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Ho Chi Minh City — A heatwave in Vietnam is worsening environmental conditions in the Mekong Delta region, and farmers and gig workers have told VOA the heat is causing grueling working conditions and cutting crop yields. The heatwave is fueled by the El Nino weather pattern causing hotter and drier conditions in Vietnam. Le Dinh Quyet, head of the Southern Regional Hydro-Meteorological Center, told local news outlet VnExpress that peak temperatures hit the South early this year due to the El Nino and a heatwave that started early March is expected to continue through April and delay the start of the rainy season. Vo Quang Tuong, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City Open University specializing in Hydrology, told VOA by email April 2 that the El Nino is "expected to exacerbate extreme weather and climate events like heat waves, floods, and droughts." In Ho Chi Minh City, a driver with the Grab ride-hailing service in his 60s told VOA that the heat was difficult to bear midday while carrying passengers on his motorbike. "You feel the heat reflecting from the asphalt and the sky," he said in Vietnamese on March 8. "This combination makes the heat unbearable." Another Grab driver, in his 20s, told VOA the same day in Vietnamese that he starts working after 4:00 p.m. to stay out of the sun during the hottest hours. "I don't think it is worth working under the crazy heat.. I don't think we should sacrifice our health," he said. Decreased crop yields Tuong, the Ho Chi Minh City lecturer said, "Vietnam should be prepared for low rainfall, leading to drought, saltwater intrusion, and water shortages." The soaring temperatures, lack of rainfall, and increased salinity are already posing challenges for farmers. A 46-year-old selling vegetables at an outdoor market in Ho Chi Minh City on March 19 said that although he waters his crops three times daily, the soil dries quickly in the heat. “This March is much hotter," he said in Vietnamese. "My vegetables are dying from the heat. The crop yields dropped 30% to 40% compared to the past." In the Mekong Delta, the country's southernmost region made up of 12 provinces and Can Tho City, saltwater is intruding into freshwater sources.  According to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, a salinity rate of 4 grams per liter is expected to reach 24 to 40 miles inland between April 1 and 10 while most plants can only cope with one gram of salinity. The Delta is reliant on the Mekong River for fresh water, which flows through five countries before it reaches Vietnam, splits into nine tributaries and meets the sea.  Local outlet VietnamNews reported that authorities are building dams, dredging canals, encouraging farmers to store water in ponds in their orchards, and setting up 77 free water supply sites in coastal Tien Giang province.  A 42-year-old rice farmer in the Mekong Delta Province of Long An told VOA he expected crop yields will be 20% to 30% lower than normal this year. "In other years, I did not have to add water to the rice field but this year I have to do it once every five to seven days," he said, during a phone call in Vietnamese on March 20.  “This March is too hot, my skin got burned. I have to be in the field from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. to work," he said, adding that the majority of his day is spent extracting well water for his rice fields. Resource competition For Brian Eyler, co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor at the Stimson Center in Washington, the biggest threats to the Mekong Delta are caused by humans and complicated by China's control of the largest dams and cooperation among the five lower Mekong countries.  During a public talk in Ho Chi Minh City on March 19, Eyler said that decades of damming, sand mining, and groundwater extraction pose an existential threat to the river.  "This is a river undergoing a heart attack," he said of the disruption to the river's natural ebb and flow. Eyler said that out of the hundreds of dams built on the Mekong, the biggest are two Chinese hydropower dams which are large enough to "see from outer space" and make "severe changes" to the river. Although there are solutions to restore the Mekong, Eyler said he sees shrinking space for hope. He said that cooperation is limited and although the Mekong River Commission was founded in 1957 to work with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam to jointly manage the sustainable development of the river, the organization lacks power.  "There's not enough water to go around these days – resource competition is increasing," Eyler told VOA. A new Cambodian project could "drive a wedge between Cambodia and Vietnam," according to Eyler. Cambodia plans to start building a 111-mile waterway, the Funan Techo Canal, which would connect Phnom Penh with key ports and cut off Vietnam's grip on the shipping industry. ((https://www.voanews.com/a/villagers-near-proposed-canal-in-cambodia-worry-and-wait/7552864.html))  "Shared resources like the Mekong need to be governed in a smart way otherwise there's a race to the bottom," Eyler said. "It's starting to really look like those last days are here in a very profound way."

