SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Manure. Cigarette butts. Scraps of cloth. Waste batteries. Even, reportedly, diapers. This week, North Korea floated hundreds of huge balloons to dump all of that trash across rival South Korea — an old-fashioned, Cold War-style provocation that the country has rarely used in recent years.

The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un confirmed Wednesday that North Korea sent the balloons and attached trash sacks. She said they were deployed to make good on her country’s recent threat to “scatter mounds of wastepaper and filth” in South Korea in response to the leafleting campaigns by South Korean activists.

Experts say the balloon campaigning is meant to stoke a division in South Korea over its conservative government’s hardline policy on North Korea. They also say North Korea will also likely launch new types of provocations in coming months to meddle in November’s U.S. presidential election.

Here’s a look at what North Korea’s balloon launches are all about.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Since Tuesday night, about 260 balloons flown from North Korea have been discovered across South Korea. There’s no apparent danger, though: The military said an initial investigation showed that the trash tied to the balloons doesn’t contain any dangerous substances like chemical, biological or radioactive materials.

There have been no reports of damages in South Korea. In 2016, North Korean balloons carrying trash, compact discs and propaganda leaflets caused damage to cars and other property in South Korea. In 2017, South Korea found a suspected North Korean balloon with leaflets again. This week, no leaflets were found from the North Korean balloons.

Flying balloons with propaganda leaflets and other items is one of the most common types of psychological warfare the two Koreas launched against each other during the Cold War. Other forms of Korean psychological battle have included loudspeaker blaring, setting up giant front-line electronic billboards and signboards and propaganda radio broadcasts. In recent years, the two Koreas have agreed to halt such activities but sometimes resumed them when tensions rose.

WHAT DOES NORTH KOREA WANT?

The North’s balloon launches are part of a recent series of provocative steps, which include its failed spy satellite launch and test-firings of about 10 suspected short-range missiles this week. Experts say the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, will likely further dial up tensions ahead of the U.S. election to try to help former President Donald Trump return to the White House and revive high-stakes diplomacy between them.

“The balloon launches aren’t weak action at all. It’s like North Korea sending a message that next time, it can send balloons carrying powder forms of biological and chemical weapons,” said Kim Taewoo, a former president of South Korea’s government-funded Institute for National Unification.

Koh Yu-hwan, an emeritus professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said North Korea likely determined that the balloon campaign is a more effective way to force South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s government to clamp down on the South’s civilian leafletting.

“The point is to make the South Korean people uncomfortable, and build a public voice that the government’s policy toward North Korea is wrong,” Koh said.

North Korea is extremely sensitive to leaflets that South Korean activists occasionally float across the border via their own balloons, because they carry information about the outside world and criticism of the Kim dynasty’s authoritarian rule. Most of the North’s 26 million people have little access to foreign news.

In 2020, North Korea blew up an empty, South Korean-built liaison office on its territory in protest of South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns.

WAS ANYTHING LEARNED FROM THE TRASH?

North Korea is one of the world’s most secretive countries in the world, and foreign experts are keen on collecting any fragmentary information coming from the country.

But Koh said that there won’t be much meaningful information that South Korea can gain from the North Korean trash dumps, because North Korea would have not put any important items into balloons.

If the manure is the kind made of animal dung, its examination may show what fodder is given to livestock in North Korea. Looks at other trash can provide a glimpse into consumer products in North Korea. But observers say outside experts can get such information more easily from North Korean defectors, their contacts in North Korea and Chinese border towns, and North Korean state publications.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS ON TENSIONS ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA?

The North’s balloon activities may deepen public calls in South Korea to stop anti-North Korean leafleting to avoid unnecessary clashes. But it’s unclear whether and how aggressively the South Korean government can urge civil groups to refrain from sending balloons toward North Korea.

In 2023, South Korea’s Constitutional Court struck down a contentious law that criminalized the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets, calling it an excessive restriction on free speech.

“From Pyongyang’s perspective, this is a tit-for-tat and even restrained action to get Seoul to stop anti-Kim regime leaflets from being sent north. However, it will be difficult for democratic South Korea to comply, given ongoing legal disputes over the freedom of citizens and NGOs to send information into North Korea,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“The immediate danger of military escalation is not high,” he said, “but recent developments show how sensitive and potentially vulnerable the Kim regime is to information operations.”

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico goes into Sunday’s election deeply divided: friends and relatives no longer talk politics for fear of worsening unbridgeable divides, while drug cartels have split the country into a patchwork quilt of warring fiefdoms. The atmosphere is literally heating up, amid a wave of unusual heat, drought, pollution and political violence.

It’s unclear whether Mexico’s next president will be able to rein in the underlying violence and polarization.

Soledad Echagoyen, a Mexico City doctor who supports President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, says she can no longer talk about politics with her colleagues.

“In order to not lose friendships, we decided not to bring up politics starting six years ago, because we were arguing, and the attacks started to get personal,” said Dr. Echagoyen.

Being a critic of the current administration does not appear to be easier.

“There’s too much hate,” said Mexico City student Luis Ávalos, 21. He said some of his friends accuse him of “betraying the country” for not supporting López Obrador.

Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez has focused her ire on López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy of not confronting the drug cartels.

She faces former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who is running for López Obrador’s Morena party. Sheinbaum, who leads in the race, has promised to continue all of López Obrador’s policies.

López Obrador himself likes to depict every issue as a struggle between the forces of the “good people” and shadowy conservative conspiracies, and he has done a lot to stoke the flames of division and anger.

“More than an election, this is a referendum to choose the kind of country we want,” López Obrador said recently. And it really is a referendum on him: he — much like Donald Trump in the United States — is the central figure in the campaign.

In Mexico, just as across the globe, forces of angry, charismatic populism are fighting it out with an income-polarized liberal democracy. Issues of national identity, the influence of foreigners and economic exclusion have divided the country into warring camps.

“In this country, what’s being built isn’t a sense of citizenship, but rather of voter bases,” said Gloria Alcocer, the director of the civic-minded magazine Voz y Voto, roughly “Voice and Vote.” López Obrador is prohibited by law from running for reelection to another six-year term.

The battle lines are drawn: the ruling Morena Party already holds the governorships of 23 of the country’s 32 states, and is going for them all. It already has a simple majority in both houses of Congress, and wants a two-thirds majority so it can amend the Constitution at will.

It is hard to describe how chilling that is for some Mexicans who spent more than four decades trying to build a formal democracy, with checks and balances, watchdog agencies and strict electoral rules, almost all of which Morena has said it would like to defund or eliminate if it gets the chance.

Like the old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party — which held Mexico’s presidency without interruption for a record 70 years — Morena hasn’t hesitated to use the government’s power to influence elections, hand out money or embark on big building schemes that may never be truly finished.

But it’s also hard to describe how attractive López Obrador policies have been for many Mexicans who have felt excluded under 40 years of what he calls “neo-liberal,” market-oriented administrations.

Under López Obrador, Mexico has more than doubled its still-tragically low minimum wage (now about $15 per day, or about $2 per hour). While that’s not going to change anybody’s life — a Big Mac now costs about $5.19 in Mexico, compared to an average of $5.69 in the U.S. — it is the underlying appeal of Morena’s platform that draws many voters.

The implicit message for many Mexicans during market-oriented governments over the decades was that they were somehow wrong for not learning more English, working in manual labor and not in the tech economy, receiving government subsidies and living in a traditional, family-dominated culture.

López Obrador turned this narrative on its head: he intentionally mispronounces English phrases, glorifies manual labor, says subsidies are good, favors state-run companies and says Mexico is strong precisely because of its family values and Indigenous culture: he has even claimed those same values make Mexicans immune to drug addiction.

López Obrador says fighting the drug cartels — which have taken over large swaths of Mexico, extorting protection money from all walks of life — is a foreign idea, one imposed on Mexico by the United States. He has opted instead for a “hugs not bullets” approach and limiting cooperation with U.S. authorities in fighting the gangs.

Sheinbaum is an academic who lacks López Obrador’s charisma, folksy style and mass appeal. She says her administration will follow the outgoing president’s policies, but with more data to back up her decisions.

Gálvez, a woman who went from a poor Indigenous town to starting her own tech firm, has been the wild card in the race: her plain-spoken, folksy approach has produced both punchy phrases and monumental gaffes. Both women are 61. A third little-known male candidate from a small party has trailed far behind both women.

Sunday’s elections — which will also decide congressional seats and thousands of local posts — are different from those of the past in other ways.

About 27 candidates — mostly running for mayor or town councils — have been killed so far this year. While that number is not much higher than in some past elections, what is unprecedented is the mass shootings: candidates used to be murdered in direct attacks that killed only them, but now criminals have taken to spraying whole campaign events with gunfire.

And, as international studies professor Carlos A. Pérez Ricart notes, “where there are no shootings, it’s because (local government) institutions have already been taken over” by the cartels.

Mexico has also been baking under a heat wave so intense that howler monkeys have literally been dropping dead from the trees. Almost all of the country is suffering some level of water shortage and air pollution has been so bad in the capital, that a fifth of the cars have been banned from driving.

All of that is not exactly helping cool tempers or drawing people toward reconciliation. In the present scenario, perhaps the only positive thing is that it doesn’t appear the election will be particularly tight.

