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Bogota — Deforestation in Colombia fell 36% to a 23-year low in 2023, driven by declining environmental destruction in the Amazon region, the environment ministry said on Monday. Nationally, deforestation fell to just over 792 square kilometers (305 square miles) last year, down from around 1,235 square kilometers in 2022, the ministry said in a statement. Colombia is one of the world's most biodiverse countries and is home to thousands of plant and animal species. However, like elsewhere in the region, it loses swathes of forest to deforestation each year. The government of leftist President Gustavo Petro says it is prioritizing the protection of Colombia's environment and has called on rich nations to cancel foreign debt in exchange for conserving areas like the Amazon, whose destruction scientists say could worsen global climate change. "It's really good news ... but we definitely cannot say that the battle is won," Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told journalists in Colombia's capital Bogota. Deforestation in Colombia's Amazon region - traditionally the driver of the national figure — declined 38% to around 443 square kilometers, down from close to 712 square kilometers in 2022. Despite the strong performance in cutting deforestation in 2023, Muhamad in April warned that deforestation had increased in 2024 amid dry conditions exacerbated by a strong El Nino weather phenomenon. In May, eight sources told Reuters that government measures to tackle illegal roads in Colombia's Amazon region had stalled, while environmental procurator Gustavo Guerrero — who works for a state watchdog which keeps tabs on officials — said the hold-up amounted to an "evident failure." Colombia's government will continue to roll out plans including tackling environmental crime, strengthening institutions and working with communities to prevent deforestation, Muhamad said. Colombia will host the COP16 U.N. biodiversity summit in the city of Cali later this year.

Dakar — Senegalese President and West Africa's ECOWAS "facilitator" Bassirou Diomaye Faye called Monday for dialogue and peaceful reconciliation with three countries that recently split from the bloc. The military leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso broke away from the Economic Community of West African States earlier this year and formed a confederation of their own on Saturday. ECOWAS heads of state met in Abuja on Sunday and deplored the "lack of progress in interactions" with Burkinabe, Malian and Nigerien authorities, who came to power in a series of recent coups. "We cannot stand idly by," Senegal's President Faye said in a video posted Monday. "Our responsibility is to work on bringing everyone closer and reconciliation -- to ensure there is room for dialogue", he said, vowing that the bloc will work towards peace. The three countries' decision to leave was fueled in part by their accusation that France was manipulating ECOWAS and not providing enough support for anti-jihadist efforts. ECOWAS has warned the region faced "disintegration", though its efforts to bring the seceding countries closer so far have failed. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have called their withdrawals "irreversible." ECOWAS appointed Senegal's president as a "facilitator" in negotiations with the three states, alongside Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe. President Faye stressed that, on paper, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger remain members for another year, as per article 91 of the organization's founding treaty. "I hope that by the end of the [one-year] notice period, we will have had enough conversations to reconcile views and strengthen the organization so that it can better tackle our shared challenges," Faye said. ECOWAS announced on Sunday that it would draft an "prospective emergency plan" to "address any contingency" in the tense relations with the breakaway countries.

