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FUJIYOSHIDA — Park rangers on Japan's sacred Mount Fuji officially started this year's climbing season about 90 minutes before sunrise on Monday, levying new trail fees and limiting hiker numbers to curb overcrowding. At 3 a.m., officials opened a newly installed gate at a station placed just over halfway up the 3,776-meter (12,388-ft) peak that is a symbol of Japan and a magnet for tourists, now swarming into the country at a record pace. Climbers must pay 2,000 yen ($12) and their numbers will be limited to 4,000 a day after complaints of litter, pollution, and dangerously crowded trails flowed in last year. "I think Mount Fuji will be very happy if everyone is more conscious about the environment and things like taking rubbish home with them," said Sachiko Kan, 61, who was one of about 1,200 hikers gathered on the first day of the new measures. The yen's slide to a 38-year low has made Japan an irresistible bargain for overseas visitors. They are injecting record sums into national coffers but are also putting strains on facilities for travel and hospitality, not to mention the patience of locals. Hordes of tourists became a traffic hazard at a nearby photography spot where Mount Fuji appeared to float over a convenience store, driving officials to put up a barrier of black mesh to obstruct the view that had gone viral online. The climbing season this year on Mount Fuji, which straddles the prefectures of Yamanashi and Shizuoka about 136 km (85 miles) from Tokyo, runs until September 10, after which the weather gets too cold and snowy. A still active stratovolcano whose last eruption was in 1707, Mount Fuji has been a site of Shinto and Buddhist worship for centuries.  The number of climbers recovered to pre-pandemic levels last year, with about 300,000 annually, the environment ministry says. Hikers typically start in the wee hours to make it to the top in time for sunrise. For their money, climbers receive a wristband giving access to the trail between 3 a.m. and 4 p.m, excluding those with reservations for mountain huts closer to the peak, to whom the daily limit on visitors will not apply, authorities say. The new trail curbs were necessary to prevent accidents and incidents of altitude sickness, particularly among foreign "bullet climbers", or those racing to the top, Yamanashi governor Kotaro Nagasaki said last month. Japan should focus on attracting "higher spending visitors" over sheer numbers of people, he told a press conference. Geoffrey Kula, one overseas climber waiting to scale Mount Fuji on opening day, took the restrictions in stride.  "This is not Disneyland," said Kula, a visitor from Boston. "Having some sort of access control system to limit the amount of potential chaos is good." 

