A victim of domestic abuse while pregnant and now a mother of two, Miriam Gutierrez is a champion Spanish boxer and an elected official whose goal is to knockout those who challenge women’s rights. Arash Arabasadi has more.

The third meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has drawn praise as well as criticism.  Critics say Trump is showering attention on a dictator without getting any concessions on the North Korean nuclear development, while others see it as a ray of hope for a permanent peace on the Korean peninsula.  VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.

Uruguayan primary elections look set to pit a former mayor against a senator in the presidential vote in October, according to early exit polls Sunday evening in the South American country.

Polls after ballots closed showed former Montevideo mayor Daniel Martinez and Senator Luis Lacalle Pou winning the nominations for Broad Front and the National Party respectively, the two main factions expected to battle in out later this year.

Data from the three main local pollsters Cifra, Equipos and Opcion, after voting closed at 7:30 p.m. indicated that Ernesto Talvi looked set to be the candidate for the Colorado Party, the third main political faction.

Uruguay’s electoral court has not yet given official data.

Martinez, a 62-year-old engineer, beat out Carolina Cosse, former Minister of Industry whose candidacy was backed by ex-President Jose Mujica. Also competing were former Central Bank president Mario Bergara and trade unionist Oscar Andrade.

Lacalle Pou, 44, a lawyer and the son of former President Luis Alberto Lacalle, was facing Senator Jorge Larranaga and businessman Juan Sartori, who joined the party at the end of last year and had been surging lately in the polls.

Talvi, a 62-year-old economist, is a relative newcomer with the Colorado Party, but looks to have beaten out more experienced rival Julio Maria Sanguinetti, an 83-year-old lawyer who was the country’s president twice before.

Overall polls ahead of the Oct. 27 election currently suggests a closely fought race between the Broad Front party and the National Party, with a likely run-off in November, which happens if there is no clear winner in the first round.

The next president, who will take over from incumbent Tabare Vazquez, will need to revive economic growth in the country that is expected to grow less than 1% this year, after the farming-heaving economy was hit by droughts and floods.

Five Japanese whaling ships are set on Monday to begin the first commercial whale hunt in more than 30 years.

Japan stopped commercial whaling in 1988 after the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a moratorium on killing the giant mammals.

But despite the global ban, Japan continued to hunt whales for what it claimed was scientific research. Critics have long disputed that claim, calling it commercial whaling in disguise.

In the 2017-2018 whaling season, Japanese sailors killed 333 minke whales in Antarctic waters. More than 120 were pregnant females.

In December, Japan announced it was leaving the IWC on June 30.

The whaling fleet will sail from the port of Kushiro, on the northern island of Hokkaido. Its ships will hunt minke, sei and Bryde’s whales in Japanese waters.

Japan’s return to commercial whaling has created an international outcry.

Kitty Block, president of Humane Society International, said: “Japan leaving the IWC and defying international law to pursue its commercial whaling ambitions is renegade, retrograde and myopic. It is undermining its international reputation for an industry whose days are so clearly numbered, to produce a product for which demand has plummeted.”

But some experts say Japan’s move might be a blessing in disguise for some whales, because it will mean that Japan will stop hunting whales in the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic and other sensitive locations.

Japan has yet to disclose how many whales it will allow its fishermen to kill.

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied across Sudan on Sunday against the ruling generals, calling for a civilian government nearly three months after the army forced out long-time leader Omar al-Bashir.   

Chanting anti-military slogans and raising Sudan’s flag, the protesters took to the streets of the capital and headed for the presidential palace, in what organizers were calling a “million-man march.”

In addition to demanding a civilian government, they called for those behind the deadly early June crackdown on protesters to be brought to justice.  Protest organizers said the death toll from the June 3 incident was at least 128, while authorities claim it was 61, including three security personnel.

On Sunday there were reports of tear gas and live bullets being fired in an effort to disperse demonstrators.

One of the protest organizers, the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA), called on the crowds to reach the presidential palace and camp out there until their demands are met.

Mohamed Hassan, one of the protesters, was upbeat but said there was no guarantee the military would not interfere.

