Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - Voice of America
Indaba zesiNdebele Ekuseni - July 26, 2024
[Music] [Music] This is FOA News. I'm Michael Brown, U.S. President Joe Biden, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday. Broders correspond in Zachary Gohlman reports. [Music] Biden pressed for a ceasefire to the nine-month-old war in Gaza. There are gaps that remain. White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said the administration was working to get both Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire proposed by Biden that would halt fighting and see the release of Israeli hostages taking captive during Hamas's surprise attack on October 7th. The U.S. is a major arms supplier to Israel. Biden took the rare step earlier this year of pausing the transfer of certain munitions it deemed inappropriate for warfare in the densely populated Gaza strip. Zachary Gohlman reporting U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday she's ready to debate Donald Trump, the AP Sarger McGonnie has the story. Voters deserve to see a split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. Harris notes Trump and President Biden agreed on two debates. One already happened and the next was to be hosted by ABC News on September 10th. Now it appears he's back peddling. Trump has said he'd prefer to shift that debate to Fox News but would still be willing to debate Harris more than once. I'm ready. Let's go. Sarger McGonnie at the White House. A Hong Kong court Thursday rejected a bid by lawyers of jail pro-democracy publisher Jimmy, Jimmy Lai to end his ongoing national security trial saying it believes prosecutors do have enough evidence to support the three charges against Lai. Lai's national security trial began in Hong Kong in December of last year. It is set to resume in November when Lai is expected to present his evidence. Press Freedom's groups have condemned Lai's trial as a sham in the British and U.S. government had called for his immediate release. For more news, join us at VOA news.com. This is VOA news. A raging wildfire has devastated a Western Canadian tourist town as firefighters work to save as many bill buildings as possible. We have more on that story from Reuters, Freddy Joyner. Our birder premier Danielle Smith choked back tears at a news conference Thursday as she described the impact of a raging wildfire that has devastated the Western Canadian tourist town of Jasper. We're seeing potentially 30 to 50% structural damage. We don't know particularly which structures have been damaged and which ones have been destroyed, but that's going to be a significant rebuild and significant displacement for a long period of time. Jasper is in the middle of mountainous Jasper National Park in the province of Alberta. The town in the park, which draw more than two million tourists a year, were evacuated on Monday. The AP's Norman Hall reports as authorities in the state of Texas have arrested a historic leader of Mexico's Cinallor cartel. We have his story right now. The Justice Department says Ismail El Mayo-Zambada, a historic leader of Mexico's Cinalloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman-López, the son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested in El Paso on Thursday. A leader of the cartel for decades alongside Joaquin El Chapo-Gusman, somebody was known for running the cartel's smuggling operations, but keeping a lower profile. The Drug Enforcement Administration had offered a reward of up to 15 million dollars for information leading to his capture. The Justice Department says the Cinalloa cartel is one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. Ironman Hall calls the provinces in eastern and southern China have upgraded their typhoon emergency responses as typhoon Guayumi swipes the region bringing sustained rain storms, strong winds. Typhoon Guayumi, the third typhoon of this year, made its second landfall in China and Putin's city east of China's Fujian province Thursday, according to the weather service there. The Paris Olympics officially began with the opening ceremony on Friday. It is the city's first Olympic Games in a century. Lisa Bryant has more from the French capital. Roughly 15 million visitors and more than 10,000 athletes are expected for these games, but many Parisians have already left on holiday. Traditional tourists are staying away. Organizers hope these Olympics will be unforgettable. They've promised the most environmentally friendly games ever. Friday's Senn River ceremony, gathering athletes, political leaders and global stars, will be the first ever outside a stadium. Lisa Bryant, VOA News, Paris. And for more news, join us at VOANews.com. I'm Michael Brown, VOA News. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House. I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel. The Paris Olympics begin with the opening ceremony. Friday's Senn River ceremony, gathering athletes, political leaders and global stars, will be the first ever outside a stadium. And what if you could build your ideal partner from the ground up? If you were to build your dream level from scratch, what would that look like? Scientists are using AI to figure it out. Today is Friday, July 26th. And this is VOA's International Edition. I'm Alexis Strope. And I'm Scott Walterman. U.S. President Joe Biden pressed for a ceasefire to the nine-month-old war in Gaza in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday at the White House. Reuters correspondent Zachary Goldman has details. There are gaps that remain. White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said the administration was working to get both Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire proposed by Biden that would halt fighting and see the release of Israeli hostages taking captive during Hamas' surprise attack on October 7th. We want to get all the hostages home, clearly the Americans in particular. And that's why this deal was so important, Peter. And we are close. We are closer now. We believe than we've been before. As president, we've known each