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Former U.S. President Donald Trump says he's been indicted. The US Pentagon dismisses a Wall Street Journal report that China has a deal to build a spying facility in Cuba.  The Red Cross warns that landmines could pose a threat for decades following the Kakhovka dam breach.

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In early May, The New York Times Magazine published an in-depth story about Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic with details about his alleged connections with a criminal group that is being prosecuted for a range of crimes including drug trafficking and murder. The story drew broad attention internationally, not just in the Balkans where local investigative outlets have reported many of the same allegations, which Vucic denies. The State Department declined to comment on the merit of the allegations in the story, however at least one high-ranking State Department official shared the story on social media. And the allegations were raised last month during a congressional hearing about the Western Balkans. Outside analysts though have been vocal. "It's a shocking and horrific story that the highest levels of government are so intertwined with criminal enterprises. I think we have seen this in enough other nations that it is a growing concern, the conflation between authoritarian governments and criminal networks," Gary Kalman, executive director of Transparency International USA, told VOA's Serbian Service. "It's terrible. It's too bad," said Susan Rose-Ackerman, professor of law and political science at Yale University, who co-authored the book "Corruption and Government." She told VOA that connections between people in political power and organized crime create an extreme version of political corruption. The Times story reported that the connections between police and the criminal group, led by a soccer hooligan Veljko Belivuk, nicknamed Trouble, were well documented. The story also claimed "there is little doubt that Belivuk and his gang are in prison because Europol cracked the code" of the phone-messaging app through which they communicated. Author Robert Worth reported that Belivuk testified in court that "his gang had been organized 'for the need and by the order of Aleksandar Vucic.'" He added that the group, among others, used to intimidate political rivals and prevent fans at soccer games from chanting against Vucic. Worth also wrote that he is skeptical that Vucic was unaware of all the groups did since Vucic "now exercises near-total control over almost every aspect of public life" in Serbia. International context Vucic has been in politics since the 1990s. He served as information minister to Slobodan Milosevic, where he led a crackdown on the press, and he publicly voiced support for Serbian war criminals. His Serbian Progressive Party has now been in power for more than 10 years, during which he was also a prime minister. Vucic's spokespeople declined Worth's requests for comments, but in an interview for pro-government Happy TV in Serbia, Vucic said that the "preposterous New York Times story was ordered" and that he understands it as a message during the dialogue about normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia has never recognized. "I know how they do it," said Vucic for Happy TV. "You know, CIA sets you up, CIA watches you, if you don't behave well and don't listen, this is only the beginning." It has become common practice in past years that Serbian authorities denote any criticism as treason, conspiracy against the country or a plot to overthrow the government. Both Worth and The New York Times denied such allegations. VOA interviewees noted that the most significant aspect of the story was the fact that it was published in English, in a reputable outlet with a great number of readers. "It is an exposé of Aleksandar Vucic and his government. And it put it in an international context, given that it's The New York Times," Tanya Domi, professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, told VOA. "Everybody is reading this." Is Serbia a reliable partner for the United States? "Is this reporting credible?" Senator Bob Menendez asked the State Department's counselor Derek Chollet during a May hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about U.S. policy toward the Western Balkans, referencing the Times story. "We believe it is. I can't speak to the specifics of the article, but there is absolutely a lot of corruption," replied Chollet, with Gabriel Escobar, State Department deputy assistant secretary, sitting next to him. "So what are the real prospects for a reliable partner in Serbia with that background?" Menendez asked. "We're doing this with eyes open, but we are holding Vucic to account and his colleagues to account for their corruption, for their behavior and activity," said Chollet, noting that corruption is a major issue in the whole region. But in an interview for VOA's Bosnian Service, Kurt Bassuener, senior associate at the Democratization Policy Council, pointed out that the U.S. has not sanctioned any Vucic administration official for corruption as it has done in some neighboring countries. "They essentially dodged it," Bassuener said of State Department officials. "They didn't deal with any of the substance. And I think that's emblematic of the overarching policy, which is pacification toward the region." Domi believes the United States and the West are pursuing the idea that Serbia is "a stabilizing force in the region." But if the goal of such foreign policy toward the Western Balkans is to draw Serbia closer to the West and further from Russia, Domi says there is no proof such a strategy works. Serbia is one of the rare European countries that has not introduced sanctions against Russia, and there is a strong pro-Russian sentiment in the country. Transparency International's Kalman said Washington's strategy with Serbia could shift in the future. "I think there is a possibility that the U.S., given sort of Serbia's role and where it sits in the world, that they might put some pressure on to try and improve things in Serbia," he said. "How far they push and whether or not they are concerned that the Serbian government will start an alliance with countries and interests that the U.S. counter to their national security, and so then they back up. I don't know the answer to that question," Kalman said.