“This country couldn’t really handle a narrow margin of victory,” said Pérez Ricart. “We are lacking true democrats on both sides.”

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico held the last day of campaigning Wednesday before Sunday’s nationwide election, but the closing rallies were darkened by attacks on candidates and the country’s persistently high homicide rate.

Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez started her last campaign rallies early Wednesday on the outskirts of Mexico City, and she focused her ire on President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” policy of not confronting the drug cartels.

Gálvez is facing the candidate of López Obrador’s Morena party, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum. Sheinbaum, who leads in the race, has promised to continue all of López Obrador’s policies.

“Are we going to continue with hugs, or are we going to apply the law to criminals?” Gálvez asked a cheering crowd. “Mexico wants peace, wants tranquility.”

López Obrador has withdrawn funding for police forces and directed it to the quasi-military National Guard, which critics say lacks the professional and investigative abilities needed to fight the drug gangs. Gálvez promised to return the funding to police forces and guarantee them wages of at least $1,200 per month.

Gálvez also pledged to reconcile a country that has been highly polarized by the outgoing president’s rhetoric, saying “enough division, enough hatred … we are all Mexicans.”

Sheinbaum held her final rally later Wednesday in Mexico City’s vast, colonial-era central square. She delivered a strongly nationalistic speech to a large crowd.

“Mexico is respected in the world, it is a reference point,” Sheinbaum said, claiming that López Obrador’s government “has returned to us the pride of being Mexicans.”

“Mexico has changed, and for the better,” she said.

On the violence issue, Sheinbaum vowed to continue López Obrador’s policy of offering apprenticeships to encourage youths not to join drug cartels.

“We will deepen the strategy of peace and security, and the progress that has been made,” she said. “This is not an iron fist” policy, Sheinbaum said. “This is justice.”

While López Obrador has increased the country’s minimum wage and increased government benefit programs, he has been unable to significantly reduce the historically high homicide rate, which currently runs at more than 30,000 killings per year nationwide. That gang-fueled violence has also cast a shadow over the campaigns.

Late Wednesday, a mayoral candidate in the violent southern state of Guerrero was shot to death in the town of Coyuca de Benitez. Gov. Evelyn Salgado identified the dead candidate as Alfredo Cabrera, but gave no further details on his killing. Local media reported he was shot in the head at his closing campaign event.

A mayoral candidate in the western state of Jalisco was shot multiple times by intruders in his campaign offices late Tuesday. Two members of Gilberto Palomar’s campaign staff were also wounded, and all three were hospitalized in serious condition, according to Jalisco state security coordinator Sánchez Beruben.

Mexicans will vote Sunday in an election weighing gender, democracy and populism, as they chart the country’s path forward in voting shadowed by cartel violence. With two women leading the contest, Mexico will likely elect its first female president. More than 20,000 congressional and local positions are up for grabs, according to the National Electoral Institute.

Gunmen killed an alternate mayoral candidate in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City on Tuesday, state prosecutors said.

Local media reported attackers on a motorcycle shot Ricardo Arizmendi five times in the head in the city of Cuautla in Morelos. Alternate candidates take office if the winner of a race is incapacitated or resigns.

About 27 candidates, mostly running for mayor or town councils, have been killed so far this year. While that is not much higher than in some past elections, what is unprecedented is the mass shootings: candidates used to be killed in targeted attacks, but now criminals have taken to spraying whole campaign events with gunfire.

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TOKYO (AP) — A group working under the U.N. Human Rights Council has issued a wide-ranging report about rights in Japan, including discrimination against minorities and unhealthy working conditions.

The report, issued this week in Geneva, recommended various changes in Japan, such as more training in businesses to raise awareness of rights issues, setting up mechanisms to hear grievances, enhancing diversity and strengthening checks on labor conditions, as well as sanctions on human rights violations.

The U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights, which visited Japan last year, is made up of independent human rights experts who work under a mandate from the council, but they don’t speak for it.

Their report listed as problem areas the gender wage gap and discrimination against the Ainu indigenous group, LGBTQ and people with disabilities, noting a long list of people it considered “at risk.”

“The crux of the challenges faced by at-risk stakeholder groups is the lack of diversity and inclusion in the labor market, on the one hand, and the prevalence of discrimination, harassment and violence in the workplace and society at large on the other,” it said.

The report called “abhorrent” the working conditions of foreigners and migrants and voiced concern about cancer cases among people working at the Fukushima nuclear plant that suffered meltdowns in 2011.

The report also said protection of whistleblowers in Japan and access to the judicial process need to be improved.

Among the issues raised in the report was alleged sexual abuse at the Japanese entertainment company formerly known as Johnny and Associates.

Dozens of men have come forward alleging they were sexually abused as children and teens by Johnny Kitagawa, who headed Johnny’s, as the company is known, while they were working as actors and singers decades ago.

Kitagawa was never charged and died in 2019. The head of Johnny’s issued a public apology in May last year. The company has not yet responded to the report.

The report said the monetary compensation that the company, now renamed Smile-Up, paid to 201 people was not enough.

“This is still a long way from meeting the needs of the victims who have requested timely remediation, including those whose compensation claims are under appeal,” the report said.

It also urged Smile-Up to offer mental health care and provide lawyers and clinical psychologists for free.

Junya Hiramoto, one of those who have come forward, welcomed the report as a first step.

“The abuse is not past us. It is with us now and will remain with us,” he said on Wednesday.

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AP correspondent James Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The United States has appointed a new representative to Taiwan, as China boosts its threats against the self-ruled island following the election of a new president who wants the territory to maintain its de-facto independence.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and this week staged naval and air force drills that surrounded the island in a simulated blockade.

The American Institute in Taiwan that acts as the de-facto embassy in Taipei said Wednesday that veteran diplomat Raymond Greene would take over from Sandra Oudkirk beginning in the summer of 2024.

The U.S. cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 and established official relations with the People’s Republic of China, then a Cold War ally against the Soviet Union. Despite an absence of formal relations with Taiwan, the U.S. is the island’s strongest ally and is obligated under a 1979 law to help Taiwan protect itself from invasion.

Despite China’s intimidation, life carried on as usual in Taiwan, with politics dominated by arguments over legal changes that could make it easier for the minority Nationalist Party to cut deals with China’s ruling Communist Party, potentially undercutting Taiwan’s international competitiveness, financial advantages and high-tech economy based on its production of the most advanced computer chips.

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te took office May 20 and urged Beijing to stop its military intimidation and said Taiwan was “a sovereign independent nation in which sovereignty lies in the hands of the people.”

Greene has previously served as deputy head of AIT, as well as at the missions in Tokyo and held various roles in Washington, largely focused on economic relations. His appointment comes as Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Sen. Dan Sullivan led a delegation to Taiwan emphasizing strong bipartisan support for the island.

Wall Street was poised to open with losses on Wednesday as some major dealmaking and a handful of earnings reports fill the news void until Friday’s latest inflation report.

Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each tumbled 0.6% before the bell.

ConocoPhillips said that it is buying Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at approximately $17.1 billion, or $22.5 billion including debt. Marathon shares jumped more than 7%. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter and still needs approval from Marathon shareholders.

Global pharmaceutical giant Merck is buying privately held ophthalmology biotech EyeBio in a deal valued at up to $3 billion, according to EyeBio lead investor Jeito Capital. Merck shares were flat in premarket trading.

American Airlines skidded 8.6% before the bell after it slashed its profit guidance and announced that Vasu Raja, its chief commercial officer, was leaving the company in June.

Dick’s Sporting Goods rose 7.2% after it reported better earnings than analysts expected and raised its full-year profit guidance. Pet food and supply company Chewy also easily beat Wall Street’s first-quarter profit targets and its shares climbed close to 6%.

There’s little economic news to move markets until Friday, when the government releases its latest monthly report on spending by households and the incomes that they earned. The consumer spending report also includes a calculation of inflation for April that the Federal Reserve prefers to use.

The Fed has been holding the federal funds rate at the highest level in more than two decades in hopes of grinding down the economy and investment prices enough to get the annual inflation rate down to its 2% target. If it leaves rates too high for too long, it could kneecap the job market and overall economy. But a premature cut to interest rates could allow inflation to reaccelerate and inflict even more pain on U.S. households.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, France’s CAC 40 slipped 1.1%, Britain’s FTSE was down 0.4% and Germany’s DAX declined 0.8%.

In Asian trading, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.8% to 38,556.87. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 1.3% to 7,665.60. South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.7% to 2,677.30. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.8% to 18,477.01, while the Shanghai Composite was little changed, edging up less than 0.1% to 3,111.02.

The International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for China’s economic outlook, saying it expects the No. 2 economy to grow at a 5% annual pace this year. But it also warned that consumer-friendly reforms are needed to sustain strong, high-quality growth.

In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 61 cents to $80.44 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, added 57 cents to $84.51 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 157.28 from 157.12 Japanese yen. The euro cost $1.0848, down from $1.0857.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 closed little changed, just below its record set a week ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6%, while gains in technology stocks pushed the Nasdaq composite up 0.6% to another all-time high.