“We succeeded to make and we mark the June 30 by our winning, we are now in (the district of) Bahri, we are moving forward now and the RSF (Rapid Support Force) are moving around us. The protesters are moving free so far in this area but we don’t know what will happen in the coming time,” he said.

General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Military Council, claimed an unknown armed group of snipers had attacked the peaceful protesters.

Today, they declared a million-man march and we warned of some perpetrators that may target the demonstration, now I received reports that unknown snipers have targeted the protests and injured 3 of our forces and five or six protesters, he said.

He also stressed that the generals want to reach an “urgent and comprehensive agreement” with no exclusion.

Ethiopia and the African Union have offered a plan for Sudan that calls for a civilian-majority body, which the generals say could create the basis for new negotiations.

Mexican immigration officials say they have returned 81 migrants to Haiti after attending to “technical” considerations and seeing to the security of the captain of the plane taking them to the Caribbean nation.

Local media reported that several Haitians tried to flee the plane parked at an airport in the southern state of Chiapas on Saturday. El Sol de Mexico newspaper said the uprising took four hours to control and that 10 Mexican police were injured. 

Dozens of Haitians were removed from the deportation plane before it took off for Port-au-Prince.

Mexico is under intense pressure to reduce the flow of migrants traveling through the country to reaching the U.S. Most of the migrants are from Central America, but others are from African, Asian or Caribbean countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday appealed a U.S. judge’s ruling that blocked his administration from using $2.5 billion in funds intended for anti-drug activities to construct a wall along the southern border with Mexico. 

U.S. Department of Justice lawyers said in a court filing that they were formally appealing Friday’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

“We’re immediately appealing it, and we think we’ll win the appeal,” Trump said during a press conference Saturday at a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in Japan. 

“There was no reason that that should’ve happened,” Trump said. 

Trump says construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico 
border is needed to keep out illegal immigrants and drugs, but he has so far been unable to get congressional approval for such a project. 

In February, the Trump administration declared a national 
emergency to reprogram $6.7 billion in funds that Congress had allocated for other purposes to build the wall, which groups and states including California had challenged. 

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, Calif., said in a pair of court decisions that the Trump administration’s proposal to transfer Defense Department funds intended for anti-drug activities was unlawful. 

One of Gilliam’s rulings was in a lawsuit filed by California on behalf of 20 states, while the other was in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in coordination with the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition. 

“These rulings critically stop President Trump’s illegal 
money grab to divert $2.5 billion of unauthorized funding for 
his pet project,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra 
said in a statement late Friday. “All President Trump has 
succeeded in building is a constitutional crisis, threatening 
immediate harm to our state.” 

The United States on Saturday urged an immediate end to a mobile data blackout in parts of two Myanmar states, saying a service restoration would help provide transparency to what the government says are law enforcement actions to avert unrest. 

Morgan Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, said the United States was “deeply concerned” by the data shutdown that has curbed internet-based communications for as many as 1 million people in Rakhine and Chin states. 

On Monday, Yanghee Lee, the special U.N. rapporteur who monitors human rights in Myanmar, said the Myanmar military was conducting a “clearance operation” against Arakan Army rebels in the blacked-out areas. She said she feared troops were committing “gross human rights violations” against civilians under the cover of the shutdown. 

The Arakan Army, an insurgent group fighting for greater autonomy for Rakhine state, recruits from the state’s ethnic Rakhine Buddhist majority. 

In a statement, Ortagus said internet service should be restored “without delay.” 

“Resumption of service would help facilitate transparency in and accountability for what the government claims are law enforcement actions aimed at preventing further outbreaks of violence in the affected areas,” Ortagus said. 

A leading Myanmar telecommunications operator, the Telenor Group, said on June 22 that the Ministry of Transport and Communications had ordered a temporary shutdown of internet services in western Myanmar, citing “disturbances of peace and the use of the internet to coordinate illegal activities.” 

A military spokesman said the army had no information about the shutdown and denied it was behind the blackout. 

Rakhine state made world headlines in 2017 when the Myanmar military, responding to militant attacks, launched a crackdown that prompted 730,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. 

