tusk said. “We are opening a great project of the construction of a safe border, including a system of fortifications and of the shaping of terrain, [of] environmental decisions that will make this border impenetrable by a potential enemy,” Tusk said. “We have begun these works to make Poland’s border a safe one in times of peace and impenetrable for an enemy in times of war,” he said. He was addressing Polish troops in Krakow, in the south, to mark 80 years since the allied victory in the Battle of Monte Cassino against the Nazis during World War II. Poland’s previous right-wing government built a $400 million wall on the border with Belarus to halt massive inflow of migrants that began to be pushed from that direction in 2021, but the current pro-EU government says it needs to be strengthened. Poland is a staunch ally of Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia’s invasion.

TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s president on Saturday vetoed the so-called “Russian law” targeting media that has sparked weeks of mass protests. The law would require media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. Critics of the bill say that it closely resembles legislation used by the Kremlin to silence opponents and that it will obstruct Georgia’s bid to join the EU. President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with Georgia’s ruling party, said Saturday that the law contradicts Georgia’s constitution and “all European standards” and added that it “must be abolished.” The ruling party, Georgian Dream, has a majority sufficient to override Zourabichvili’s veto and is widely expected to do so in the coming days. The Georgian government insists that the law is intended to promote transparency and curb what it deems harmful foreign influence in the country of 3.7 million. 

PARIS — Jailed Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi faces a new trial over accusations she made against security forces of sexually assaulting female prisoners, her family said Saturday.  The trial, due to begin Sunday, relates to an audio message she shared from prison in April with supporters in which she decried a "full-scale war against women" in the Islamic Republic.  She is charged in this latest case with making "propaganda against the regime,"  the family said.  There has been no comment on the case by Iranian judicial authorities.  Her family quoted Mohammadi as saying that the trial should be held in public so "witnesses and survivors can testify to the sexual assaults perpetrated by the Islamic Republic regime against women."  Mohammadi, who is held in Tehran's Evin prison, urged Iranian women in her April message via her Instagram page to share their stories of arrest and sexual assault at the hands of the authorities.  She pointed to the case of journalist and student Dina Ghalibaf, who, according to rights groups, was arrested after accusing security forces on social media of handcuffing and sexually assaulting her during a previous arrest at a metro station. Ghalibaf was later released.  The authorities in Iran have in recent weeks intensified a crackdown obliging women to obey the country's Islamic dress code, notably making use of video surveillance.  Mohammadi has been incarcerated since November 2021 and has not seen her Paris-based husband and twin children for several years.  She said the trial that opens Sunday will be the fourth such case against her.  Mohammadi is already serving sentences based on several convictions issued in recent years, which her family says punish her for rights campaigning.  According to her family, her sentences now amount to 12 years and three months of imprisonment, 154 lashes, two years of exile and various social and political restrictions.  Mohammadi has long been a staunch opponent of the obligation for women in Iran to wear the headscarf and has continued her campaign even in prison, refusing to wear the hijab in front of male officials. 

London — Film director Mohammad Rasoulof made an "exhausting and extremely dangerous" walk across a mountainous borderland to avoid being jailed in Iran on national security charges, he told The Guardian newspaper.  Rasoulof said Monday he had fled Iran after a court sentenced him to eight years in jail, of which five were due to be served, over his new film "The Seed of the Sacred Fig."  The leading Iranian filmmaker, often a target of the country's authorities, told The Guardian in an interview published Friday that he had found shelter in Germany and was hopeful he could attend the film's Cannes premiere next week.  The film tells the story of a judge's struggles amid political unrest in Tehran.  Rasoulof told the U.K. newspaper that he had "no choice" but to leave, although he expects to return home "quite soon."  "My mission is to be able to convey the narratives of what is going on in Iran and the situation in which we are stuck as Iranians," said Rasoulof.  "This is something that I cannot do in prison.  "I have in mind the idea that I'll be back quite soon, but I think that's the case of all the Iranians who have left the country," he said.  Rasoulof has already served two terms in Iranian jails over previous films and had his passport withdrawn in 2017.  Having decided to leave, Rasoulof told the newspaper he cut all communications via mobile phones and computers and made his way by foot on a secret route to a border crossing.   "It was a several-hour long, exhausting and extremely dangerous walk that I had to do with a guide," he said.  After staying in a safe house, he contacted German authorities who provided him with papers that enabled him to travel to Europe. 

