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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.

Until recently, observers say Washington had largely sidelined Turkey in diplomatic efforts to resolve the Israel-Hamas war, but as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Turkey in the last few days signals that has changed.

Tehran — Iran on Monday threw its weight behind calls from neighboring Iraq to oust the U.S.-led anti-jihadi coalition from its territory after a U.S. strike killed a pro-Iran commander in Baghdad. "Regarding Iraq and the actions that the American government took recently, the Iraqi government has clearly announced its position," foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani told a press conference. Iran is confident that its neighbor has "the ability, strength and authority necessary to maintain security" on its territory alone, Kanani said. "We have repeatedly expressed our views to the authorities of the countries of the region, including Iraq, and declared that the presence of American forces in any form whatsoever... would not help to maintain stability and peace," he said. The Pentagon said Monday it was not currently planning to withdraw its roughly 2,500 troops from Iraq, despite Baghdad's announcement last week it would begin the process of removing the U.S.-led military coalition from the country. "Right now, I'm not aware of any plans (to plan for withdrawal). We continue to remain very focused on the defeat ISIS mission," Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told a news briefing, using an acronym for Islamic State. He added that U.S. forces are in Iraq at the invitation of its government. Ryder said he was also unaware of any notification by Baghdad to the Department of Defense about a decision to remove U.S. troops and referred reporters to the U.S. State Department for any diplomatic discussions on the matter. A U.S. drone strike Thursday killed a military commander and another member of Harakat al-Nujaba, a faction of Hashed al-Shaabi — a collection of mainly pro-Iran former paramilitary units now integrated into Iraq's armed forces. Washington called the attack in Baghdad an act of self-defense, but Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani's government decried it as an act of "blatant aggression" by the U.S.-led coalition. Sudani said Friday he was determined to "put an end" to the anti-jihadi coalition. His government relies on support from Tehran-aligned parties, and he has repeatedly said in recent weeks he would like to see foreign troops leave Iraq. Regional tensions are soaring, with the repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war being increasingly felt in Iraq and across the Middle East. U.S. and other coalition forces in Iraq, deployed since 2014 in the fight against the Islamic State group (IS), have come under regular attack since the fighting erupted on October 7 between Israel and Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas. Washington says there have been more than 100 attacks on its forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria since mid-October. Most have been claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-linked armed groups that oppose American support for Israel in the Gaza war. The United States has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the multinational coalition set up at the height of IS's territorial gains. Other coalition partners include France, Spain and Britain. In late 2017 Iraq declared victory over IS, but remaining jihadi cells in remote northern areas continue to launch sporadic attacks.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran hopes technical problems preventing Iranian Muslims from making the Umrah pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia will soon be resolved, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Monday. Iran initially announced in December that the first Umrah pilgrims would travel on December 19 following an agreement between Tehran and Riyadh to allow the pilgrimage to take place after a pause of eight years. However, this flight and subsequent ones were canceled due to Riyadh failing to provide "necessary final permits" for the entry of Iranian planes into Saudi airports, Hessam Qorbanali, spokesman for Iran Air, told state TV. "The relevant authorities have informed that it is just a technical issue and that there is no political dispute, as the bilateral agreement regarding Umrah pilgrimage is well-established and Saudi Arabia is committed to it," Kanaani said during a televised press conference on Monday. Saudi Arabia did not comment on the matter. Kanaani added that Iran's head of Hajj and Pilgrimage was in Saudi Arabia with a team of experts to resolve the problems. According to semi-official Tasnim News Agency, representatives of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization are also in Saudi Arabia working on the issues. China mediated an agreement in March under which Iran and Saudi Arabia resumed full diplomatic relations which were cut in 2016 over Riyadh's execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. Since 2016, Iranian pilgrims have only been able to complete the Hajj pilgrimage, a religious duty deemed compulsory for Muslims which is subject to strict annual quotas and timings. Umrah, known as the "lesser pilgrimage," can be undertaken at any time of the year and is not generally deemed compulsory in Islam.

Nigeria is a signatory to several international treaties aiming to end sexual and gender-based violence against women. However, the problem persists. Now some want new laws to hold offenders accountable. Timothy Obiezu has this story from Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Editor’s note: The rape survivors interviewed for this report have given consent to have their full names used.

OTTAWA — Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine on Monday formally complained to the U.N. aviation council in their bid to hold Iran accountable for the downing of a Ukrainian passenger airliner in January 2020 that killed 176 people, they said on Monday. Most of the dead were citizens from the four nations, which created a coordination group that seeks to hold Iran to account. "Today we have jointly initiated dispute-settlement proceedings before the International Civil Aviation Organization against the Islamic Republic of Iran for using weapons against a civil aircraft in flight," they said in a statement. Last June the four nations said they would take their case to the International Court of Justice. Iran says its Revolutionary Guards accidentally shot down the Boeing 737 jet and blamed a misaligned radar and an error by the air defense operator at a time when tensions were high between Tehran and Washington.

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.