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Bangkok — One of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic minority groups battling the military government said it captured an airport serving the country’s top world-class beach resort, marking the first time resistance forces have seized such a facility.   Residents of the area in the southern part of the western state of Rakhine, along with local media, also reported the seizure of Thandwe Airport, also known as Ma Zin Airport, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) northwest of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.   It's the latest major setback for the military government that took power in 2021 after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Armed resistance to military rule is taking place in much of the country, led by pro-democracy militants as well as guerrilla groups affiliated with ethnic minorities.   The Arakan Army said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday night that it had recovered the bodies of more than 400 soldiers from the recent fighting in the area, as well as a cache of ammunition. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claims by the group, which in the past have been disputed.   The seizure of the airport, one of six in Rakhine, would appear to open the way for the rebels to seize Rakhine’s coastal region, even as they consolidates control over much of the northern part of the state.   The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Buddhist Rakhine minority, which seeks autonomy for Rakhine state from Myanmar’s central government. It has recently also called itself the Arakha Army.   Since November last year, the group has been on the offensive and has gained control of nine of 17 townships, along with one in neighboring Chin state. It is also part of an armed ethnic alliance that launched an offensive last October that gained strategic territory in the country’s northeast on the border with China.   Ngapali, a 7-kilometer (4-mile) long beach on the Bay of Bengal had been getting attention from international tourism but development stalled due to COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict that followed the army takeover.   Sporadic fighting in villages near Ngapali beach on the Bay of Bengal since April has halted flights to the airport, which serves the beach resort, and most of the 46 hotels and guest houses were shut down.   A Ngapali hotel executive who had recently escaped the area told The Associated Press on Monday his staff had fled the property.   A travel agent in the town of Thandwe, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) east of Ngapali, told the AP that she had heard the sound of the fighting coming from outside of the town, but the situation inside was quiet with no guerrillas in the immediate vicinity.   Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear for their safety.

Belfast — Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised on Monday to secure an improved agreement with the European Union on post-Brexit trading rules and revamp the "botched deal" signed by former premier Boris Johnson. Speaking in Belfast after talks with the leaders of Northern Ireland, where post-Brexit trade rules have dominated politics for years, Starmer said his new government would first need to implement changes under the current agreement to build trust with the European Union.   "We think we can get a better deal than the botched deal that Boris Johnson brought home and we will work on that," Starmer, who won a landslide victory last week, told reporters. "We're not going to be able to get a better relationship unless we've demonstrated commitment to the relationship and the agreements that have already been put in place," he added. Labour has ruled out rejoining the EU single market or customs union but has said it is possible to remove some trade barriers with the 27-nation bloc, which Britain left in 2020. The largest pro-British party in Northern Ireland ended a boycott of the devolved assembly after tweaks to trading rules secured by former prime minister Rishi Sunak in February, but it has since called for more changes. Asked about the prospect of a referendum on a United Ireland after Irish nationalists Sinn Fein became the province's largest party in parliament, Starmer said he would "act in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement," the 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of sectarian violence. Under the deal, a referendum is at the discretion of the British government if "it appears likely" to the minister for Northern Ireland that a majority would favor cutting ties with London. Starmer, who visited Edinburgh on Sunday, is to continue on a post-election tour of the four nations of the United Kingdom with a visit to Cardiff later on Monday. 

Beijing — Chinese state media on Monday criticized the state grains stockpiler Sinograin after local media reported that its fuel tankers were allegedly also used to transport cooking oil, sparking food safety concerns. The Beijing News last week reported it was an “open secret” in the transportation industry that Sinograin was using tankers to transport both fuel and food products like cooking oil, soybean oil and syrup, without cleaning the tankers in between. The report sparked an uproar on social media over worries of food contamination. Chinese consumers have been increasingly sensitive over food safety, with consumers turning to foreign brands and Beijing stepping up controls, after a series of scandals, including the sale of baby formula containing lethal amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in 2008. Sinograin, in a Weibo post on Saturday, said it had ordered an investigation into whether transportation carriers leaving and entering its warehouses were compliant with food safety regulations. Transportation units and carrier vehicles found in violation of the regulations would be terminated immediately and any major problems found would be reported to the relevant regulatory authorities, Sinograin said. On Monday, state broadcaster CCTV called the operation a cost-saving measure that was “tantamount to poisoning.” “While Sinograin is trying to make up for its loss, consumers are still confused and stunned,” CCTV said in a post on WeChat. “Usually, we can avoid poor quality cooking oil by not cutting corners and choosing big brands and well-known manufacturers. But big brands can also have loopholes in the transportation chain where fuel and cooking oils are mixed, which is obviously beyond most people's knowledge,” it said. Such mixing of products was “not only a blatant provocation to the ‘Food Safety Law’, but also showed an extreme disregard for the life and health of consumers,” CCTV said.

