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TAPACHULA, Mexico — Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo were meeting Friday in this Mexican border city to tackle issues of shared interest, foremost among them immigration. Arévalo, who took office earlier this year, noted that they were meeting in the same city where his father Juan José Arévalo, a former president of Guatemala, had met with his Mexican counterpart, Manuel Ávila Camacho, in 1946. "We want a border that unites, a border that unites our people, the Mexican people and the Guatemalan people, a border that allows us to develop and grow together, with reciprocal benefit, trust, enthusiasm and collaboration," Arévalo said. But both countries are under pressure from the United States to increase control of their shared border to help control the flow of migrants north. The border also carries security concerns, as so many do. Before their meeting — the first for the two leaders — López Obrador said he was worried about security in the border area. Two Mexican cartels have been battling for control in the area, causing death and displacement in remote, rural areas as they try to assert control of the drug, migrant and weapons flows through the area. He said Guatemala was concerned too and the leaders would discuss how to address it. The encounter also comes at a time of intense diplomatic activity between the United States and Mexico and with other countries in the region as the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden tries to get a handle before the November election on migration to the U.S.-Mexico border that reached record levels in late 2023. Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena said Tuesday that Mexico, the United States and Guatemala are in agreement that they will direct more resources to the Mexico-Guatemala border, accelerate development programs, commerce and job creation. She also said Mexico would discuss issuing more temporary work visas to bring Guatemalan labor to Mexico. Perhaps to that end, López Obrador announced Friday that Mexico plans to extend a cargo train line that spans a narrow isthmus in the south to the Guatemalan border. He also repeated his interest in eventually extending his Maya Train legacy project to Guatemala's Peten jungle, something Arévalo's predecessor declined. For migrants headed north, the critical points in their journey tend to be the Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama where 500,000 migrants — mostly Venezuelans — crossed last year and then again at the Mexico-Guatemala border. Panama's President-elect José Raúl Mulino has promised to shut down traffic through the Darien. To what extent he can remains to be seen. On Friday, Panama's outgoing immigration chief said the country was incapable of carrying out mass deportations. "We can't make it massive because of the high cost and the coordination you have to do with the other countries," Samira Gozaine, director general of immigration said. "If we could deport all of those who enter we would do it." Bárcena, Mexico's foreign minister, said the shared Mexico-Guatemala-Belize border is also important. But it is similarly challenging to police. The border is long, mountainous and remote, filled with blind crossings for migrants and their smugglers. Those are many of the same routes currently being disputed by the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels. "We want to make that border space an exemplary space … no walls," Bárcena said. "The people should feel they entered a country that is pleasant, that can offer them opportunities." Migrants have typically found traversing Mexico anything but pleasant. They are repeatedly robbed and kidnapped by organized crime and systematically extorted by Mexican authorities, who in recent years have either tried to contain them in the south or return them there time and again until they exhaust their resources. The same day Bárcena spoke, Carlos Campos, a Venezuelan travelling with his wife, sister, and nieces and nephews, was flown from Mexico City back to Tapachula after trying to hop a train north. "They sent us back and we're (north) again," he said as they made their way out of Tapachula. 

seoul — North Korea on Saturday confirmed that it had test-fired a tactical ballistic missile, the government news agency KCNA reported, with leader Kim Jong Un vowing to boost the country's nuclear force.  Kim oversaw the Friday test-launch into the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on a mission to evaluate the "accuracy and reliability" of a new autonomous navigation system, the KCNA report said.  Kim expressed "great satisfaction" over the test.  The South Korean government reported the launch Friday, saying the North had fired multiple suspected short-range ballistic missiles.  Seoul described the event as "several flying objects presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles" from North Korea's eastern Wonsan area into waters off its coast.  The missiles traveled around 300 kilometers (186 miles), the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said, adding that the military had "strengthened vigilance and surveillance in preparation for additional launches" and was sharing information with allies Washington and Tokyo.  The launch was the latest in a string of ever more sophisticated tests by North Korea, which has fired off cruise missiles, tactical rockets and hypersonic weapons in recent months, in what the nuclear-armed country says is a drive to upgrade its defenses.  Seoul and Washington have accused North Korea of sending arms to Russia, which would violate rafts of U.N. sanctions on both countries. Experts have said the recent spate of testing may be of weapons destined for use on battlefields in Ukraine.  The launches came hours after Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, accused Seoul and Washington of "misleading the public opinion" on the issue with their repeated accusations that Pyongyang is sending weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine.  The same day, Kim Jong Un visited a military production facility and called for "more rapidly bolstering the nuclear force... without halt and hesitation," the KCNA report said Saturday.   "The enemies would be afraid of and dare not to play with fire only when they witness the nuclear combat posture of our state," KCNA reported Kim Jong Un as saying. 

