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tbilisi, georgia — Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Friday rejected criticism from the United States and European Union of a draft "foreign agents" bill, saying opponents of it were unwilling to engage in a meaningful discussion.  The draft legislation, which is winding its way through the Georgian Parliament, would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, a requirement opponents attack as authoritarian and Kremlin-inspired.  Several thousand protesters took to the streets again Friday to voice their opposition, moving toward the headquarters of the ruling Georgian Dream party and then attending a Holy Friday service ahead of Orthodox Easter Sunday.   The European Union and the United States have urged Tbilisi to drop the legislation or risk harming its chances of European Union membership and a broader Euro-Atlantic future.  The standoff is seen as part of a wider struggle that could determine whether Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that has experienced war and revolution since the fall of the Soviet Union, moves closer to Europe or back under Moscow's influence.  Kobakhidze said the legislation was necessary for transparency and accountability in the South Caucasus nation.  "I explained to [senior U.S. diplomat Derek] Chollet that false statements made by the officials of the U.S. State Department about the transparency bill and street rallies remind us of similar false statements made by the former U.S. ambassador in 2020-2023," Kobakhidze said on X.  He said the previous U.S. statements had encouraged violence from what he called foreign-funded actors and had supported "revolutionary processes" that he said had been unsuccessful.   "I clarified to Mr. Chollet that it requires a special effort to restart the relations [between Georgia and the United States] against this background, which is impossible without a fair and honest approach."  The White House has expressed concern that the legislation could stifle dissent and free speech.  Kobakhidze also expressed disappointment about a conversation with European Council President Charles Michel, saying the EU had "been reluctant to engage in substantive discussions."  "Furthermore, I highlighted that we have not yet heard any counterarguments against this proposed legislation," he said.  Michel said on X that "Georgian citizens' call for an open democratic and pluralistic society must be heeded. ... Georgia's future belongs with the EU. Don't miss this historic chance."  Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party and a former prime minister, has said he will fight for what he called "the full restoration of the sovereignty of Georgia." 

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges and taken into custody Friday in connection with a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the couple's ties to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. From 2014 to 2021, Cuellar, 68, and his wife allegedly accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico, according to the indictment. In exchange, Cuellar is accused of agreeing to advance the interests of the country and the bank in the U.S., also according to the indictment. Among other things, Cuellar agreed to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House, the indictment states. The Department of Justice said the couple surrendered to authorities on Friday and were taken into custody. They made an initial appearance before a federal judge in Houston and were each released on $100,000 bond, the DOJ said. The longtime congressman released a statement Friday saying he and his wife, Imelda Cuellar, 67, "are innocent of these allegations." Neither Cuellar nor his attorney immediately responded to calls seeking comment on the matter. In addition to bribery and conspiracy, the couple face charges including wire fraud conspiracy, acting as agents of foreign principals and money laundering. If convicted, they face up to decades in prison and forfeiture of any property linked to proceeds from the alleged scheme. The payments to the couple initially went through a Texas-based shell company owned by Imelda Cuellar and two of the couple's children, according to the indictment. That company received payments from the Azerbaijan energy company of $25,000 per month under a contract, purportedly in exchange for unspecified strategic consulting and advising services. "In reality, the contract was a sham used to disguise and legitimate the corrupt agreement between Henry Cuellar and the government of Azerbaijan," the indictment states. The indictment also alleges an Azerbaijani diplomat referred to Henry Cuellar in text messages as "boss" and also that a member of Cuellar's staff sent multiple emails to officials at the Department of State pressuring them to renew a U.S. passport for an Azerbaijani diplomat's daughter. Cuellar was at one time the co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus. The FBI searched the congressman's house in the border city of Laredo in 2022, and Cuellar's attorney at that time said Cuellar was not the target of that investigation. That search was part of a broader investigation related to Azerbaijan that saw FBI agents serve a raft of subpoenas and conduct interviews in Washington and Texas, a person with direct knowledge of the probe previously told The Associated Press. 

The latest global press freedom rankings from media watchdog Reporters Without Borders present a discouraging picture, including a lack of political will to defend a free press. Afghanistan, Argentina and the U.S. are among countries whose rank fell. For VOA, Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story.

