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On April 19, forty minutes after the ostensible deadline to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Congress passed H.R. 7888, the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA). President Biden quickly signed it into law hours later. RISAA reauthorizes Section 702 for two years, provides modest reforms, and includes several controversial […]

The post Congress Expands Warrantless Surveillance of Immigrants Traveling to the US appeared first on Immigration Impact.

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.

Secretary Blinken and President XI meet in Beijing, discuss Russia, Ukraine and the South China Sea. Rabbis protest in Gaza and Donald Trump asks the Supreme Court for Immunity. The Head of Parliament in Vietnam resigns over a corruption scandal and an Iranian rapper is behind sentenced to death.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — It has been only a day since the transitional presidential council was installed in Haiti, and the list of demands on the Caribbean nation's new leaders is rapidly growing. Haitians want security, food, jobs — and they want them now.  The members of the council, tasked with bringing political stability to Haiti, are under immense pressure to produce quick results, despite a deep-seated crisis that has been years in the making.  Making Haiti safer is a priority. More than 2,500 people were killed or injured from January to March alone, and more than 90,000 have fled the capital of Port-au-Prince so far this year amid relentless gang violence.  “The task is really monumental,” said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia.  Gangs have burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that has been closed since early March, and stormed the country’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.  Gangs now control 80% of Port-au-Prince, and though they have long depended on powerful politicians and the country’s economic elite for their survival, they are increasingly becoming self-sufficient.  “How you extricate yourself from that is very complicated,” Fatton said. “I don’t expect the presidential council to come up with a solution.”  However, the council could push for disarmament and find ways to ease poverty in the slums, he added. “Those gangs are simply not going to go away by simply saying, ‘We want you to be nice guys.’”  The nine-member council acknowledged the challenges it faces after it was sworn in early Thursday at the National Palace, located in an area in downtown Port-au-Prince that has been under attack by gangs in recent weeks.  Gunfire erupted during the ceremony as some officials looked around the room. Hours later, the new interim prime minister, Michel Boisvert, addressed the council.  “The task ahead is daunting,” Boisvert said. “I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the population expects a lot from you ... everything becomes a priority alongside security.”  How exactly the council plans to tackle the daunting tasks is unclear. Its members have met behind closed doors with top government officials as they prepare to choose a new prime minister, a Cabinet and a provisional electoral commission. They will also establish a national security council.  However, no strategy to quell gang violence has been publicly announced. Several council members did not return messages seeking comment Friday.  After the swearing-in ceremony, curious pedestrians slowed down as they passed by the building housing the prime minister’s office.  Some were openly displeased. “Thieves and gangs! That’s all they are!” yelled a man as he drove past on his motorcycle.  There wasn't much hope at a crowded makeshift shelter set up at Haiti’s former Ministry of Communications — a building the government had abandoned due to gang violence.  Rose Hippolite, 66, was forced to flee her Port-au-Prince home with her four children after gangs raided their neighborhood. They have now spent two months in the yard of the ministry building, sleeping on the ground or sitting in a corner when it rains, waiting for the ground to dry out.  Gunshots ring out every day across the city. “We live in fear,” she said. “Only God knows if the new leaders will help.”  Nancy Philemon, a 42-year-old mother of six children, sat under a large and tattered umbrella nearby, selling candy and other small items to shelter refugees. “I don’t have any hope,” she said. “Instead of things getting better, they are getting worse. ... There is no safe place anywhere.”  Haiti’s National Police remains largely overwhelmed by gangs that are better armed and have more resources. More than 15 officers have been killed by gangs so far this year.  Lionel Lazarre, general coordinator for the SYNAPOHA police union, told The Associated Press over the phone Friday that the council must prioritize security “above everything."  Police need so much, he said, including combat helicopters, armed vehicles, drones, high-caliber weapons and infrared thermal imaging for nighttime operations.  “It is important to us that the council meet with us urgently,” Lazarre said. “I believe if there is political will, we have hope things can change.”  There is hope because for the past three weeks, police have managed to prevent gangs from taking over the National Palace and multiple police stations, he said.  Fatton, the Haitian expert, said he heard predictions on the radio about how the council is doomed to fail “if things don’t change with the security situation."  “They have a very short period of time to get their act together and get results,” he said.

