Новости за 23.05.2024

Bangkok — Interviews have begun with Myanmar refugees living in Thailand who are eligible for a new resettlement program in the United States, the Thai government said. Thailand said it hopes the first group may get to move by the end of the year. Some 90,000 refugees live in nine camps on the Thai side of the border to escape fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic minority rebel armies vying for autonomy. Some of the refugees were born in the camps, which started to form in the mid-1980s, and many have lived in them for decades. Читать дальше...

Nairobi, Kenya — A record 75.9 million people are living in internal displacement due to conflict, and nearly half that number is in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a recent report. The report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, or IDMC, shows 34.8 million people in the region were displaced in 2023, up from the previous year. The biggest increase came in Sudan, which is currently in the midst of civil war. Sudanese doctor Aisha Hassan is among the millions of people newly displaced last year. Читать дальше...

United Nations — The United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday to designate July 11 annually as an international day of reflection and commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serb forces. Serbia and Bosnian Serbs strongly opposed its adoption. “Perpetrated amidst the Bosnian War, this act of genocide led to the tragic death of the victims and to unimaginable suffering for survivors and their families,” German Ambassador Antje Leendertse said, introducing the resolution. Читать дальше...

International investors have been lining up for South African nuclear energy technology this year. Two partnerships have been announced aimed at financing the manufacture of a new prototype, small-scale reactor developed in South Africa. One partner includes a collective of family farmers whose businesses are suffering from the country’s unreliable power grid. Marize de Klerk reports from South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

Washington — In early 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a handful of citizen journalists emerged as voices from the epicenter. Among them was Zhang Zhan, then a 36-year-old former lawyer who bravely chronicled the unfolding crisis in the city where the virus first surfaced. Standing in front of a Wuhan train station in her final YouTube video on May 13, 2020, she voiced concerns about the human rights abuses she witnessed during... Читать дальше...

Fine dining in space — if you can stomach the price tag. Plus, a new understanding of the sun’s magnetic field, and Europe’s newest astronauts get their mission assignments. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space

Washington — With major military setbacks in recent years, supporters of the Islamic State terror group are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to generate online propaganda, experts said. A new form of propaganda developed by IS supporters is broadcasting news bulletins with AI-generated anchors in multiple languages. The Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP) group, an IS affiliate active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, produced in a video an AI-generated anchorman to appear reading news... Читать дальше...

Johannesburg — Many South African political parties are using populist rhetoric ahead of what is being described as the most important election in 30 years. One South African political party running in the May 29 elections wants mass expulsions of foreign migrants and the return of the death penalty. Another party regularly sings about killing White farmers. Yet another pushes for changing from “Roman-Dutch law” to African traditions and wants to send teenage mothers to a former prison island. Gayton McKenzie... Читать дальше...

Turkey is watching closely to see who will succeed the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after his recent death in a helicopter crash. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, relations between the two regional powers are at a pivotal moment.

Under the Biden administration, U.S. veterans have received more than $5.7 billion in expanded health care benefits. But former President Donald Trump argues that veterans were better off when he was in the White House. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at what the veteran population will likely need from the next president.

Kathmandu, Nepal — A climber from Kenya attempting to scale the world's highest mountain has been found dead near the summit, officials said Thursday. The body of Cheruiyot Kirui was found on Mount Everest, said Khim Lal Gautam, a government official at the mountain's base camp. It was unclear when the body would be recovered because it would be difficult to carry at that altitude due to the low oxygen level. The climb by Kirui, a 40-year-old banker at Kenya Commercial Bank, had been closely followed in Kenya... Читать дальше...

Islamabad — Pakistan has temporarily shut down schools in most parts of the country to protect children from heatstroke and dehydration due to an ongoing climate-induced heat wave.  “At least 26 million children in Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, - or 52 percent of the country’s total number of pupils in pre-primary, primary and secondary education – will be out of school from 25 to 31 May,” Save the Children said Thursday. The education department in Punjab cited a temperature surge... Читать дальше...

Washington — The U.S. Supreme Court made it harder to prove racial discrimination in drawing electoral districts in a major ruling on Thursday backing South Carolina Republicans who devised an electoral map that moved 30,000 Black residents out of a congressional district. The justices in a 6-3 decision, with the conservative justices in the majority and liberal justices dissenting, reversed a lower court's ruling that the Republican-drawn map violated the rights of Black voters under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment... Читать дальше...

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Newly inaugurated Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby said Thursday he will preserve national unity and territorial integrity; respect his country's constitution; promote democracy, freedoms and liberties of all Chadians; and make sure all citizens have equal access to justice. Deby’s inauguration in N'Djamena, the capital of the central African state, ends three years of military transition and a return to constitutional order. But some doubt the legitimacy of Deby’s electoral victory. Читать дальше...

Bangkok — Many of the more seriously injured people who were on the Singapore Airlines flight that hit severe turbulence need operations on their spines, a Bangkok hospital said Thursday. Twenty people remained in intensive care and a 73-year-old British man died after the Boeing 777, which was flying from London's Heathrow airport to Singapore, descended following turbulent weather over the Andaman Sea on Tuesday. A public relations officer for Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, which has treated more than 100 people hurt from the ordeal... Читать дальше...

The White House — The United States will designate Kenya as its first major non-NATO ally in sub-Saharan Africa, the White House said as President Joe Biden on Thursday welcomed President William Ruto for a state visit. The significant strategic move signals the shifting of U.S. security cooperation to East Africa just as U.S. troops prepare to depart Niger, leaving a vacuum that Russian forces have begun to fill. The designation gives non-members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization access... Читать дальше...