Voice of America’s immigration news

Known as "the Las Vegas of Asia," Macao — with its glitzy casinos and huge gaming industry — also has become home to a unique ethnic group — the Macanese. Twenty-five years after the former Portuguese colony's handover to China, however, there is worry among some Macanese that a part of Macao's unique identity is fading away. Reporter Cindy Sui explains why from Macao

washington — U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to have a phone call in the spring, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken is slated to make another trip to Beijing this year as the two nations pursue additional high-level diplomacy to manage competition in the bilateral relationship.   On Saturday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi concluded their more than 12 hours of talks during a two-day meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.     A senior U.S. administration official said "the quiet low-profile channel" between Sullivan and Wang is "an important way to manage competition and tensions responsibly" between the two countries.   The official also confirmed to VOA that top U.S. diplomat Blinken will return to Beijing this year. Blinken was the first U.S. Cabinet official to travel to China last year, and his counterpart has since traveled to the United States on a reciprocal visit.   The White House described the talks in Bangkok as candid, substantive and constructive discussions that touched on global and regional issues, including Russia's war against Ukraine, the Middle East, North Korea, the South China Sea, and Burma.   In a statement, the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry said both countries will make good use of current strategic communication channels to properly handle sensitive issues.   Houthi aggression   During the latest talks, Sullivan asked Wang to use Beijing's "substantial leverage" over Iran to call for an end to the attacks on Red Sea trade routes by Yemen-based Houthi rebels.   U.S. officials have expressed reservations about whether China is "actually raising" the issue, despite repeated requests from Washington.  "We're looking to actually facts on the ground, and those attacks [by Houthis] seem to be continuing," said the official when asked if China is playing a positive role during a Saturday phone briefing.  Earlier Saturday, the U.S. Central Command said its forces had destroyed an anti-ship missile in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen, which posed an imminent threat to merchant vessels and U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea. The missile was prepared for launch into the Red Sea. This action follows sanctions and military strikes earlier this month from the U.S. and its allies against the Houthis.   In Beijing, Chinese officials criticized military strikes by the U.S. and United Kingdom against the Houthis rebels.   "We believe that the [United Nations] Security Council has never authorized the use of force by any country on Yemen, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yemen and other coastal countries of the Red Sea need to be earnestly respected," said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during a briefing last week.   He said tension in the Red Sea is "a manifestation of the spillover of the Gaza conflict" and the priority is to push for a cease-fire in Gaza.    The Houthis have launched attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November, which they said are in support of Palestinians in conflict with Israel.   The U.S. has condemned these actions by the Houthis as disruptions to international supply chains and violations of navigational rights and freedoms.   Counternarcotics efforts   The U.S. and China will hold a formal working group on counternarcotics in Beijing on January 30-31.    As the U.S. and China resumed their counternarcotics cooperation, American officials said Washington is seeing a reduction in the amount of precursor chemicals originating from China at some U.S. airports.  U.S. officials have identified China as the main source of precursor chemicals used in the synthesis of fentanyl by drug cartels in Mexico.    The working group is aimed at stopping the flow of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals into the U.S. that contribute to the fentanyl crisis.   Myanmar military coup     While in Bangkok, Sullivan held talks with Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara, the Thai foreign minister.   The senior U.S. official told VOA they discussed the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, also known as Burma, and efforts to provide humanitarian aid to the Burmese people. Civil war has engulfed Myanmar following a military coup on February 1, 2021, that overthrew the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyy. "It's fair to say that China certainly does have influence in that region," the official noted. "We hope to have follow up discussions at [a] lower level in the coming weeks and months, given the need to really remain focused on promoting a return to the path of democratic transition in Burma." Upcoming AI, military talks       In addition, the U.S. and China are preparing for a dialogue on artificial intelligence in the spring, along with the upcoming counternarcotics working group talks in Beijing next week. Both countries also will hold Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings this spring, alongside communications between defense ministers and theater commanders.       Sullivan and Wang have been holding talks approximately every four months outside the U.S. since last May. They met in Vienna on May 10-11, 2023, in Malta on September 16-17, 2023, and in Bangkok on January 26-27. They also had discussions in Washington last October during Wang's visit to the U.S. capital. 

