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JUBA, South Sudan — The government in South Sudan has postponed elections scheduled for December for two years citing the need to complete processes such as a census, the drafting of a permanent constitution and the registration of political parties. The Presidential Adviser on National Security Tut Gatluak on Friday said the extension would provide an opportunity to complete critical processes before the new election date of December 22, 2026. This is the second time the country, which gained independence in 2011, is postponing elections and extending a transitional period that started in February 2020. President Salva Kiir and his former rival turned deputy, Riek Machar, signed a peace agreement in 2018 that ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people died. Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lomuro said the extension followed recommendations from both electoral institutions and the security sector. Last month, the chairperson of National Election Commission, Professor Abednego Akok, told The Associated Press the country was behind the electoral calendar, which required voter registration to have started in June but was still pending due to a shortage of funds. The country is going through an economic crisis that has seen civil servants go unpaid for almost one year, after it's oil exports were affected by a damaged pipeline in war-torn neighboring Sudan through which it exports. The Tumaini initiative peace talks that have been going on in neighboring Kenya, believed to provide a foundation for the inclusion of non-signatory groups to sustain peace, have also stalled. A new security act that allows for warrantless detentions became law in August despite concerns from human rights groups that it would create fear in the runup to the elections. Andrea Mach Mabior, an independent political analyst, warned that any sham elections may result in a waste of resources and chaos. "Going for elections that do not meet international standards will be a waste of money," Mabior told the AP. But others like Edmund Yakani, executive director of the Community Empowerment Progress Organization, said delays to the elections or any extension of the transitional period would create a possibility of violence erupting across the fragile country. "If we fail to conduct the elections in December 2024 the chance of the country turning into violence is higher than if we go for the elections," Yakani told the AP in August. The country, which has gone through the shocks of civil war and climate change is in need of humanitarian aid with an estimated 9 million people — 73% of the country's population — projected to be in need of humanitarian assistance during 2024, according to the 2024 UN Humanitarian Needs Overview for South Sudan.

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BANGKOK — Dozens of Hong Kong journalists and their families have been harassed and intimidated in the past three months, according to the chair of a local press club. The Hong Kong Journalists Association or HKJA said Friday it had tracked "systematic" and "organized" attacks on journalists from June to August this year. At least 15 journalists and their family members, employers and neighbors were harassed both online and offline, the press club said. Selina Cheng, the chair of the HKJA, said in a press conference Friday that it is the biggest case of intimidation that the association has ever seen. "I don’t believe this is right, and that’s why we are making a loud call today to say we do not accept such behavior," she said. "This type of intimidation and harassment, which includes sharing false and defamatory content and death threats, damages press freedom," she added. Journalists from multiple Hong Kong media outlets have been affected, with anonymous threats and harassment made via social media email or in the mail, the HKJA said in a statement. Some of those targeted received threats to their personal safety and were warned to give up their employment or position within associations, the HKJA added. "HKJA has gathered detailed information on a number of affected journalists and organisations," the statement read. Those affected include two journalism education institutions and 13 media outlets, including the executive committee of the HKJA, Hong Kong Free Press, InMediaHK, and HK Feature. Many of the letters and emails warned that association with the named organizations or people could be a violation of Hong Kong’s national security laws. The emails and letters were sent anonymously, with emails sent from Microsoft Outlook accounts. On social media, posts showed photos of journalists and members of the HKJA executive committee pictured alongside images of knives, blood, shooting targets and "memorial" signs. The Hong Kong Free Press condemned the attacks. In a statement shared on social media, it said that the landlord of the news website’s director, Tom Grundy, had received threatening letters, saying "unimaginable consequences" would occur unless Grundy was evicted from his property. Grundy reported the threats to police, the news website said. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders or RSF called on the international community to take action. "We strongly condemn this harassment campaign led against the independent media outlets that managed to survive the previous waves of government repression," said Cedric Alviani, RSF’s Asia-Pacific bureau director. "We urge the international community to intensify its pressure on the Chinese regime so press freedom is fully restored in the territory." VOA requested comment late Friday from the Hong Kong Police Force but did not immediately receive a response. Hong Kong’s undersecretary for security, Michael Cheuk, told media "no one should be intimidated, insulted, or so-called harassed." Cheuk urged anyone who felt under pressure to report it to law agencies, Reuters reported. The HKJA said that it has contacted Meta, which owns Facebook, and Wikimedia Foundation, the two main platforms used in the harassment campaign. Cheng told VOA she believes a person or group of people are responsible. "Bots means they are machine-controlled. I don’t think that’s the case," she added. Details of the intimidation campaign come as critics warn that press freedom is being eroded in Hong Kong. Since Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in 2020 — which carries life imprisonment for those found guilty of what are deemed as sedition, subversion, foreign interference or terrorism — news outlets have shuttered and there is greater self-censorship on sensitive issues, say media experts. Activists, political figures, lawmakers and reporters are cautious about speaking on the record to the media, with most declining to be interviewed for fear of reprisal. Media unions like the Hong Kong Journalist Association have also come under pressure, after being criticized by authorities and Chinese state media for alleged links to activist organizations. The governments of Hong Kong and China have said that the security law has brought stability back to the former British colony. But since 2020, dozens of people have been arrested under the legislation. At least 28 of those arrested were journalists or press freedom defenders. In August, two journalists from the now-defunct Stand News website were found guilty of sedition in a landmark case. And the pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai is in prison and on trial under the national security law for charges he denies.  