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new york — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains such asd the chauvinist boss in "9 to 5" and the nasty TV director in "Tootsie," has died. He was 92.  Coleman died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his daughter, Quincy Coleman, said in a statement to The Associated Press. She said he "took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely."  "The great Dabney Coleman literally created, or defined, really — in a uniquely singular way — an archetype as a character actor. He was so good at what he did it's hard to imagine movies and television of the last 40 years without him," Ben Stiller wrote on X.  Coleman's delivery drew fans For two decades Coleman labored in movies and television shows as a talented but largely unnoticed performer. That changed in 1976 when he was cast as the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," a satirical soap opera that was so over the top no network would touch it.  Producer Norman Lear finally managed to syndicate the show, which starred Louise Lasser in the title role. It quickly became a cult favorite. Coleman's character, Mayor Merle Jeeter, was especially popular and his masterful, comic deadpan delivery did not go overlooked by film and network executives.  A six-footer with an ample black mustache, Coleman went on to make his mark in numerous popular films, including as a stressed out computer scientist in "War Games," Tom Hanks' father in "You've Got Mail," and a firefighting official in "The Towering Inferno."  He won a Golden Globe for "The Slap Maxwell Story" and an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in Peter Levin's 1987 small screen legal drama "Sworn to Silence." Some of his recent credits include "Ray Donovan" and a recurring role on "Boardwalk Empire," for which he won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.  In the groundbreaking 1980 hit "9 to 5," he was the "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss who tormented his unappreciated female underlings — Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton — until they turned the tables on him.  Opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie," he was the obnoxious director of a daytime soap opera that Hoffman's character joins by pretending to be a woman.   Coleman's obnoxious characters didn't translate quite as well on television, where he starred in a handful of network comedies. Although some became cult favorites, only one lasted longer than two seasons, and some critics questioned whether a series starring a lead character with absolutely no redeeming qualities could attract a mass audience.  Underneath all that bravura was a reserved man. Coleman insisted he was really quite shy. "I've been shy all my life. Maybe it stems from being the last of four children, all of them very handsome, including a brother who was Tyrone Power-handsome. Maybe it's because my father died when I was 4," he told The Associated Press in 1984. "I was extremely small, just a little guy who was there, the kid who created no trouble. I was attracted to fantasy, and I created games for myself."  As Coleman aged, he began to put his mark on pompous authority figures, notably in 1998's "My Date with the President's Daughter," in which he was not only an egotistical, self-absorbed president of the United States, but also a clueless father to a teenager girl.  Abandons law school to act Dabney Coleman — his real name — was born in 1932 in Austin, Texas. After two years at the Virginia Military Academy, two at the University of Texas and two in the Army, he was a 26-year-old law student when he met another Austin native, Zachry Scott, who starred in "Mildred Pierce" and other films.  "He was the most dynamic person I've ever met. He convinced me I should become an actor, and I literally left the next day to study in New York. He didn't think that was too wise, but I made my decision," Coleman told the AP in 1984.  Twice divorced, Coleman is survived by four children and five grandchildren.  "My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity," Quincy Coleman wrote in his honor. 