President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday announced an economic partnership focusing on energy transition and key technologies, and also vowed continued support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump, indicted in connection with his handling of classified documents after he left the White House in early 2021, is also facing two other significant criminal investigations. One is related to his 2020 reelection loss; in the other, he has been charged with altering business records to hide hush money paid to a porn star ahead of his successful 2016 presidential campaign.  Special counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and working with an extensive team of prosecutors, is heading the two most wide-ranging inquiries.  One involves Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Trump said Thursday night that he had been indicted and ordered to face the charges in a Miami court on Tuesday.  Under U.S. law, presidents are required to turn over presidential papers to the National Archives as they leave office, but Trump instead took some with him, many of them marked as highly classified.  Trump voluntarily returned some of the documents after authorities repeatedly asked for them. But when Justice Department officials concluded that he had still more at Mar-a-Lago, they secured a court-ordered warrant to search the estate last August. There, FBI agents discovered more classified material.  Trump has contended he was entitled as a former president to keep the documents.  The other Smith investigation involves Trump's effort to upend his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the weeks after the November 2020 election, including his admonition on January 6, 2021, for his supporters to head to the U.S. Capitol and "fight like hell" to keep Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.  About 2,000 Trump supporters stormed into the Capitol, ransacked congressional offices and clashed with police that day. About 1,000 of the rioters have since been charged with criminal offenses and about half have been convicted so far. Sentences have ranged from a few months to 18 years behind bars.  In a narrower criminal probe, a state prosecutor in Atlanta, Fani Willis, is investigating Trump's role in trying to overturn his 11,779-vote loss to Biden in the southern state of Georgia.  In a recorded conversation days ahead of the congressional certification of Biden's victory, Trump pleaded with Georgia state election chief Brad Raffensperger and other election officials to "find" him 11,780 votes, one more than he needed to overcome his loss.  "The people of Georgia are angry. The people in the country are angry," Trump said in the call to Georgia officials. "And there's nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you've recalculated."  Smith has subpoenaed an array of former top Trump administration officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence, to testify before a grand jury about their conversations with Trump in the weeks after the election and his efforts to upend the election result.  Pence is among the candidates running for the Republican nomination in the 2024 election  One effort, never fully implemented in states Trump lost to Biden, was to sign up fake electors supporting Trump to replace the legitimate ones committed to Biden in the Electoral College vote count.  Willis has signaled she will decide by early August whether to file charges against Trump or any of his aides, while Smith could also bring his election-related investigation to a head in the coming months.  In New York, Trump is facing a March 2024 trial on charges that he altered business records at his real estate conglomerate to hide a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to silence her about her claim of a one-night encounter with him a decade earlier.  He has denied the purported liaison and all other charges he is facing.  In a civil inquiry that centers on events related to Trump's real estate business empire, New York state Attorney General Letitia James has accused Trump of lying to lenders and insurers about the value of his properties.  She is seeking to bar Trump, along with his sons Donald Jr. and Eric and his daughter Ivanka, from continuing to run a business in New York. A New York judge declined in January to dismiss James' suit, and a trial is scheduled for October.  In a recent civil case, Trump was ordered to pay E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, $5 million for sexually abusing her in a New York department store three decades ago.