Severe flooding in northeastern Nigeria has killed at least 30 people and affected more than 1 million others, according to national emergency officials. Meanwhile, there’s desperation in camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Timothy Obiezu reports from Maidgurui.

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baghdad — Iraqi forces and American troops have killed a senior commander with the Islamic State group who was wanted by the United States, as well as several other prominent militants, Iraq's military said Friday.  The operation in Iraq's western Anbar province began in late August, the Iraqi military said, and involved members of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service and Iraq's air force.  Among the dead was an IS commander from Tunisia, known as Abu Ali Al-Tunisi; the U.S. Treasury Department had offered $5 million for information about him. Also killed was Ahmad Hamed Zwein, the IS deputy commander in Iraq.  Despite their defeat, attacks by IS sleeper cells in Iraq and Syria have been on the rise over the past years, with scores of people killed or wounded.  Friday's announcement was not the first news of the operation.  Two weeks ago, officials said that the U.S. military and Iraq launched a joint raid targeting suspected IS militants in the country's western desert that killed at least 15 people and left seven American troops hurt.  Five of the American troops were wounded in the raid itself, while two others suffered injuries from falls during the operation. One who suffered a fall was transported out of the region, while one of the wounded was evacuated for further treatment, a U.S. defense official said at the time, speaking on condition of anonymity.  In Friday's announcement, the Iraqi military said the operation also confiscated weapons and computers, smartphones and 10 explosives belts. It added that 14 IS commanders were identified after DNA tests were conducted. It made no mention of the 15th person killed and whether that person had also been identified.  The U.S. military has not commented on the August raid. The Islamic State group seized territory at the height of its power and declared a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 but was defeated in Iraq in 2017. In March 2019, the extremists lost the last sliver of land they once controlled in eastern Syria.  At its peak, the group ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom where it enforced its extreme interpretation of Islam, which included attacks on religious minority groups and harsh punishment of Muslims deemed to be apostates. Earlier Friday, the U.S. Central Command said its forces killed an IS attack cell member in a strike in eastern Syria. It added that the individual was planting an improvised explosive device for a planned attack against anti-IS coalition forces and their partners, an apparent reference to Syria's Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.  In August last year, the U.S. had agreed to enter into talks to transition U.S. and anti-IS coalition forces from their long-standing role in assisting Iraq in combating IS. There are approximately 2,500 U.S. troops in the country, and their departure will take into account the security situation on the ground, and the capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces.