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.

new york — The World Food Program warned Friday that time is running out to prevent starvation in Sudan's Darfur region, as intensifying clashes in North Darfur's capital are preventing aid deliveries to the wider Darfur region. "The situation is dire," WFP Sudan spokesperson Leni Kinzli told reporters in a briefing from Nairobi, Kenya. "People are resorting to consuming grass and peanut shells, and if assistance doesn't reach them soon, we risk witnessing widespread starvation and death in Darfur and across other conflict areas in Sudan." The WFP estimates that more than 1.7 million people across Darfur are experiencing the highest levels of hunger and food insecurity. The United Nations has been among the voices warning that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have encircled and are poised to attack North Darfur's capital, El Fasher. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have positions inside the city but are besieged by the RSF. So are about 1.5 million residents, including about 800,000 internally displaced persons. Airstrikes and shelling are exacerbating El Fasher's hunger emergency. The United Nations estimates 330,000 people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity in the city due to a shortage of food items and soaring prices. Inside North Darfur's Zamzam camp, one of the largest displacement camps in Sudan, Doctors Without Borders said this week that the situation is catastrophic, especially for children. Of more than 46,000 children screened, the charity found 30% suffering from acute malnutrition and 8% suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition. The two border crossings that humanitarians used to reach Darfur from neighboring Chad have been closed. Aid convoys using the Tine crossing have been suspended because of the fighting in El Fasher, while Sudan's government has stopped aid trucks going through the Adre crossing because it fears the RSF will use the crossing to smuggle weapons into Darfur. Kinzli said that before the recent fighting, WFP had planned several convoys from Chad with assistance for 700,000 people across Darfur. The delivery would have lasted many of them for two to three months, through the approaching rainy season, she said. "Beyond that, we were hoping to scale up and ramp up even more, but now with these access constraints, with the security concerns as well as these bureaucratic restrictions, it makes it difficult for us at the moment," she said. Fears of atrocities El Fasher is the only city in Darfur that the RSF has not captured. An impending battle could unleash atrocities similar to those of the genocide carried out by Arab Janjaweed fighters against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s. Janjaweed fighters make up today's RSF. Analysts at the Yale University Humanitarian Research Lab are tracking the situation using satellites and other resources. They said in a report Thursday that 23 communities north and west of El Fasher have been intentionally burned to the ground in the past five weeks. The fate of the residents is not known. The researchers say the location of the communities is consistent with satellite imagery they have analyzed showing that the RSF has advanced in those directions. "We additionally have evidence they are also in the eastern side of El Fasher, and we are currently monitoring RSF forces moving from the south, from Nyala," Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the lab, told VOA. Nyala is the capital of South Darfur state. "At present we are seeing snapshots of their force strength," he said. "In certain cases, we have seen battalion- to regiment-size force massings. In some cases, including over a hundred vehicles." The fact that the RSF has not yet attacked El Fasher demonstrates that international pressure can be an effective tool, Raymond said. "RSF could have moved earlier; they have not yet," he said. "We have to use this moment to pull RSF forces back and to create a humanitarian envelope in which aid can be delivered — first in El Fasher and then into the interior of Darfur." He said time is running out, as the rainy season is about to start.

