The United States will donate 200 medical ventilators to Moscow via U.S. military transport beginning next week, to aid against the worsening coronavirus outbreak in Russia.Government communications obtained by VOA reveal that the first 50 ventilators are being produced in California and will be ready for shipment to a surgical center in Moscow on Wednesday. The remaining 150 will be ready for shipment on May 26.The U.S. government is donating 100 percent of the cost of the ventilators, their start-up components and their delivery expenses, which officials said totals roughly $4.7 million.U.S. military aircraft will be used to transport the medical ventilators, considered the “best option” due to extremely limited commercial flights. Officials stressed within the communications that the ventilators are for the Russian people and do not signal a partnership with the Russian military.“There is no cooperation between the U.S. and Russian militaries, as is prohibited under the National Defense Authorization Act,” according to the communications.The COVID-19 outbreak has recently surged in Russia, which now has the second-highest number of cases in the world at nearly 263,000 cases, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Only the U.S., with 1.4 million cases, has more.The deliveries later this month will fulfill an offer made by President Donald Trump during a news conference in mid-April.Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted Trump’s offer to provide ventilators during a call between the two leaders that focused on the coronavirus as well as arms control, according to the White House.The United States has aided many countries battling the coronavirus pandemic and will continue to do so in the future, according to officials.Ventilator firesOn Wednesday, Russia suspended the use of some Russian-made, Aventa-M medical ventilators following fatal hospital fires in Moscow and St. Petersburg reportedly involving the machines.Russia sent a batch of the same type of ventilators to the United States in the beginning of April due to projected shortages in the states of New York and New Jersey.U.S. officials have said the Russian ventilators were not used or deployed to hospitals due to a flattening of the coronavirus curve, and the two states are returning the ventilators to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “out of an abundance of caution.”  
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The new Space Force flag was unveiled Friday at the White House, the nation’s first new military service flag in more than 70 years.Secretary of Defense Mark Esper called the unveiling a “historic moment” for the future of space defense.“Our adversaries in the last several years have weaponized space. They’ve made it a warfighting domain,” Esper said. “The U.S. is now doing what it needs to do to protect our assets in space.”The delta symbol in the center of the black Space Force flag is one that the U.S. space defense community has used for years.“The North Star signifies our core value, our guiding light, and the orbit around the globe signifies the space capabilities that fuel our American way of life and our American way of war,” U.S. Space Force Chief General John Raymond explained during the unveiling.Russia and China have recently placed a greater emphasis on their space capabilities, including developing technology and weapons that could disrupt or destroy satellites. Iran and North Korea have less-developed capabilities, but they still pose a threat, according to defense officials.The realm of space is essential to everyday activities from navigation to banking. Space assets are also critical to military missions, from launching missiles to collecting intelligence.“Most Americans, before their first cup of coffee in the morning, have used space,” Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said Friday at the unveiling. “It’s vulnerable, and we need to up our game.”
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The United States is on track to withdraw several thousand troops from Afghanistan as agreed in February, even as violence flares and the Taliban and the Afghan government have failed to start peace talks.  
 
U.S. officials are sticking to their promise to reduce troop levels to 8,600 by mid-July, and by next spring all American and allied forces are to have left the country, ending America’s longest war. Yet the outlook for peace is cloudy. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says his government is now going back on the offensive against the Taliban after a series of devastating attacks on civilians.
 
That has concerned some lawmakers, including Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee. She says the United States needs to keep a military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan to prevent extremist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate from forming havens from which to attack the U.S.
 
“Withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan won’t end the war – it will just let the terrorists win” she told The Associated Press.
 
Some question whether the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, on Feb. 29, which the Trump administration billed as “a decisive step to achieve a negotiated peace,” was instead mainly a withdrawal agreement. President Donald Trump had campaigned on bringing troops home from foreign wars. And though the Afghan government publicly supported the deal, it did not participate directly in the negotiations and has not, in Washington’s view, capitalized on the chance for peace talks.
 
President Trump promised to bring our troops home from overseas and is following through on that promise,'' the White House said when the Doha deal was signed.
 
The deal stipulated that the Taliban would start intra-Afghan peace negotiations on March 10, but that has not happened. The Taliban and the Afghan government also have squabbled over a promised release of each other's prisoners.
 