PLAN DE AYALA, Mexico (AP) — At 4:30 a.m., the girls and women begin to appear in the dark streets of this rural village of Tojolabal people in southern Mexico. They walk in silence. Some are headed to grind corn to make their family’s tortillas. Others fetch firewood to carry home, on their backs or with the help of a donkey. The youngest hurry to finish chores before running to school.

Hours later, it’s still morning, and it’s time to talk. A group of young women and men gathers in a classroom at the Plan de Ayala high school. They’ve come to discuss gender equality and reflect on the role of women in this remote Indigenous community in Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state.

Jeydi Hernández, 17, wants to be a veterinarian and play basketball, though her first attempt to form a team failed: “There were 12 of us, but my friends got married, and there were only four of us left.” Madaí Gómez, 18, complains that she can’t express opinions in her town: “They think women don’t know anything.”

Two Indigenous women lead the workshop, and dozens attend. Years ago, such an initiative would not have been so well-received, they say. But change is coming — albeit slowly.

Seventy years ago, Mexican women won the right to vote, and today the country is on the verge of electing its first woman president. Yet some of the Indigenous women who will vote in Sunday’s national election still don’t have a voice in their own homes and communities.

In Plan de Ayala and other corners of Mexico, women can’t participate in local government. Men set priorities. They decide how to spend resources: repair the school or the park? Plan de Ayala’s women aren’t even registered residents, even though they are on voter rolls, so its 1,200 men can only guess at the true population.

With no official data, it’s unclear how many communities operate this way. But it’s one of many contradictions for a part of the Mexican population that for centuries has been marginalized. Now, Indigenous women are pushing for change — little by little — with the younger generation often leading the charge.

PATH TO ACTIVISM

Of more than 23 million Indigenous people in Mexico — nearly 20% of the population — well over half live in poverty, according to government data from 2022. And women face the worst of it, with the lowest rates of literacy in their communities and little, if any, rights to own land.

Neither of the two women candidates for president — Claudia Sheinbaum for the governing Morena party and the opposition’s Xóchitl Gálvez — have spoken much about Indigenous issues. Still, women in this region can’t hide some hope that a woman president could better address some of their most pressing needs: health care and education access, and protection from domestic violence.

The status of Mexico’s Indigenous peoples leaped onto the international stage in 1994 in Chiapas, when Zapatista guerrilla fighters declared war against the government. They aimed not to take power, but demanded that the government address racism and marginalization suffered by Indigenous peoples. The movement had unusually high participation from women.

Twelve days of fighting and years of negotiation culminated in 2001 with a constitutional amendment that recognized the right of Indigenous people to autonomous government; to preserve their languages, land and cultural identity; and to have access to basic rights such as health care and education.

This allowed many small Indigenous communities to govern themselves and choose their leaders without national political influence. It also meant that the federal government frequently looked the other way when those local customs contradicted basic rights like gender equality.

After the uprising, Indigenous women felt encouraged to fight for their rights in their communities. In some places they succeeded. But poverty and inequality persist in many Indigenous communities.

Juana Cruz, 51, is one of the women on a crusade to bring change. She grew up listening to stories of the abuses suffered by four generations of her family forced to work on an estate where they had to speak Spanish rather than their native Tojolabal, a Mayan-family language. She remembers being beaten in school for not speaking Spanish well.

Today she is one of the most veteran social activists in Las Margaritas, the municipality that includes Plan de Ayala, and director of Tzome Ixuk, which means “organized woman” in Tojolabal. Her collective accompanies victims of domestic violence to report crimes, organizes talks to hear communities’ needs, hosts workshops for men and women about gender rights, and teaches children Tojolabal. Political parties have approached her, she said, but she rejected their recruitment efforts — she wants to focus on organizing and educating in a politically independent environment.

“The ability that we have to decide is because we are not (affiliated) with any authority,” Cruz said.

Six years ago, the Zapatistas and other Indigenous groups elected María de Jesus Patricio, better known as Marichuy, to run for president as their first independent candidate. She faced intense racism and didn’t make it onto the ballot. “But she gave us strength,” Cruz said.

Cruz’s own activism stretches back to the Zapatista uprising, when she first heard about “organizing” for rights. In the mid-1990s, she demanded water, electricity, sewer and schools for an Indigenous neighborhood in Las Margaritas — demands that prompted dozens of men to attack her, she said.

She described politicians finding her demands unacceptable — they believed Indigenous people didn’t need such things.

‘GENERATION OF CHANGE’

Since Cruz and others made those basic demands, there’s been progress in places like Las Margaritas, a sprawling township of some 140,000 people spread across about 400 mostly Indigenous communities, including Plan de Ayala. Some people here were born on hugemassive estates where Indigenous workers were treated like slaves. Today, many get by with money sent from relatives who’ve made it to the United States.

Unwritten rules still govern much of life in the villages. Mexican law prohibits marriage until age 18, but many teens leave home years earlier and live as couples until they can legally wed. The community considers them married.

For some girls, it’s the only way to escape abusive homes — one 15-year-old described to The Associated Press how a relative beat her almost daily.

“I wanted to get married as soon as I could,” she said, even though she knew it meant giving up her dreams of continued education. “I would love to study again, but I still can’t because that’s the way the rules are here.”

“When you marry, you leave school, you leave everything that you have,” said the girl, whose name AP is withholding because she’s a victim of abuse.

Increasingly, girls and young women are rejecting such norms. That’s part of what’s discussed in the workshops at Plan de Ayala high school.

About a third of those gathered said they would like to continue studying, according to María Leticia Santiz, 28, and Liz Vázquez, 33, who lead the discussion.

“You all have the ability to make decisions in your communities, in your schools, in your families,” Vázquez tells the group. “You are a generation of change.” Santiz translates to Tojolabal.

A buzz spreads through the group. Using the native language generates confidence and shows the youths they can be proud of it, Santiz said: “There are still young people, women who are ashamed of the language, of being Indigenous.”

Vázquez and Santiz are from a collective called Ch’ieltik, which means “we are those who grow” in the Indigenous language Tseltal. The group’s goal is to encourage conversation and reflection among young people in some of Chiapas’ most closed communities, learn the realities of people there, and provide tools to improve their lives.

Santiz says that in Plan de Ayala, where women have never held positions of authority, some women do want to participate in local civic life.

But “they don’t dare because they feel they are going to be punished,” Santiz said. “The social compacts that the people have sown in them are very ingrained.”

LOOKING AHEAD

In Plan de Ayala, like most rural corners of Las Margaritas, there is little evidence of the coming national election. Posters of Sheinbaum are seen in some places. The face of Gálvez — who has Indigenous roots, with an Otomi father — is not.

Vázquez says that personally, she has not connected with either candidate. But in the workshop, she tells the group that a woman becoming president proves nothing is impossible.

Santiz is wary of politicians. “I haven’t seen a change, attention toward the Indigenous,” she said.

She said she wishes politicians would be authentic in their outreach to Indigenous communities and not simply use their people to sell an inclusive image: “Being Indigenous isn’t just coming from an Indigenous community,” she said. “It’s returning and doing things for your community.”

Experts say politicians have long looked down on Indigenous people and have wrongly explained away chauvinistic behavior as the carrying on of ancestral practices. Examples of Indigenous women rising to power — for example, in leading the fight against controversial infrastructure projects like dams — have been minimized.

The campaigns of the two leading female presidential candidates are notable for what’s lacking: any prioritization of gender issues or detailed plans to address issues in Indigenous communities.

Sheinbaum insists she will try to reach agreements to compensate for past injustices against some Indigenous peoples. Gálvez has only gone so far as to remind voters of projects she pushed when she was in charge of Indigenous development under a previous administration, two decades ago.

In Plan de Ayala, Vázquez and Santiz leave the workshop at the high school encouraged. The young men seemed receptive to speaking about equality, and they see signs of change: fathers supporting their daughters’ dreams, young women carving out spaces for themselves.

After the workshop, Madaí Gómez, the 18-year-old, heads home to finish helping her mother. She’s not yet sure about continuing school — she wants to be economically independent and considers herself a strong woman who doesn’t take “no” for an answer. Maybe she’ll stay here and find work. Maybe she’ll try making it to the U.S.

That afternoon, she puts on her soccer uniform and heads to the local field, optimistic that more girls want to join. On the dirt track, teens pass older women wearing traditional embroidered blouses and shiny satin skirts returning from the fields, their bodies stooped by huge bundles of grass hoisted on their backs.

Gómez said she believes in the potential of women in her community and thinks Mexico’s first woman president could show they can do more even than men.

“I want gender equality to come, for them to give us that chance to raise our voices, for our voice to be valued the same as a man’s,” she said.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africans voted Wednesday at schools, community centers, and in large white tents set up in open fields in an election seen as their country’s most important since apartheid ended 30 years ago. It could put the young democracy into unknown territory.

At stake is the three-decade dominance of the African National Congress party, which led South Africa out of apartheid’s brutal white minority rule and to democracy in 1994. It is now the target of a new generation of discontent in a country of 62 million people — half of whom are estimated to be living in poverty.

After casting his vote, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that he had no doubt his ANC would win again with “a firm majority.”

The main opposition leader, John Steenhuisen, countered: “For the first time in 30 years, there is now a path to victory for the opposition.”