Researchers in Taiwan are using a special robot to hunt mosquitoes that carry the virus that causes dengue fever. From the southern city of Kaohsiung, Shelley Schlender has our story.

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.

Tensions rise in Northern Israel as Hezbolla strikes an air traffic control base. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the region trying to prevent the conflict from widening. Plus Ukraine was again battered by Russian missiles, we’ll have an update from Kyiv.

Munich — Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup both as player and coach and became one of Germany's most beloved personalities with his easygoing charm, has died, news agency dpa reported Monday. He was 78. "It is with deep sadness that we announce that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday, Sunday, surrounded by his family," the family said in a statement to dpa, the German news agency. "We ask that we be allowed to grieve in peace and be spared any questions." The statement did not provide a cause of death. The former Bayern Munich great had struggled with health problems in recent years. Beckenbauer was one of German soccer's central figures. As a player, he reimagined the defender's role in soccer and captained West Germany to the World Cup title in 1974 after it had lost to England in the 1966 final. He was the coach when West Germany won the tournament again in 1990, a symbolic moment for a country in the midst of reunification, months after the Berlin Wall fell. Beckenbauer was also instrumental in bringing the highly successful 2006 World Cup to Germany, though his legacy was later tainted by charges that he only succeeded in winning the hosting rights with the help of bribery. He denied the allegations. Beckenbauer and three other members of the committee were formally made criminal suspects that year by Swiss prosecutors who suspected fraud in the true purpose of multi-million euro (dollar) payments that connected the 2006 World Cup with FIFA. But he was eventually not indicted in 2019 for health reasons and the case ended without a judgment when the statute of limitations expired in 2020 amid delays to the court system caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The allegations damaged Beckenbauer's standing in public perception for the first time. Until then, Beckenbauer had seemingly been unable to say or do anything wrong. Germans simply loved him. The son of a post official from the working-class Munich district of Giesing, Beckenbauer became one of the greatest players to grace the game in a career that also included stints in the United States with the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Born on Sept. 11, 1945, months after Germany's surrender in World War II, Beckenbauer studied to become an insurance salesman but he signed his first professional contract with Bayern when he was 18. "You are not born to become a world star in Giesing. Football for me was a deliverance. Looking back, I can say: Everything went according to how I'd imagined my life. I had a perfect life," Beckenbauer told the Sueddeutsche newspaper magazine in 2010. Beckenbauer personalized the position of "libero," the free-roaming nominal defender who often moved forward to threaten the opponent's goal, a role now virtually disappeared from modern football and rarely seen before his days. An elegant, cool player with vision, Beckenbauer defined as captain the Bayern Munich side that won three successive European Cup titles from 1974 to 1976. In his first World Cup as player in 1966, West Germany lost the final to host England. Four years later, with his arm strapped to his body because of a shoulder injury, Germany lost a memorable semifinal to Italy. Finally, in 1974 at home, Beckenbauer captained West Germany to the title. Beckenbauer left Bayern for New York in 1977 to play for the Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. He missed the 1978 World Cup because the Germans decided not to invite players playing abroad. He returned to Germany in 1980, spent two seasons with Hamburger SV — and won another Bundesliga championship, his fifth — before returning for a final season with the Cosmos. Although he had never coached before, Beckenbauer was hired to revive West Germany in 1984 after a flop at the European Championship. West Germany made it to the final of the 1986 World Cup, losing to Diego Maradona's Argentina in Mexico City. Although West Germany failed to win the 1988 Euros title at home, it went to the final of the 1990 World Cup and defeated Argentina in the final in Rome, another highlight in the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Later, at the news conference, he said he was "sorry for the rest of the world" because a united Germany would be unbeatable for years to come. But Germany had to wait 24 years before winning another World Cup title. Beckenbauer retired from the West Germany job after coaching the team to the 1990 World Cup triumph. The final was the last tournament game played by a West Germany-only team. He didn't have much success at coaching Marseille but won the Bundesliga title with Bayern in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996, both after taking over as coach late in the season. He later became Bayern's president, until leaving most functions when he turned 65 in 2010. Beckenbauer's legal issues around the 2006 World Cup continued into his retirement, but he remained a much-loved figure in German soccer and society.

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.