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.

The October 7 terror attack by Hamas pushed Israelis out of their kibbutz on the border with Gaza. Palestinian workers employed in Israel found themselves without a place to go. VOA’s Celia Mendoza shares from East Jerusalem, Israel, the journeys of two men displaced by this conflict. Camera: Walid Sababa

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.

islamabad — Pakistan confirmed Saturday that nine of its nationals were killed by gunmen in neighboring Iran, demanding an immediate investigation into the "terrorist incident" to punish the perpetrators.    Iranian media reported that the early morning shooting occurred in a home in the southeastern city of Saravan in Sistan-Baluchistan province bordering Pakistan.    "It is a horrifying and despicable incident, and we condemn it unequivocally," said Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson.    "We are in touch with Iranian authorities and have underscored the need to immediately investigate the incident and hold to account those involved in this heinous crime," Baloch said. No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack that targeted a group of Pakistanis reportedly working at an auto repair shop in the Iranian border region.    Baloch said that a senior Pakistani diplomat was on the way to the hospital where several injured people were being treated, promising to arrange for an urgent repatriation of the victims' bodies.     "We are fully seized of this grave matter and are taking all necessary measures in this regard…Such cowardly attacks cannot deter Pakistan from its determination to fight terrorism," she said.     Saturday's incident came more than a week after Pakistan's military launched cross-border retaliatory strikes, targeting alleged militant hideouts in the same Iranian city. Iran said that attack in Saravan killed nine people, mostly women and children.     Islamabad said the Pakistani military had hit bases of outlawed Baluch militant groups orchestrating attacks against Pakistan from Iranian border areas.    The unprecedented strikes came two days after Iranian security forces staged "drone and missile strikes" against what Tehran said were the "strongholds" of the anti-Iran Jaish al-Adl militant group in Pakistan's southwestern border province of Balochistan.    Islamabad condemned the Iranian raid as a "blatant breach" of its territorial sovereignty, saying it resulted in the deaths of two children. Pakistan immediately recalled its ambassador from Iran and barred the Iranian ambassador from returning to the country.    Both countries have long accused each other of not doing enough to deny fugitive militants safe havens in their respective territories.    The military tensions raised fears of a broader conflict between Iran and Pakistan. However, the two countries announced last Monday that they had decided to immediately "de-escalate" and restore diplomatic relations.     Officials on both sides confirmed Friday that Pakistani and Iranian ambassadors had returned to their respective embassies to resume their routine diplomatic missions.    Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian is also due to arrive in Islamabad on Monday for official talks with his Pakistani counterpart, Jalil Abbas Jilani.  

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.

IGAD’s efforts to end Sudan’s bloody civil war are in line with its mission. Conflict mediation is based on neutrality — the opposite of infringing on Sudan’s sovereignty.

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.

NEW DELHI — A powerful Hindu group said several mosques in India were built over demolished Hindu temples, apparently hardening its stance in a decadeslong sectarian dispute just days after a huge temple was inaugurated on the site of a razed mosque.  The comments from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist party, come after Modi and the RSS chief led Monday's consecration of the temple on the site of a 16th-century mosque demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992.  The fight over claims to holy sites has divided Hindu-majority India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population, since independence from British rule in 1947.  Four days after the temple was inaugurated in the northern city of Ayodhya, a lawyer for Hindu petitioners said the Archaeological Survey of India had determined that a 17th century mosque in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, in Modi's parliamentary constituency, had been built over a destroyed a Hindu temple.  The Archaeological Survey did not respond to a request for comment.  Late Friday, senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar questioned whether Varanasi's Gyanvapi mosque and three others, including the razed one in Ayodhya on the site where many Hindus believe Lord Ram was born, were mosques at all.  "Whether we should consider them mosques or not, the people of the country and the world should think about it," Kumar told Reuters in an interview, referring to the sites in Gyanvapi, Ayodhya, one other in Uttar Pradesh state and one in Madhya Pradesh. "They should stand with the truth, or they should stand with the wrong?"  In the group's first reaction to the Gyanvapi findings, Kumar said, "Accept the truth. Hold dialogs and let the judiciary decide."  Raising questions about the mosques does not mean Hindu groups comprise "an anti-mosque movement," he said. "This is not an anti-Islam movement. This is a movement to seek the truth that should be welcomed by the world."  “Nothing political”  Muslim groups are disputing the assertions of Hindu groups in court.  Zufar Ahmad Faruqi, chairman of the Sunni Central Waqf Board in Uttar Pradesh, said the group has “confidence in the judiciary that it will do what is correct.”  "We want to live in harmony and peacefully while protecting the monuments as they are," he said. "Nothing political about it; we are in the court and facing it legally."  The Modi-led opening of the Ayodhya temple fulfilled a 35-year-old pledge of his Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of a general election due in May. He is expected to win a third straight term, the longest stretch since India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.  The razing of the Ayodhya mosque sparked riots across India that authorities say killed at least 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. Hindu groups have for decades said that Muslim Mughal rulers built monuments and places of worship after destroying ancient Hindu structures.  Indian law bars the conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of places of worship as they existed at the time of independence — except for the Ayodhya shrine. The Supreme Court is hearing challenges to the law.  The court this month halted plans for a survey of another centuries-old mosque in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous and politically important state, to determine if it contained Hindu relics and symbols. 