LA PAZ — Signs reading “I'm buying dollars” line the doors of Víctor Vargas’ shoe shop in the heart of Bolivia’s biggest city, a desperate attempt to keep his family business alive. Just a few years ago, the 45-year-old Vargas would unlock the doors at 8 a.m. to a crush of customers already waiting to buy tennis shoes imported from China. Now, his shop sits hopelessly empty. “Right now, we’re in a dreadful crisis,” he said. “No one buys anything anymore. … We don’t know what’s going to happen.” Bolivians like Vargas have been hit hard by economic turmoil in the small South American nation fueled by a longtime hyper-dependence on, and now shortage of, U.S. dollars. The economic downturn has been exacerbated by an ongoing feud between President Luis Arce and his ally-turned-rival former President Evo Morales in the lead-up to next year's presidential election. Many Bolivians impacted by the crisis have lost trust in Arce, who denies the country is even in an economic crisis. “Bolivia has an economy that’s growing. An economy in crisis doesn’t grow,” Arce told The Associated Press in an interview. That was contradicted by both economists and dozens of Bolivians. That deep distrust came to a head on Wednesday following a spectacle which the government called a “failed coup d’etat” and opponents including Morales called a staged “self-coup” meant to earn the unpopular leader political points before elections. Whether the coup attempt was real or not, most Bolivians who spoke to the AP said they no longer believe what their leader says, and say Arce would be better served addressing Bolivia’s gasping economy and less time carrying out political stunts. “He should think about Bolivia’s economy, make a plan to move forward, find a way to get dollars and work to move Bolivia forward," Vargas said. "No more of these childish ‘self-coups.’” That simmering anger has paved the way for even more strife in a country that is no stranger to political unrest. Bolivia's economic crisis is rooted in a complex combination of dependence on the dollar, draining international reserves, mounting debt and failures to produce products like gas, once the Andean nation's economic boon. This has meant that Bolivia has largely become an import economy “totally dependent on dollars,” said Gonzalo Chávez, an economist with Bolivia’s Catholic University. That once worked in Bolivia's favor, driving the country's “economic miracle” as it became one of the region’s fastest growing economies. Vargas’ family opened the shoe business nearly 30 years ago because they saw it as a surefire way to ensure stability for coming generations. The family imports shoes from China, which they pay for in dollars and sell them in Bolivia's currency, bolivianos. Without dollars, they have no business. The shortage of dollars has led to the emergence of a black market, with many sellers bringing in greenbacks from neighboring Peru and Chile and selling them at a gouged price. Pascuala Quispe, 46, spent her Saturday walking around La Paz's downtown going to different currency exchange shops, desperately searching for dollars to buy car parts. While the official exchange rate is 6.97 bolivianos to the dollar, she was told the real price was 9.30 bolivianos, far too high a price for her. So she kept walking, hoping to find luck elsewhere. Gouged prices have trickled down to everything. People have stopped buying shoes, meat and clothing, and that has pushed working class people deeper into poverty. Bolivians make jokes about having “mattress banks,” storing cash at home because they don’t trust banks. “There are no jobs. ... and the money we earn isn't enough for anything," Quispe said. “Everyone suffers.” Some vendors like Vargas paste signs on their business doors, hopeful sellers will trade dollars at a more reasonable price. It’s a complicated economic bind that has few short-term solutions, said Chávez, the economist. But Arce insists that Bolivia’s economy is “one of the most stable” and says he's taking action to address problems ailing Bolivians, including shortages of dollars and gasoline. He said the government is also industrializing, investing in new economies like tourism and lithium. While Bolivia sits on the world’s biggest stores of lithium, a high-value metal key to transitioning to a green economy, investment is only viable in the long term, largely due to government failures, said Chávez. Meanwhile, inflation has outpaced economic growth, and most Bolivians face unstable work conditions with minuscule pay. That is only compounded by ongoing fights between Arce and Morales, who returned from exile after resigning during unrest in 2019, which Morales maintains was a coup against him. Now the former allies have slung insults and fought over who will represent their Movement for Socialism party, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of 2025 elections. “Arce and Evo Morales, they fight over who is more powerful,” Vargas said. “But neither govern for Bolivia. ... There’s a lot of uncertainty.” Broad discontent has fueled waves of protests and strikes in recent months. Protests and road blocks have dealt another economic blow to Vargas, the shoe vendor, because customers from all over the country no longer travel to buy products because of the chaos of ubiquitous protests. Morales, who still wields a great deal of power in Bolivia, blocked Arce’s government from passing measures in Congress to ease the economic turmoil, which Arce told the AP was a “political attack.” Morales has fueled speculation that the military assault on the government palace last week allegedly led by former military commander José Zúñiga was a political stunt organized by Arce to gain sympathy from Bolivians. The claim was first made by Zúñiga himself upon his arrest. “He tricked and lied to, not just the Bolivian people, but the entire world,” Morales said in a Sunday radio program. The political spats left many like 35-year-old Edwin Cruz, a truck driver, shaking their heads as they wait for hours, sometimes days, in long lines for diesel and gasoline because of intermittent shortages caused by lack of foreign currency. “Diesel is like gold now,” he said. “People aren't idiots. And with this whole thing with the ‘self-coup’ this government has to go.” Cruz is among those who don't want to vote for either Morales or Arce. While Bolivians have few other options, Chávez said discontent opened a “small window” for an outsider to gain traction, just as it has with a number of Latin American outsiders in recent years. Most recently, self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei has taken the helm of neighboring Argentina with promises to lift the country out of its economic spiral, which shares a number of similarities with Bolivia's. Meanwhile, Vargas doesn't know what he'll do with his family's shoe store. Once a point of pride, the shop has turned into a financial drain. He would pass it down to one of his four children, but all of them want to leave Bolivia. One of his children has already migrated to China. “They don't want to live here anymore,” Vargas said in his empty store. “Here in Bolivia, there's no future.”