cairo — The 35 American and other international doctors came to Gaza in volunteer teams to help one of the territory's few hospitals still functioning. They brought suitcases full of medical supplies and had trained for one of the worst war zones in the world. They knew the health care system was decimated and overwhelmed. The reality is even worse than they imagined, they say. Children with horrific amputations. Patients with burns and maggot-filled wounds. Rampant infections. Palestinian doctors and nurses beyond exhausted after seven months of treating never-ending waves of civilians wounded in Israel's war with Hamas. "I did not expect that [it] will be that bad," said Dr. Ammar Ghanem, an intensive care unit specialist from Detroit, Michigan, with the Syrian American Medical Society. "You hear the news, but you cannot really recognize ... how bad until you come and see it." Israel's incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah has exacerbated the chaos. On May 7, Israeli troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, closing the main entry and exit point for international humanitarian workers. The teams were trapped beyond the scheduled end of their two-week mission. On Friday, days after the teams were supposed to leave, talks between U.S. and Israeli authorities yielded results, and some of the doctors could get out of Gaza. At least 14, including three Americans, however, chose to stay, according to one of the organizations, the Palestinian American Medical Association. The U.S.-based nonprofit medical group FAJR Scientific, which organized a second volunteer team, could not immediately be reached. The White House said 17 Americans left Gaza on Friday, and at least three chose to stay behind. Those who left included Ghanem, who said the 15-mile trip from the hospital to the Kerem Shalom crossing took more than four hours as explosions went off around them. He described some tense moments, such as when an Israeli tank at the crossing took aim at the doctors' convoy. "The tank moved and blocked our way, and they directed their weapons [at] us. So that was a scary moment," Ghanem said. The two international teams have been working since early May at the European General Hospital, just outside Rafah, the largest hospital still operating in southern Gaza. The volunteers are mostly American surgeons but include medical professionals from Britain, Australia, Egypt, Jordan, Oman and other nations. The World Health Organization said the United Nations, which coordinates visits of volunteer teams, is in talks with Israel to resume moving humanitarian workers in and out of Gaza. The Israeli military said it had no comment. Shattered system The doctors' mission gave them a firsthand look at a health system that has been shattered by Israel's offensive in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel. Nearly two dozen hospitals in Gaza are no longer operating, and the remaining dozen are only partially working. Israel's campaign has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 79,000, according to Gaza health officials. Almost 500 health workers are among the dead. The military's nearly 2-week-old Rafah operation has sent more than 600,000 Palestinians fleeing the city and scattering across southern Gaza. Much of the European Hospital's Palestinian staff left to help families find new shelter. As a result, the foreign volunteers are stretched between medical emergencies and other duties, such as trying to find patients inside the hospital. There is no staff to log where incoming wounded are placed. Medicines that the teams brought with them are running out. Thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in the hospital. Outside, sewage overflows in the streets, and drinking water is brackish or polluted, spreading disease. The road to the hospital from Rafah is now unsafe: The United Nations says an Israeli tank fired on a marked U.N. vehicle on the road Monday, killing a U.N. security officer and wounding another. When the Rafah assault began, FAJR Scientific's 17 doctors were living in a guesthouse in the city. With no warning from the Israeli army to evacuate, the team was stunned by bombs landing a few hundred meters from the clearly marked house, said Mosab Nasser, FAJR's CEO. They scrambled out, still wearing their scrubs, and moved to the European Hospital, where the other team was staying. Dr. Mohamed Tahir, an orthopedic surgeon from London with FAJR, does multiple surgeries a day on little sleep. He's often jolted awake by bombings shaking the hospital. Work is frantic. Heavy heart Tahir said that when the Rafah assault began, Palestinian colleagues at the hospital nervously asked if the volunteers would leave. "It makes my heart feel really heavy," Tahir said. The Palestinian staff members know that when the teams leave, "they have no more protection. And that could mean that this hospital turns into Shifa, which is a very real possibility." Israeli forces stormed Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest, for a second time in March, leaving it in ruins. Israel alleges that Hamas uses hospitals as command centers and hideouts, an accusation Gaza health officials deny. The patients Tahir has saved keep him going. Tahir and other surgeons operated for hours on a man with severe wounds to the skull and abdomen and shrapnel in his back. They did a second surgery on him Wednesday night. "I looked at my colleagues and said, 'You know what? If this patient survives — just this patient — everything we've done, or everything we've experienced, would all be worth it,'" Tahir said.