Seoul, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un turned 40 Monday with no announced public celebrations at home, after he entered the new year with artillery barrages into the sea and vows to expand his nuclear arsenal. Since taking power in late 2011, Kim, the third generation of his family to rule North Korea, is believed to have established an absolute leadership similar to his predecessors. But his birthday has yet to be officially celebrated, unlike his late father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung. Their birthdays are two of the North's biggest holidays and are marked with great fanfare, loyalty campaigns and sometimes massive military parades. On Monday, North Korea’s state news agency published a lengthy article extolling Kim’s guidance of major construction projects in the past decade. It also reported Kim visited a chicken farm with his daughter the previous day. But it made no mention of his birthday. Some observers speculate Kim may think he’s still relatively too young or needs bigger achievements to hold such lavish birthday festivities. Others say the lack of a public birthday bash may be related to his concerns about drawing attention to his late Japan-born mother. Kim's headlong pursuit of a bigger nuclear arsenal has invited punishing U.S.-led sanctions, which together with border closures during the pandemic were believed to have badly hurt the North's fragile economy. Kim has subsequently admitted policy failures as his vow that North Korea would “never have to tighten their belts again" remained unfulfilled. “For Kim, it's still probably politically burdensome to idolize himself as he’s still young and hasn’t accumulated much achievements,” said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification. Kim Yeol Soo, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said it will likely take some time for his birthday to become an official holiday because elderly members of the North's ruling elite would still think he's too young. Birthdays are central to the mythology of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, who had ruled North Korea with a god-like status since the country’s founding in 1948. Their birthdays — April 15 for Kim Il Sung, and Feb. 16 for Kim Jong Il — are typically celebrated with tributes to their giant statues, dance parties, fireworks and art performances. On some milestone birthdays, North Korea’s military holds huge parades with goose-stepping soldiers and powerful weapons capable of targeting the U.S. and South Korea. Kim Il Sung’s birthday was designated as an official holiday in 1968 when he turned 56, according to a website run by South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea. Kim Jong Il’s birthday reportedly became an official holiday in 1982, when he turned 40. North Korea has never formally commented on Kim Jong Un’s birthday. The only time Kim has been honored in public on his birthday was in 2014, when former NBA star Dennis Rodman sang “Happy birthday” before an exhibition basketball game in Pyongyang. The Unification Ministry-run website states that Kim Jong Un was born on Jan. 8. There are also views that Kim may be worried about bringing unwanted attentions to his mother, Ko Yong Hui, a Japan-born dancer who was known as his father's third or fourth wife. Ko's links to Japan, which had colonized the Korean Peninsula in the past, and the fact that she wasn't Kim Jong Il's first wife, are considered as disadvantageous for Kim’s dynastic rule. “The fact his mother came from Japan is his biggest weak point that undermines his legitimacy of the Paektu bloodline," Park Won Gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University, said, referring to the Kim family’s lineage named after the country’s most sacred mountain. “When Kim Jong Un's birthday becomes an official holiday, he won't still publicize details about his birth,” he said. Despite no known public birthday events, experts believe Kim Jong Un faces little political challenge and is expected to intensify his run of weapons tests ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. In a key ruling party meeting in late December, Kim vowed to enlarge his nuclear arsenal and launch additional spy satellites to cope with what he called unprecedented confrontation led by the U.S. In the past few days, he had his troops fire artillery shells near the disputed sea boundary with South Korea, raising tensions with his rival.

AILA New England Chapter Chair Robin Nice describes the recent successful set of EAD clinics hosted in Massachusetts, where state and federal agencies worked together with local partners and volunteers "to address immigration issues in a cooperative, common sense, humane manner."

The post New England AILA Members Joined Community and Government in Helping Newcomers first appeared on Blog: Think Immigration.

Islamabad — Pakistan's Supreme Court lifted lifetime bans on politicians with past convictions from running for public office Monday, paving the way for former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to run in the national elections next month.  The top court announced the widely anticipated ruling after several days of hearings in a case that critics said was launched primarily to give relief to politicians allegedly backed by the powerful Pakistani military.  Prosecutors questioned the lifetime ban and argued that disqualification should be limited to the constitutionally mandated five-year term of the parliament.  Sharif was found guilty of corruption by the Supreme Court in 2017, forcing him to resign from the prime minister's office. A subsequent top court ruling banned for life Sharif and other public office holders convicted under constitutional clauses requiring lawmakers to be "honest and trustworthy."  The 74-year-old former leader was not an applicant in the lawsuit, but Monday's verdict makes him eligible to contest the February 8 elections and become the prime minister for a fourth time. His Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N Party, is considered a front-runner to win the vote.  Sharif's main rival, former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has been imprisoned since last August after he was convicted and sentenced to three years in a graft case. Khan, 71, cannot contest the upcoming polls because his conviction led the country's election commission to ban him from national politics for five years.  The jailed cricket hero-turned-politician denies any wrongdoing and accuses the Pakistani military of engineering the toppling of his government last year and subsequently instituting frivolous lawsuits to block his return to power.  According to public polls, Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, is rated as the most popular political party, but it has been under a government crackdown for months. Dozens of senior PTI leaders remain in jail or in hiding to escape arrest, and their candidacies have also been rejected in violation of election laws, say party lawyers. While Sharif's eligibility to contest the polls became effective only after Monday's Supreme Court ruling, critics noted that election officials had already approved his candidacy, turning down objections by his rival candidates. Sharif was serving a 10-year sentence in 2019 when a court allowed him to leave jail and go to London for medical treatment for a few weeks, but he didn’t return to Pakistan.  He ended his self-imposed exile and returned to Pakistan last October after courts suspended his convictions, a move Khan alleges was the outcome of Sharif’s deal with the military. The PML-N and the military deny the charges.