Paris — France's political forces were on Friday making final bids for votes in crunch legislative elections that could see the far right take control of the government in a historic first. Official campaigning will end at midnight followed by a day off on Saturday, during which time political activity is forbidden ahead of voting on Sunday. Another week of campaigning will then lead up to the decisive second round on July 7. The far-right National Rally (RN) is tipped to win the election, potentially giving the party the post of prime minister for the first time in its history in a tense "cohabitation" with centrist President Emmanuel Macron. "Of course, I want to avoid the extremes, especially the far right, being able to win" the ballot, Macron's Prime Minister Gabriel Attal told broadcaster BFMTV on Friday.  Opinion polls suggest his centrist alliance will come only third behind the RN and a broad but fragile left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP). The RN party chief, Jordan Bardella, 28, would have a chance to lead a government as prime minister. He has insisted he would do so only if his party wins an absolute majority of the 577 seats in the National Assembly after the second round. Bardella was crowned France's most popular political personality in a Toluna-Harris Interactive poll published on Friday, with 40 percent of the 1,019 people surveyed trusting him -- four points higher than Macron. But his party's path to victory could be blocked if the left and center-right join forces against the RN in the second round of voting.  Macron has caused controversy in the past two weeks by placing the left-wing coalition and the far-right on the same footing, labelling both "extremes." Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, however, he suggested that he would support moderate leftists in a duel against the far-right. 'Serious message' Macron also blasted the "arrogance" of the far right, which had "already allocated all the (government) jobs" before the election and questioned the president's constitutional role as military commander in chief. "Who are they to explain what the constitution should say?" he asked.   The RN's three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen had ratcheted up tensions by saying that the president's commander-in-chief title was purely "honorific." In the event of Macron having to share power with an RN-led government, "it's the prime minister who holds the purse strings," she warned. In a televised debate late on Thursday, Attal said that Le Pen's remarks sent a "very serious message for the security of France."  Macron has insisted he will serve out the remainder of his second term until it expires in 2027, no matter which party emerges on top in the coming legislative contest. Bardella sought to reassure voters about the party's foreign policy, saying in Thursday's debate that the RN, which had warm ties with Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would "not let Russian imperialism absorb an allied state like Ukraine." He said he was also opposed to sending longer range missiles to Ukraine that could hit Russian territory "and place France and the French in a situation of co-belligerence." "My compass is the interest of France and the French," said Bardella.  'Real fear' When he called the snap vote after a June 9 European Parliament election drubbing by the RN, Macron had hoped to present voters with a stark choice about whether or not to hand France to the far right.   An Opinionway poll of 1,058 people published on Friday in business daily Les Echos predicted the RN would win 37 percent of the vote, the NFP 28 percent and Macron's alliance just 20 percent. In the second round, the RN "can not only envisage a relative majority, but we cannot exclude, far from it, an absolute majority," Brice Teinturier, deputy director of competing pollster Ipsos, told AFP.  Attal charged during Thursday's debate that 100 RN candidates standing in the election had made "racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic comments" -- claims Bardella denounced as "utterly false." The party was dragged into further controversy on its plans to bar dual nationals from key strategic state posts. Roger Chudeau, running for re-election in the Loire-et-Cher department in central France, called Franco-Moroccan former education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem's term a "mistake", claiming dual nationals had "divided loyalties." Le Pen quickly disavowed the remarks after a hail of outrage, saying they ran "totally contrary to the RN's plans" and were a "personal opinion." 

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.