WASHINGTON — An upside-down U.S. flag has long been a sign of dire distress and versatile symbol of protest. But in January 2021, when it flew over the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, it was largely seen in connection with a specific cause: the false claim by then-President Donald Trump's supporters that the 2020 election had been marred by fraud. The revelation this week about the flag flying at Alito's home was the latest blow to a Supreme Court already under fire as it considers unprecedented cases against Trump and some of those charged with rioting at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Alito has said the flag was briefly flown by his wife amid a dispute with neighbors and he had no part in it. But the incident reported by The New York Times adds to concerns about an institution that's increasingly seen as partisan and lacking strict ethical guidelines. The high court is now facing questions about whether the spouses of two of its members question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and if those justices should be hearing cases related to the January 6 riot and Trump's role in it. Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, faced calls for recusal after reports that his wife, Virginia Thomas, was involved in efforts to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 election win. "We're talking about a fundamental bedrock American value about peaceful transfer of power, about elections," said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable US, a progressive watchdog organization. "It's just the integrity of the democratic process." Several Democrats in Congress, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, called for Alito to recuse himself from Trump-related cases. Justices can and do voluntarily recuse themselves, but they make those calls and they aren't subject to review. There was no indication Alito would do so. He did not respond to a request for comment sent through the court's public information office. While the Supreme Court long went without its own specific code of ethics, an institutional reputation of staying above the political fray has long helped bolster its relatively high levels of public trust. But in the wake of the 2022 decision overturning a nationwide right to abortion — an opinion that was leaked before its release — public trust sank to its lowest level in 50 years. There's also been sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices. The high court adopted a code of ethics last year, but it lacks a means of enforcement. Alito, a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed in 2006, has been one of the most court's most conservative justices and authored the decision overturning Roe v. Wade. During oral arguments in the election interference case against Trump, he appeared skeptical of Justice Department arguments that past presidents aren't completely immune from prosecution, and seemed one of the justices most likely to find that prosecutors went too far in bringing obstruction charges against hundreds of participants in the January 6 riot. Ethical guidelines generally make it clear that judges should recuse themselves in cases where their spouses have financial interest, but the situation is less clear when spouses have a publicly known political point of view, said Arthur Hellman, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether Alito was aware of the inverted flag at the time or its links to Trump supporters, said Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethics expert at New York University School of Law. "I don't believe Alito knew the flag was flying upside down or if he did know, I find it hard to believe that he knew the relationship to "'Stop the Steal,'" he said in an email. Martha-Ann Alito hung the upside-down flag during a dust-up with a neighbor in Alexandria, Virginia, who had a lawn sign referring to Trump with an expletive during a the "heated time" of January 2021, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream said in an online post, citing a conversation with Justice Alito. Demands for recusals by justices and judges have been part of political disputes over the high court and elsewhere in the legal system. But while a system exists for penalizing lower-court judges who are accused of conflicts or other wrongdoing, there is no mechanism to sanction Supreme Court justices. Only Congress can impeach a Supreme Court justice, said Michael Frisch, ethics counsel at Georgetown Law. One justice, Abe Fortas, resigned from the Supreme Court in 1969 amid a controversy over receiving $20,000 from a Wall Street financier. An impeachment, though, has only happened once, to Justice Samuel Chase in the early 1800s. He was later acquitted by the Senate. 

Aid groups welcome the start of operations to send aid into Gaza from a floating pier but say it's no substitute for land-based aid shipments. UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram on the war's dire consequences for children in Gaza. As Russian forces advance along the frontlines in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin shores up Moscow's alliance with China in a two-day visit meeting with his counterpart in Beijing Andrea Kendall-Taylor, senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security, Transatlantic Security Program and co-author of the new eBook 'The Origins of Elected Strongmen' on why authoritarianism appears to be on the rise across the globe.

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.

After 20 years in Iraq, the United Nations has been told by the Iraqi prime minister it is time to move on. VOA's United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.