Members of Sudan’s powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces prevented protest leaders from addressing journalists on Saturday, the eve of a mass rally against the ruling generals, protest organizers said. 
 
Sudan’s umbrella protest movement, the Alliance for Freedom and Change, has called for a “million man” march Sunday in Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman, against the ruling generals, who have resisted calls to cede power to civilians. 
 
The movement’s key group, the Sudanese Professionals Association, had called for a media briefing on Saturday evening to unveil plans for the rally, but it was blocked by members of the RSF, protest leader Ahmed al-Rabie said. 
 
“Before we could start the press conference, three vehicles from RSF, full of armed men, came to our building and told us not to hold the press conference,” Rabie said. 
 
They “also ordered all the people there to leave the building,” he added. 
 
A Sudanese journalist at the site confirmed that armed men had prevented him and other journalists from attending the briefing in Khartoum’s eastern district of Burri, a hotbed of protests. 
 
Rabie said two leaders from the movement had been arrested on Friday. 
 
Sunday’s mass protest is the first such rally called by the alliance since a deadly crackdown on a protest camp on June 3 left dozens dead and hundreds killed. 
 
Tensions remain high between the two sides despite Ethiopian and African Union efforts to mediate a solution to the crisis. 
 
Sudan’s generals seized power after the army ousted longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir on April 11 following months of protests against his rule spearheaded by the Alliance for Freedom and Change. 
But they have since resisted calls to hand power to civilians. 

A senior World Health Organization official warns efforts to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo will remain elusive unless the vicious cycle of violence in the region is broken.  Latest WHO figures put the number of Ebola cases at 2284, including 1540 deaths and 637 survivors. 

WHO Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response Ibrahima Soce Fall says there has been good progress in scaling up operations to contain the spread of the deadly ebola virus in conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces.

Fall has just returned from a three-month stint in Butembo, the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic in DR Congo.  He says last week there were 79 new Ebola cases, 27 fewer than the previous week.  He says infections are continuing to fall in the major urban centers of Butembo and Katwa thanks to coverage in all 33 health areas.  

At the same time, he tells VOA the operation is running into difficulty in the rural areas of Mabalako and Mandima, the new hot spots of the epidemic.

“The access is more challenging.  In the same area, we have some villages where you have both ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) armed group coming from Uganda and some Mai Mai groups,” said Fall.  “So, access needs to be assessed on a daily basis to be able to move up to the intervention.  So, it is really important to take into account this very volatile situation.”

Eastern DRC has been politically unstable since 1998.   There are an estimated 4.5 million internally displaced people in the country.  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says new displacements are occurring mainly in the eastern provinces of Ituri and North and South Kivu.  More than 100 armed groups reportedly are engaged in sporadic fighting in the region.  

Fall says constant and skilled negotiations with the armed groups are needed to gain access to these volatile areas.

“The outbreak started there last year and spread to other areas,” Fall said. “So, it is important to break this vicious cycle to contain very quickly the situation in Mabalako and Mandima, where we have more than 55 percent of the cases coming from.” 

Fall says it will be exceedingly difficult to contain the virus if more money is not immediately forthcoming.   He says $98 million is needed to support the government-led response to defeat ebola.  To date, he says less than half that amount has been received.

For months, the names of white men have sat at the top of early Democratic presidential primary polls. On the debate stage this week, the half-dozen women in the field offered up an alternative: themselves.

They did so with different tactics and styles but a shared goal: shaking up assumptions about who is electable in a race for a job that has only been held by men.

While it’s too early in the Democratic nominating process to know if they succeeded on that front, some of the women emerged as dominant forces on the debate stage, driving the policy discussions and insisting on being heard on issues despite the crowded field. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris led the way and were widely seen as among the top performers.

“Over the past two nights, women won each debate and showed that this race is not over,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, the largest national organization devoted to electing women. “They were great debaters, compelling storytellers and effective at making their case and getting in the fight when they had a point to make.”

Of course, winning one debate is far different than winning the nomination or the general election. Hillary Clinton, for example, dominated most of her debate showdowns throughout the 2016 campaign, including her three faceoffs with Donald Trump, but still lost the election.