GABORONE, BOTSWANA — Africa's leading diamond producer, Botswana, has written to the Group of Seven leading industrial countries seeking to reverse an initiative requiring all producers to send gems to Belgium for certification. This follows G7 move to prevent the import of diamonds mined in Russia. Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi told diplomats in Gaborone Wednesday the G7 traceability mechanism poses an unfair burden on African diamond producers.  The G7 is an informal grouping of seven of the world’s advanced economies, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. They have required since March 1 that all diamonds entering G7 countries be sent through Antwerp, Belgium, to determine their origin. The controls are meant to prevent Russian diamonds out of global markets amid concerns the revenues will be used to finance Russia's Ukraine war. "We cannot agree to an attempt to undermine our quest for development by taking charge and responsibility of our own value addition of our resources," Masisi said. "Because if you make Belgium, Antwerp the single node for verification, gosh, what impudence. When we mine our diamonds here and we are certain they are mined here and you add another layer of cost, delay and time and risk to direct interaction with customers and clients and you take them still to Antwerp, it’s not acceptable." Masisi said African diamond producing countries were not consulted by the G7 before the measures were introduced in March. "When the G7 made these propositions, that are inimical to our interests and particularly Botswana because we are one of the largest producers at least outside Russia," he said. "They were essentially regulating our industry completely without our participation. You can’t do this without engaging us, particularly Botswana. They did reach out and send people here. The engagement was pretty patronizing. They had essentially made up their minds." Masisi said he is lobbying other leaders to protest the controls.     Botswana, together with Angola and Namibia, two other African diamond producers, sent a letter protesting G7’s move but there has been no response. “We wrote a letter, we authored the main letter, we shared it with other producing countries namely Namibia and Angola and we asked them to be co-signatories and with minor amendments we all co-signed and sent it to G7 and we have not gotten a response. Apparently they say they are consulting but the requirements have kicked in and luckily the World Diamond Council has also protested because there has been serious disruption to the flow of diamond trade, and cost implications and delays.” Masisi said Botswana in particular already has advanced verification and traceability systems.  The G7 move is seen as undermining the Kimberley Process, an existing commitment to remove conflict diamonds from the global supply chain. “The African Diamond Producers Association is very right to protect their interests," said Jaff Bamenjo, coordinator of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, which acts as an observer of the Kimberly Process.  "That is legitimate. However, the G7 is also right to protect the values and principles they cherish and defend. The main issue to us, as the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, is how much we accommodate the legitimate concerns of each other. That is the question. But I should say, the G7 in my opinion, from the very onset made a mistake not to consult the African diamond producers right from the initial stages."  Belgian-based diamond industry researcher Hans Merket told VOA traceability measures are necessary but that there is also a need to respond to African producers’ concerns.  "A serious advancement of traceability in the diamond trade is long overdue," Merket said. "Too many actors have been overtly comfortable in a lack of transparency for many years. I think delays in the implementation of the scheme in the first month were a growing pain and have already been partly resolved after some adaptations. The added costs I think are also manageable given that the scheme only applies to more valuable diamonds of about 1 carat." More than 100 diamond businesses recently wrote a letter to the Antwerp World Diamond Centre expressing concerns over delays in customs clearance of diamonds since the G7 introduced the traceability measures.