BEIJING — Starting next year, China will raise its retirement age for workers, which is now among the youngest in the world's major economies, in an effort to address its shrinking population and aging work force. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's legislature, passed the new policy Friday after a sudden announcement earlier in the week that it was reviewing the measure, state broadcaster CCTV announced. The policy change will be carried out over 15 years, with the retirement age for men raised to 63 years, and for women to 55 or 58 years depending on their jobs. The current retirement age is 60 for men and 50 for women in blue-collar jobs and 55 for women doing white-collar work. "We have more people coming into the retirement age, and so the pension fund is (facing) high pressure. That's why I think it's now time to act seriously," said Xiujian Peng, a senior research fellow at Victoria University in Australia who studies China's population and its ties to the economy. The previous retirement ages were set in the 1950's, when life expectancy was only around 40 years, Peng said. The policy will be implemented starting in January, according to the announcement from China's legislature. The change will take effect progressively based on people's birthdates. For example, a man born in January 1971 could retire at the age of 61 years and 7 months in August 2032, according to a chart released along with the policy. A man born in May 1971 could retire at the age of 61 years and 8 months in January 2033. Demographic pressures made the move long overdue, experts say. By the end of 2023, China counted nearly 300 million people over the age of 60. By 2035, that figure is projected to be 400 million, larger than the population of the U.S. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences had previously projected that the public pension fund will run out of money by that year. Pressure on social benefits such as pensions and social security is hardly a China-specific problem. The U.S. also faces the issue as analysis shows that currently, the Social Security fund won't be able to pay out full benefits to people by 2033. "This is happening everywhere," said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But in China with its large elderly population, the challenge is much larger." That is on top of fewer births, as younger people opt out of having children, citing high costs. In 2022, China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that for the first time the country had 850,000 fewer people at the end of the year than the previous year, a turning point from population growth to decline. In 2023, the population shrank further, by 2 million people. What that means is that the burden of funding elderly people's pensions will be divided among a smaller group of younger workers, as pension payments are largely funded by deductions from people who are currently working. Researchers measure that pressure by looking at a number called the dependency ratio, which counts the number of people over the age of 65 compared to the number of workers under 65. That number was 21.8% in 2022, according to government statistics, meaning that roughly five workers would support one retiree. The percentage is expected to rise, meaning fewer workers will be shouldering the burden of one retiree.

pentagon — A U.S. MQ-9 drone was struck but safely recovered while operating in the Middle East this week, a U.S. defense official told VOA on Friday. "We can confirm that a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 drone was struck but then landed safely and was recovered by U.S. partner forces on September 9. An investigation into the incident is underway. There were no reported injuries," the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security sensitivities, said in a statement. The news came days after Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi militants claimed they shot down an MQ-9 drone flying over that country. Houthi spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said in a prerecorded video message Sunday that the drone had been shot down over Yemen's Marib province, home to key oil and gas fields. The province has been held by allies of a Saudi-led coalition that has been at war with the Houthis for years. It was unclear from the U.S. statement where in the Middle East the drone was struck or who struck it. It was also unclear if the drone was struck and recovered on the same day — Monday — or struck before the Monday recovery. When VOA asked for clarification, it was told there were "no additional details to share at this time." The Houthis have downed U.S. drones several times since 2014, when the Iranian-backed group seized Yemen's capital. The attacks on U.S. drones, along with attacks on commercial and military vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, have drastically increased since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The Houthis' continuous assault campaign has disrupted commercial shipping in the important corridor, prompting many shipping companies to reroute ships. The militants have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October, seizing one, sinking two and killing at least four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets. The Houthi militant campaign began after Israel launched a retaliatory attack against Hamas in Gaza following Hamas' October 7 terror attack, and the Houthis claim they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians during the war. MQ-9 drones, also known as Reapers, cost around $30 million each, can fly up to 24 hours before landing, and can reach altitudes of about 15,000 meters. The aircraft have been flown by both the U.S. military and the CIA over Yemen for years. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 