washington — "Is it good for the Jews?" That has been a question long asked by Jewish Americans, especially immigrants and those of the second generation, scarred by memories of the Holocaust, when assessing the policies of the U.S. government and the pledges of political candidates. Most of them, most of the time since Franklin Roosevelt first ran for president in 1932, have voted for the Democrat at the top of the ticket. Fast forward 92 years. More Jews have been voting Republican in recent elections, while many younger and left-leaning Jewish voters no longer see unequivocal support for Israel as a litmus test. Instead, rising antisemitism is reforging a sense of Jewish self-identity — especially among those who consider themselves fully assimilated and accepted in the American mainstream culture. Antisemitism “comes from all sides," said Rachel Sass, antisemitic incident specialist at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. "There are right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, anti-Israel protesters. There isn't necessarily a clear political or ideological bent, just antisemitism.” There has been a 900% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in the past decade, with a spike since the Israel-Hamas conflict blew up last year, according to the ADL.  Jewish Americans are further alarmed by chants on college campuses — in reaction to Israel's retaliatory strikes on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terror attack — of "from the river to sea" and "go back to Poland,” along with some physical assaults on Jewish students. "I've seen people respond with a level of fear, being afraid to reveal their Jewish identity. I've seen other people who have even leaned more into pride in their Jewish identity, wanting to be even more open because they feel that it's very important," said Sass. Bestselling novelist Allison Winn Scotch said on the social media platform Threads, "Every day, as a Jewish American, I get increasingly nervous that we can't come back from the brink of this. I don't know where my family could go though, and I don't know how we would stay safe when we got there anyway." She continued, "Your Jewish friends are living with a blooming seed of dread in the pits of our stomachs."   America provided a refuge for Eastern European Jews escaping 19th-century pogroms, who followed the emigration from the more established and prosperous German Jewish community. Many Jews in the United States, however, did not feel totally accepted into broader American culture until the civil rights movement. Changes not only benefited Blacks but also removed remaining barriers to Jews — such as housing covenants and restricted country club memberships, as well as hiring discrimination at prestigious law firms and entry quotas at the Ivy League universities that such attorneys were drawn from. The contemporary surge in antisemitism is not institutional. "It's children being targeted at school with antisemitic bullying, synagogues being targeted with threats of bombs or shootings, people even being assaulted on the street because they are visibly Jewish or Orthodox," according to Sass at the ADL. American Jews, as is the case with other ethnic or minority groups, do not wholly cast votes based on a single issue. "We swing with the rest of the country around economic issues, war and peace and all kinds of issues," Mark Mellman, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told VOA. The Republican Jewish Coalition's political and communications director, Sam Markstein, said, "I think this will be the first time for a lot of Jewish voters who've never even considered voting Republican in their lives seriously making that consideration this year because of the dereliction of leadership by the Biden administration on these issues." Donald Trump, hoping for a second term as president but defeated by Joe Biden four years ago, received somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the Jewish vote in 2020, according to several polls and Jewish organizations. "Anybody who knows anything about Donald Trump knows that his alliances are based on people's commitment to him personally, not to a set of values, not to a set of strategic interests," said Mellman. Republicans have done a better job than Democrats in condemning politicians in their respective parties who make antisemitic remarks, Markstein contended, pointing out the RJC supports primary challengers to Republicans in Congress who make such discriminatory comments. "Unfortunately, there are too many on the Democratic side that don't seem to want to follow that path and want to either run and hide or issue mealy-mouthed responses that piss everybody off," Markstein told VOA. Although Jews constitute only 2.4% of the U.S. adult population, they are more likely to vote than the general registered voting population and to make political donations. "The Jewish vote in those [swing] states is going to be the decisive [factor]," Markstein predicted. The Republicans tend to draw most of their Jewish strength from the religious Orthodox, the fastest-growing but still smallest Jewish community among the three largest denominations. Most Orthodox Jews strongly support Israel. "Day after day, the administration's response gets less and less supportive of Israel," Markstein contended. A majority of Conservative and Reform Jews tend to vote for Democrats and are more open-minded about a two-state solution in the Middle East that would create a sovereign Palestine.  "To retain Jewish support, Biden's campaign needs to keep doing exactly what they're doing — standing strong with Israel, against antisemitism and behind the American Jewish community," Mellman said. "That's exactly what I think American Jews are looking for at this very difficult time. It's exactly what the president is doing." VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says Hamas does not appear poised to attack U.S. forces who are building a pier off the Gaza coast to deliver aid to the war-torn strip by sea. A mortar attack targeted the pier site earlier but caused no injuries. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb reports.

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islamabad — Pakistan on Friday witnessed the launch of its first lunar satellite aboard China’s historic mission to retrieve samples from the little explored far side of the moon in a technologically collaborative mission that signals deepening ties between the countries. China’s largest rocket, a Long March-5, blasted off from the Wencheng Space Launch Center on Hainan Island at 09:27 UTC, ferrying China’s 8-metric-ton Chang’e-6 probe. If successful, the uncrewed mission will make China the first country to retrieve samples from the moon’s largely unexplored South Pole, also known as the “far side” of the moon that is not visible from Earth. Chang’e-6 will spend 48 hours digging up 2 kilograms of surface samples before returning to a landing spot in Inner Mongolia. In 2018, China achieved its first unmanned moon landing on the far side with the Chang'e-4 probe, which did not retrieve samples. India became the first country to land near the moon’s South Pole in August with its Chandrayaan-3. Chang’e-6 is carrying cargo from Pakistan, Italy, France and the European Space Agency. According to the Institute of Space Technology (IST) in Islamabad, Pakistan’s lunar cube satellite named ICUBE-Qamar (or ICUBE-Q for short) will be placed into lunar orbit within five days, circling the moon for three to six months, photographing the surface for research purposes. IST engineers say ICUBE-Q is also designed to "obtain lunar magnetic field data; establish a lunar magnetic field model and lay the foundation for subsequent international cooperation on the moon.” IST developed the iCUBE-Qamar satellite in collaboration with the country’s space agency SUPARCO and China’s Shanghai University. Qamar, which means moon in Urdu, is the nuclear-armed South Asian nation’s first mission in space. The iCUBE-Q orbiter has two optical cameras that will gather images of the lunar surface. 'Milestone' The mission’s launch from China was carried live on Pakistan state television. Calling it a "milestone,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said it would help the country build capacity in satellite communications and open new avenues for scientific research, economic development and national security, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Information. The Pakistan-China friendship, Sharif said, has “gone beyond borders to reach space,” according to the official statement. Beijing is one of Islamabad’s closest allies. Pakistan is home to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar development project that is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. Pakistan’s navy in late April launched its first Hangor-class submarine, built jointly with China, with a ceremony in China’s Wuhan province. According to the Washington-based U.S. Institute of Peace, Beijing is Islamabad’s leading supplier of conventional and strategic weapons platforms. China is also the dominant supplier of Pakistan’s higher-end offensive strike capabilities, the report found. Some information for this report came from Reuters. 