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chinese President Xi Jinping called on world powers to help Russia and Ukraine resume direct dialogue during a meeting Monday with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, state broadcaster CCTV reported. Orban made a surprise visit to China after similar trips last week to Russia and Ukraine to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement of more than the two-year war. Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union this month and Orban has since embarked on a peace mission, which, however, lacks the endorsement of other European leaders. "China is a key power in creating the conditions for peace in the Russia-Ukraine war," Orban wrote on the social media platform X. "This is why I came to meet with President Xi in Beijing, just two months after his official visit to Budapest." Orban is widely seen as having the warmest relations with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin among European leaders. His visit to Moscow last week drew condemnation from Kyiv and EU officials, who insisted Orbán was not acting on behalf of the whole European bloc. Their rebuke failed to deter Orban from extending a similar visit to Beijing, which he called "Peace mission 3.0" in a picture posted on X. During his meeting with Xi, Orban described China as a stabilizing force amid global turbulence and praised its "constructive and important" peace initiatives. China has been promoting its own six-point peace plan, which it issued with Brazil in May. Beijing says it is neutral in the conflict, though in practice it supports Moscow through frequent state visits, growing trade and joint military drills. While hosting Orban, Xi called on Russia and Ukraine to cease fire and on other major powers to create an environment conducive to talks. Only when all major powers project "positive energy rather than negative energy" can a cease-fire occur, Xi said, according to CCTV. Orban hosted the Chinese leader in Hungary only two months ago as part of a three-country European tour that also included stops in France and Serbia, which unlike the other two is not a member of the EU or NATO. During the trip, China upgraded its ties with Hungary to an "all-weather, comprehensive strategic partnership," one of its highest designations for foreign relations that in addition to Hungary applies only to Belarus, Pakistan and Venezuela. Hungary under Orban has built substantial political and economic ties with China. The European nation hosts a number of Chinese electric vehicle battery facilities, and in December it announced that Chinese EV manufacturing giant BYD will open its first European EV production factory in the south of the country. The Hungarian prime minister broadly opposes Western military aid to Ukraine and has blocked, delayed or watered down EU efforts to assist Kyiv and impose sanctions on Moscow over its invasion. Orban has long argued for a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine but without outlining what that might mean for the country's territorial integrity or future security. That posture has frustrated Hungary's EU and NATO allies, who have denounced Russia's invasion as a breach of international law and a threat to the security of Eastern Europe. Standing alongside Orban last week in Moscow, Putin declared that Russia wouldn't accept any cease-fire or temporary break in hostilities that would allow Ukraine "to recoup losses, regroup and rearm." Putin repeated his demand that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the four regions that Moscow claims to have annexed in 2022 as a condition for any prospective peace talks. Ukraine and its Western allies have rejected that demand, suggesting it is akin to asking Kyiv to withdraw from its own territory. China meanwhile has spread its influence in Central Asia and Eastern Europe in recent years beyond its "no limits" partnership with Moscow. Over the weekend, China held "anti-terror" military drills with Belarus — a key ally of Russia — near the border with Poland. The drills came after last week Belarus joined a regional security organization led by China and Russia. Orban will next head to Washington, D.C., where NATO leaders are holding a summit to discuss ways to assure Ukraine of the alliance's continued support. "Next stop: Washington," Orban posted on his social media account Monday. It was not clear whether he would meet separately with President Joe Biden, or Donald Trump, whose presidential candidacy Orban openly supports.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two years after the U.S. Forest Service sparked what would become the largest and most destructive wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history, independent investigators say there are gaps that need to be addressed if the agency is to be successful at using prescribed fire as a tool to reduce risk amid climate change.   The investigation by the Government Accountability Office was requested by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández after communities in her district were ravaged in 2022 by the Hermit's Peak-Calf Canyon Fire.   