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Qamishli, Syria    — In an economy largely shattered by a 13-year conflict, most business owners and shopkeepers in northeast Syria would be content to receive a few customers each day. But it would certainly make them happier if such customers paid in U.S. dollars. "If you don’t have Syrian money, no problem, I take any U.S. dollar bill you have," a teenage fruit vendor in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli told VOA as he was trying to sell his produce. "If you buy these strawberries, I’ll take that $10 bill and can give you back the change in Syrian money," added the boy, who didn’t give his name. In this part of the region, the Syrian pound has seen an unprecedented decline over the past decade. The deteriorating currency is one of the many economic consequences of a civil war that has been raging since 2011. As of April 4, the exchange rate for one U.S. dollar against the Syrian pound in the black market in Qamishli stood at 14,000. Before the war started, one U.S. dollar was worth about 50 Syrian pounds. "With such a declining state of the Syrian pound, U.S. dollar has become an alternative currency in northeast Syria," said Mohammed Hafeed Khalil, who lectures on economics and accounting at the University of Rojava in Qamishli. "U.S. dollar is now the de facto currency that has contributed to stabilizing the local economy here," he told VOA. "In a place where hyperinflation has been shaping the economy for some years, everyone would be happy to carry out their transactions in U.S. dollars, whether it’s large business owners, shopkeepers, street vendors or local customers." A grocery owner in the covered market in Qamishli, who goes by the name Bave Ciwan, said the use of dollars in daily transactions is convenient. "We buy our goods in dollars, so it’s only natural to sell in dollars as well," he told VOA, adding that "the exchange rate of the Syrian lira [or pound] changes literally every day, so sometimes it makes no sense to sell in Syrian money."  The grocer said that while not every customer has dollars, most shopkeepers would rather conduct their business in the U.S. currency, "because that way we don’t have to keep increasing our prices with each change in the exchange rate." Northeast Syria is mostly under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, a Kurdish-led military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the fight against the Islamic State terror group. An SDF-affiliated autonomous administration has been governing the region since 2012 after Syrian government troops withdrew to fight rebel forces elsewhere in the country. While most of the Kurdish-controlled region is politically and militarily outside the control of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, its economy remains largely tied to that of the central government, particularly when it comes to monetary matters. "As an autonomous administration, we don't have a policy to dollarize the economy, because we're part of Syria," said Hadiya Ali, co-chair of the economy and agriculture board at the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria. "However, we have realized that using dollars in the market actually helps the local population in these difficult times and stabilizes the economy of northeast Syria. So while we don't have a policy of adopting the U.S. dollar as a unit of money, we have no restrictions on the use of U.S. dollars in the market as long as it contributes to economic stability in our region," Ali said. Khalil also said the steady flow of U.S. dollars into northeast Syria has liberated and revitalized the local economy compared with other parts of Syria. "While a formal dollarization in the northeast may not currently be possible, the abundance of U.S. dollar bills here represents a sharp contrast with the situation in Syrian government-controlled areas where the use of dollar is prohibited by law," he said. "This gives an economic edge to northeast Syria as the country remains under sanctions imposed on the government by the West." Western governments, including the United States, have imposed major economic sanctions against the Assad government for its crackdown on peaceful protesters and crimes committed against civilians. More than 90% of Syria’s population lives in poverty, according to a U.N. report released in March. This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service. 

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.

In desert Namibia, invasive acacia trees are sucking up valuable groundwater. Farmers cut them down to make way for pasture for their livestock. Now a company has found a novel way to use fungi to turn the cut-down trees into eco-friendly bricks. Vitalio Angula has the story from Brakwater, Namibia

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.