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 — Warning of a bloodbath should Israeli forces attack Rafah, U.N. agencies are making contingency plans to provide health care and other essential aid to the besieged population in the southern Gaza city. “Despite measures, the ailing health system will not be able to withstand the potential scale of devastation that the incursion will cause,” said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for occupied Palestinian territories. “With more than 1.2 million people crammed in Rafah, an operation will result in worsening the humanitarian catastrophe,” he said. Speaking from Jerusalem Friday, Peeperkorn told journalists in Geneva that an assault on Rafah will trigger a new wave of displacement, which “will lead to more overcrowding, reduced access to essential food, water and sanitation services, and increased infectious disease outbreaks.” WHO reports most health care facilities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed amid repeated attacks and airstrikes by Israeli forces. It says the health system is barely surviving, with 12 out of 36 hospitals and 22 out of 88 primary health care facilities only partially functional. The U.N. health agency says three small hospitals in Rafah that currently are partially operational “will become unsafe to be reached by patients, staff, ambulance and humanitarians when hostilities intensify.” Peeperkorn said, “Every time we have seen when there is a military incursion in places in the north, in Gaza city, or Khan Younis, these hospitals very quickly become not reachable. So, they go from being partly functional very quickly to nonfunctional.” As part of contingency efforts in southern Gaza, WHO and partners are setting up a new field hospital in Al Mawasi in Rafah and a large warehouse in the central Gaza city of Deir Al Balah, from where medical supplies can be quickly sent to facilities in the Middle Area and North Gaza. Plans are underway to set up other warehouses where medical supplies can be prepositioned. Nasser Medical Complex, the most important hospital in south Gaza, was severely damaged and put out of commission amid heavy fighting and bombing in Khan Younis. Peeperkorn said the complex is being refurbished and that hospital staff have completed the first phase of restoration, “including cleaning and ensuring essential equipment is functioning.” He noted that the emergency ward, the maternity ward, nine operating theaters, intensive care unit and several other departments now are partially operational. “I want to really say that this contingency plan is a Band-Aid. It will absolutely not prevent the expected substantial additional mortality and morbidity caused by a military operation,” he said. “We do not want to make those plans. I want to make it very clear: We do not want to make these plans. We all, of course, hope and expect that this military incursion will not happen and that we will move to a sustained cease-fire.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that Israeli forces would invade Rafah regardless of the outcome of ongoing hostage release negotiations with Hamas. Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas following the militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, which resulted in the killing of some 1,200 people and 250 being taken hostage. In a statement Wednesday, Martin Griffiths, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs warned that “a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words.” “For the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled to Gaza’s southernmost point to escape disease, famine, mass graves and direct fighting, a ground invasion would spell even more trauma and death,” he said. Aid agencies agree there have been recent improvements in bringing more aid into Gaza but say that it still is not enough and “the risk of famine is not over.” “Rafah is at the heart of the humanitarian operations in Gaza,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “It is where dozens of aid organizations store their lifesaving supplies that they deliver to civilians across the Gaza Strip. Rafah is central to the U.N. and partners’ ongoing efforts to provide food, water, health, sanitation, hygiene, and other critical support to people,” he said. For example, he notes that the U.N. Population Fund operates clinics for sexual and reproductive health at field hospitals in Rafah; UNICEF and partners treat acutely malnourished children at more than 50 sites in Rafah; the World Food Program distributes nutrition supplements to children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women in Rafah. “Most importantly, there are hundreds of thousands of civilians who have fled to Rafah to escape bombardment, an imminent famine and disease,” he said. Laerke told journalists that he had no idea whether it was possible to move 1.2 million people out of Rafah to a so-called safe place in advance of a military incursion by Israel. However, he scotched any suggestion of U.N. involvement in such a scheme. “The United Nations is not part of any planning and will not participate in any ordered non-voluntary evacuation of people,” adding that “I have not in my experience, limited as it is, ever seen this amount of people voluntarily move overnight.”