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Sao Paulo, Brazil — A group of volunteers working to save people from the floods in southern Brazil contend they were misled into participating in an operation to remove several thousand firearms from the airport of Rio Grande do Sul state's capital, Porto Alegre. Nicolas Vedovatto, a 26-year-old investor, told The Associated Press that he and three others found out through a WhatsApp group created to muster volunteers that help was needed to save children stranded at the flooded airport. They offered their support, then met a woman identifying herself as Vivian Rodriguez on May 7 at a gas station just before the planned operation, Vedovatto said. She informed them that she worked for Brazil's largest gun manufacturer, Taurus Armas, and that they would be rescuing rifles and pistols. Vedovatto said his first impulse was to back out. "I immediately said, 'No, wait a minute, I came to rescue children,' " he said by phone late Thursday from Capao da Canoa, the city on Rio Grande do Sul's coast where he lives. He said Rodriguez responded that extracting the guns was important to prevent them from falling into criminals' hands and that, if they declined to participate, they would be temporarily detained to prevent information from leaking. So, he and the others went along. Vedovatto shared video of the operation, filmed on his cellphone, with the AP. The images show him at the airport warehouse and on a boat escorted by a heavily armed Federal Police agent. A Brazilian public security source with knowledge of the operation told the AP on Friday that the Federal Police warned Taurus it detected that criminal groups had become aware of the cargo in the airport. The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, confirmed the veracity of Vedovatto's footage and that the volunteers indeed participated along with Taurus' team. In a response to AP questions, Taurus late Thursday confirmed that the operation took place but said it was unaware of volunteers' involvement and that it would investigate allegations with police. Special troops from the Federal Police, the army and state police deployed to ensure security, but the handling of the cargo itself was left to Taurus, it said. Brazil's Federal Police — which regularly oversees airport security in the country and also coordinated the operation — told the AP in a statement that Taurus and the people the company contracted with were the only ones involved in removing weapons from the airport. The operation was first reported last week by UOL, one of Brazil's biggest online media outlets. Vedovatto's account was first published Thursday by ABC+, a news website in Rio Grande do Sul state. He told the AP that Rodriguez showed him and others her company ID. Taurus declined to confirm whether Rodriguez is an employee when asked by the AP. Her Facebook profile, linked to the Instagram profile provided by Vedovatto, identifies her as an employee. He also shared her WhatsApp number and screenshots of their conversation. She did not respond to AP calls or messages sent through WhatsApp and social media. More than 150 people had been confirmed killed by the floods as of Friday, with another 97 missing and more than 600,000 forced from their homes.

Diyarbakir, Turkey / Washington — A Turkish court gave several lengthy prison sentences to pro-Kurdish politicians for instigating protests in southeastern Turkey in 2014 when the Islamic State group attacked the Syrian border town of Kobani. Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the former co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), on Thursday received the longest sentences among the 108 defendants, 18 of whom had been in pretrial detention. Demirtas was sentenced to 42 years for a total of 47 crimes, including “disrupting the unity and the integrity of the state,” while Yuksekdag received just over 30 years in prison for “attempts to challenge the unity of the state, of inciting criminal acts, and of engaging in propaganda on behalf of a terror organization.” The trial stemmed from the 2014 Kobani protests, in which hundreds of pro-Kurdish protesters took to the streets in predominantly Kurdish provinces of Turkey over the government’s inaction toward IS militants who were advancing to capture Kobani in October 2014. HDP, which initiated the call for protests, demanded the opening of a corridor to Kobani through Turkey so that military aid from other parts of Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan could reach the IS-besieged town. During the protests, in which 37 people died and 761 people were injured, clashes occurred between the security forces and protesters and between the Islamist Kurdish groups and protesters. HDP later called for de-escalation. At the time of the protests, Ankara was involved in a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. However, the peace process ended in 2015, and Ankara accused the HDP in connection with the deaths in the 2014 protests. The party denies any involvement. Convictions The first hearing in the Kobani trial was held in 2021. In the more than 3,000-page indictment, senior HDP members were listed as defendants and charged with 29 offenses, including “homicide and harming the unity of the state.” In the end, 12 defendants were acquitted of all charges and 24 defendants were convicted. The other 72 defendants at large are to be tried in the future. The defendants’ lawyers and the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the HDP’s successor, view the trial as political. Lawyer Nahit Eren, the head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association and a member of the legal team, told VOA Turkish that they would appeal the verdict. On Friday, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said, "There is no place for calls for violence in democracies." "Therefore, in this sense, it is a decision made by