Africa’s most advanced economy has some of the world’s deepest socioeconomic problems, including one of the worst unemployment rates at 32%. The lingering inequality, with poverty disproportionately affecting the Black majority, threatens to unseat the party that promised to end it by bringing down apartheid under the slogan of a better life for all.

“Our main issue here in our community is the lack of jobs,” said Samuel Ratshalingwa, who was near the front of the line at the same school in the Johannesburg township of Soweto where Ramaphosa voted. He came out before 7 a.m. on a chilly winter morning.

“We have to use the vote to make our voices heard about this problem,” Ratshalingwa said.

After winning six successive national elections, several polls have put the ANC’s support at less than 50% before this vote, an unprecedented drop. It might lose its majority in Parliament for the first time, although it’s widely expected to hold the most seats.

The ANC won 57.5% of the vote in the last national election in 2019, its worst result to date and down from a high of nearly 70% in 2004. That slide has been attributed to widespread poverty, but also numerous ANC corruption scandals and a failure of basic government services that see many communities go without running water, electricity or proper housing.

Ramaphosa, the leader of the ANC, has promised to “do better.”

The 71-year-old Ramaphosa sat alongside other voters in Soweto, where he was born and which was once the center of the resistance to apartheid. He shook hands with two smiling officials who registered him before voting.

“I have no doubt whatsoever in my heart of hearts that the people will once again invest confidence in the African National Congress to continue to lead this country,” Ramaphosa said.

Any change in the ANC’s hold on power could be monumental for South Africa. If it does lose its majority, the ANC will likely face the prospect of a coalition with others to stay in government and keep Ramaphosa as president for a second term. The ANC having to co-govern has never happened before.

South Africans vote for parties, not directly for their president. The parties then get seats in Parliament according to their share of the vote and lawmakers elect the president.

The election is held on one day across South Africa’s nine provinces, with nearly 28 million people registered to vote at more than 23,000 polling stations. Final results are expected by Sunday.

The opposition to the ANC is fierce, but fragmented. The two biggest opposition parties, the centrist Democratic Alliance and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, are not expected to increase their vote by anything near enough to overtake the ANC.

That’s largely because disgruntled South Africans are moving to an array of opposition parties; more than 50 will contest the national election, many of them new. One is led by South Africa’s former President Jacob Zuma, who has turned against his former ANC allies. Zuma was disqualified from standing as a candidate for Parliament but his MK Party is still contesting and is the wild card.

Steenhuisen, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance, said South Africa was now heading to “coalition country.” He conceded his party probably wouldn’t gain a majority, but put faith in a preelection agreement with other smaller parties to combine their vote to remove the ANC.

“I don’t think we’re going to solve the problems of South Africa by keeping the same people around the same table making the same bad decisions for the same bad results,” Steenhuisen said.

The ANC says it’s confident of retaining its majority and analysts haven’t ruled that out, given the party’s unmatched grassroots campaigning machine. It still has wide support.

“I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning, took a bath and made my way,” said 68-year-old Velaphi Banda, adding that he has voted for the ANC since 1994 and would do so again. “I was never undecided about which party I will vote for. I have always known.”

Ramaphosa has pointed out how South Africa is a far better country now than under apartheid, when Black people were barred from voting, weren’t allowed to move around freely, had to live in certain areas and were oppressed in every way. This election is only South Africa’s seventh national vote in which people of all races are allowed to take part.

Memories of that era of apartheid, and the defining election that ended it in 1994, still frame much of everyday South Africa. But fewer remember it as time goes on, and this election might give voice to a new generation.

“I feel like there are just no opportunities for young people in this area,” said 27-year-old Innocentia Zitha of her neighborhood.

While 80% of South Africans are Black, it’s a multiracial country with significant populations of white people, those of Indian descent, those with biracial heritage and others. There are 12 official languages.

The vote will also showcase the country’s contradictions, from the economic hub of Johannesburg — labeled Africa’s richest city — to the picturesque tourist destination of Cape Town, to the informal settlements of shacks in their outskirts, and the more remote rural areas. In one of those in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, 72-year-old grandmother Thembekile Ngema and others walked 20 minutes over rolling hills to get to their polling station.

Voting was due to start at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and end at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT). The independent electoral commission that runs the election said there were some problems with stations opening on time but they were minor. South Africa has held peaceful and credible elections since a violent buildup to the pivotal 1994 election. Nearly 3,000 soldiers will be deployed across the country to ensure everything is orderly, authorities said.

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Gerald Imray reported from Cape Town, and Farai Mutsaka from Eshowe.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

MEXICO CITY (AP) — U.S. trade authorities said Tuesday they have filed a labor complaint with Mexico over allegations that a Volkswagen auto plant in central Mexico unfairly fired union activists.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said Tuesday the complaint includes the temporary suspension of tariff benefits for vehicles and parts produced at the VW plant in Puebla, just east of Mexico City.

The complaint was the 23rd filed for alleged labor abuses in Mexico under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as the USMCA.

Mexico must investigate the claims and either get the company to correct them, or explain why it won’t take action. For decades, wages in Mexico have been held very low because unions were not allowed to organize freely.

The complaint asked Mexico to investigate whether management at Volkswagen de México, S.A. de C.V. fired or took reprisals against workers “based on their service as union representatives, affiliation with prior union administrations, candidacy in union elections, or engagement in other union activities.”

ROME (AP) — Italy on Tuesday celebrated the return of around 600 antiquities from the U.S., including ancient bronze statues, gold coins, mosaics and manuscripts valued at 60 million euros ($65 million), that were looted years ago, sold to U.S. museums, galleries and collectors and recovered as a result of criminal investigations.

U.S. Ambassador Jack Markell, Matthew Bogdanos, the head of the antiquities trafficking unit of the New York district attorney’s office, and members of the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations department were on hand for the presentation alongside the leadership of Italy’s Culture Ministry and Carabinieri art squad.

It was the latest presentation of the fruits of Italy’s decades-old effort to recover antiquities that were looted or stolen from its territory by “tombaroli” tomb raiders, sold to antiquities dealers who often forged or fudged provenance records to resell the loot to high-end buyers, auction houses and museums.

Markell said that Washington was committed to returning the stolen loot “to where it belongs” as a sign of respect for Italy and its cultural and artistic heritage.

“We know that safeguarding this history requires care and vigilance, and this is why we do what we do,” he said, adding that the U.S. was keeping a close eye on the latest target for art traffickers: Ukraine.

Not included in the latest haul from the U.S. was the “Victorious Youth” ancient Greek bronze statue, the object of a decades-long court battle between Italy and the Malibu, California-based Getty Museum. The prized statue recently made headlines anew when the European Court of Human Rights strongly backed Italy’s right to seize it, reaffirming that it had been illegally exported from Italy.

Bogdanos and Homeland Security officials declined to comment on whether or when the “Victorious Youth” might be returned, saying it’s part of an ongoing investigation.

Among the most valuable artifacts on display Tuesday was a fourth-century Naxos silver coin depicting god of wine Dionysius that was looted from an illicit excavation site in Sicily before 2013 and smuggled to the United Kingdom. Bogdanos said the coin, which was being offered for sale for $500,000, was found in New York last year as part of an investigation into a noted British coin dealer.

He said that other items were returned from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and some of the well-known New York philanthropists who donated artifacts to its collections that turned out to have been stolen.

The returned artifacts, ranging from the ninth century B.C. to the second century, also included a life-sized bronze figure, as well as bronze heads and multiple Etruscan vases. Other items, including oil paintings from the 16th and 19th centuries, had been stolen from Italian museums, religious institutions and private homes in well-documented thefts, the carabinieri said.

Bogdanos, who forged an alliance with the Italian carabinieri art squad as they tried to recover Iraq’s stolen antiquities after the U.S. invasion, said that Washington doesn’t distinguish between items taken during illicit excavations or those stolen in thefts: it all amounts to looting.

“Looting is local,” Bogdanos said. Locals “know when the security guards come on, they know when they come off. They know when the security guards are guarding particular sites and not others. They know when there are scientific, proper, approved archeological excavations, and then they know when those archaeological excavations close for example, for the winter or for lack of funding.”

Given that, he said, there will always be looting.

“Our job is to minimize it, increase the risk to those who would engage in this traffic, convict them and where appropriate, sentence them,” Bogdanos said.

TOKYO (AP) — Shares were mostly lower in Europe and Asia on Tuesday after U.S. markets were closed for the Memorial Day holiday.

Germany’s DAX gained 0.3% to 18,828.68 while the CAC 40 in Paris edged 0.1% lower to 8,121.17. In Britain, the FTSE 100 shed 0.2% to 8,303.25, reopening from a bank holiday on Monday.

The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.2% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher.

In Asian trading, Chinese markets rose and then fell after senior leaders of the ruling Communist Party met and affirmed Beijing’s determination to contain financial risks.

The Shanghai Composite index dropped 0.5% to 3,109.57. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost less than 1 point to 18,821.16.

The Chinese government recently eased interest rates and down payment requirements for housing loans as part of its effort to revive the property sector after a crackdown on excessive borrowing caused defaults among many developers.