JERUSALEM/CAIRO — Six months into the war in Gaza, the killing of a group of aid workers by an Israeli air strike summed up both the dire humanitarian crisis and the lack of a clear way out of a conflict that is leaving Israel increasingly isolated. The attack on Monday night that killed seven staff of the World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid group, including six foreigners, has angered even some of Israel's closest allies, adding to growing pressure for an end to the fighting. Israel's military has acknowledged the strike was conducted mistakenly by its forces and apologized for the "unintentional" deaths of the seven, who included citizens of Britain, Australia and Poland, a dual U.S-Canadian citizen and a Palestinian colleague. But that has done little to ease growing alarm abroad, where public opinion even in traditionally friendly countries like Britain, Germany or Australia has swung against the Israeli campaign in Gaza, launched after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7. U.S. President Joe Biden, who has come under growing pressure from his own supporters to end the fighting, said he was outraged by the convoy attack. On Thursday, following a call with Netanyahu, the White House demanded "concrete and measurable steps to reduce civilian harm" and said future U.S. support would be determined by Israel's actions. Increased aid access On Friday, Netanyahu ordered the reopening of the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and the temporary use of Ashdod port in southern Israel as well as increased access for Jordanian aid through the Kermen Shalom crossing in southern Gaza. With Gaza in ruins, most of the 2.3 million population have been forced from their homes and now depend on aid for survival, a bitter humiliation during the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims around the world consume traditional Ramadan meals and desserts to break their fast after sunset. "We had some hopes before Ramadan, but that hope vanished the night before the fasting month began," said 33-year-old Um Nasser Dahman, now living with her family of five in a tent camp in the southern city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population is now sheltering. "We used to be well enough off before the war, but we've become dependent on what limited aid there is and our relatives," she said, via messaging. Even before the attack on the convoy, Israel had been isolated diplomatically, with the U.N. General Assembly calling repeatedly for humanitarian cease-fires, and under heavy pressure to step up aid deliveries in Gaza, where aid groups say famine is imminent. While Israel says its forces have killed thousands of Hamas fighters and destroyed most of its fighting units, months into the war, Israeli troops are still battling groups of fighters in northern and central Gaza, in areas that had apparently been cleared in the early stages of the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far resisted pressure to change course, insisting that Hamas remains an existential threat to Israel that must be destroyed before lasting peace can return. "Victory is within reach. It's very close, and there is no substitute for victory," he told a delegation of Republican Congress members in Jerusalem on Thursday, appealing for more budget support, hours before the call with Biden. Cycle is repeated The Israeli public has largely continued to support the war aims of destroying Hamas and bringing home 134 hostages still held in Gaza. But Netanyahu himself faces a growing protest movement and demands for new elections that opinion polls indicate he would lose heavily. "I feel strongly that all those outside of Israel calling for a cease-fire do not understand the situation here," said Wendy Carol, a 73-year-old writer and start-up founder from Jerusalem. "We've had so many incursions and invasions and we will stand as a democratic Jewish country." Nevertheless, she said: "I do not trust the prime minister. He is a divisive force in this nation and many, many people feel that way, of all backgrounds." While peace talks have been going on, hopes of a breakthrough that could secure a pause in the fighting and enable the return of the hostages have been repeatedly dashed and Hamas leaders say they can keep fighting for much longer. "Six months have passed and Al-Qassam Brigades is still able to keep up the fight against the Zionist occupation army," said senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri. The war was launched after a Hames-led attack in which more than 250 hostages were seized and some 1,200 people killed, by Israeli tallies, in the worst single day loss of life in  Israel's history. The campaign has been the bloodiest ever for the Palestinians, with more than 33,000 killed so far, according to Gaza health authorities. More than 250 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground invasion, in addition to almost 350 who were killed on October 7. Palestinian casualty figures do not generally distinguish between fighters and civilians, and Israel says more than 10,000 fighters have been killed, a figure not confirmed by the militant groups. But more than a third of the dead have been children, according to United Nations figures. The scale of the casualties has caused mounting global alarm and demands for a halt but for people in Gaza, the wait continues. "I believe everything has an end, the war will end," said Um Nasser Dahman in Gaza. "But when?" 