washington — Recent moves by Pyongyang have focused attention on what will be one of the first major foreign policy challenges facing the next U.S. president: how to deal with North Korea’s rapidly developing nuclear threat. In a set of rapid-fire developments on Friday: — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an “exponential increase” in the size of his nation’s nuclear arsenal, according to the state-run news agency KCNA. He made the same call in speeches on Tuesday and on the last day of 2022. — State media released photos for the first time of the Nuclear Weapons Institute where North Korea processes uranium for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. The photos, which showed a sophisticated array of centrifuges, were made public as Kim toured the facility. — North Korea announced that it had tested a new type of 600 mm multiple rocket launcher the previous day. South Korea said on Thursday that North Korea test-fired several short-range ballistic missiles into the waters off the eastern coast. The developments came in the context of enhanced military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, which is believed to be helping Pyongyang to develop its weapons capabilities in exchange for munitions used in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “The threat from North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs has been growing steadily and virtually unchecked over the course of several U.S. administrations,” said Evans Revere, a former State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea. “Whoever the next U.S. president is, she or he will face a more sophisticated and dangerous North Korean threat.” Revere said in an interview that the winner of the U.S. election would have to find ways to weaken the link between Moscow and Pyongyang “and demonstrate to Beijing that its ‘partnership without limits’ with Russia is a dangerous and ill-advised path that will yield no benefits” for China. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared in May a “new era” in opposition to the U.S. and reaffirmed the “no limits” partnership that was first announced just days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. While China has held back on providing Russia with arms for its war effort, the United States has accused it of delivering electronic components and other dual-use items that are keeping Moscow’s arms industry afloat. Pyongyang, for its part, denies participating in any arms transfers to Russia, an act that would violate United Nations sanctions. But a report this week by Conflict Armament Research, a U.K.-based group that tracks weapons in armed conflicts, said parts from four North Korean missiles have been found in Ukraine. The missiles, examined by Kyiv, are either KN-23 or KN-24, known as Hwasong-11 short-range missile series, and thought to have been used in attacks in July and August, the report said. Pyongyang-Moscow military ties have also been expanded to include tourism, trade, and economic and technical cooperation. This makes the use of sanctions less effective as a policy tool to counter North Korea’s nuclear buildup, according to Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration. “That’s not as much leverage now as it was before because of the Russian-North Korean relationship,” said Samore. “The U.S. doesn’t have very strong economic leverage that it can use with North Korea.” With few obvious policy options available, the two presidential candidates – former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris – have largely confined themselves to criticizing each other’s approach without laying out any specific plans to roll back the North Korean threat. At Tuesday night’s televised debate, Harris criticized Trump for exchanging “love letters with Kim Jong Un” during his presidency while Trump disapproved of the current administration’s handling of the issue, saying, “Look at what’s going on in North Korea.” During his presidency, Trump held three summits with Kim but the diplomatic effort ultimately failed when Trump refused Kim’s demand for sanctions relief in exchange for a partial rollback of his nuclear program. There have been no formal talks between the two countries since, although the Biden administration insists it is open to negotiations without preconditions, a policy that Harris could be expected to continue if elected. The Biden administration also maintains that its goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, even as many experts suggest it is time to acknowledge that Pyongyang will not give up its weapons and say the international community should focus on containment. Samore predicted that a Harris administration would continue to say that “as an ultimate objective ... the U.S. seeks denuclearization in the long term.” A second Trump administration, he theorized, may say “denuclearization is no longer possible” and “accept North Korea as a nuclear power.” Robert Rapson, who served as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, said much would depend on how the winner of the election decides to work with regional allies South Korea and Japan. “In the likely absence of any grand outreach towards Pyongyang, Harris will have to carefully manage the relationship with ally Seoul, with a focus for the foreseeable future on maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula,” he said. He added that it was “uncertain at this moment” whether Trump would feel compelled to reach out to Kim and whether he would diminish the value of the alliances with South Korea and Japan. Eunjung Cho contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met at the White House Friday as Ukraine intensifies pressure to loosen restrictions of U.S. and U.K. provided weapons to strike Russia. With the U.S. presidential election less than two months away, the next president will have to contend with ongoing conflicts and other serious foreign policy issues. A look at the differences in potential approach of each candidate and what’s at stake. And despite their historically low record of turnout, could young voters tip the scales in deciding the winner?

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.

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pentagon — The Pentagon says it has nearly $6 billion in funding for Ukraine left that could expire at the end of this month unless Congress or the State Department acts to extend the military's authority to draw weapons from its stockpiles to send to Kyiv. "We have $5.9 billion left in Ukraine Presidential Drawdown Authority, all but $100 million of which will expire at the end of the fiscal year," Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said Friday. "The department will continue to provide drawdown packages in the near future and is working with Congress to seek an extension of PDA [presidential drawdown] authorities beyond the end of the fiscal year." A defense official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity, said Congress' monthslong deadlock in passing the supplemental funding bill for Ukraine was a "contributing factor" as to why billions of dollars for weapons remained unspent. The money was expected to be allocated for Ukraine last year, but the U.S. House was unable to pass the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan until late April of this year. Of that, about $61 billion was earmarked for Ukraine. The official said the delay left the Pentagon with less time to identify and send military aid to Kyiv from its stockpiles. The nearly $6 billion left in funding amounts to less than 10% of the aid allocated in April to address the conflict in Ukraine. Speaking in response to a VOA question earlier this month, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the Pentagon would "use everything we can that's available to us to make sure that we are continuing to provide Ukraine what it needs, both in the short term and the long term." "We're in this fight with Ukraine for the long haul," she said. Two ways to ensure access There are two ways to make sure that access to the remaining funds will not expire at the beginning of October, Mykola Murskyj, director of advocacy for the NGO Razom for Ukraine, told VOA. The first is that Congress has to approve it again. This requires lawmakers to pass a provision that would extend the authority to use the remaining amount in the next budget year. House members from both sides of the aisle have expressed support for extending the authorities so that all the allocated funding for Kyiv can be used. "If we need to extend it, we'll extend it," Representative Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told VOA. Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, added that he would "push to get it done" if the funding was not all spent by the deadline. The second way to ensure the military can access the remaining funds is for the State Department to notify Congress of its intent to use the funds, according to Murskyj. In this case, lawmakers will not need to vote on the extension, but formal notification must be issued by the secretary of state, as has been done in the past. A State Department spokesperson would not comment on whether it would issue the extension, saying it would not discuss communications with lawmakers and their staffs, but would continue "to coordinate closely with Congress concerning the steadfast support that the United States, our allies and our partners worldwide are providing to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's premeditated, unprovoked and unjustified war." Murskyj told VOA his advocacy group was working with members of Congress to extend the funds. "However, I am not going to put all of my eggs in that basket," he said, because "it is very difficult to predict what Congress will do, and there's always the potential for some kind of last-minute derailment." In a letter to the administration, members of pro-Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations said extending these funds "would send a powerful message to Ukraine, Russia and American voters that the administration wants Ukraine to win." Kateryna Lisunova of VOA's Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.