The housing industry plays a huge role in driving the economy and its troubles have weighed on growth.

The meetings Monday led by Chinese President Xi Jinping “noted that preventing and defusing financial risks is a major challenge,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Efforts to strengthen oversight “should be implemented strictly to send a strong signal that any violator will be held accountable, so that financial oversight will actually have ‘teeth and thorns’ and be sharp-pointed,” Xinhua said.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.1% to 38,855.37 and the Kospi in Seoul was nearly unchanged at 2,722.85. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.3% to 7,766.70.

On Friday, the S&P 500 gained 0.7% and the Dow industrials rose by less than 0.1%. The Nasdaq composite gained 1.1% to top its all-time high set earlier last week.

In other trading Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained $1.16 to $78.88 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“The tense geopolitical setup is supportive of further gains along with the rising U.S. demand into summer and OPEC’s restrictive tone regarding its outlook,” Ipek Ozkardeskaya of Swissquote said in a commentary.

Brent crude, the international standard, added 12 cents to $83.00 per barrel.

In currency dealings, the U.S. dollar rose to 156.91 Japanese yen from 156.89 yen.

The euro rose to $1.0877 from $1.0860.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Authorities fear a second landslide and a disease outbreak are looming at the scene of Papua New Guinea’s mass-casualty disaster because of water streams and bodies trapped beneath the tons of debris that swept over a village. Thousands are being told to prepare to evacuate, officials said Tuesday.

A mass of boulders, earth and splintered trees devastated Yambali in the South Pacific nation’s remote highlands when a limestone mountainside sheared away Friday. The blanket of debris has become more unstable with recent rain and streams trapped between the ground and rubble, said Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the International Organization for Migration’s mission in Papua New Guinea.

The U.N. agency has officials at the scene in Enga province helping shelter 1,600 displaced people. The agency estimates 670 villagers died, while Papua New Guinea’s government has told the United Nations it thinks more than 2,000 people were buried. Six bodies had been retrieved from the rubble by Tuesday.

“We are hearing suggestions that another landslide can happen and maybe 8,000 people need to be evacuated,” Aktoprak told The Associated Press.

“This is a major concern. The movement of the land, the debris, is causing a serious risk, and overall the total number of people that may be affected might be 6,000 or more,” he said. That includes villagers whose source of clean drinking water has been buried and subsistence farmers who lost their vegetable gardens.

“If this debris mass is not stopped, if it continues moving, it can gain speed and further wipe out other communities and villages further down” the mountain, Aktoprak said.

A U.N. statement later tallied the affected population at 7,849, including people who might need to be evacuated or relocated. The U.N. said 42% of those were children under 16.

Some villagers were evacuated on Tuesday, Enga provincial disaster committee chairperson and provincial administrator Sandis Tsaka told Radio New Zealand. The number was unclear.

As many people as possible would be evacuated on Wednesday, Tsaka said.

Relocating survivors to safer ground has been a priority for days and evacuation centers have been established on either side of the debris heap, which is up to 8 meters (26 feet) high and sprawling over an area the U.N. says is equivalent to three or four football fields.

Scenes of villagers digging with their bare hands through muddy debris in search of their relatives’ remains were also concerning.

“My biggest fear at the moment is corpses are decaying, … water is flowing and this is going to pose serious health risks in relation to contagious diseases,” Aktoprak said.

Aktoprak’s agency raised those concerns at a disaster management virtual meeting of national and international responders Tuesday.

The warning comes as geotechnical experts and heavy earth-moving equipment are expected to reach the site soon.

The Papua New Guinea government on Sunday officially asked the United Nations for additional help and to coordinate contributions from individual nations.

An Australian disaster response team arrived Tuesday in Papua New Guinea, which is Australia’s nearest neighbor. The team includes a geohazard assessment team and drones to help map the site.

“Their role will be particularly helping perform geotechnical surveillance to establish the level of the landslip, the instability of the land there, obviously doing some work around identifying where bodies are,” said Murray Watt, Australia’s minister for emergency management.

The Australian government has offered long-term logistical support for clearing debris, recovering bodies and supporting displaced people. The government announced an initial aid package of 2.5 million Australian dollars ($1.7 million).

Earth-moving equipment used by Papua New Guinea’s military was expected to arrive soon, after traveling from the city of Lae, 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the east, said Justine McMahon, country director of for humanitarian agency CARE International.

The landslide buried a 200-meter (650-foot) stretch of the province’s main highway. But the highway had been cleared from Yambali to the provincial capital Wabag through to Lae, officials said Tuesday from Enga.

“One of the complicating factors was the destruction of parts of the road plus the instability of the ground, but they have some confidence that they can take in heavy equipment today,” McMahon said Tuesday.

An excavator donated by a local builder Sunday became the first piece of heavy earth-moving machinery brought in to help villagers who have been digging with shovels and farming tools to find bodies.

Heartbroken and frustrated Yambali resident Evit Kambu thanked those who were trying to find her missing relatives in the rubble.

“I have 18 of my family members buried under the debris and soil that I’m standing on,” she told Australian Broadcasting Corp. through an interpreter.

“But I can’t retrieve the bodies, so I’m standing here helplessly,” she added.

Yambali couple John and Jacklyn Yandam spoke of being trapped in the rubble for eight hours on Friday morning before they were dug out by neighbors.

Large fallen boulders had formed a barrier that prevented the couple from being crushed in their house by tumbling rubble. But they would have remained trapped without their neighbors’ help.

“We thank God for saving our lives at that moment,” the wife told Papua New Guinea’s National Broadcasting Corp., referring to the mountainside collapsing at 3 a.m.

“We were certain that we were going to die, but the big rocks didn’t crush us,” she added.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said an Australian air force C-17 Globemaster, a four-engine transport jet capable of carrying 77 metric tons (85 U.S. tons) of cargo, was already bringing supplies from Australia to Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby.

Two smaller Australian air force turboprop transport planes were already at Port Moresby, which is 600 kilometers (370 miles) southeast of the devastated village.

“There is more that we are seeking to do, but to be frank, part of the issue here is about not overwhelming a system which is currently under a lot of stress,” Marles told Parliament.

The smaller C-130 Hercules and C-27J Spartan transport planes are to fly supplies from the capital to Mount Hagen, the capital of Western Highlands province, from where the cargo would travel by road to neighboring Enga province.

That plan took a blow with news that a bridge between Mount Hagen and Wabag collapsed on Tuesday, officials said. The cause of the collapse was not explained, but it was unrelated to the landslide.

A detour would add two or three hours to the journey, the migrant agency said. Urgent efforts were underway to repair the bridge.

Papua New Guinea is a diverse, developing nation with 800 languages and 10 million people who are mostly subsistence farmers.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that a “tragic mishap” was made in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that set fire to a camp housing displaced Palestinians and, according to local officials, killed at least 45 people.

The strike only added to the surging international criticism Israel has faced over its war with Hamas, with even its closest allies expressing outrage at civilian deaths. Israel insists it adheres to international law even as it faces scrutiny in the world’s top courts, one of which last week demanded that it halt the offensive in Rafah.

Netanyahu did not elaborate on the error. Israel’s military initially said it had carried out a precise airstrike on a Hamas compound, killing two senior militants. As details of the strike and fire emerged, the military said it had opened an investigation into the deaths of civilians.

Sunday night’s attack, which appeared to be one of the war’s deadliest, helped push the overall Palestinian death toll in the war above 36,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and noncombatants in its tally.

“Despite our utmost efforts not to harm innocent civilians, last night there was a tragic mishap,” Netanyahu said Monday in an address to Israel’s parliament. “We are investigating the incident and will obtain a conclusion because this is our policy.”

Mohammed Abuassa, who rushed to the scene in the northwestern neighborhood of Tel al-Sultan, said rescuers “pulled out people who were in an unbearable state.”

“We pulled out children who were in pieces. We pulled out young and elderly people. The fire in the camp was unreal,” he said.

At least 45 people were killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service. The ministry said the dead included at least 12 women, eight children and three older adults, with another three bodies burned beyond recognition.

In a separate development, Egypt’s military said one of its soldiers was shot dead during an exchange of fire in the Rafah area, without providing further details. Israel said it was in contact with Egyptian authorities, and both sides said they were investigating.

An initial investigation found that the soldier had responded to an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, Egypt’s state-owned Qahera TV reported. Egypt has warned that Israel’s incursion in Rafah could threaten the two countries’ decades-old peace treaty.

The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency closed meeting for Tuesday afternoon on the situation in Rafah at the request of Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, two council diplomats told The Associated Press ahead of an official announcement.

Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city on the border with Egypt, had housed more than a million people — about half of Gaza’s population — displaced from other parts of the territory. Most have fled once again since Israel launched what it called a limited incursion there earlier this month. Hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps in and around the city.

Elsewhere in Rafah, the director of the Kuwait Hospital, one of the city’s last functioning medical centers, said it was shutting down and that staff members were relocating to a field hospital. Dr. Suhaib al-Hamas said the decision was made after a strike killed two health workers Monday at the entrance to the hospital.

Netanyahu says Israel must destroy what he says are Hamas’ last remaining battalions in Rafah. The militant group launched a barrage of rockets Sunday from the city toward heavily populated central Israel, setting off air raid sirens but causing no injuries.