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has confirmed on his social media platform that his lawyers were informed by the Justice Department that he had been indicted and summoned to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday. The indictment remains under seal, but CNN, citing a source familiar with the matter, said it contains several criminal charges related to his handling of government documents after leaving the White House. The indictment makes Trump the first former U.S. president to be charged in federal court. Here are seven questions about the case. Why was Trump being investigated? The Justice Department has been investigating Trump since early 2022 after learning that he had stashed hundreds of sensitive government documents at his Florida resort and had thwarted efforts to retrieve them. Under U.S. law, presidential records belong to the government and must be handed over to the National Archives when a president leaves office. But Trump allegedly took hundreds of records from the White House and had them shipped to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort and residence. The National Archives demanded the documents from Trump’s representatives in 2021 but received only 14 boxes in January 2022. They contained more than 100 classified documents. Alarmed at the finding of government secrets, the National Archives subsequently reported the discovery to the Justice Department, triggering a federal investigation. Though Trump later returned several dozen more documents, he was suspected of holding on to even more. That led the FBI to execute a search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022. The highly publicized search led to the discovery of more than 100 classified documents. What is in the documents? In all, prosecutors have retrieved more than 300 classified government documents from Trump. The documents bear various classification markings, from confidential and secret to top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information, the highest level of classification. The government has kept the content of the classified records under wraps, but in court documents, prosecutors have said their mishandling could endanger U.S. national security. The documents originate from different agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, and cover a broad spectrum of national security topics, such as China and Iran's missile program. What charges does Trump face? The indictment has not been unsealed, but the FBI search warrant listed three statutes that may have been breached. The first is part of the Espionage Act and prohibits the unauthorized transmission or retention of "national defense information" such as classified government documents. Another statute concerns obstruction of a federal investigation by destroying, altering and falsifying records. Violations of the two statutes are punishable by as much as 10 to 20 years in prison. Who is leading the investigation? The investigation was led through most of last year by the Justice Department. But Trump's announcement in November that he was running for president prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint Jack Smith, a former career Justice Department prosecutor, as special counsel. Smith has been using two grand juries in recent months — one in Washington and another in Miami — to subpoena witnesses and documents related to the case. Several dozen witnesses have appeared before the two panels. The grand juries operate in secrecy. Smith is also investigating Trump in connection with the events that led to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. What has Trump said publicly about the case? Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the documents, calling the investigation a "witch hunt" designed to sabotage his bid for reelection. He also claimed that he had a "standing order" to declassify all documents taken from the Oval Office to the White House residence. But prosecutors have reportedly obtained a 2021 audio recording in which Trump acknowledged he had retained a classified Pentagon document, which contradicts his claim that he had declassified all documents. What would an indictment mean for Trump's presidential run? No laws can stop him from forging ahead with his presidential campaign, even as he faces an indictment. In fact, former prosecutor John Malcolm said there are no laws that would prevent him from running, even if he is convicted. "There have been people who have run for office from prison cells," Malcolm said. In 2002, former Representative Jim Traficant ran for his old congressional seat while serving a prison sentence for corruption. How do the Trump and Biden document cases compare? Complicating Smith's case against Trump was the discovery of classified documents in President Joe Biden's possession, and former Vice President Mike Pence's possession as well. But in some respects, the cases are different. The documents found in Biden's and Pence's possession were small in number and both officials, unlike Trump, turned them over to the Justice Department as soon as they were found. Last week, federal prosecutors informed Pence that they had closed their investigation and would not bring any charges against him. The Biden investigation, led by another former federal prosecutor, is ongoing.