Brussels, Belgium — The EU accused Facebook owner Meta on Monday of breaching the bloc's digital rules, paving the way for potential fines worth billions of euros. The charges against the US tech titan follow a finding last week against Apple that marked the first time Brussels had levelled formal accusations under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA). The latest case focuses on Meta's new ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram, which has sparked multiple complaints over privacy concerns. Meta's "pay or consent" system means users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free. The European Commission said it informed Meta of its "preliminary view" that the model the company launched last year "fails to comply" with the DMA. "This binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalized but equivalent version of Meta's social networks," the EU's powerful antitrust regulator said in a statement. The findings come after the commission kickstarted a probe into Meta in March under the DMA, which forces the world's biggest tech companies to comply with EU rules designed to give European users more choice online. Meta insisted its model "complies with the DMA." "We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close," a Meta spokesperson said. Meta can now reply to the findings and avoid a fine if it changes the model to address the EU's concerns. If the commission's view is confirmed however, it can slap fines of up to 10 percent of Meta's total global turnover under the DMA. This can rise to up to 20 percent for repeat offenders. Meta's total revenue last year stood at around $135 billion (125 billion euros).   The EU also has the right to break up firms, but only as a last resort.  In EU's crosshairs Under the DMA, the EU labels Meta and other companies, including Apple, as "gatekeepers" and prevents them forcing users in the bloc to consent to have access to a service or certain functionalities. The commission said Meta's model did not allow users to "freely consent" to their data being shared between Facebook and Instagram with Meta's ads services. "The DMA is there to give back to the users the power to decide how their data is used and ensure innovative companies can compete on equal footing with tech giants on data access," the EU's top tech enforcer, commissioner Thierry Breton, said. The commission will adopt a decision on whether Meta's model is DMA compliant or not by late March 2025. The EU has shown it is serious about making big online companies change their ways. The commission told Apple last week its App Store rules were hindering developers from freely pointing consumers to alternative channels for offers. The EU is also probing Google over similar concerns on its Google Play marketplace. Apple and Meta are not the only companies coming under the scope of the DMA. Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and TikTok owner ByteDance must also comply. Online travel giant Booking.com will need to adhere to the rules later this year. Privacy complaints Meta has made billions from harvesting users' data to serve up highly targeted ads. But it has faced an avalanche of complaints over its data processing in recent years. The European data regulator in April has also said the 'pay or consent' model is at odds with the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which upholds the privacy of users' information. Ireland -- a major hub for online tech giants operating in the 27-nation bloc -- has slapped Meta with massive fines for violating the GDPR. The latest complaint by privacy groups forced Meta last month to pause its plans to use personal data to train its artificial intelligence technology in Europe. 

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.

Budapest, Hungary — Hungary takes over the EU's rotating presidency on Monday, promising to be an "honest broker" despite widespread concerns over what critics see as an authoritarian, Russia-friendly government. Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has run the central European country since 2010 aiming to transform it into an "illiberal democracy," frequently clashes with Brussels on rule-of-law and human rights issues. He is also the only EU leader who has maintained ties with Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine. He has refused to send arms to Kyiv and repeatedly criticized sanctions against Moscow over the war. Last year, the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution highlighting Hungary's "backsliding" on democratic values, and questioning how it could "credibly" assume the bloc's six-month presidency. Budapest insists it is ready to assume "the duties and responsibilities" steering the bloc of 27 countries. "We will be honest brokers, working loyally with all member states and institutions," Hungarian EU Affairs Minister Janos Boka said in mid-June as he unveiled the presidency's program. "At the same time, we believe Hungary has a strong mandate to pursue a strong European policy. Our work will reflect this vision of Europe," he added. Hungary's program slogan? "Make Europe Great Again" — echoing the rallying cry of Orban's "good friend" former US president Donald Trump — which already caused a stir in Brussels. After Hungary last held the EU presidency in 2011, Orban boasted about handing out "flicks," "smacks," and "friendly slaps" to the "excitable tormentors" of the European Parliament. This time, the nationalist leader, 61, is even more combative, having vowed to "occupy Brussels" during the campaign for European elections in early June, banking on a right-wing breakthrough. But even though far-right parties made gains, Orban's Fidesz party currently stands isolated, unable to find a group in the European Parliament that suits it. On Sunday, Orban announced he wanted to form his own group, together with Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) and the centrist ANO party of ex-Czech premier Andrej Babis. They still need parties from at least four other countries to join them. Last week, Orban failed to derail a deal to return Ursula von der Leyen as head of the powerful European Commission and two others from a centrist alliance taking the other top jobs. Meanwhile, von der Leyen put off a courtesy visit to Budapest, originally planned for the presidency opening. A new date has not been set. To garner support for Hungary's program, Orban toured key European capitals last week. Among the country's seven priorities for its EU presidency are stemming "illegal migration" and bringing the Western Balkans countries "one step closer" to EU membership. Orban can use the presidency to set the agenda, but he cannot achieve results without the commission's support, Daniel Hegedus, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund told AFP. He also noted that the Hungarian premier has limited opportunity to act as a spoiler, as the outgoing Belgian presidency and EU institutions have rushed to conclude important decisions. Last week, the European Union adopted a fresh sanction package against Russia and formally launched "historic" accession talks with Ukraine.