For some Democrats, Clinton’s loss was a searing experience that has prompted questions about whether the country is ready to elect a female president — or whether the party should even risk testing that proposition in next year’s high-stakes election.

In her two White House campaigns, Clinton was always the only woman on the debate stage. This time around, the female candidates had company — a history-making three women on stage each night. On Wednesday, Warren was joined by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. On Thursday, Harris debated alongside Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and the author Marianne Williamson. The debate’s moderators also included two women, NBC News’ Rachel Maddow and Savannah Guthrie.

Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said she is among those who have heard voters raise doubts about whether Democrats should nominate a woman in 2020 following Clinton’s loss. Following the debates, she said she was hopeful that narrative might change.

“This question of electability maybe gets shaken up a little bit as a result of these past two nights,” Walsh said.

There were notable moments for many of the women on stage. Gillibrand focused her message on women’s rights and family issues, doubling down on her strategy of running as an unabashed feminist. Klobuchar’s standout moment came when a male rival portrayed himself as the field’s most ardent defender of abortion rights.

“I want to say there are three women up here who fought pretty hard for a woman’s right to choose,” Klobuchar said as the audience erupted in applause.

Yet it was Warren and Harris who rose to the top of the pack.

Warren stood at center stage on Wednesday, reflecting her standing as the night’s highest polling candidate. Her liberal policy positions also took center stage, driving much of the discussion throughout the night. Warren consciously avoided squabbling with her rivals, seeking to project the strength of a leading candidate.

Harris burst through on night two with a striking exchange with former Vice President Joe Biden, who has led early polling throughout the year. She challenged Biden vigorously, and in personal terms, over his past positions on school busing and his comments citing his work with segregationist senators as an example of a bygone air of civility.

The exchange was not the result of a moderator’s question. It was a moment Harris seized on herself, breaking in after author Williamson described how the average American was “woefully undereducated” about the history of race in the United States.

“As the only black person on this stage, I’d like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said. The crowd fell silent as she then recounted being bused to a desegregated school as a child.

“By weaving her personal experience into the broader attack, she could go after Biden without coming off as petty or inappropriate,” said Amanda Litman, a co-founder of Run For Something who worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “She claimed her space and made incredible use of it.”

The strong overall female presence in these debates may have a resonance well beyond what was visible onstage, said Erin Cassese, a specialist in women and politics at the University of Delaware.

Research shows, Cassese said, that “when women run, there’s a role model effect, other women pay attention, they’re more engaged in the campaign, and they may develop political ambitions.”

She added: “It’s less obvious because it’s not what we’re seeing onstage, but it’s about how people are connecting to the optics of it.”

The campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination kicked off this week in Miami with two nights of debates in a city known for its diversity and its close connection with immigrants from Haiti, Cuba and around the world. Democrats hope this early outreach will resonate with one of their strongest bases of voters: women of color. But as VOA’s Congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson reports from Miami, these voters are speaking up and demanding more from candidates.

Determined to seek an education, Afghan students in the Haska Mena district of eastern Nangarhar province study under the ruins of schools destroyed fighting with Islamic State militants.  VOA’s Zabihullah Ghazi reports from the region. 

Editor’s note: We want you to know what’s happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration, migration and refugee reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. 
 
Congress’ border battle 

In a begrudging statement Thursday, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats would sign on to an emergency funding deal to boost the government response at the southern U.S. border. Democratic lawmakers sought more proactive language in the bill regarding the care of children in custody, but “reluctantly” agreed to the Senate’s version of the legislation.
 
Deal or no deal in Guatemala 

Guatemalans will be the first to admit: They may not be the best-equipped nation to handle refugees, when so many of the country’s own citizens choose to leave for a safer life elsewhere. Yet the U.S. continues to try to broker a deal with the Central American country’s government to divert potential asylum seekers from Mexico and the US.
 