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In a stunning development, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted former U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday over his retention of sensitive government documents after he left the White House. The Justice Department informed Trump that he had been indicted and asked him to make his first court appearance in Miami on Tuesday, the former president confirmed on his social media platform. "The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, apparently alluding to boxes of documents seized by the FBI from his Florida estate last August. The indictment remains under seal, but seven news outlets, citing sources familiar with the case, said it contains several criminal charges. In a request for a search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last year, the FBI listed three statutes that may have been breached. The first is part of the Espionage Act and prohibits the unauthorized transmission or retention of "national defense information" such as classified government documents. Another statute concerns obstruction of a federal investigation by destroying, altering and falsifying records. Violations of the two statutes are punishable by as much as 10 to 20 years in prison. The indictment makes Trump the first former president to be charged in federal court. He is facing separate charges in New York state of falsifying business records to hide a hush money payment to an adult film star in 2016. He has pleaded not guilty in that case. Evan Corcoran, an attorney for Trump, did not immediately respond to a VOA request for comment. The Justice Department had been investigating Trump since early last year after learning from the National Archives that the former president stashed hundreds of sensitive government documents at his Florida resort and thwarted government efforts to retrieve them. The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last August led to the discovery of more than 100 classified documents. In all, prosecutors have retrieved more than 300 classified government documents from Trump bearing various classification markings, including “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” the highest level of classification. The investigation was led through most of last year by the Justice Department. But Trump's announcement in November that he was running for president prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint Jack Smith, a former career Justice Department prosecutor, as special counsel. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the documents, calling the investigation a witch hunt designed to sabotage his bid for reelection. He also claimed that he had a standing order to declassify all documents taken from the Oval Office to the White House residence. But prosecutors have reportedly obtained a 2021 audio recording in which Trump acknowledged that he had retained a classified Pentagon document, which contradicts his claim that he had declassified all documents. The indictment can’t prevent Trump from forging ahead with his presidential campaign. In fact, former federal prosecutor John Malcolm noted, there are no laws that would stop him from running, even if he is convicted. "There have been people who have run for office from prison cells," Malcolm said. In 2002, former Representative Jim Traficant ran for his old congressional seat while serving a prison sentence for corruption.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials encouraged people to spend time outdoors and wear masks inside if they had to be with other people. This week, officials are again urging people to mask up — but this time, to protect themselves outdoors against smoke. The tables have turned on the East Coast of the United States this week as wildfire smoke billows down from eastern Canada, prompting officials to urge people to stay indoors as much as possible — and to wear a mask if they go outside. Wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia have sent hazardous smoke as far as North Carolina and northern Europe, disturbing the lives of millions, turning the skies a dystopian orange and underscoring the ever-rising threat of climate change. “It’s critical that Americans experiencing dangerous air pollution, especially those with health conditions, listen to local authorities to protect themselves and their families,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday on Twitter. In Canada, 20,000 people have been displaced as a result of more than 400 blazes that have burned 3.8 million hectares. Dry conditions and higher-than-normal temperatures have helped trigger fires across the country since May. Many of the blazes now burning in Quebec were caused by lightning earlier this month. Starting Wednesday, millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors as the U.S. National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for much of the East Coast. Spending time outdoors could cause respiratory problems as a result of the high levels of fine particulates in the atmosphere, health officials have warned. The Midwest has not gone unscathed either, with smoke descending on Chicago earlier this week. According to the private forecasting service AccuWeather, this week marks the worst outbreak of wildfire smoke to shroud the northeastern United States in over two decades. Poor air quality will likely continue into the weekend, the service said. Up and down the East Coast, school officials canceled recess, sports games and field trips. The New York Yankees, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Washington Nationals are among the professional sports teams that have postponed games as a result of the smoke. Reduced visibility has also caused flights to be delayed, with the Federal Aviation Administration saying Thursday morning on Twitter it “will likely need to take steps to manage the flow of traffic safely into New York City, DC, Philadelphia and Charlotte.”   Even the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., was closed Thursday due to poor air quality. The air quality in the nation’s capital and surrounding area reached its most dangerous levels in decades on Thursday. “We’ve deployed more than 600 U.S. firefighters, support personnel, and equipment to support Canada as they respond to record wildfires — events that are intensifying because of the climate crisis,” Biden said on Twitter. Biden and lawmakers including New York Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said the Canadian wildfires and subsequent smoke blanketing the East Coast are tied to climate change. In light of the extreme smoke in New York City, which effectively hid the iconic skyline, Ocasio-Cortez said, “It bears repeating how unprepared we are for the climate crisis.” In some regions, the air quality index, which evaluates major pollutants like particulate matter produced by fires, was above 400, according to AirNow, which marks 100 as “unhealthy” and 300 as “hazardous.” The nightmarish landscapes that have gripped social media over the past couple of days may become the new normal as climate change worsens globally. Last year, the United Nations said the number of extreme wildfires will rise 14% by 2030 and 30% by 2050. The world will be forced to “learn to live with fire,” the U.N. Environment Program report said. For some parts of the United States, wildfires have already entered the realm of normal. The country’s West has for years been learning to live with wildfires, with California, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico among the states facing some of the worst of the conflagrations. Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.