our independent and impartial judiciary. This is the decision of the first level court, there are the first and second level of appeal processes. We will wait for the result of these processes together," he added. Turkish Deputy Minister of Interior Bulent Turan noted that there were acquittals and sentences in the verdict. “Although it did not please some people, justice was served,” Turan said in a post on X. Following the verdict on Thursday, local governors imposed a four-day ban on protests in the predominantly Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir, Siirt, Tunceli and Batman. On Friday, police officers did not let DEM Party members gather for a demonstration in Diyarbakir but allowed them to make a media statement. Reactions Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday that the trial was “manifestly political and unjust.” “The conviction of Selahattin Demirtaş, Figen Yuksekdag and other leading Kurdish opposition politicians in a mass trial is the latest move in a campaign of persecution that has robbed mainly Kurdish voters of their chosen representatives, undermined the democratic process and criminalized lawful political speech,” Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director, said in the statement. The convictions of pro-Kurdish politicians come at a time when “normalization” between the ruling Justice and Development Party and the opposition is a hot topic on the Turkish political agenda. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met main opposition Republican People’s Party leader Ozgur Ozel on May 2, and both leaders have been vocal about ending Turkey’s polarized political environment. Some experts think that the convictions are causing the Kurdish public to question the statements on normalization. “While the normalization is talked about so much, the fact that such a normalization was not reflected in the judiciary will cause serious damage to the Kurdish public,” Roj Girasun, the director of Diyarbakir-based Rawest Research, told VOA Turkish. “Is this final verdict a postponement of normalization or a complete shelving? It is too early to answer,” Girasun said. Another expert and political scientist, Vedat Kacal, thinks that the verdict is a bureaucratic move to try to discourage Kurdish voters from hoping for a solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey through elections. “[The verdict] can be interpreted as a psychological method of pushing Kurdish voters back into the narrow patterns of the Kurdish right by making them despair about the ballot box and the future of Turkish politics,” Kacal told VOA Turkish.

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.

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washington — Hundreds of Syrian mercenaries have been sent by Turkey to Niger in recent months to protect Ankara's economic and military interests in the West African nation, a rights group and experts said.  The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has researchers throughout Syria, reports that recruitment of Syrian fighters for deployment to Niger has been going on for several months.  "We have confirmed that about 1,100 Syrian fighters have already been deployed to Niger since September of last year," said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory.  Syrian nationals are being recruited from areas under the control of Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups in northwest Syria, Abdulrahman told VOA.  Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), a France-based advocacy group, said it has also documented such recruitments.  "These Syrian fighters are being transported from Syria into Turkey, and then using Turkish airports, they are sent [to Niger] by Turkish military airplanes," Bassam Alahmad, executive director of STJ, told VOA.  Turkey has in the past deployed Syrian fighters to other conflict zones, including Azerbaijan and Libya, through SADAT International Defense Consultancy, a private military company that reportedly has close ties with the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  "It's very clear that in Niger, Turkey is just extending a policy that views Africa as clear area of growth for Turkey in terms of commercial and military interests, and in terms of extending Turkey's power in the world," says Nicholas Heras, a Middle East expert at the New Lines Institute, a research organization in Washington.  Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory also said that SADAT was behind the recruitment of Syrian nationals from areas under the control of Turkey.  The Istanbul-based company declined to comment. VOA also contacted Turkey's Foreign Ministry but has received no response.  A Syrian fighter, who went by the name Ahmed, told AFP this week that a Turkey-backed Syrian militia called the Sultan Murad Division was involved in recruiting him for the Niger deployment.  The Syrian fighter, who was in Aleppo province, said new recruits will be trained at camps before participating in battles in Niger.  "The first two batches of fighters have already gone, and a third batch will follow soon," he said.  Another Syrian fighter told AFP that he was recruited for duty in Niger "on a six-month contract with a salary of $1,500."  A third Syrian fighter said that after two weeks of military training, he was tasked with guarding a site near a mine in Niger, according to AFP.  Syrian fighters have cited economic incentives as the main motive for accepting such job offers.  The Syrian Observatory said the Turkey-backed Syrian mercenaries have been stationed in the tri-border area between Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.  "For those getting wounded in battle, they receive up to $30,000 in compensation," Abdulrahman said. "For those getting killed, their families receive up to $60,000."  The United Nations says the tri-border region in recent years has become a major hotspot for insecurity, including terror activities carried out by militant groups.  