OSWIECIM, Poland — A group of survivors of Nazi death camps marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during World War II in a modest ceremony Saturday in southern Poland. About 20 survivors from various camps set up by Nazi Germany around Europe laid wreaths and flowers and lit candles at the Death Wall in Auschwitz. Later, the group was to say prayers at the monument in Birkenau. They were memorializing around 1.1 million camp victims, mostly Jews. The memorial site and museum are located near the city of Oswiecim. Nearly 6 million European Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust — the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II. Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the survivors will be accompanied by Polish Senate Speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska, Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz and Israeli Ambassador Yacov Livne. The theme of the observances is the human being, symbolized in simple, hand-drawn portraits. They are meant to stress that the horror of Auschwitz-Birkenau lies in the suffering of people held and killed there. Holocaust victims were commemorated across Europe. In Germany, where people put down flowers and lit candles at memorials for the victims of the Nazi terror, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that his country would continue to carry the responsibility for this “crime against humanity.” He called on all citizens to defend Germany’s democracy and fight antisemitism, as the country marked the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. "'Never again’ is every day,” Scholz said in his weekly video podcast. “January 27 calls out to us: Stay visible! Stay audible! Against antisemitism, against racism, against misanthropy — and for our democracy.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country is fighting to repel Russia's full-scale invasion, posted an image of a Jewish menorah on X, formerly known as Twitter, to mark the remembrance day. “Every new generation must learn the truth about the Holocaust. Human life must remain the highest value for all nations in the world," said Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and has lost relatives in the Holocaust. "Eternal memory to all Holocaust victims!” Zelenskyy tweeted. In Italy, Holocaust commemorations included a torchlit procession alongside official statements from top political leaders. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said that her conservative nationalist government was committed to eradicating antisemitism that she said had been “reinvigorated” amid the Israel-Hamas war. Meloni’s critics have long accused her and her Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-fascist roots, of failing to sufficiently atone for its past. Later Saturday, leftist movements planned a torchlit procession to remember all victims of the Holocaust — Jews but also Roma, gays and political dissidents who were deported or exterminated in Nazi camps. Police were also on alert after pro-Palestinian activists indicated that they would ignore a police order and go ahead with a rally planned to coincide with the Holocaust commemorations. Italy’s Jewish community has complained that such protests have become occasions for the memory of the Holocaust to be co-opted by anti-Israel forces and used against Jews. In Poland, a memorial ceremony with prayers was held Friday in Warsaw at the foot of the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, who fell fighting the Nazis in 1943. Earlier in the week, the countries of the former Yugoslavia signed an agreement in Paris to jointly renovate Block 17 in the red-brick Auschwitz camp and install a permanent exhibition there in memory of around 20,000 people who were deported from their territories and brought to the block. Participating in the project will be Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. Preserving the camp, a notorious symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust, with its cruelly misleading “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes One Free”) gate, requires constant effort by historians and experts, and substantial funds. The Nazis, who occupied Poland from 1939 to 1945, at first used old Austrian military barracks at Auschwitz as a concentration and death camp for Poland’s resistance fighters. In 1942, the wooden barracks, gas chambers and crematoria of Birkenau were added for the extermination of Europe's Jews, Roma and other nationals, as well as Russian prisoners of war. Soviet Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945, with about 7,000 prisoners there, children and those who were too weak to walk. The Germans had evacuated tens of thousands of other inmates on foot days earlier in what is now called the Death March, because many inmates died of exhaustion and cold in the sub-freezing temperatures. Since 1979, Auschwitz-Birkenau has been on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.