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Brazilian indigenous people held demonstrations in protest of a measure approved by the lower house of Congress that opponents say would limit their land rights and environmental protections. Yan Boechat has more from Sao Paulo.  

After a series of renewed talks between the U.S. and China leading up to Secretary of State Antony Blinken's expected visit to Beijing in coming weeks, experts said the two rivals need to come up with a plan to avoid conflict. The talks had been stalled since February over a suspected Chinese spy balloon flying across the U.S. The two countries agreed to "open lines of communications," said a statement released after Dan Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, held talks with his Chinese counterparts on Monday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday that the two countries held talks "on improving bilateral relations and managing differences." The talks followed CIA Director William Burns' apparent secret trip to Beijing in May, first reported by the Financial Times on June 2, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan's meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Vienna on May 10-11. "The United States and China are moving slowly and cautiously to restore normal dialogue channels between them with the goal being able to establish so-called ‘guardrails’ to prevent bilateral relations from careening off track and leading to confrontation," said Evans Revere, who served as acting assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the George W. Bush administration. "It's extremely important for Washington and Beijing to find a way to manage bilateral relations in a way that prevents misunderstanding, misperception and strategic competition from leading to conflict," he told VOA via email. The two nations are at odds over a range of issues, each seeing the other's demands as attempts to undermine its national interests. Washington has been vocal about China's disregard for the rule of law, human rights and fair-trade practices. The U.S. has especially been keen on defending the right of passage in the Taiwan Strait against growing Chinese aggression. Beijing says it has been respecting international law and accuses the U.S. of using the rule of law to undermine its sovereignty and advocating for human rights as a way to interfere in its domestic affairs. China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its own and takes Washington's military presence in the region as a provocation. Standing their ground Hal Brands, professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said neither of them wants their differences to drive them toward conflict, but both are unwilling to relent. "Both sides have reasons to keep the competition within bounds," said Brands. "Neither side really wants a war, for instance. But neither side is willing to retreat on issues it cares most about." He added, "There is virtually no [chance] of a substantive improvement in U.S.-China relations in the coming year or so because differences on the key issues driving the competition – technology, Taiwan, trade, the balance of power in the Western Pacific and beyond – are nowhere near a resolution." Despite renewed talks between diplomatic and intelligence officials, military talks have not resumed, even as the two nations' defense chiefs believe conflict would be catastrophic. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu said at the Shangri-La security forum in Singapore on Sunday that "a severe conflict or confrontation between China and the U.S. will be an unbearable disaster" and proposed "seeking common ground." U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, while also stressing that "conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating," told the forum a day earlier that he was "deeply concerned" that China has been "unwilling to engage" in talks "for crisis management between our two militaries." While the top military chiefs were at the Shangri-La forum on Saturday, a Chinese navy ship made an "unsafe" move on a U.S. destroyer navigating the Taiwan Strait with a Canadian frigate to demonstrate their right to navigate, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said on Monday. Differences over fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law have prevented the two countries from seeing eye to eye, according to experts. "The ideological and value gap between Beijing and Washington is large and growing," said Revere via email. "Under [President] Xi Jinping, China has taken an historic turn toward authoritarianism, illiberalism and strict centralization under Communist Party control." He added, "At the same time, China's unprecedented military buildup and desire to become the dominant actor in the Western Pacific is clashing with the United States' long-term role as the major power in the region." Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former deputy national security adviser at the White House National Security Council, said via email, "The two sides have fundamentally different views that aren't easily bridged." "Both the United States and China are pessimistic about the likelihood of making progress bilaterally but feel that it is necessary to show third parties that they are trying."