This comes at a time when Nigerien and U.S. defense officials are discussing plans to withdraw all American forces from the country. Niger's military junta, which overthrew the country's democratically elected president in July of last year, has demanded an end to U.S. military presence in the country. In December 2023, France also ended its military presence in Niger after a similar demand was made by the junta leaders.  Experts say Niger's junta recognizes a continued need for security support, so they are increasingly relying on mercenaries deployed by Russia and Turkey.  "France and the United States were security partners that were there supporting Nigerien forces through cooperation and agreements that didn't cost the Nigerien public significant tax dollars," said Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington. "Now upon their departure you have smaller contingents of Russian mercenaries, or these reports of Syrian mercenaries being sent by Turkey."  "You're just witnessing this very strange rhetoric around the reclaiming of national sovereignty by Niger's junta, which has no legitimate claim to popular political support, and then them ceding that sovereignty to these mercenaries and spending Nigerien tax dollars on hiring these groups whether they be Russian or Turkish," he told VOA.  Eizenga said the number of fatalities linked to attacks by Islamist militant groups in Niger has increased significantly since the junta took power in July 2023, arguing that coup leaders' interests are not aligned with national interests in Niger.  "The fact that they are inviting and courting these mercenary groups to come in is another example of exactly that," he said.  This story originated in VOA's Kurdish Service with some information from AFP. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The man convicted of attempting to kidnap then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and attacking her husband with a hammer was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison.  Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley handed down the sentence for David DePape, 44, whom jurors found guilty last November of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official. Prosecutors had asked for a 40-year prison term.  DePape was given 20 years for one count and 30 years for another count. The sentences will run concurrently. He was also given credit for the 18 months that he's been in custody.  DePape stood silently as Corley handed in the sentence and looked down at times. His public defense attorneys had asked the judge to sentence him to 14 years, pointing out that he was going through a difficult time in his life and had no prior criminal history.  Corley said she took into account when giving DePape's sentence the fact that he broke into the home of a public official, an unprecedented act in the history of the country.  "He actually went to the home. That is completely, completely unprecedented," she said.  Proud of 'Pop' Before sentencing, Christine Pelosi read victim statements on behalf of her father and mother, explaining how the violent attack changed their lives.  "The Pelosi family couldn't be prouder of their Pop and his tremendous courage in saving his own life on the night of the attack and in testifying in this case," Aaron Bennett, a spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. "Speaker Pelosi and her family are immensely grateful to all who have sent love and prayers over the last eighteen months, as Mr. Pelosi continues his recovery."  DePape admitted during trial testimony that he broke into the Pelosis' San Francisco home October 28, 2022, intending to hold the speaker hostage and "break her kneecaps" if she lied to him. He also admitted to bludgeoning Paul Pelosi with a hammer after police showed up, saying his plan to end what he viewed as government corruption was unraveling.  The attack on Paul Pelosi, who was 82 at the time, was captured on police body camera video just days before the midterm elections.  Defense attorneys argued DePape was motivated by his political beliefs, not because he wanted to interfere with Nancy Pelosi's official duties as a member of Congress, making the charges against him invalid.  One of his attorneys, Angela Chuang, said during closing arguments that DePape was caught up in conspiracy theories.  At trial DePape, a Canadian who moved to the U.S. more than 20 years ago, testified that he believed news outlets repeatedly lied about former President Donald Trump. In rants posted on a blog and online forum that were taken down after his arrest, DePape echoed the baseless, right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles runs the U.S. government.  DePape also told jurors he had planned to wear an inflatable unicorn costume and record his interrogation of the Democratic speaker, who was not at the home at the time of the attack, to upload it online.  Prosecutors said he had rope and zip ties with him, and detectives found body cameras, a computer and a tablet.  Paul Pelosi also testified at the trial, recalling how he was awakened by a large man bursting into the bedroom and asking, "Where's Nancy?" He said that when he responded that his wife was in Washington, DePape said he would tie him up while they waited for her.  "It was a tremendous sense of shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house, and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible," Pelosi told jurors.  DePape is also charged in state court with assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary and other felonies. Jury selection in that trial is expected to start Wednesday.  Paul Pelosi suffered two head wounds in the attack, including a skull fracture that was mended with plates and screws he will have for the rest of his life. His right arm and hand were also injured.