Parenthood has become politicized this election season. As U.S. birthrates decline and more Americans choose not to start a family, some portend the collapse of the U.S. economy and society. But experts say it’s not that simple. Tina Trinh reports.

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.

washington — The United States and some of its allies have launched a global campaign to undercut efforts by RT and other Russian state-backed media outlets, accusing them of operating on behalf of the Kremlin’s intelligence agencies. The State Department on Friday announced sanctions against two people and three entities, including RT’s Moscow-based parent company, saying new intelligence leaves no doubt that they are no longer engaged in providing anything that resembles news and information. RT’s parent company and its subsidiaries “are no longer merely fire hoses of Russian government propaganda and disinformation,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at the State Department. “They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracy, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus,” he said, adding the Russian operations also seek to “meddle in the sovereign affairs of countries around the world.” Blinken and other U.S. officials declined to share details about the new intelligence, saying only that some of it comes from RT employees, and that it shows how the Russian-controlled television network is playing a key role in running cyber operations and even acquiring lethal weapons for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. RT quickly ridiculed the U.S. accusations both on social media and in a response to VOA. “RT: *Lives rent free in the State Department head*,” the outlet posted on X. “We’re running out of popcorn, but we’ll be here live, laughing hard...” In response to a query from VOA, RT pointed to comments by editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan on her Telegram channel. "American intelligence services have uncovered that we are helping the front lines,” Simonyan wrote, according to a translation from Russian. “We’ve been doing this openly, you idiots. Should I send you a list of what we've bought and sent? We regularly publish this, just so you know." The Russian Embassy in Washington has not yet responded to a request from VOA for comment. U.S. officials, though, said comments like the ones from RT’s Simonyan only give more weight to the allegations. “They've admitted it,” said James Rubin, the special envoy for the State Department's Global Engagement Center. “They have said they're operating under direct instruction of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. That's what they say they're doing.” And the U.S. says the intelligence shows those Kremlin-assigned responsibilities go far beyond what could be considered normal broadcast operations, including oversight of a crowdsourcing campaign to provide Russian troops in Ukraine with sniper rifles, body armor, drones, night vision equipment and other weaponry. “That's not what a TV station normally does. That's what ... that's what a military entity does,” Rubin said. RT is “a fully fledged member of the intelligence apparatus and operation of the Russian government on the war in Ukraine.” The U.S. intelligence also points to Kremlin-directed RT operations in Argentina, Germany and the South Caucasus – some linked to a Russian military intelligence cyber team that has been embedded within the company. U.S. officials also said evidence shows RT is “almost certainly” coordinating with traditional Russian intelligence services to meddle in next month’s presidential elections in Moldova. “RT is going to be used to try to manipulate an election and, if they don't win the election, manipulate a crowd to try to generate violence for the possibility of overthrowing [the government],” Rubin said. U.S. officials also called out RT for covert influence operations in Latin America and Africa that have had serious consequences. “One of the reasons why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be — given that Russia has invaded Ukraine and violated rule number one of the international system — is because of the broad scope and reach of RT,” Rubin said. The State Department said Friday that it had instructed its diplomats to share evidence about RT’s efforts with countries around the world. “We urge every ally, every partner, to start by treating RT’s activities as they do other intelligence activities by Russia within their borders,” Blinken said. Friday’s sanctions came a little more than a week after the U.S. acted against what it described as two Russian plots, one of them involving RT, aimed at undermining the U.S. presidential elections in November. The U.S. Department of Justice announced the takedown of 32 fake websites designed by Russia to mimic legitimate news sites, to bombard U.S. voters with propaganda aimed at building support for Russia in its war against Ukraine and bolstering support for Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump. The U.S. also unsealed indictments against two RT employees, accusing them of funneling nearly $10 million to a U.S. company in Tennessee to promote and distribute English-language material favorable to the Russian government. What impact all these actions will have on Russia and RT, however, remains to be seen. “I don't think there's any evidence that deterrence is working in this space,” said Margaret Talev, who directs the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship in Washington. “These efforts are getting much more sophisticated,” she told VOA, adding that Russian influence operations have become adept at seeding the social media environment and letting audiences do the work. “One of the biggest drivers of the spread of misinformation and disinformation is sharing by people who aren't trying to do anything wrong,” Talev said. “They're either amused by something or horrified by something that comes into their feed, and they hit 'share.' And now someone spread it to you, and you're spreading it to someone else.”