Nearly two years after the United States evacuated approximately 124,000 people from Afghanistan, tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government remain inside the country, facing fear of Taliban persecution. Over 152,000 Afghans who say they have worked for the U.S. military in Afghanistan prior to the Taliban's return to power in August 2021 have applied for the Special Immigration Visa (SIV) program. As of May, some 17,000 principal SIVs remained in the congressionally authorized program. "Every day that our allies spend in Afghanistan is a day they remain in extreme peril," said Andrew Sullivan, director of advocacy at No One Left Behind, a charitable organization supporting Afghans and Iraqis who worked for the U.S. military during the past two decades. Sullivan said his organization has documented and will soon release a report about "shocking cases of systematic, retaliatory violence committed by the Taliban against SIV" applicants in Afghanistan. To tackle the challenges confronting the SIV program, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Roger Wicker have introduced legislation called the Afghan Allies Protection Act of 2023. The act aims to authorize 20,000 additional principal SIVs through 2029, along with other administrative reforms. Arash Azizzada, co-founder of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, said his organization currently supports about 200 Afghan asylum-seekers in the U.S., and among them are SIV applicants whose applications were either delayed or rejected, prompting them to take a long and perilous journey from Afghanistan to the United States through South America. More than half of SIV applications are unsuccessful for various reasons, including failure to provide acceptable documentation to prove they worked for the U.S. for at least a year. The program is also plagued by administrative delays. Through the end of 2022, SIV application processing by U.S. government agencies on average took 628 days, according to the Department of State. Enhanced efforts "At the president's direction, we have undertaken substantial efforts to improve the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program to streamline the application and adjudication processes, while safeguarding our national security," said a State Department spokesperson. As a result, the spokesperson said, over 27,000 SIVs have been issued since January 2021 – significantly more than in previous years – and the application processing time has been reduced to 314 calendar days this year. U.S. officials say many aspects of the SIV program, including approval from the chief of mission, are mandated by law. While the U.S. has no diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, SIV applications have been processed at 57 U.S. embassies and consulates in different parts of the world since September 2021, the spokesperson said. "What is needed is a permanent and sustainable solution," said Helal Massomi, a policy adviser with Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, a refugee support organization that has assisted thousands of SIV beneficiaries in the United States. Since its inception in 2009, more than 101,000 Afghans have benefited from the SIV program, with Congress authorizing a specific number of visas annually. A comprehensive solution, Massomi told VOA, should also include settlement pathways for the tens of thousands of Afghans who were evacuated in 2021 and then brought to the U.S. and offered temporary parole. Unlike SIV beneficiaries who qualify for permanent residence (green card) after arriving in the U.S., the parolees have no such option. The Afghan Adjustment Act, proposed legislation that offers a legal pathway for the permanent settlement of Afghan parolees, has been stalled in Congress for almost a year, despite widespread support from veteran, refugee and human rights groups. Expand the SIV While the Afghan Allies Protection Act seeks 20,000 additional SIVs for Afghans who worked for the U.S. military, there are calls for an expansion of the SIV program to include other vulnerable groups. In March, Representative John Garamendi introduced a bill that seeks to offer SIVs for Afghan Fulbright students. From 2003 to 2021, more than 900 Afghans received Fulbright scholarships, and most of them were required to return to Afghanistan at the end of their studies in the United States. Afghanistan has been characterized as a gender-apartheid regime under Taliban rule, with women being denied basic rights to work and education and excluded from public spaces. Despite strong condemnation of the Taliban's misogynistic policies, the United States has not established a special visa program for Afghan women suffering from Taliban repression. U.S. officials say Afghan women and other persecuted individuals can seek consideration under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), which takes referrals from the U.N. refugee agency. Another program, called P2, offers immigration opportunities for Afghans who previously worked for civilian U.S. projects in Afghanistan. "We have seen very small numbers of P2-referred Afghans arrive in the U.S.," Cinthya Hagemeier, a communications expert with the International Rescue Committee, told VOA. "In addition to general USRAP processing backlogs, delays have also occurred due to P2 designation requirements, where individuals must be processed outside their country of origin. That requirement particularly impacts Afghan women who are not able to travel without a male chaperone," Hagemeier said.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