PARIS — Iran hanged at least seven people Saturday, including two women, while a member of its Jewish minority is at imminent risk of execution as the Islamic Republic further intensified its use of capital punishment, a nongovernmental organization said.  Parvin Mousavi, 53, a mother of two grown children, was hanged in Urmia prison in northwestern Iran along with five men convicted in various drug-related cases, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights, or IHR, said in a statement.  In Nishapur in eastern Iran, a 27-year-old woman named Fatemeh Abdullahi was hanged on charges of murdering her husband, who was also her cousin, it said.  IHR says it has tallied at least 223 executions this year, with at least 50 so far in May. A new surge began following the end of the Persian New Year and Ramadan holidays in April, with 115 people, including six women, hanged since then, it said.  Iran carries out more recorded executions of women than any other country. Activists say many such convicts are victims of forced or abusive marriages.  Iran last year carried out more hangings than in any year since 2015, according to nongovernmental organizations, which accuse the Islamic Republic of using capital punishment to instill fear in the wake of protests that erupted in autumn 2022.  "The silence of the international community is unacceptable," IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told AFP.  "Those executed belong to the poor and marginalized groups of Iranian society and didn't have fair trials with due process," he said.  "Killing machine" IHR said Mousavi had been in prison for four years. It cited a source as saying she had been paid the equivalent of 15 euros to carry a package that she had been told contained medicine but was in fact 5 kilograms of morphine.  "They are the low-cost victims of the Islamic Republic's killing machine, which aims at instilling fear among people to prevent new protests," said Amiry-Moghaddam.  Meanwhile, the group said a member of Iran's Jewish community, which has drastically reduced in numbers in recent years but is still the largest in the Middle East outside Israel, was at imminent risk of execution over a murder charge.  Arvin Ghahremani, 20, was convicted of murder during a street fight when he was 18 and is scheduled to be executed in the western city of Kermanshah on Monday, IHR said, adding it had received an audio message from his mother, Sonia Saadati, asking for his life to be spared.  His family is seeking to ask the family of the victim to forgo the execution in line with Iran's Islamic law of retribution, or qisas.  Also at risk of execution is Kamran Sheikheh, the last surviving member of a group of seven Iranian Kurdish men who were first arrested in December 2009 and January 2010 and later sentenced to death for "corruption on earth" over alleged membership in extremist groups, it said.  Six men convicted in the same case have been executed in the last months almost 15 years after their initial arrest. The most recent was Khosro Besharat, who was hanged in Ghezel Hesar prison outside Tehran this week.  There has been an international outcry over the death sentence handed out last month to Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, seen by activists as retaliation for his music backing the 2022 protests. His lawyers are appealing the verdict. 

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.

GENEVA — A report by the U.N. human rights office criticizes the Sri Lankan government’s failure to acknowledge and hold accountable the perpetrators of tens of thousands of enforced disappearances during the country’s decadeslong civil war.  The report notes that nearly 15 years have passed since the end of the armed conflict and yet “Sri Lankan authorities are still failing to ensure accountability” for the violations that occurred then as well as during “the earliest waves of enforced disappearances.”  In a statement issued Friday to coincide with the publication of the report, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said, “Accountability must be addressed. We need to see institutional reform for reconciliation to have a chance to succeed.”  While the civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the Tamil Tigers was fought between 1983 and 2009, the report notes that from the 1970s through to the end of the war in 2009, “widespread enforced disappearances were carried out primarily by Sri Lankan security forces and affiliated paramilitary groups,” which used them “as a tool to intimidate and oppress perceived opponents.”  Authors of the report also accuse the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam of “engaging in abductions,” which were described as “tantamount to enforced disappearances” by the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.  Human rights officials conducted dozens of individual and group interviews with victims, mainly women. They found that the forcible disappearance of a relative continues to have profound psychological effects, including feelings of shock, fear, anger, helplessness and guilt.  “Decades later, victims reported the inability to find closure. Most cling to the hope that their relative will return,” they said.  The report describes the enduring social and economic impact on the families of those forcibly disappeared, especially on women.  It observed that “as most disappeared individuals have been male, women have often become the sole income earner for a family, in a labor environment that poses many obstacles to women’s participation, including risks of sexual harassment and exploitation.”  It adds that many women who have actively sought to find out what happened to their loved ones “have themselves been subjected to violations, including harassment, intimidation, surveillance, arbitrary detention, beatings and torture at the hands of army and police.”  On the government’s response to the report, the high commissioner’s spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, told journalists in Geneva Friday that “generally, there appears to be a lack of political will to provide accountability to these cases.”  “There are a lot of recurring obstacles to accountability,” she said. “There is frequent unwillingness on the part of the police to receive complaints, delays in the justice system, conflicts of interest in the attorney general’s office and reparation programs have not been developed with sufficient consultation with the victims.”  The report acknowledges that in recent years, successive Sri Lankan governments have taken some positive steps to address the issue of the missing. Those include the ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the establishment of the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations and criminalizing enforced disappearances.  However, the report finds that “tangible progress on the ground towards comprehensively resolving individual cases has remained limited.”  For example, the report notes that criminal proceedings in Sri Lanka generally are “beset by prolonged delays,” but that in cases involving enforced disappearances or other serious violations involving state officials, “the delays are even more pronounced … and are a strategy to avoid accountability.”  The report cites the case of “one of the few enforced disappearance-related cases” in which an individual was convicted and “in 2020, the then Sri Lankan president pardoned that individual.”  According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, under international law, the state has a clear obligation to resolve cases of enforced disappearances “until the fate and whereabouts of those disappeared are clarified.”  “The government owes it to all those who have been forcibly disappeared … for these crimes to be investigated fully,” said Türk. “These crimes haunt not only their loved ones, but entire communities and Sri Lankan society as a whole.  “This report is yet another reminder that all Sri Lankans who have been subjected to enforced disappearance must never be forgotten,” he said, adding that “their families and those who care about them have been waiting for so long. They are entitled to know the truth.”