washington — The Biden administration’s approval this week of a $1.3 billion military aid package for Egypt despite its failure to hit human rights benchmarks has been criticized by rights experts.   The bill’s approval Wednesday overrode human rights benchmarks required to release a certain portion of the aid. A group of senators had earlier urged the administration in a letter to withhold the aid, citing the Egyptian government’s “targeting of political opponents and journalists.” Egypt, a longtime ally of the U.S., was far from reaching those benchmarks, Yeganeh Rezaian of the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, told VOA. “No one can say Egypt is making human rights progress,” Rezaian said. The senators’ letter cited Egypt’s failure to investigate “allegations of human rights abuses,” including enforced disappearances and torture in prison, especially for journalists and political dissidents. This was the first time during Biden’s presidency that Egypt received the full amount of U.S. foreign military financing allocated to Cairo. In previous years, a portion of aid had been withheld because of human rights concerns, according to CPJ. This year, the human rights requirements were waived in the interest of advancing cease-fire negotiations in Gaza, territory that borders Egypt, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Reuters. “Egypt plays an important role in accessing Gaza for peace talks in Israel,” Rezaian told VOA. “But that’s why the security of journalists and freedom of information in the country is very important for everyone, inside and outside.” CPJ researchers believe the world’s increased focus on the Israel-Hamas war has drawn attention away from other allegations of human rights violations in the same region. In Egypt, CPJ has documented the arrests of four journalists who were subjected to enforced disappearances since March. Their cases highlight the “shameful record” of media persecution in Egypt, according to a joint statement published Monday by the CPJ and 34 other international rights groups.   The statement called for the release of Ashraf Omar, Khaled Mamdouh, Ramadan Gouida and Yasser Abu Al-Ela. Authorities took all four journalists to undisclosed locations before their appearances in Egypt’s court. At least two have been subjected to physical torture during their imprisonment, according to CPJ. “By releasing these folks, the government can show they believe in press freedom and democracy,” Rezaian told VOA. Among those detained is Omar, a cartoonist for independent news website Al-Manassa. Omar was subjected to electric shocks and other forms of physical torture, his wife told an Egyptian news website. Omar had published multiple “critical cartoons” about the policies of his government, Sophie Brondel of Cartooning for Peace told VOA. She added that authorities have questioned him about his cartoons during detainment. Cartooning for Peace was one of the 34 co-signers of CPJ’s statement. “We can see in many authoritarian regimes that cartoonists are often among the first targets,” Brondel told VOA. “With their drawings, they have the capacity to also reach out to a broader public.” Freemuse, another artistic freedom organization that signed the document, has been monitoring Egypt’s media landscape for years. The organization noted an increase in how the government has “hammered down on freedom of expression,” Sverre Pedersen, Freemuse’s executive director, told VOA. “Without free expression and free art, it’s not possible to have democracy,” Pedersen said. Egypt has consistently been a top-10 jailer of journalists worldwide, according to CPJ data. The watchdog contends that torture and enforced disappearance of media workers are common practices under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. In the decade since el-Sissi came to power, media repression in Egypt has intensified. The country has become “one of the world’s most oppressive countries towards journalists,” with dozens of arrests and the blocking of over 500 news websites, according to Reporters Without Borders. The Egyptian Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA's email requesting comment. “Our statement is the first step in terms of raising awareness,” said Rezaian of CPJ. “We want the statement to be amplified as much as possible and are hoping to move towards international pressure.”