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.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Beryl was closing in on the southeastern Caribbean, and government officials late Sunday pleaded with people to take shelter from the dangerous Category 3 storm. The storm was expected to make landfall in the Windward Islands on Monday morning. Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “This is a very dangerous situation,” warned the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, saying Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge.” Beryl was centered about 175 kilometers south-southeast of Barbados early Monday. It had maximum sustained winds of 195 kph and was moving west at 31 kph. It is a compact storm, with hurricane-force winds extending 45 kilometers from its center. It had gained Category 4 strength Sunday before weakening slightly, and further fluctuations in strength were forecast. A tropical storm warning was in effect for Martinique and Trinidad. A tropical storm watch was issued for Dominica, Haiti's entire southern coast, and from Punta Palenque in the Dominican Republic west to the border with Haiti. Beryl was expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. It was forecast to weaken by midweek, but still remain a hurricane while heading toward Mexico. Historic hurricane Beryl initially strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane Sunday morning, becoming the first major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record for June, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher. It took Beryl only 42 hours to strengthen from a tropical depression to a major hurricane — a feat accomplished only six other times in Atlantic hurricane history, and with Sept. 1 as the previous earliest date, hurricane expert Sam Lillo said. Beryl then gained more power, becoming the earliest Category 4 Atlantic hurricane on record, besting Hurricane Dennis, which became a Category 4 storm on July 8, 2005, hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said. “Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area,” Lowry said in a phone interview. “Unusual is an understatement. Beryl is already a historic hurricane and it hasn’t struck yet.” Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strong hurricane to hit the southeastern Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm. “So this is a serious threat, a very serious threat,” Lowry said of Beryl. Reecia Marshall, who lives in Grenada, was working a Sunday shift at a local hotel, preparing guests and urging them to stay away from windows as she stored enough food and water for everyone. She said that she was a child when Hurricane Ivan struck and that she doesn't fear Beryl. “I know it’s part of nature. I’m OK with it,” she said. “We just have to live with it.” Forecasters warned of a life-threatening storm surge of up to 3 meters in areas where Beryl makes landfall, with 7.6 to 15 centimeters of rain for Barbados and nearby islands and possibly 25 centimeters in some areas. Warm waters are fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, said Brian McNoldy, a tropical meteorology researcher at the University of Miami. Lowry said the waters are now warmer than they would be at the peak of the hurricane season in September. Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Klotzbach. “Please take this very seriously and prepare yourselves,” said Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “This is a terrible hurricane.” Bracing for the storm Long lines formed at gas stations and grocery stores in Barbados and other islands as people rushed to prepare for a storm that rapidly intensified. Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, cricket’s biggest event, with Prime Minister Mia Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many rushing to change their flights. “Some of them have never gone through a storm before,” she said. “We have plans to take care of them.” Mottley said all businesses should close by Sunday evening and warned that the airport would close by nighttime. Across Barbados, people prepared, including Peter Corbin, 71, who helped his son put up plywood to protect his home's glass doors. He said by phone that he worried about Beryl's impact on islands just east of Barbados. “That’s like a butcher cutting up a pig,” he said. “They’ve got to make a bunker somewhere. It’s going to be tough.” In St. Lucia, Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a national shutdown for Sunday evening and said schools and businesses would remain closed Monday. “Preservation and protection of life is a priority,” he said. Looking ahead The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes. An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

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.

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.

France’s high-stakes legislative elections propelled the far-right National Rally to a strong but not decisive lead in the first-round vote Sunday. We talk Terri E. Givens is a professor at McGill University in the Department of Political Science. Representatives of Afghanistan's Taliban government began meetings on Sunday. Hurricane Beryl strengthened into what experts called an "extremely dangerous” Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean. And In Russia's far northeastern Yakutia region, local scientists are performing an autopsy on a wolf frozen in permafrost for around 44,000 years.

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.