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U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday agreed to deepen close economic ties between their countries, pledging to accelerate the clean energy transition and strengthen critical mineral supply chains. The two leaders also discussed their "unwavering support for the people in Ukraine," Biden told reporters at a joint news conference with Sunak, an opportunity not afforded to every world leader who visits the White House. Biden and the British prime minister released the Atlantic Declaration, which Sunak described as a first-of-its-kind economic partnership on issues like artificial intelligence, climate change and protecting technologies that would help shape the future. "I know some people have wondered what kind of partner Britain would be after it left the EU,” Sunak said. "I'd say, judge us by our actions. We're as committed to our values as ever, as reliable of an ally as ever, as attractive an investment destination as ever." Biden hailed the intensity of the economic relationship as an "enormous source of strength" that underpinned broader ties between the NATO allies. "We discussed how we can continue to adapt and upgrade our partnership to ensure our countries remain at the cutting edge of a rapidly changing world," he said. The two leaders shared laughs and more sober sentiments when they met in the Oval Office about the close relations between prior leaders from the two countries as they previewed topics for the meeting, including artificial intelligence and Northern Ireland, as well as joint economic and security interests, including in Asia. The meeting, their fourth in as many months, came as Western officials sought to ascertain whether Russia was responsible for the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, which has displaced thousands of people and caused major economic and environmental damage. Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the dam's destruction. Biden and Sunak both underscored continued support for Ukraine to ensure its long-term security and deter aggression after the war ends. Sunak said Ukraine's supporters needed to send a strong signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that their backing for Kyiv will not weaken as the war goes on. "We're not going anywhere. We will be here for as long as it takes," he said. "And hopefully that will speed up the calculation in his mind that he should withdraw his forces." Thursday's discussion focused heavily on ensuring the safety of AI and other emerging technologies, Sunak told reporters, saying Britain would host the first summit on the issue this autumn to discuss how the risks of AI can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action. Sunak had pushed to strengthen trading ties between Britain and the United States, keen to show some progress after the Biden administration quashed any speedy prospect of a post-Brexit free trade agreement between the two countries. Asked about the absence of a bigger trade deal, Sunak said the "specific, targeted measures" now being discussed were the right thing to focus on since they would remove red tape and facilitate billions of pounds of new investment in Britain. Sunak also sought Biden's backing for defense minister Ben Wallace's bid to become the next secretary-general of NATO. Biden said it remains to be seen whether it's time for a British leader of NATO, adding that the organization's members need to build consensus on a future leader.

The Kremlin on Thursday said a blast that damaged a pipeline once used to export Russian ammonia via Ukraine could have a "negative impact" on the fate of a Black Sea grain deal. The Togliatti-Odesa pipeline, which once pumped up to 2.5 million tons of ammonia annually for global export to Ukraine's Pivdennyi port on the Black Sea from Togliatti in western Russia, has been idle since the start of the war in February last year.  Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of blowing up a part of the pipeline, the world's longest to carry ammonia, in Ukraine's Kharkiv region on Monday. The regional Ukrainian governor said Russia had shelled the pipeline on Tuesday. Neither side provided evidence to back its allegations.  Asked by reporters about how the damage to the pipeline could affect the fate of the Black Sea grain deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "It can only have a negative impact."   He described it as "yet another complication in terms of extending the deal," adding that Russia did not know "what kind of destruction" there had been to the ammonia pipeline.   Russia has threatened to walk away from the Black Sea grain deal on July 17 if demands to improve its own food and fertilizer exports are not met. The deal, struck in July last year, facilitates the "safe navigation" of grain, foodstuffs and fertilizers — including ammonia — for export to global markets.  U.N. officials are continuing discussions with all the parties to the deal, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday.   "We're continuing our efforts through as many avenues as we can, given the importance of all of this to the fight against global hunger and ensuring that the prices of food do not spike on the global market," Dujarric told reporters.   The United Nations and Turkey brokered the Ukraine grain Black Sea export deal to help alleviate a global food crisis worsened by conflict disrupting exports from two of the world's leading grain suppliers.  To help persuade Russia to allow Ukraine to resume its Black Sea grain exports last year, a separate three-year agreement was also struck in July in which the United Nations agreed to help Russia with its food and fertilizer exports.  Dujarric said top U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan was due to meet with Russian officials in Geneva on Friday "as part of our routine contacts on our efforts to facilitate the trade in Russian fertilizer and Russian grain." Russian Industry and Trade minister Denis Manturov said earlier Thursday that Moscow had no access to the damaged part of the pipeline and did not expect to be granted it, the Interfax news agency reported.  Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that it would take one to three months to repair the damaged section of the pipeline.