The congresswoman wanted to know what factors the Forest Service had identified as contributing to the escape of prescribed fires over the last decade and whether the agency was following through with reforms promised after a pause and review of its prescribed burn program.   The report made public Monday notes there were 43 escapes documented between 2012 and 2021 out of 50,000 prescribed fire projects. That included blazes in national forests in more than a dozen states, from the California-Nevada border to Utah, New Mexico, Idaho, North Carolina and Arkansas.   With the U.S. Forest Service and other land management agencies tapping into federal infrastructure and inflation reduction funding to boost the number of prescribed burn operations over the next 10 years, Leger Fernández said it's more important than ever to ensure they are doing it safely.   The congresswoman was visiting northern New Mexico over recent days, appreciating how things have greened up with summer rains. But the forests are still tinder boxes, she said.   “We need to address our forest, but we need to do it in a responsible way," she told The Associated Press. "When you play with fire, there is no margin for error.”    The Forest Service ignites about 4,500 prescribed fires each year, reducing fuels on about 1.3 million acres. It's part of a multi-billion dollar cleanup of forests choked with dead trees and undergrowth.   There have been mixed results as federal land managers have fallen behind on some projects and skipped over some highly at-risk communities to work in less threatened ones, according to a 2023 AP review of data, public records and congressional testimony.   However, the Forest Service said in a response to the GAO that it is making progress and generally agrees with the findings made public Monday. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote that his agency will create and implement a corrective action plan to address the gaps.   Moore also noted 2023 marked a record year for treatments of hazardous fuels on forest lands and his agency was on track to offer more training to build up crews who can specialize in prescribed burn operations.   “The agency is using every tool available to reduce wildfire risk at a pace and scale which will make a difference within our current means,” Moore wrote.   The GAO reviewed volumes of documents over several months, interviewed forest officials and made site visits over many months. The investigation found the Forest Service has taken steps toward implementing several immediate recommended changes following the Hermit's Peak-Calf Canyon Fire. That included developing a national strategy for mobilizing resources for prescribed fire projects.   There were dozens of other actions the agency identified as part of its 2022 review, but the GAO found “important gaps remain” as the Forest Service hasn't determined the extent to which it will implement the remaining actions, including how or when.   The GAO is recommending the Forest Service develop a plan for implementing the reforms, set goals, establish a way to measure progress and ensure it has enough resources dedicated to day-to-day management of the reform effort. It also pointed out that the Forest Service in agency documents recognized the reforms will require major changes to practices and culture.   Leger Fernández said she hopes change will come quickly because wildfires are becoming more expensive and more dangerous.   “They are killer fires now. They move very fast, and people cannot get out of the way fast enough,” she said. “And I think that kind of massive emergency that they are will lead to faster change than you might normally see in a large federal bureaucracy.” 

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LONDON/BRUSSELS — Many of France's allies breathed a sigh of relief on Monday after Marine Le Pen's far-right failed to win a snap election, but they noted that a messy coalition from a hung parliament could also pose headaches for Europe. Le Pen's National Rally (RN) had been favorite to top the polls, raising the risk of France's first far-right government since World War II and threatening to upend economic and foreign policy in the euro zone's second-largest economy. In particular, Ukraine's allies feared a Le Pen-led government could be soft on Moscow and pare back military aid that Kyiv has relied on since the Russian invasion in 2022, though her party has latterly said Russia was a threat. The National Rally's defeat signals at least a temporary pushback against a far-right surge in Europe, but could herald a period of instability with a new government in an uneasy "cohabitation" with President Emmanuel Macron. "First of all I am quite relieved there was no right-wing landslide," said Germany's Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, lauding efforts to prevent a "drifting towards nationalism and thereby moving Europe into even more difficult waters." "But nevertheless the election result will now represent an enormous challenge, especially for France itself, but of course also for Europe, which is currently in the phase of reorganization after the European elections, and also for the German-French relationship," he added. Habeck's government was using contacts with various parties to clarify the challenges ahead, he told reporters in Stuttgart. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk struck a positive tone. "In Paris enthusiasm, in Moscow disappointment, in Kyiv relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw," Tusk said on X. Le Pen's party meanwhile was set to join a newly minted alliance in the European Parliament led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with the stated aims of fighting illegal immigration and taking powers back from Brussels. Macron’s gamble Macron had called the snap poll in an attempt to wrest the initiative back from Le Pen but his own party was left trailing behind an alliance of leftist parties that performed far better than expected to take first place. A fragmented parliament is set to weaken France's role in the European Union and further afield, and make it hard for anyone to push through a domestic agenda. Several early reactions from overseas rejoiced that the immediate threat of a far-right government had been averted. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told the radio station RNE he was happy to see a defeat for the far right, which he described as "completely contrary to European values." Nikos Androulakis, the head of Greece's Socialist PASOK party, said the French people had "raised a wall against the far right, racism and intolerance and guarded the timeless principles of the French Republic: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." An EU official called it a "huge relief" but added: "what it means for Europe on a day to day basis remains to be seen though." A senior EU diplomat also expressed relief that a lurch towards what they called the extreme right was not seen everywhere. Le Pen has in the past expressed her admiration for President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was watching the formation of a new French government with great interest, but added: "The victory of political forces that would be supporters of efforts to restore our bilateral relations is definitely better for Russia, but so far we do not see such bright political will in anyone, so we do not harbor any special hopes or illusions in this regard." Deep divisions The election left the French parliament split between three large groups - the left, the centrists, and the far right - with different platforms and no tradition of working together. The left wants to cap prices of essential goods like fuel and food, raise the minimum wage and the salaries of public sector workers, at a time when France's budget deficit is already at 5.5% of output, higher than EU rules permit. "Bye-bye European deficit limits! (The government) will crash in no time. Poor France. It can console itself with (Kylian) Mbappé," said Claudio Borghi, senator from Italy's right-wing League party, referring to the French soccer star. Other hard-right politicians expressed frustration. Andre Ventura, leader of Portugal's far-right party Chega, called the result a "disaster for the economy, tragedy for immigration and bad for the fight against corruption." A note by Capital Economics said France may have avoided the "worst possible outcomes" for investors, of an outright majority for either Le Pen or the leftists. A fractious parliament means however it will be difficult for any government to pass the budget cuts that are necessary for France to comply with the EU's budget rules, it said. "Meanwhile, the chance of France's government [and the governments of other countries] clashing with the EU over fiscal policy has increased now that the bloc's budget rules have been re-introduced," it 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.

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JOANETES, Spain — Xavier Pallàs plants his feet on the belfry floor, grips the rope, and with one tug fills the lush Spanish valley below with the reverberating peal of a church bell.  Clang-clong! Clang-clong! Clang-CLONG! The swinging bronze bell resonates with each strike of the clapper, filling the small stone tower with an undulating hum. Once Pallàs finishes his peals, the metallic melody fades to stillness. Silence returns to the tower, giving the valley's soundscape back to the birdsongs and rooster crows.  For most, church bells are just a quaint bit of automated background noise. But Pallàs and his 18 students at the Vall d'en Bas School of Bell Ringers are trying to change that by resuscitating the dwindling art of tolling — and communicating — by hand.  The shift to mechanical tolling devices over the past century has flattened the bells' dynamic songs and muted their messaging powers, said Pallàs, the school's founder and director. If played with the know-how, the sounding of church bells in various sequences, tones and rhythms can signal the time for rejoicing or mourning and when to run to the aid of a neighbor in need.  "For centuries, the tolling of church bells was our most important communication method," said Pallàs, standing inside the belfry which doubles as his classroom.  "Machines cannot reproduce the richness of the sounds that we used to hear, so there has been a simplification and unification of bell ringing. The language has been lost little by little until now, when we are finally recognizing its worth."  