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 — The United Nations says Sudan’s warring parties appear headed toward major clashes in the northern Darfur city of El Fasher, home to 2 million people and about a half-million internally displaced. The office of the spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general said in a statement Friday that “The Rapid Support Forces [RSF] are reportedly encircling El Fasher, suggesting a coordinated move to attack the city may be imminent. Simultaneously, the Sudanese Armed Forces [SAF] appear to be positioning themselves.” The statement said the secretary-general's personal envoy, Ramtane Lamamra, is working with the parties to de-escalate tensions in El Fasher. At least 43 people, including women and children, reportedly have been killed in fighting in the northern Darfur city since April 14 when the RSF, backed by its allied militia, began a push to gain control of the city, the SAF’s last remaining stronghold in Sudan’s Darfur region. Earlier, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged the parties to immediately halt violence in and around El Fasher. Speaking from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, Seif Magango warned that the fight for El Fasher, already raging outside the city for several weeks, may be taking a turn for the worse.  “Reports indicate that both parties have launched indiscriminate attacks using explosive weapons with wide-area effects, such as mortar shells and rockets fired from fighter jets, in residential districts,” the spokesperson said. “Since early April, the RSF has conducted several large-scale attacks on the villages in western El Fasher mostly inhabited by the African Zaghawa ethnic community,” he said, noting that several Zaghawa villages have been burned down. “Such attacks raise the specter of further ethnically motivated violence in Darfur, including mass killings,” he said. Last year, fighting and attacks between the Rizeigat and the African Masalit communities in West Darfur left hundreds of civilians dead or injured, and thousands displaced from their homes. The earlier Darfur conflict that erupted in 2003 between Arab and non-Arab communities killed at least 200,000 people and left a deadly legacy of mines and explosive remnants of war, which continue to wreak havoc on communities long after that war ended. The new war between rival factions of Sudan’s military that broke out last year has left more than 18 million people facing acute food insecurity and uprooted nearly 9 million from their homes. OHCHR spokesperson Magango said civilians trapped in El Fasher are afraid they will be killed if they try to flee the city. “This dire situation is compounded by a severe shortage of essential supplies as deliveries of commercial goods and humanitarian aid have been heavily constrained by the fighting, and delivery trucks are unable to freely transit through RSF-controlled territory,” he said. High Commissioner Türk is urging both parties to the conflict and their allies to grant civilians safe passage to other areas and allow safe and unhindered humanitarian aid to reach civilians in dire need. For his part, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reiterated his call on all warring parties “to refrain from fighting in the El Fasher area,” warning of devastating consequences for the civilian population that is “in an area already on the brink of famine.”

Uganda has been using fertilizers since World War II. The first lady's comments came amid a fake fertilizer scandal unfolding in Kenya's presidential administration.

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.

ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's planned meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, set for May 9 at the White House, has been postponed because of changes in the Turkish leader's schedule, a Turkish official said on Friday.  A new date will soon be set, the official said, requesting anonymity.  The White House had not formally announced the visit, but a U.S. official told Reuters in late March that the White House had offered, and Ankara had accepted, May 9 for the meeting. 

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s decision earlier this week to extend the term of a key document that allows Afghans to live in the country legally has created some breathing room for refugees who fear they would be sent back to Afghanistan.   However, concerns remain about Pakistan’s controversial moves in recent months to expel refugees, which has already seen hundreds of thousands of Afghans forced to return to their economically unstable homeland.   On Monday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s Cabinet approved extending proof of registration cards for Afghan refugees that expired April 1st to June 30, according to an official statement. The document allows access to health, educational, and banking facilities for Afghan refugees.     According to the statement issued by the Ministry of Information, expulsion of documented refugees will come at a later stage. “The POR cardholders will be sent back in the third stage of the program to expel foreigners residing illegally in Pakistan,” the statement said. Faced with rising terror attacks, Pakistan launched a drive in October 2023 to evict foreign nationals residing illegally in the country. The decision primarily impacted Afghans who arrived in Pakistan over the last four decades, seeking refuge from war and poverty at home. In the first phase of the on-going drive, more than half a million Afghans have left Pakistan since last fall, according to data compiled by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). According to the UNHCR, Pakistan is now home to around 3.1 million Afghans. Data shows 1.35 million are registered or POR cardholders. More than 800 thousand have Afghan citizenship cards while the remaining are unregistered. In the second phase, Pakistan plans to repatriate Afghan citizenship card (ACC) holders. At a recent news briefing, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarified the second phase of the expulsion program had not yet begun. “I would like to underline that Pakistani authorities are considering all aspects of the Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan and at this point there are no plans to repatriate the ACC holders,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said. “When such a decision is taken the relevant authorities will make an announcement,” she added addressing media reports suggesting the phase had been launched. Afghan Taliban as well as international and Pakistani human rights activists have condemned Islamabad’s plan to send Afghans back. Rights activists worry women and girls will live under severe repression as the Afghan Taliban have forbidden women from most jobs and public spaces, and banned education for girls beyond the sixth grade. “Pakistan’s ‘Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan’ is in violation of refugee and international human rights law,” Amnesty International said in a statement earlier this month. A recent survey by Save the Children revealed nearly 65 percent of the 250,000 children who returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan are not in school anymore, largely because of a lack of documents needed to enroll. Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 U.N. convention protecting refugee rights. But the country has run registration drives in the past with help from the UNHCR to give Afghans documentation that gave them long term protection. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops in August 2021, Pakistan has seen a spike in terror attacks primarily by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an ideological offshoot of the Afghan Taliban. TTP and groups affiliated with it have killed thousands of Pakistani security personnel in attacks concentrated in the provinces along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.    Pakistani military and the government accuse Afghan Taliban of providing a haven to anti-state terrorists, a charge the de facto rulers in Kabul deny. Pakistani authorities claim Afghan nationals have been involved in several deadly attacks on Pakistani security personnel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is “fully prepared” to impose sanctions over China’s support for Russia’s defense industry. His comments came Friday, following a meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping. More from VOA’s Bill Gallo in Seoul, South Korea.