other for 40 years. The meeting marks the first face-to-face talks for the two men since Biden traveled to Israel days after Hamas' October attack hugged Netanyahu and pledged American support. I want to thank him for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel. Netanyahu thanked Biden for his longstanding commitment to Israeli security. But relations between the two leaders have been strained for months over Israel's Gaza offensive, in which more than 39,000 people have been killed, according to health officials in Gaza. The Gaza conflict has caused cracks in the Democratic Party. Dozens of Democrats boycotted a speech by Netanyahu to Congress on Wednesday. Representative Rashida Tlaib sat in the gallery with a sign calling Netanyahu a war criminal. The U.S. is a major arms supplier to Israel. Biden took the rare step earlier this year of pausing the transfer of certain munitions it deemed inappropriate for warfare in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Netanyahu meets with Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, and then on Friday travels to Florida to meet Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Reuters correspondent Zachary Goldman, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris described her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "frank and constructive" during a press conference on Thursday, reaffirming her unwavering commitment to Israel's security. I also expressed with the Prime Minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over two million people facing high levels of food insecurity. Harris emphasized that she strongly urged Netanyahu to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a discussion closely monitored for potential changes in U.S. policy towards Israel if she becomes president. It has been a whirlwind trip to the United States for the Israel Prime Minister and addressed to the U.S. Congress a meeting with the President and Vice President Kamala Harris, and a scheduled meeting with former President Donald Trump on Friday. But what did Netanyahu really want to accomplish, and has he helped or hurt his cause with the trip? Joining us now to talk about this is Professor Michael Provens, who teaches modern Middle East history, focusing on the 20th century Arab East at the University of California, San Diego. So what do you think Netanyahu hoped to accomplish when he came here? Well, that's a really, it's a wonderful question. It's a perceptive question because it's not, probably he didn't exactly know what he thought he was going to get out of it, you know, because he's been around on in American politics for, you know, getting close to 30 years. And you know, he has a very, very well-tuned sense of self-regard, and a feeling that he can manipulate American politics and American politicians, he's boasted about this for years, that he can move America, you know, this is more or less a direct quote. So he, you know, convinced himself probably that he was going to be able to come there, get Donald Trump elected, and defeat his critics at home, and do all kinds of miraculous things, and he accomplished none of that. It's kind of, I'd say, bizarre, respect about it, really. So you think he lives in a bubble of his own making his own bubble? The speech sounded like he was talking to, he was trying to get George Bush the second re-elected in 2004, and it was the War on Terror, which I think is, you know, the clear syndication of his astonishing astounding tone deafness to American politics and to his own very polarizing position in the United States. So the amount of damage that he's done to the case and the cause of Israel in the United States, I think, is incalculable over the last, well, you know, a number of years, but now I think it's actually becoming obvious to lots of people. Do you think he was dismissive and callous towards the civilians in Gaza, because I didn't hear anything in the speech that resembled any empathy? No. Well, the interesting thing, or the chilling thing, I would say, is this discussion of civilization versus barbarism, which, you know, if it's February of 2003, and the Bush administration is trying to sell a catastrophic devastating war against you, you know, you might be able to make that kind of argument, but after ordering his army to lay waste to Gaza, cut off food, water, electricity, and kill probably somewhere upwards of 40,000 people, civilization versus barbarism, it's really, it's unbelievable. And to define the victims of his policies as barbarians is also breathtaking, racist, and offensive on so many levels. So I think he talked about decency, decent countries, well, decency is what he lacks, and that is so clear, Nancy Pelosi said it was the worst speech that anyone, any foreign leader had ever given that she'd heard, and I, yeah, it's hard to argue with that, so really unbelievable. There were people in the chamber who was with him, though. Well, they shouldn't have been, and, you know, he's the kind of person who's going to take people down with him, so, you know, I mean, they are American politicians after all, so they're not, they're not facing the Israeli electorate, although he is, and they're not, you know, I mean, he didn't make any friends, he didn't do any good for himself among Israelis, any Israelis, probably either, but, you know, I think people like Speaker Mike Johnson, I mean, the thing that is really interesting as well is that this is a head of state who came to give an address to a joint session of Congress without an imitation of the corresponding head of state twice. When has this ever happened anywhere in history that the king doesn't invite the corresponding king to come and address his parliament or president or whatever you have? I mean, it doesn't happen, so, you know, his hubris, that he can do this and get away with it, and it's a good idea to accept these invitations from the opposing, the opposition party to the party in power is crazy, and it's, you know, I think it's not, it's now becoming clear that it's crazy, and, you know, he, like I say, he caused, he did a lot