The strike on Rafah brought a new wave of condemnation, even from Israel’s strongest supporters.

The U.S. National Security Council said in a statement that the “devastating images” from the strike on Rafah were “heartbreaking.” It said the U.S. was working with the Israeli military and others to assess what happened.

French President Emmanuel Macron was more blunt, saying “these operations must stop” in a post on X. “There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire,” he wrote.

The Foreign Office of Germany, which has been a staunch supporter of Israel for decades, said “the images of charred bodies, including children, from the airstrike in Rafah are unbearable.”

“The exact circumstances must be clarified, and the investigation announced by the Israeli army must now come quickly,” the ministry added. ”The civilian population must finally be better protected.”

Qatar, a key mediator in attempts to secure a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, said the Rafah strike could “complicate” talks, Negotiations, which appear to be restarting, have faltered repeatedly over Hamas’ demand for a lasting truce and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, terms Israeli leaders have publicly rejected.

The Israeli military’s top legal official, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said authorities were examining the strike in Rafah and that the military regrets the loss of civilian life.

Speaking to an Israeli lawyers’ conference, Tomer-Yerushalmi said Israel has launched 70 criminal investigations into possible violations of international law, including the deaths of civilians, the conditions at a detention facility holding suspected militants and the deaths of some inmates in Israeli custody. She said incidents of property crimes and looting were also being examined.

Israel has long maintained it has an independent judiciary capable of investigating and prosecuting abuses. But rights groups say Israeli authorities routinely fail to fully investigate violence against Palestinians and that even when soldiers are held accountable, the punishment is usually light.

Israel has denied allegations of genocide brought against it by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. Last week, the court ordered Israel to halt its Rafah offensive, a ruling it has no power to enforce.

Separately, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders, over alleged crimes linked to the war. The ICC only intervenes when it concludes that the state in question is unable or unwilling to properly prosecute such crimes.

Israel says it does its best to adhere to the laws of war. Israeli leaders also say they face an enemy that makes no such commitment, embeds itself in civilian areas and refuses to release Israeli hostages unconditionally.

Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seized some 250 hostages. Hamas still holds about 100 hostages and the remains of around 30 others after most of the rest were released during a cease-fire last year.

Around 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes. Severe hunger is widespread, and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Washington, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Colleen Barry in Rome contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

BANGKOK (AP) — The Papua New Guinea government said more than 2,000 people are believed to have been buried alive in a landslide in the South Pacific island nation, after the side of a mountain came down in the early hours of Friday morning when the village of Yambali was asleep.

The settlement is located in a restive and remote area in the interior of the poor, rural nation off the northern coast of Australia, making search and rescue efforts complicated and hazardous.

The government death toll is roughly triple the U.N. estimate of 670 killed. The remains of only six people had been recovered so far.

In a letter seen by The Associated Press to the United Nations resident coordinator dated Sunday, the acting director of Papua New Guinea’s National Disaster Center Luseta Laso Mana said the landslide “buried more than 2,000 people alive” and caused “major destruction” at Yambali village in the Enga province.

Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived the number of people affected.

Here’s a look at some of the challenges:

DIFFICULT ACCESS, RESTIVE POPULATION

The village of at least 4,000, but believed to be substantially larger, is in a mountainous and forested part of Papua New Guinea’s Enga province. It’s located alongside a winding highway to the town of Porgera and a mine that has produced billions of dollars of gold but whose security personnel have been accused by rights groups of abuses.

The highway was covered by the landslide, effectively cutting off Porgera and the other villages past Yambali from the provincial capital of Wabag, some 60 kilometers (35 miles) from where the disaster occurred.

Emergency responders have brought aid in from Wabag, but have had to make the final 200 meters (yards) of the journey by foot over the rubble-covered highway.

Debris 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep covering an area the size of three or four football fields was being cleared exclusively by hand with shovels and picks for more than two days, until an excavator donated by a local builder arrived on Sunday.

Survivors have been hesitant to allow heavy machinery to be used, however, because they do not want the bodies of their relatives harmed, said Serhan Aktoprak, the chief of the U.N. migration agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea. The donated excavator was driven away Monday morning, though it’s not clear whether that was related to locals’ objections or for another reason, he said.

Military engineers with additional heavy equipment are being transported to the disaster scene 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast city of Lae and are expected to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday.

DEADLY LOCAL FEUDS ARE COMPLICATING THE RESPONSE

Longtime tribal warfare in Enga province has not relented despite the disaster, meaning that soldiers have had to provide security for the aid convoys heading toward Yambali.

At least 26 men were killed in an ambush in February, and eight more died in a clash between two rival clans on Saturday in a longstanding dispute that’s unrelated to the landslide. About 30 homes and five retail businesses were burned down in the fighting, officials said.

Convoys have only been able to travel by daylight due to the security risks, and with a two-hour drive each way, their time on site has been seriously restricted, Aktoprak said in a phone interview from Port Moresby, the country’s capital.

Approximately 25 people from the U.N., other agencies and the military have been making the daily journey. On Monday, they reported seeing burning houses and men armed with machetes along the way, Aktoprak said.

Emergency crews also face the threat of an ongoing natural disaster as the earth continues to shift in the disaster zone.

The debris is getting increasingly waterlogged from three streams covered by the landslide, making it dangerous to work on and increasing the possibility it could slide farther downhill. Communities below have already been evacuated, Aktoprak said.

“We have a situation that is getting worse and worse every moment,” he said.

WHAT LIES AHEAD

With the disaster ongoing and the rescue efforts still in their early stages, it’s hard to know exactly what comes next.

But with all the small farms and food gardens that sustain the village’s subsistence farming population destroyed, as well as much of its livestock, it is clear that the survivors of Yambali will need help for some time.

The village is near a river, but residents had relied on the three streams buried by the landslide for their drinking water.

Justine McMahon, country director of the humanitarian agency CARE International, said moving survivors to more stable ground was an immediate priority along with providing them with food, water and shelter. The military was leading those efforts.

In addition to people who have been evacuated from settlements lower than Yambali, Aktoprak said an estimated 6,000 have been affected by the disaster so far. If survivors end up moving to urban areas, “this will trigger additional economic and social problems.”

Porgera and other towns past Yambali on the highway are now cut off and only accessible by helicopter, and it was not immediately clear what assistance people living in those areas may need as well.

The government of Papua New Guinea formally asked Monday for more international help.

The United States and Australia, a near neighbor and Papua New Guinea’s most generous provider of foreign aid, are among governments that have publicly stated their readiness to do more.

Papua New Guinea makes up the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, with the western half belonging to Indonesia. It sits in the Pacific Ocean’s so-called “Ring of Fire,” a belt of active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.

Its population is officially around 10 million, but the U.N. has said there hasn’t been a comprehensive census for years and the actual figure could be closer to 17 million.

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Associated Press writers Rod McGurk in Melbourne, Australia, and Adam Schreck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Relations between the European Union and Israel took a nosedive Monday, the eve of the diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state by EU members Ireland and Spain, with Madrid insisting that sanctions should be considered against Israel for its continued deadly attacks in southern Gaza’s city of Rafah.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Spain that its consulate in Jerusalem will not be allowed to help Palestinians.

At the same time, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell threw his weight to support the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others, including leaders of the Hamas militant group.

“The prosecutor of the court has been strongly intimidated and accused of antisemitism — as always when anybody, anyone does something that Netanyahu’s government does not like,” Borrell said. “The word antisemitic, it’s too heavy. It’s too important.”

Spain, Ireland and Norway plan to make official their recognition of a Palestinian state on Tuesday. While dozens of countries have recognized a Palestinian state, none of the major Western powers has done so, and it is unclear how much of a difference the move by Ireland, Spain and non-EU member Norway might make on the ground. The recognition, however, is a significant accomplishment for the Palestinians, who believe it confers international legitimacy on their struggle.

Angry words abounded, with Katz accusing Spain of “rewarding terror” by recognizing a Palestinian state, and saying that “the days of the Inquisition are over.” He referred to the infamous Spanish institution started in the 15th century to maintain Roman Catholic orthodoxy that forced Jews and Muslims to flee, convert to Catholicism or, in some instances, face death.

“No one will force us to convert our religion or threaten our existence. Those who harm us, we will harm in return,” said Katz.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares slammed the comments, and said his colleagues from Ireland and Norway were “also receiving absolutely unjustified and absolutely reprehensible provocations from our Israeli colleague” because of their plans to recognize Palestine.

“In the face of those who want to divide us with any type of intimidating propaganda, the unity of Europeans is essential to send a very powerful message,” he said.

Also on Monday, Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob said his government will decide on the recognition of a Palestinian state on Thursday and forward its decision to parliament for final approval. Slovenia launched the recognition procedure earlier this month, and Golob has been under pressure to speed up the process since Spain, Norway and Ireland announced they would go ahead with recognition.

Borrell said the actions of the Israeli government, including plans to stop transferring tax revenue earmarked for the Palestinian Authority, could no longer be reconciled with the idea he had about the state of Israel.

“From now on, I will never again say ‘Israel,’ (but) will say ‘Netanyahu government’ because it is this government who is taking these decisions,” Borrell said.