WASHINGTON — When the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel met privately with senators recently, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee asked for his assessment of a startling report: A whistleblower estimated that 95% of claims now being made by businesses for a COVID-era tax break were fraudulent. “He looked at his shoes and he basically said, ‘Yeah,’” recalled the lawmaker who posed that question, Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. The answer explains why Congress is racing to wind down what is known as the employee retention tax credit. Congress established the program during the coronavirus pandemic as an incentive for businesses to keep workers on the payroll. Demand for the credit soared as Congress extended the tax break and made it available to more companies. Aggressive marketers dangled the prospect of enormous refunds to business owners if they would just apply. As a result, what was expected to cost the federal government $55 billion has instead ballooned to nearly five times that amount as of July. Meanwhile, new claims are still pouring into the IRS each week, ensuring a growing price tag that lawmakers are anxious to cap. Lawmakers across the political spectrum who rarely agree on little else — from liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to conservative Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — agree it's time to close the program. “I don’t have the exact number, but it’s like almost universal fraud in the program. It should be ended,” Johnson said. “I don’t see how anybody could support it.” Warren added: “The standards were too loose, and the oversight was too thin." The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that winding down the program more quickly and increasing penalties for those companies promoting improper claims would generate about $79 billion over 10 years. Lawmakers aim to use the savings to offset the cost of three business tax breaks and a more generous child tax credit for many low-income families. Households benefiting from the changes in the child tax credit would see an average tax cut of $680 in the first year, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The package was overwhelmingly approved by a House committee last week, 40-3, showing it has broad, bipartisan support. But passage through Congress is not assured because many key senators have concerns about aspects of the bill. Wyden said a strong vote in the House could spur the Senate into quicker action. Still, passing major legislation in an election year is generally a heavy lift. Under current law, taxpayers have until April 15, 2025, to claim the employee retention credit. The bill would bar new claims after January 31 of this year. It also would impose stiff penalties on those who are promoting the employer retention tax credit if they know or have reason to know their advice will lead to an underreporting of tax liabilities. When Congress created the tax break for employers at the pandemic’s onset, it proved so popular that lawmakers extended and amended the program three times. The credit, worth up to $26,000 per employee, can be claimed on wages paid through 2021. To qualify, generally businesses must show that a local or state government order related to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in their business having to close or partially suspend operations. Or the businesses must show they experienced a significant decline in revenue. Larry Gray, a certified public accountant from Rolla, Missouri, said he had concerns early on about how the program could be abused. “There was no documentation really to speak," and the IRS just sent out the checks, Gray said. “They just started printing the checks, and I believe Congress was wanting them to print the checks.” His hunch has proven correct, judging by the filings that he has reviewed. He has even lost clients who didn’t want to hear that they did not qualify when others were telling them they did. Generally, he said, the businesses that don’t qualify are failing to cite the government order that resulted in their closure or partial suspension. They are also routinely citing reasons for reimbursement that don’t meet the program’s criteria. For example, one company said it was struggling to find employees and had to raise wages as a justification for qualifying. “If I go through the narratives on the filings that I’m looking at, every business in America qualifies,” Gray said. The IRS paused accepting claims for the tax credit in September last year until 2024 due to rising concerns that an influx of fraudulent applications. At that point, it had received 3.6 million claims. Some fraud has been prolific. For instance, a New Jersey tax preparer was arrested in July on charges related to fraudulently seeking over $124 million from the IRS when he filed more than 1,000 tax returns claiming the employment tax credits. In an update issued Thursday about the program, the IRS said that it has thousands of audits in the pipeline and that as of Dec. 31, it has initiated 352 criminal investigations involving more than $2.9 billion in potentially fraudulent claims. Separately, it has opened nine civil investigations of marketers that potentially misled employers on eligibility to file claims.