of damage to his own, his own, to Israel and to the cause of Israel in the United States, and to the election, he didn't help Trump, and so it's really sort of a, it's a bit of a train wreck, I would say. I think that there's a lot of people that say that he has damaged Israel globally in terms of its reputation, do you agree with that? Certainly, and it's taken a long time for that to kind of, you know, come around, I mean, the, you know, I remember in the 90s, he was elected in 1995 or '96, I think, and Clinton was an office, Clinton was trying to get the Oslo Accords and a two-state solution through, and he was elected with the express purpose and on the platform of opposing, destroying and eliminating the possibility of a two-state solution, of a permanent peace element between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and consequently, a peace treaty with all of the surrounding Arab states. This is, this, this goal to destroy that, and when Clinton would, would pressure him, he would go and, and let go in a lecture circuit in the south to all of these evangelical Christian Zionist mega churches and put pressure on Clinton in this way, and then he would boast about it, and, you know, he, I mean, I lived in, in Dallas in teaching at SMU in, in 2001, and I remember, you know, he, he made a tour, he came through, and, and it was really pretty remarkable. So, you know, this is the origin of his idea, but what he's done is to deliver the cause of Israel to create Israel as a, as an ally, a partisan issue. And so, Democrats who support Israel are going to be on the ropes, and Republicans, you know, who are skeptical. I mean, it's, he has fully associated support for Israel with the right, and not only with the right, but also with Donald Trump's right. Well, I mean, you know, Donald Trump is not the, his, his experience is not replicatable. Lots of people have already tried. One day he'll be gone, um, where will that leave Netanyahu, um, you know, among people under 30 Donald Trump is not very popular, and I would argue, you know, that Netanyahu is probably even less popular among young people, uh, and by association, Israel and defending Israel and Israeli policies are even less popular among people under 35 in the United States than, than say Donald Trump, so that is a real miscalculation. Thank you so much for the time and the insight. My pleasure. Michael Provence at the University of California, San Diego. We're following these other stories from around the world. Ethnic armed groups in Myanmar are claiming to have captured two strategically important towns in the Northeast. Neshio was home to the major regional military headquarters and McGawk is the center of the country's lucrative gem mining industry. Their fall would be the biggest in a series of setbacks suffered by Myanmar's military government this year. South Africa's democratic alliance is taking the African National Congress, the party it co governs the country with to court over pre-election speech given by President Cyril Ramaphosa, it's an early sign of friction between the country's most important partners in the new multi party coalition. It argues that a presidential address was used for election campaigning and was an abuse of office. US authorities say a North Korean military intelligence operative has been indicted in a conspiracy to hack into American medical centers, military bases and NASA. The grand jury indictment announced Thursday in Kansas City, Missouri accuses Ram Jong-Yuk of ransomware attacks and other hacks on targets in the United States, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. In our continuing coverage of the 2024 US presidential election, who will she pick? That's the big political question in America after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and Vice President Kamala Harris became the likely Democratic nominee. Harris has to choose a running mate against Republican Donald Trump and his VP pig JD Vance. Beaway's chief national correspondent, Steve Herman, is at the White House and has this report. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type. Kamala Harris, for the time being campaigning solo for president. Among those under consideration to join her as the party's vice presidential candidate are a bunch of governors, including Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat who won twice when his state chose Republican Donald Trump for president, and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, which both parties consider a must-win state in November. Then there's an astronaut who became a US senator, Arizona's Mark Kelly. With the Democratic National Convention just weeks away, it will be a rushed process. The danger of an accelerated process is that, you know, things will be overlooked, mistakes will be made, that a more leisurely process would have prevented, but she has no choice. She has to do it fast and get it right. There's no science to getting it right. It's about selecting someone who can attract the most votes, especially in the handful of swing states likely to determine the outcome. That may mean focusing on geography rather than personality. I think someone from the Midwest or from the South would be a good choice, Andy Beshear, he's a governor from Kentucky. I think he would make a good choice, we want to make sure that we're balancing out the ticket because we have someone from California. That someone from California is Kamala Harris, and since political considerations rule out the presidential and vice presidential candidates coming from the same state, that rules out Governor Gavin Newsom, widely expected to be a presidential candidate in a future election. And about two women on the ticket, Gretchen Whitmer is governor of the important swing state of Michigan, but does not appear keen to make history that way. I am not leaving Michigan. I'm proud to be the governor of Michigan. I've been consistent. I know everyone is always suspicious and asking this question over and over again. I know you're doing your job. I'm not going anywhere. Popularity as a governor or success in Congress does not guarantee making a big splash as a running mate. It's the author of two books about the vice presidency, Joel King Goldstein. Are they ready to shine on the national stage, which is quite different than running in one state or one district? The second in command is also ideally someone the voters are comfortable with just a heartbeat away from the presidency. Steve Harmon, VOA News at the White House. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro faces opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez in Sunday's election. Reuters correspondent Alex Cohen has a look at the candidates and the issues in the campaign. President Nicolas Maduro, who has been in the job since 2013, is running for a third term. The 61-year-old who succeeded Hugo Chavez is confident he is still the right man to lead the OPEC country that has been governed by the socialists for a quarter of a century. His challengers Edmundo Gonzalez, a 74-year-old former diplomat who has attracted significant support, drawing crowds of thousands. He was almost an unknown when he became the opposition alliance's last-minute candidate. After Maria Carina Machado, the winner of its October primary, was barred from public office over alleged fraud which she denies. She is back to Gonzalez and has appeared at his side at several stops on the campaign trail. Maduro has loosened currency controls and curbed one sky-high inflation, but the economy remains stymied by a fallen oil income and enduring sanctions. He is warned of a "bloodbath" if the opposition wins and has promised a new period of growth that will mean the economy will no longer depend on oil income. Gonzalez has appealed to Venezuelan voters' emotions, telling supporters that a change in government could motivate some of the more than 7.7 million migrants who have left the country to return. Gonzalez said Thursday he trusts the country's military will respect the will of the people, but other members of the opposition and some independent observers have questioned whether the vote will be fair, saying decisions by electoral authorities and the arrests of some opposition campaign staff are meant to create obstacles. Maduro has said the country has the world's most transparent electoral system. The United States and others have dismissed the 2018 re-election of Maduro as a sham. The U.S. urged Maduro's government to ensure that Sunday's election is competitive and inclusive. Reuters correspondent Alex Cohen. "The OA's international edition continues. I'm Scott Walterman." And I'm Alexis Strope. More than 250 people have died in landslides in southern Ethiopia, and Reuters correspondent David Doyle reports the death toll is expected to nearly double. That's according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on Thursday. Heavy rains triggered a landslide that buried people in the gopher's own on Sunday night. A second landslide the next day engulfed those engaged in rescue efforts. One gopher resident Alemitu Soma said she had recently given birth to twins. "My husband is dead. My sister is dead. Her body has not been found. The day is dark for me." So Maori Ayale, an administrator in gopher's own, said rescuers had so far recovered 226 bodies which had been buried at a funeral ceremony and was searching for more. He said it is too dangerous to approach the site, adding that the rains were continuing on Thursday. Reuters correspondent David Doyle. Sharks, off the coast of Brazil's party city Rio de Janeiro, have tested positive for cocaine. "That's Rachel Ann Houser, David. He's a biologist who says the sharks were consuming coke due to its continuous release from inadequate sewage treatment facilities and clandestine refining operations. Sharks may also have attacked bricks of cocaine that traffickers had lost at sea off the coast of Brazil in one of the world's largest markets for the drug." "Listen, beautiful. I'm sorry about everything that's happened and I can't guarantee no harm's going to come to you." That's a clip from the video game Grand Theft Auto. Real actors voiced the scenes in video games that set up the action. Hollywood's video game performers voted to go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections. To strike, the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radioartists, began Friday morning. And finally... "If you were to build your dream lover from scratch, what would that look like?" "What would your ideal partner be like if you could create them from the ground up?" This is the question that sexuality researcher, Kamna Lozwani, is investigating using artificial intelligence. "You can write the story of how you met, what he was wearing, what you were wearing, what the context is, what the personality traits are." "And it's not just about making the perfect digital companion." "I'm really trying to see where the integration of technology is going to help us learn more about ourselves, educate ourselves better, and again where we're going to take it into the future." By 2045, predictions indicate that one in ten young adults might engage sexually with humanoid robots. AI researcher Andrew Patel warns that alongside potential mental trauma, users may also face significant privacy and data protection risks. "These applications collect a lot of data and people who interact with them become quite intimate with them. One interacting with one of these apps may share information with the AI that it wouldn't even share with friends or family or their wife, you know? And if that information were to leak a great deal of users, you know, that's a treasure trove of problematic content being put out onto the internet." As technology evolves, Bajwani says it's important to embrace technology while staying aware of its limitation. This has been International Edition on the Voice of America. "On behalf of everyone here at VOA, thank you so much for joining us." For pictures, stories, videos, and more, follow VOA News on your favorite social media platform and online at VOANews.com. In Washington, with Alexa Strope, I'm Scott Bultraman. (upbeat music)