Even though the EU and its member nations have been steadfast in condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack in which militants stormed across the Gaza border into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage, the bloc has been equally critical of Israel’s ensuing offensive that has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The latest attacks have centered on Rafah, where Palestinian health workers said Israeli airstrikes killed at least 45 people Sunday, hit tents for displaced people and left “numerous” others trapped in flaming debris.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said such strikes will have long-standing repercussions. “Israel with this choice is spreading hatred, rooting hatred that will involve their children and grandchildren. I would have preferred another decision,″ he told SKY TG24.

The strikes came after the U.N.’s top court, the International Court of Justice, on Friday demanded that Israel immediately halt its offensive on Rafah, even if it stopped short of ordering a cease-fire for the Gaza enclave.

Albares said Spain and other countries asked Borrell “to provide a list of what measures the European Union could apply” to make Israel heed the ICJ’s ruling and explain what the EU has done in the past in similar circumstances “”when there has been a flagrant violation of international law.”

The joint announcement by Spain, Ireland and Norway last week triggered an angry response from Israeli authorities, which summoned the countries’ ambassadors in Tel Aviv to the Foreign Ministry, where they were filmed while being shown videos of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and abductions.

Albares criticized the treatment of the European ambassadors in Israel. “We reject something that is not within diplomatic courtesy and the customs of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” he said.

“But at the same time we have also agreed that we are not going to fall for any provocation that distances us from our goal,” he added. “Our aim is to recognize the state of Palestine tomorrow, make all possible efforts to achieve a permanent cease-fire as soon as possible and also, in the end, to achieve that definitive peace.”

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Colleen Barry contributed from Milan and Aritz Parra from Madrid.

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Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A Papua New Guinea government official has told the United Nations that more than 2,000 people are believed to have been buried alive by last Friday’s landslide and has formally asked for international help.

The government figure is roughly triple the U.N. estimate of 670 killed by the landslide in the South Pacific island nation’s mountainous interior. The remains of only five people had been recovered by Monday, local authorities reported. It was not immediately clear why the tally of six reported on Sunday had been revised down.

In a letter to the United Nations resident coordinator dated Sunday and seen by The Associated Press, the acting director of the country’s National Disaster Center, Luseta Laso Mana, said the landslide “buried more than 2,000 people alive” and caused “major destruction” in Yambali village in Enga province.

Estimates of the casualties have varied widely since the disaster occurred, and it was not immediately clear how officials arrived at the number of people affected.

The International Organization for Migration, which is working closely with the government and taking a leading role in the international response, has not changed its estimated death toll of 670 released on Sunday, pending new evidence.

“We are not able to dispute what the government suggests but we are not able to comment on it,” said Serhan Aktoprak, chief of the U.N. migrant agency’s mission in Papua New Guinea.

“As time goes in such a massive undertaking, the number will remain fluid,” Aktoprak added.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres sent “heartfelt condolences” to the families of the victims and the people and government of Papua New Guinea and said the U.N. and its partners are supporting the government’s response efforts, and “the United Nations stands ready to offer additional assistance at this challenging time,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday.

The death toll of 670 was based on calculations by Yambali village and Enga provincial officials that more than 150 homes had been buried by the landslide. The previous estimate had been 60 homes.

The office of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape did not respond Monday to a request for an explanation of what the government estimate of 2,000 was based on. Marape has promised to release information about the scale of the destruction and loss of life when it becomes available.

Determining the scale of the disaster is difficult because of challenging conditions on the ground, including the village’s remote location, a lack of telecommunications and tribal warfare throughout the province which means international relief workers and aid convoys require military escorts.

At least 26 tribal warriors and mercenaries were killed in a battle between two warring tribes in Enga in February, as well as an unconfirmed number of bystanders.

The national government’s lack of reliable census data also adds to the challenges of determining how many are potentially dead.

The government estimates Papua New Guinea’s population at around 10 million people, although a U.N. study, based on data including satellite photographs of roof tops, estimated in 2022 it could be as high as 17 million. An accurate census has not been held in the nation in decades.

The landslide also buried a 200-meter (650-foot) stretch of the province’s main highway under debris 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26 feet) deep, creating a major obstacle for relief workers.

Mana said the landslide would have a major economic impact on the entire country.

An excavator donated by a local builder Sunday became the first piece of heavy earth-moving machinery brought in to help villagers who have been digging with shovels and farming tools to find bodies. Working around the still-shifting debris is treacherous.

“The situation remains unstable” due to the shifting ground, “posing ongoing danger to both the rescue teams and survivors alike,” Mana wrote to the United Nations.

Mana and Papua New Guinea’s defense minister, Billy Joseph, flew on Sunday in an Australian military helicopter from the capital of Port Moresby to Yambali, 600 kilometers (370 miles) to the northwest, to gain a firsthand perspective of what is needed.

Mana’s office posted a photo of him at Yambali handing a local official a check for 500,000 kina ($130,000) to buy emergency supplies for 4,000 displaced survivors.

The purpose of the visit was to decide whether Papua New Guinea’s government needed to officially request more international support.

Earth-moving equipment used by Papua New Guinea’s military was being transported to the disaster scene, 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the east coast city of Lae.

Traumatized villagers are divided over whether heavy machinery should be allowed to dig up and potentially further damage the bodies of their buried relatives, officials said.

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Associated Press journalist Adam Schreck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The Japanese and South Korean leaders raised sensitive topics like Taiwan, North Korea and the South China Sea as well as ways to boost cooperation when they individually met China’s premier Sunday on the eve of a fuller trilateral meeting.

It was unclear how serious discussions the three leaders had on those thorny issues, which are not among the official agenda items for Monday’s three-way gathering in Seoul, the first of its kind in more than four years.

No major announcement is expected from the meeting, but observers say that just resuming the highest-level talks among the three Northeast Asian neighbors is a good sign and suggests they are intent on improving relations. Their trilateral meeting was supposed to happen annually but it had stalled since the last one in December 2019 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and complex ties among the three countries.

After meeting Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that he expressed serious concerns about the situations in the South China Sea, Hong Kong and China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. He said Japan is closely monitoring developments on self-governed Taiwan.

He referred to China’s military assertiveness in the South China Sea, clampdowns of pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong and human rights abuses against minorities in Xinjiang. Last week, China also launched a large military exercise around Taiwan to show its anger over the inauguration of the island’s new president who refuses to accept its insistence that Taiwan is part of China.

During a separate meeting with Li, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, on his part, asked China, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, to contribute to promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula, while speaking about North Korea’s nuclear program and its deepening military ties with Russia, according to Yoon’s office.

Yoon’s office said Yoon and Kishida in their separate meeting expressed worries about North Korea’s nuclear program and agreed to strengthen their cooperation with the United States.

South Korea, Japan and the U.S. have long urged China — North Korea’s major ally and economic pipeline — to use its leverage to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But China is suspected of avoiding fully enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea and sending clandestine aid shipments to help its impoverished neighbor stay afloat.

The three leaders also discussed how to bolster economic and other cooperation.

Yoon and Li agreed to launch a new South Korean-Chinese dialogue channel involving senior diplomats and defense officials in mid-June. They also agreed to restart negotiations to expand the free trade agreement and reactivate dormant bodies on personnel exchanges, investments and other issues, according to Yoon’s office.

Chinese state media reported Li told Yoon that the two countries should safeguard the stability of their deeply intertwined industrial and supply chains and resist turning economic and trade issues into political and security-related issues.

Kishida said he and Li reaffirmed Japan and China will seek progress on various areas to promote mutually beneficial relations. Kishida and Yoon also said they agreed to further strengthen ties, which have warmed significantly since last year following an earlier setback over issues related to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean officials said that a joint statement after Monday’s trilateral meeting will cover the leaders’ discussion on cooperation in areas like people-to-people exchanges, climate change, trade, health issues, technology and disaster responses.

The three Asian nations are important trading partners and their cooperation is key to promoting regional peace and prosperity. They together make up about 25% of global gross domestic product. But the three countries have been repeatedly embroiled in bitter disputes over a range of historical and diplomatic issues originating from Japan’s wartime atrocities. China’s rise and a U.S. push reinforce its Asian alliances have also significantly impacted their three-way ties in recent years.

Experts say South Korea, China and Japan now share a need to improve ties. South Korea and Japan want better ties with China because it is their biggest trading partner. China, for its part, likely believes a further strengthening of the South Korea-Japan-U.S. cooperation would hurt its national interests.

China, meanwhile, has always sent its premier, the country’s No. 2 official, to the trilateral leaders’ meeting since its first session in 2008. Observers say China earlier argued that under then-collective leadership, its premier was chiefly in charge of economic affairs and best suited to attend the meeting, which largely focuses on economic issues.

But they say China may face more demands for President Xi Jinping to attend because he has concentrated power in his hands and defied the norms of collective leadership.

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Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Simina Mistreanu in Taipei, Taiwan contributed to this report.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A U.S. missionary couple and a Haitian man who led a religious group were shot and killed by criminal gang members in Haiti’s capital after they were abducted while leaving a youth group activity held at a local church, a family member said Friday.