Detained children transferred 

The U.S. government said it would move hundreds of children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents out of a Texas detention center and into better facilities. The announcement came days after a scathing news report about unhygienic living conditions at one Border Patrol location, as U.S. officials struggle to meet the needs of a surge of unaccompanied minors and families crossing the border without authorization. Days after the report, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that overseas the facility in question, announced he would resign from his position on July 5.
 

Dying on the border 

Gurupreet Kaur was days away from her seventh birthday when she died in the southwestern U.S. desert earlier this month. Her body broke down under the blistering heat, while her mother and another woman had gone to look for water after crossing the border from Mexico in a remote area. Her death, and that of a Salvadoran toddler and her father attempting to cross the Rio Grande this week were the latest cases of children dying on the way to the U.S., as their parents seek better circumstances in a new country, while facing an arduous journey on foot.  
 
Death, fighting prompt DRC exodus  

Thousands of Congolese refugees are seeking sanctuary in Uganda in the wake of interethnic violence that killed more than 150 people this month.
 
IS orphans will head to Australia 

Australia evacuated the children and grandchildren of two dead Islamic State fighters from a Syrian refugee camp. The two militants were originally from Australia. The orphans, ranging from 2 to 18 years old, are traumatized and in poor health after years of living in the so-called IS caliphate. 
 
From the feds: 

* In another Homeland Security leadership shakeup, John P. Sanders, head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is stepping down. Mark Morgan, who was leading U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will take over at CBP, and Matthew Albence will take the helm at ICE.

* An uptick in Haitian and Central African migrants crossing into the U.S. without authorization continues, according to one U.S. Border Patrol sector.  Here’s more of VOA’s earlier reporting on this.

The first hurricane of the Eastern Pacific season has formed and faded far off the coast of Mexico.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Alvin’s maximum sustained winds hit nearly 75 mph (120 kph) Thursday evening, but slipped back below hurricane threshold to 70 mph (110 kph) by Friday morning.

It’s expected to continue weakening while moving roughly northwestward over open seas.

The storm was centered about 535 miles (860 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula early Friday and was moving northwest at 15 mph (24 kph).

The Supreme Court won’t revive Alabama’s ban on the most commonly used procedure in second-trimester abortions. The measure has been blocked by lower courts.

The justices on Friday rejected the state’s appeal in which it sought to enforce a law enacted in 2016 that bans the abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall calls the procedure “dismemberment abortion.”

Courts have blocked similar laws in Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. Court records show 93% of abortions in Alabama occur before 15 weeks of pregnancy. For the 7% of abortions that occur later, almost all are by dilation and evacuation.

Randall Marshall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, praised the court’s decision. He said the law would have effectively ended access to second trimester abortions in Alabama if the ban had been allowed to take effect.

We are not surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision to deny reviewing this case. In doing so, they are upholding the Supreme Court’s own precedent in protecting a woman’s right to access the healthcare she needs. A woman’s health, not Alabama politicians, should drive personal medical decisions,” Marshall said.
Abortion providers had challenged the 2016 law in court and U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson found that it would amount to a virtual ban on abortion in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Thompson’s ruling blocking the law, but two of the three judges on the panel said they voted to affirm only because they are bound by past Supreme Court decisions in support of abortion rights.   
 
Judge Ed Carnes wrote that “dismemberment” is an accurate description for the procedure but ruled against the state. “In our judicial system, there is only one Supreme Court, and we are not it,” he wrote.

The ruling comes shortly after Alabama lawmakers passed a law that would ban almost all abortions in the state, in the hopes of sparking a new court case that might prompt justices to revisit the legality of abortion. That abortion ban, which is slated to take effect in November, is facing a challenge in court.

Marshall said the Friday ruling on the procedure ban is perhaps a sign that justices, “are not ready to go in and make sweeping changes.”

The Supreme Court still is likely to hear an election year case involving abortion, a challenge to a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting prileges at nearby hospitals. A district judge who barred the state from enforcing the law found it would close one or two of the state’s three abortion clinics.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law and would have let it take effect pending a Supreme Court appeal. But the justices kept the law on hold in a 5-4 vote in February, pending a full review of the case.