U.S. officials tasked with tracking Islamic State are seeing worrisome signs that the terror group’s core leadership is strengthening control over its global network of affiliates despite a series of key losses. Specifically, the United States is raising concerns about the group’s General Directorate of Provinces, a series of nine regional offices set up over the past several years to sustain the group’s reputation and global capabilities. The U.S. State Department on Thursday highlighted the threat posed by these regional offices, designating the leaders of the offices in Iraq and in Africa’s Sahel region as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. 'Not yet done' “We remain focused on cutting off ISIS’s ability to raise and move funds across multiple jurisdictions,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, speaking to a meeting in Riyadh of the global coalition that has been working to defeat Islamic State, also known as ISIS, IS or Daesh. “For all our progress, the fight is not yet done,” Blinken added. A separate State Department statement Thursday noted the terror group maintains connections to the global financial system and that IS’s core leadership has “relied on its regional General Directorate of Provinces offices to provide operational guidance and funding around the world.” The new designations specifically name Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’I, the former emir of IS’s Iraq province, as the leader of the Iraq-based Bilad al-Rafidayn Office, and Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Mainuki as the leader of the al-Furqan office, which oversees operations in the Sahel. Concern about the regional offices has been growing for more than a year, with a U.N. report warning in July 2022 that the offices were key to the terror group’s plans for “reviving its external operational capability."   The U.N. report cited the al-Furqan office, located in the Lake Chad Basin and charged with overseeing the terror group’s efforts in and around Nigeria and the western Sahel, as one of “the most vigorous and best-established [ISIS] regional networks.” The report further warned that the Al-Siddiq office in Afghanistan and the Al-Karrar office in Somalia were likewise playing critical roles in Islamic State’s expansion. Intelligence shared by U.N. member states at the time, however, suggested some of the other regional offices, including those in Turkey, Libya, Yemen and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, were struggling, and in some cases nonfunctional. And despite a series of high-profile leadership losses, including the deaths or captures of at least 13 senior officials since early 2022, time seems to have worked in the terror group’s favor. The regional office model, answering to the group’s core leadership, “has really enabled a lot of these groups to rapidly gain capability,” said Anand Arun, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency senior officer and analyst. “They're pooling resources. They're sharing TTP [tactics, techniques and procedures]. They're sharing guidance,” Arun told a forum hosted by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism on Wednesday. “We're seeing ISIS’s local and regional attack capabilities in Africa increase.” Enhanced internet ties Others are also seeing IS affiliates, like IS West Africa Province, maximize these connections by using enhanced internet connections for what one expert described as “real-time communication.” “We also saw conference calls, sometimes conference calls between ISIS central and African groups but also amongst African groups,” said Bulama Bukarti, a researcher and vice president at the Bridgeway Foundation, a charity that aims to prevent mass atrocities. “They also share intelligence information, best practices,” he said, speaking at the same forum as Arun. “So, for example, if one affiliate looted a particular weapon they don't know how to operate, they just would take a photo of it, put it in the group [chat], and then someone would send them instructions, would send them a YouTube link with instructions on how to operate it.” Bukarti also warned that IS’s adoption of advanced technologies has extended to other areas, with IS West Africa Province conducting trials on how to arm commercial drones to be used in attacks. U.S. officials share the concern. “I'm very much concerned about that and kind of the trajectory,” said the DIA’s Arun, calling the possibilities “exponential.” “I think there's a lot of ways that they can harness what's coming with AI [artificial intelligence] and drones and other things,” he said. Already, the United States has been leading efforts to crack down on these networks. Last November, the Treasury Department sanctioned a smuggling network in Somalia that may have been linked to IS’s Al-Karrar regional office. And in January, U.S. special operations forces killed Bilal al-Sudani, a key IS financial facilitator, during a raid on a mountainous cave complex in a remote part of northern Somalia.   But some of the information turned up during that operation has given U.S. officials cause to worry about IS’s growing technological prowess. “If Bilal al-Sudani can access the internet from a cave in the Puntland of Somalia, I think they can figure it out,” Arun said.