The attack happened Thursday evening in the community of Lizon in northern Port-au-Prince, Lionel Lazarre, head of a Haitian police union, told The Associated Press on Friday.

The slayings occurred as the capital crumbles under the relentless assault of violent gangs that control 80% of Port-au-Prince while authorities await the arrival of a police force from Kenya as part of a U.N.-backed deployment aimed at quelling gang violence in the troubled Caribbean country.

Two of the victims were a young married couple, Davy and Natalie Lloyd, according to a Facebook posting from Natalie Lloyd’s father, Missouri state Rep. Ben Baker. The third victim was Jude Montis, who was the local director of Missions in Haiti Inc.

“My heart is broken in a thousand pieces,” Baker wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “I’ve never felt this kind of pain. Most of you know my daughter and son-in-law Davy and Natalie Lloyd are full time missionaries in Haiti. They were attacked by gangs this evening and were both killed. They went to Heaven together.”

Hannah Cornett, Davy Lloyd’s sister, told the AP that her brother was 23 years old and Natalie Lloyd was 21. They were going to celebrate their two-year anniversary in June and his birthday in early July.

Cornett said her parents are full-time missionaries in Haiti, and that she and her two brothers grew up there.

“Davy spoke Creole before he spoke English. It was home,” she said in a phone interview. “Haiti was all we knew.”

Cornett, 22, said her parents run an orphanage, school and church in Haiti, and that she and her brothers grew up with the orphans: “It was just one big happy family there.”

She said her older brother was outgoing, had built a garden and raised a lot of animals. While he went back to the U.S. for Bible college and then got married, he returned to Haiti with Natalie Lloyd to do more humanitarian work.

“They just had a lot of love for Haiti, and they just wanted to help the people there,” Cornett said. “That’s their calling.”

Cornett noted that Montis worked for her parents for 20 years and left behind two children, ages 2 and 6.

She said her brother called the night of the attack, telling the family that three vehicles carrying gang members stopped him, Natalie and Jude Montis as they crossed the street, hitting him in the head with the barrel of a gun. They forced him upstairs, stole their belongings and left him tied up. As people were helping untie him, another group of armed gunmen showed up.

“Nobody knows what happened,” she said.

An unidentified person got shot and the gunmen opened fire as the Lloyds and Montis fled to the house where her parents live, Cornett said her brother told the family.

“They tried to take cover in there, but the gang shot up the house,” she said, adding that they were killed and their bodies set on fire.

Cornett said her mother flew back from Haiti about a month ago, and that her father and younger brother flew out Wednesday because things had been so calm in the neighborhood.

“Nobody expected this to happen,” she said between tears.

On Friday afternoon, Baker posted on Facebook that the bodies of Davy and Natalie Lloyd were safely transported to the U.S. Embassy.

The couple worked for Missions in Haiti Inc. The Claremore, Oklahoma, organization was founded by David and Alicia Lloyd, Davy Lloyd’s parents. Natalie Lloyd’s Facebook page said the couple married on June 18, 2022, and she began working with the missionary organization in August 2022. She frequently posted photos of Haitian children on her page.

A Facebook posting on the Missions for Haiti page late Thursday read: “Around midnight: Davy and Natalie and Jude were shot and killed by the gang about 9 o’clock this evening. We all are devastated.”

Alicia Lloyd, mother of Davy Lloyd, told the Oklahoma-based Claremore Daily Progress newspaper that her son “was one of these people who could do anything.”

“I hope something good can come out of this. We don’t see it now, but we don’t want (their lives) to be in vain,” she was quoted as saying.

The U.S. State Department said Friday it was aware of the killings. “We offer our sincerest condolences to the family on their loss. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance. Out of respect for the family during this difficult time, we have no further comment,” the agency said.

It wasn’t immediately clear which gang or gangs were responsible for the fatal shootings.

However, a gang leader called Chyen Mechan, which means “mean dog” in Haitian Creole, controls the area where the shooting occurred. His real name is Claudy Célestin, and he is a dismissed civil servant from Haiti’s Ministry of the Interior.

The leader of another gang known as General Jeff also controls territory near the neighborhood where the couple was killed. Both gangs are part of a coalition known as Viv Ansanm, which means “Live Together.”

The coalition is responsible for launching large-scale attacks on key government infrastructure starting Feb. 29. Gunmen have attacked police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that remained closed for nearly three months before opening earlier this week and stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons, releasing more than 4,000 inmates.

Gangs also are blamed for killing or injuring more than 2,500 people across Haiti from January to March, a 50% increase compared with the same period last year, according to the United Nations. In addition, more than 360,000 people have been forced to flee their homes by gangs who control 80% of Port-au-Prince.

Kidnappings also are rampant, with targets including U.S. missionaries.

In October 2021, gang members kidnapped 17 missionaries, the majority U.S. citizens. Many in the group, which included five children, were held captive for more than two months before escaping.

Then in July 2023, gangs kidnapped a U.S. nurse and her daughter from the campus of a Christian-run school near Port-au-Prince. They were released nearly two weeks later.

The U.S. Department of State has long had a “do not travel” advisory for Haiti and urges any U.S. citizens in the country to depart as soon as possible.

On the Missions for Haiti website, the founders wrote that the organization was founded in 2000. It said it aimed to help with “the country’s biggest need — its children.”

A May 2023 newsletter posted on the mission website said Natalie “has been helping with the kids at the House of Compassion and assisting in our ACE school. Davy has been working on a lot of badly needed projects around our compound,” including building a laundry room and repairing bathrooms.

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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. AP writer Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri contributed to this report.

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. human rights office warned Friday of “frightening and disturbing reports” about the impact of new violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, pointing to new attacks on Rohingya civilians by the military and an ethnic armed group fighting it.

Spokesperson Liz Throssell of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights cited the burning of the town of Buthidaung, as well as air strikes, reports of shootings at unarmed fleeing villagers, beheadings and disappearances as part of the violence in recent weeks.

“We are receiving frightening and disturbing reports from northern Rakhine state in Myanmar of the impacts of the conflict on civilian lives and property,” she told a regular briefing in Geneva. “Some of the most serious allegations concern incidents of killing of Rohingya civilians and the burning of their property.”

She said tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent days amid fighting in Buthidaung, citing evidence from satellite images, testimonies and online video indicating that the town has been largely burned. A battle begun in neighboring Maungdaw presented “clear and present risks of a serious expansion of violence,” she added.

Throssell denounced signs of new attacks on Rohingya civilians by Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army, the well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement that seeks autonomy from the central government.

She pointed to one survivor’s account about dozens of dead bodies as he fled Buthidaung, while others spoke of abuse and extortion from the Arakan Army forces.

The fighting comes in the context of a civil war in Myanmar that began after the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, leading to an armed resistance opposing military rule.

The pro-democracy fighters are allied with several of the ethnic minority groups that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades, and have well-trained military forces.

The Arakan Army had a loose cease-fire with the military government until last October, when it joined with two other ethnic armed groups to capture territory in northeastern Myanmar.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Tuesday said the United States was “deeply troubled” by reports of increased violence in Rakhine state, and called on the military and armed groups to protect civilians and allow humanitarian access.

The Rohingya were the targets of a brutal counterinsurgency campaign incorporating rape and murder that saw an estimated 740,000 flee to neighboring Bangladesh as their villages were burned down by government troops in 2017.

Rohingya have lived in Myanmar for generations, but they are widely regarded by many in the country’s Buddhist majority, including members of the Rakhine minority, as having illegally migrated from Bangladesh. The Rohingya face a great amount of prejudice and are generally denied citizenship and other basic rights.

GENEVA (AP) — U.N. member countries on Friday concluded a new treaty to help ensure that traditional knowledge about genetic resources, like medicines derived from exotic plants in the Andes mountains, is properly traced.

It marks the first time the 193 member states of the U.N.’s World Intellectual Property Organization have reached agreement on patent protections about historic knowledge from indigenous cultures, which have long been exploited by colonists, traders and others.

The treaty doesn’t address compensation to indigenous communities for their historic expertise about products drawn from things like from tropical plants.

But the accord is seen as an important first step. It requires patent applicants, like foreign entrepreneurs or international companies, to specify where they got ideas about what goes into their products, especially inputs drawn from the knowledge of indigenous or local peoples.

Daren Tang, the organization’s director-general, said the agreement showed that “multilateralism is alive and well at WIPO.”

“Today we made history in many ways,” he said. “Through this, we are showing that the IP system can continue to incentivize innovation while evolving in a more inclusive way, responding to the needs of all countries and their communities.”

The WIPO Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge treaty, reached by consensus after more than two decades in the making, will take effect as international law after 15 countries adopt it.

The agreement centers on genetic resources like medicinal plants, crops from farms and some animal breeds. It will not be retroactive, meaning that it’s only applicable to future discoveries, not past ones.

WIPO’s rules don’t allow for intellectual property protection of natural or genetic resources themselves but do help to safeguard inventions — by people — that put those resources to work for humankind, whether historically or recently.

The deal will, for example, require companies in industries like fashion, luxury goods and pharmaceuticals to specify the origin of the plant-based chemicals in medicines or plants in skin creams that they use for their products, if drawn from local knowledge.