When someone crosses the border to seek asylum in the United States, they often first go through a credible fear interview (CFI). An asylum officer evaluates a person’s fear of returning to their home country and decides whether they will be allowed to apply for asylum and other forms of protection. Because it determines access […]

The post Volunteers Needed for Credible Fear Interview Preparation in CBP Hotline appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Washington has made clear that Kyiv cannot use long-range missiles to strike within Russian territory. U.S. said Russia’s targeting and killing of at least 14 civilians in Ukraine with North Korea-supplied long-range missiles motivated Biden’s decision to help Ukraine’s defense by sending ATACMS.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the release of all imprisoned journalists — including three American reporters — who have been jailed over their work, in a Friday statement commemorating World Press Freedom Day. “Journalism should not be a crime anywhere on Earth,” Biden said in the statement. “On World Press Freedom Day, the United States calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists who have been put behind bars for simply doing their jobs. And we call for the protection of journalists everywhere, including during military operations.” At the end of 2023, 320 journalists were jailed for their work around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That total includes three American journalists: Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva in Russia, and Austin Tice in Syria. Gershkovich, a Russian correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been jailed since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The State Department has also declared him wrongfully detained. “We’re so proud of him. I can’t believe he’s holding up so well. And he works so, so hard to be able to keep his spirits up,” Gershkovich’s sister Danielle said at a Friday in Washington Friday commemorating World Press Freedom Day. Danielle said her family manages to stay in touch with Evan through letters. “I get a letter from him — it’s like Christmas morning. And I hear his voice in my head when I’m reading it. And it just feels like I get to chat to my brother. It's a lifeline to my parents and I,” she said at the event, which was held at The Washington Post headquarters. Since his jailing, Russian authorities have not publicly revealed any evidence to substantiate the spying accusations against Gershkovich, who was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work in the country. The reporter will be held in pretrial detention until at least June. Meanwhile, Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been jailed for more than six months and is also set to be held in pretrial detention until at least June. The dual U.S.-Russian national traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June 2023. She was waiting for them to be returned when she was arrested in October 2023. Kurmasheva stands accused of failing to self-register as a so-called “foreign agent” and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russia military. The journalist and her employer reject the charges against her. “She’s the mom of two wonderful young women who had to grow up awfully quickly over the last six months that she's been in prison,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said at the event. In a prerecorded video message, Kurmasheva’s 15-year-old daughter Bibi called for her mother’s immediate release. “My mom, Alsu, has been behind bars in Russia for six months now, because she is a journalist,” she said. “My sister and I are so proud of her, and we miss her so, so much. She needs to be freed immediately so she can come home to us. Free Alsu.” Press freedom groups have criticized the State Department for not yet declaring Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open additional resources to help secure her release. Russia’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. This year’s World Press Freedom Day takes place against a backdrop that experts say is concerning for journalists around the world. “Media freedom is under siege,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday in a statement. “Without facts, we cannot fight mis- and dis-information. Without accountability, we will not have strong policies in place. Without press freedom, we won’t have any freedom. A free press is not a choice, but a necessity.” In particular, the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has led to the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, began gathering data in 1992. As of Friday, at least 97 journalists have been killed since the war began, including 92 Palestinians, two Israelis, and three Lebanese, according to CPJ. “Journalists are civilians, so they need to be protected as any civilian is during a war zone. They shouldn’t be targeted,” CPJ chief Jodie Ginsberg said at the event on Friday. New York-based CPJ has accused Israel of targeting journalists, which the Israeli government has denied. About half of the world’s population is set to vote in national elections in 2024, which has press freedom experts concerned about the safety of reporters and potentially harmful effects for press freedom. “This year is going to be really indicative not just of the future of a free press, but the future of democracy, because how we treat our media in the run-up to these elections is a litmus test for how the other freedoms that we enjoy, and the other democratic rights we enjoy, are likely to be treated afterwards,” Ginsberg said. Discussions about press freedom tend to center on the negative, but Clayton Weimers, the head of the U.S. office of Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said it’s also important to recognize governments that are defending press freedom. “World Press Freedom Day should be a celebration of the values of the free press,” Weimers said. RSF on Friday released its annual press freedom index, which ranks 180 countries and territories in terms of media freedom. Norway and Denmark topped the list this year. “There’s no freedom without press freedom,” Weimers said. “It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”

Malawi is grappling with an unprecedented rise in the water level of its largest body of water, Lake Malawi. Authorities say nearly 90% of the beach area has been submerged, damaging property and crops. Lameck Masina reports from Mangochi.

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.