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HUYE, Rwanda — The diggers' hoes scrape the brown soil, looking for — and often finding — human bone fragments. The women then wipe the bone pieces with their hands as others watch in solemn silence. The digging goes on, a scene that's become all too familiar in a verdant area of rural southern Rwanda, where the discovery in October of human remains at the site of a house under construction triggered another search for new mass graves believed to hold victims of the 1994 genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi. In the months since, Rwandan authorities say the remains of at least 1,000 people have been found in this farming community in the district of Huye, a surprisingly high number after three decades of government efforts to give genocide victims dignified burials. As Rwanda prepares to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide next week, continuing discoveries of mass graves are a stark reminder not only of the country's determination to reconcile with its grim past but also of the challenges it faces in aiming for lasting peace. Speaking to The Associated Press, the head of a prominent genocide survivors' group and several other Rwandans said the discoveries underscore that more needs to be done for true reconciliation. Rwanda has made it a criminal offense to withhold information about a previously unknown mass grave. For years perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, including those who served prison terms and were later released, have been urged to speak up and say what they know. Yet the mass graves are still mostly found by accident, leading to new arrests and traumatizing survivors all over again. The October discovery led to the arrest of Jean Baptiste Hishamunda, 87, and four of his relatives. After the remains of six people were discovered under his home, diggers started going through his entire property, finding dozens and then hundreds more remains as their search extended to other sites in Huye. An estimated 800,000 Tutsi were killed by extremist Hutu in massacres that lasted over 100 days in 1994. Some moderate Hutu who tried to protect members of the Tutsi minority also were targeted. The genocide was ignited on April 6 when a plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana, a member of the majority Hutu, was shot down in the capital Kigali. The Tutsi were blamed for downing the plane and killing the president. Enraged, gangs of Hutu extremists began killing Tutsi, backed by the army and police. The government of President Paul Kagame, whose rebel group stopped the genocide and whose party has ruled the East African country since 1994, has tried to bridge ethnic divisions. The government imposed a tough penal code to punish genocide and outlaw the ideology behind it, and Kagame has fostered a culture of obedience among the country's 14 million people. Rwandan ID cards no longer identify a person by ethnicity and lessons about the genocide are part of the curriculum in schools. Hundreds of community projects, backed by the government or civic groups, focus on uniting Rwandans and, every April, the nation joins hands in somber commemorations of the genocide anniversary. Today, serious crimes fueled by ethnic hatred are rare in this small country where Hutu, Tutsi and Twa live side by side — but signs persist of what authorities say is a genocidal ideology, citing concealing information about undiscovered mass graves as an example. Then there are incidents of villagers asking mass-grave investigators if they are searching for valuable minerals or dumping dog carcasses at memorial sites, according to Naphtal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, the genocide survivors' group based in Kigali. "It's like saying, 'What we lost during the genocide are dogs,'" Ahishakiye said. There are still those who resist coming forward to say what they witnessed, he said. "We still need to improve, to teach, to approach people, up to (when) they become able to tell us what happened." As more mass graves are discovered, Tutsi survivors "start to doubt" the good intentions of their Hutu neighbors, he said. Their pleas for information about relatives lost in the killings go unanswered. In the village of Ngoma, where shacks roofed with corrugated sheets dot lush farmland, diggers come across decaying shoes and pieces of torn clothing among skulls and bones. The survivors are traumatized all over again. "I have tried very hard to forget," said Beata Mujawayezu, her voice catching as she recalled the killing of her 12-year-old sister at a roadblock on April 25, 1994. The girl pleaded for her life with militiamen, going down on her knees in front of a gang leader whom she addressed as "my father." She was hacked with a machete. "She was a lovely girl," Mujawayezu said of her sister as she watched the digging at a mass grave site on a recent afternoon in her Tutsi-dominated neighborhood. "One day, hopefully, we will get to know where she was buried." Augustine Nsengiyumva, another survivor in Ngoma, said the new mass grave discoveries have left him disappointed in his Hutu neighbors, whom he had grown to trust. "Imagine sleeping on top of genocide victims," he said, referring to cases where human remains are found under people's homes. "These are things I really don't understand." Young people are less troubled by the past. Some Rwandans see this as a chance for reconciliation in a country where every other citizen is under the age of 30. In the semi-rural area of Gahanga, just outside of Kigali, farmer Patrick Hakizimana says he sees a ray of hope in his children that someday Rwanda will have ethnic harmony. A Hutu and an army corporal during the genocide, Hakizimana was imprisoned from 1996 to 2007 for his alleged role in the killings. He said he has learnt his lesson and is now trying to win the respect of others in his neighborhood. "There are people who still have hatred against Tutsi," he said. "The genocide was prepared for a long time." It will take a long time for people to leave that hatred behind, 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.

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.