Before newspapers, radio, telephones, television and the internet, it was bellringing that transmitted important information. A physically demanding job that required long hours and complete dedication, to be a bellringer was to be a human clock and the public loudspeaker.  While manual church bell ringing has persisted in Eastern Orthodox countries, it has largely been replaced by bell ringing systems in Catholic and Protestant churches in Western Europe.  Many of Spain's church bell towers that were automized in the 1970s and '80s are in a dire state, said Pallàs, who witnessed widespread problems while researching the belfries of Garrotxa, a county in northeast Catalonia. The rural area is known for its verdant hills, dormant volcanoes and picturesque villages where most people speak Catalan before Spanish.  His research included the 12th century Sant Romà church in Joanetes, a tiny village about two hours north of Barcelona, where Pallàs has spent the past 10 months teaching the inaugural class one Saturday a month.  "Since the last generation of bellringers had died off, the only thing to do was to train new ones in how to toll the bells. And that's where the idea of the school was born," Pallàs said.  Intangible heritage  The initiative comes two years after UNESCO added manual bellringing in Spain to its compendium of humanity's intangible cultural heritage. UNESCO described how the bells had knitted together communities even before they were functioning modern states.  "The first thing we have to do is rediscover the bells. That is why this school is so important," said Roman Gené Capdevila, president of Catalonia's Bell Ringers brotherhood. "There are so many ways to ring a bell, what we need are bellringers."  The bellringing course, officially recognized by the ISCREB theology school in Barcelona, finished last week with a demonstration by the class. All drawn to the allure of the banging bells, the students were men and women with diverse professional backgrounds ranging from engineering to teaching. One was in his 20s; several were retirees.  They spent the past few months researching old chiming sequences, documenting their origins and learning to play them. That ethnographic task meant students had to search out old bellringers, or their family members, to record what they knew.  Roser Sauri jumped at the chance to reconnect with her childhood by recovering and playing the chiming sequence that had sounded in her grandfather's village when he was baptized.  "The bells formed a part of my life," said Sauri, who now works in artificial intelligence. She missed their constancy while studying for her computing doctorate in Boston, where she heard none.  "When I visited my family, I began to associate the sound of church bells with being back home."  The human touch  The students took turns tolling sequences for everything from calls to Easter Mass, bad weather warnings, help for fighting a fire to orders for the village militia. They also could tell workers to get back to reaping wheat, or housewives when the fresh fish was coming to market and even how much it cost. Many of the ringers wore earplugs or headphones to muffle the deafening peals.  The students tolled a gamut of death announcements that could specify gender and social class. Juan Carles Osuna and two others tolled for the death of a woman. That meant swinging the largest bell at 429 kilos (945 pounds). It still had a clapper secured in the traditional method of using a dried skin of an ox penis.  Osuna, who paints church murals, also performed a complex sequence with all four of belfry's bells that required him to sit in a chair with ropes looped around his hands and feet.  "Whew! It's an emotional experience. You feel your blood pumping. You feel the strength, and how you are communicating with everyone in earshot," he said. "For me it is an honor, it's a way to honor both humans and God." The hesitation, the variation in the strength of each toll: in these details, and sometimes mistakes, the listener can hear the creator of the sound.  "The (automated) hammer will always be mathematically precise," Osuna said. "There is emotion in the human touch. There is a human element."  Utopian, quixotic? Maybe not  What might seem like a quixotic mission has so far had a promising start.  While admitting that his dream of having a bell ringer for every bell tower is "utopian," Pallàs said he has a full class lined up for the fall and some 60 more people on a waiting list. Many of his graduating pupils, including Sauri and Osuna, hope to continue playing at their local parishes or help convert their belfries into systems that allow manual ringing.  Pallàs believes that a recovery of bell ringing in a neighborhood or town's life could help strengthen communities in this dizzying age of technological, economic and political change.  "This is a means of communication that reaches everyone inside a local community and can help it come together at concrete moments," Pallàs said. "That can include a death in the community or the celebration of a holiday. It can help mark the rituals that we need."