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.

BEIRUT — The United States and Iraq held a first session of formal talks Saturday in Baghdad aimed at winding down the mission of a U.S.-led military coalition formed to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that he had sponsored “the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the mission of the Coalition in Iraq.” The beginning of talks, announced by both countries Thursday, comes as U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have been regularly targeted by drone attacks launched by Iran-backed militias against the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. says plans to set up a committee to negotiate the terms of the mission’s end were first discussed last year, and the timing isn't related to the attacks. Washington has had a continuous presence in Iraq since its 2003 invasion. Although all U.S. combat forces left in 2011, thousands of troops returned in 2014 to help the government of Iraq defeat the Islamic State. Since the extremist group lost its hold on the territory it once seized, Iraqi officials have periodically called for a withdrawal of coalition forces, particularly in the wake of a U.S. airstrike in January 2020 that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis outside the Baghdad airport. The issue has surfaced again since Israel launched its major counteroffensive in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas-led terror attack in southern Israel. Since mid-October, a group of Iran-backed militias calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have launched regular attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, which the group said are in retaliation for Washington’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza. Those estimated 2,500 U.S. troops and the bases they serve on have drawn more than 150 missile and drone attacks fired by the militias. Scores of U.S. personnel have been wounded, including some with traumatic brain injuries, during the attacks. The U.S. has struck militia targets in return, including some linked to the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of mainly Shiite, Iran-backed paramilitary groups that is officially under the control of the Iraqi military. But it largely operates on its own in practice. Iraqi officials have complained that the U.S. strikes are a violation of Iraq's sovereignty. U.S. officials have said that talks about setting up a committee to decide on the framework for ending the coalition’s mission were already underway before October 7 and that the decision is unrelated to the attacks. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq nevertheless took credit for the decision in a statement, saying that it “proves that the Americans only understand the language of force.” It vowed to continue its attacks.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Thousands of people marched in cities and towns in Kenya during protests Saturday over the recent slayings of more than a dozen women. The anti-femicide demonstration was the largest event ever held in the country against sexual and gender-based violence. In the nation's capital, Nairobi, protesters wore T-shirts printed with the names of women who became homicide victims this month. The crowd, mostly women, brought traffic to a standstill. "Stop killing us!" the demonstrators shouted as they waved signs with messages such as “There is no justification to kill women.” The crowd in Nairobi was hostile to attempts by the parliamentary representative for women, Esther Passaris, to address them. Accusing Passaris of remaining silent during the latest wave of killings, protesters shouted her down with chants of “Where were you?” and “Go home!” “A country is judged by not how well it treats its rich people but how well it takes care of the weak and vulnerable," said Law Society of Kenya President Eric Theuri, who was among the demonstrators. Kenyan media outlets have reported the slayings of at least 14 women since the start of the year, according to Patricia Andago, a data journalist at media and research firm Odipo Dev who also took part in the march. Odipo Dev reported this week that news accounts showed at least 500 women were killed in acts of femicide from January 2016 to December 2023. Many more cases go unreported, Andago said. Two cases that gripped Kenya this month involved two women who were killed at Airbnb accommodations. The second victim was a university student who was dismembered and decapitated after she reportedly was kidnapped for ransom. The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology student's head was found in a dam on Monday, a week after her dismembered body was found in a trash can at the rented home. Two Nigerian men were arrested in connection with her death. A week earlier, the body of another young woman was found in an apartment with several stab wounds after she went there with a man she met online. Police are holding a suspect identified as John Matara. Several women have come forward to say they had previously told police about alleged acts of torture by Matara but he was never charged. Theuri, the president of the Law Society, said cases of gender-based violence take too long to be heard in court, which he thinks emboldens perpetrators to commit crimes against women. “As we speak right now, we have a shortage of about 100 judges. We have a shortage of 200 magistrates and adjudicators, and so that means that the wheel of justice grinds slowly as a result of inadequate provisions of resources,” he said.