Louisiana was among 21 states that urged the high court to hear the Alabama case. The oth, like Louisiana, have passed sweeping abortion restrictions, including an abortion ban as early as six weeks when a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Nearly six years after his arrest, and two years after he was legally set free, Mauritanian lawyers and international rights groups are calling for authorities to release blogger Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mkhaitir.

Citizen journalist and blogger Mkhaitir was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to death for what the state called blasphemy after he wrote a blog post condemning the use of religion to justify racial discrimination. 

In 2017, a Mauritanian court commuted Mkhaitir’s sentence to two years — which he had already served, legally liberating him. However, he has remained detained in an undisclosed location.

“He is no longer officially, legally in prison,” Fatimata M’Baye, Mkhaitir’s lawyer, told VOA. “Today, since November 9th, 2017, he is detained in an undisclosed location — a location even we, his lawyers, don’t know.”

M’Baye said that multiple requests to see her client have been denied. Mkhaitir, 35 and a father of one child, has not had any communication with his family either.

“The only people who have spoken with him are the people who bring him his food,” M’Baye said.

Numerous human rights organizations have called on Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who is due to step down in coming months, to release him. But Arnaud Froger, head of the Africa desk at Reporters Without Borders, says the case is indicative of declining press freedom in the Sahara desert country.

“This case of Mohamed Mkhaitir is very symbolic of what’s happening in Mauritania as far as press freedom is going,” Froger told VOA. “The country’s ranked 94 in our press freedom index and registered a very huge drop in places in the last index, mainly because the outgoing president has refused to release Mohamed Mkhaitir.”

Mkhaitir’s first trial in 2013 sparked protests by Islamists in the capital calling for his death. The post for which he was arrested criticized the use of religion to defend a rigid caste system in Mauritania.

Mkhaitir is of the Haratin ethnicity, sometimes referred to as black Maurs. The Haratin face systematic discrimination as severe as modern slavery — a problem the Mauritanian government asserts no longer exists.

Protecting Mkhaitir?

Since the court commuted Mkhaitir’s sentence in 2017, the president has argued that Mkhaitir must be kept in detention for his own safety, and for the safety of the Mauritanian people.

“We’ve been told, no, it’s not just for his security, it’s for the security of the 3 million or 4 million people of Mauritania — that his release would be a threat to the stability of the country,” M’Baye said. “I say that … I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

Her disbelief is shared by rights organizations.

“That you keep a blogger behind bars to ensure his own safety and the safety of Mauritanians is both outrageous and false. That the pressure put by Islamists on this case cannot justify to keep someone in detention no matter the court’s decision,” Froger said.

Reporters Without Borders is one of 11 organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, that signed a letter to Abdel Aziz last week calling for Mkhaitir’s release.

Incoming president Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has said nothing about the case.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday Canberra has yet to establish the whereabouts of an Australian man missing in North Korea for several days.

The family of Alek Sigley said on Thursday they had not heard from the 29-year-old university student in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, since Tuesday.

Australia’s foreign affairs department said on Thursday it was seeking urgent clarification about reports that an Australian had been detained in North Korea.

Australia has no diplomatic presence in North Korea and relies on third-party countries such as Sweden to act on its behalf. Morrison said Australia has been unable to establish what happened to Sigley despite the help of its allies.

“We don’t have any further information,” Morrison told Australia’s Channel 9 in Osaka, where he is attending the G20 summit of world leaders.

“It’s very concerning, I’m very concerned,” he said.

The treatment of foreign citizens, most usually from the United States, by the secretive North has long been a contentious issue. Some have been held as prisoners for years.

The death of American student Otto Warmbier in 2017 after he was detained in North Korea for 17 months sparked a long period of tension between Washington and Pyongyang, with the United States and North Korea even trading threats of war.

Warmbier was detained in 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of forced labor for trying to steal a propaganda poster in his hotel. He was returned to the United States in a coma and died soon after.

The United States imposed a ban on its citizens traveling to North Korea in September 2017, with a few exceptions for humanitarian workers or journalists.

Those tensions were relieved somewhat by an historic meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore a year ago to discuss the North’s nuclear and missiles programs.

The problems remain unresolved, however, after a failed second summit in Hanoi this year.