"A lot of this boils down to: Was the U.S.-Taliban agreement any kind of serious negotiation at all, or was it just totally a fig leaf to cover abject withdrawal? I suspect the latter," said Stephen Biddle, a Columbia University professor of international and public affairs and a former adviser to U.S. commanders in Kabul.
 
"It gave away almost all the leverage we had in exchange for virtually nothing,'' he added.It looks very much like a situation in which the Taliban have concluded that the Americans are out, and they’re going to play out the string and see what happens when we’re gone”
 
The United States has been the prime backer of the Afghan government since it invaded the country soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and overthrew the Taliban, which was running the country and harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. According to U.S. government auditors, Washington has committed $86 billion to support Afghan security forces and is still spending about $4 billion a year.
 
The Trump administration has expressed frustration with the lack of movement toward peace talks, but it has not threatened publicly to pull back from its commitment to fully withdraw. It did conduct an airstrike against the Taliban in defense of Afghan ground forces in early March just hours after Trump had what he called a good conversation by phone with a senior Taliban leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar.
 
Although the drawdown is required by the Doha agreement, U.S. defense officials had said for many months that they wanted to reduce to 8,600 _ the approximate number of troops that were supporting Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorism operations when Trump took office.
 
American officials constructed the Doha agreement mainly as a way of ending U.S. involvement in the war, rather than as an assured path to peace. The withdrawal is subject to Taliban assurances, but it does not require a peace settlement.
 
The deal also is seen by the U.S. as a way to enlist the Taliban in the fight against the Islamic State group. The American military considers the group’s Afghan affiliate as a greater threat than the Taliban.
 
The U.S. agreed to withdraw not just military forces but also all intelligence agency personnel, private security contractors, trainers and advisers. NATO allied forces also are to withdraw.
 
The Doha deal was seen at the time as Afghanistan’s best chance at peace in decades of war, but the government has since been consumed with political turmoil. Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah have both declared themselves winners of last year’s presidential polls, and each declared himself president.
 
Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said that getting out of Afghanistan would advance his aim of devoting more forces to the Asia-Pacific region to counter China, which he sees as the No. 1 long-term threat to the United States.
 
Esper has been skeptical of the Taliban’s commitment to peace, and on May 5 he said neither the Taliban nor the Afghan government is abiding by the agreement.
 
Esper said the Taliban should return to the reduced levels of violence that existed in the week before the Feb. 29 Doha signing. At the time, Ghani put his government forces in a defensive stance, but on Tuesday he ordered a return to the offensive, expressing anger for two attacks, including one that killed 24 people, including infants, at a hospital.
 
The Taliban denied responsibility and the U.S. has blamed the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan for the attack. The Taliban on Thursday said it had carried out a suicide bombing as retaliation for having been falsely accused by Ghani.
 
A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell, indicated the U.S. stance has not changed.
 
“Consistent with the agreement, the U.S. military will continue to conduct defensive strikes against the Taliban when they attack our (Afghan) partners,” he said Wednesday. “As the secretary of defense stated recently, this is going to be a windy, bumpy road, but a political agreement is the best way to end the war.”
 
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The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action ramping up tensions with China.The U.S. Commerce Department said it was amending an export rule to “strategically target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that are the direct product of certain U.S. software and technology.”The reaction from China  was swift with a report saying it was ready to put U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list,” as part of countermeasures in response to the new limits on Huawei, FILE – A security personnel stands near the logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd (TSMC) during an investor conference in Taipei, July 16, 2014.The rule change is a blow to Huawei, the world’s No. 2 smartphone maker, as well as to Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, a major producer of chips for Huawei’s HiSilicon unit as well as mobile phone rivals Apple and Qualcomm. TMSC announced late Thursday it would build a $12 billion chip factory in Arizona.TSMC said Friday it is “working with outside counsels to conduct legal analysis and ensure a comprehensive examination and interpretation of these rules. We expect to have the assessment concluded before the effective date,” the company said, adding the “semiconductor industry supply chain is extremely complex, and is served by a broad collection of international suppliers.”Huawei, which needs semiconductors for its widely used smartphones and telecoms equipment, is at the heart of a battle for global technological dominance between the United States and China.Huawei, which has warned that the Chinese government would retaliate if the rule went into effect, did not immediately comment on Friday. U.S. stock market futures turned negative on the Reuters report.”The Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered on the chopping board,” Huawei Chairman Eric Xu told reporters on March 31.The United States is trying to convince allies to exclude Huawei gear from next generation 5G networks on grounds its equipment could be used by China for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied the claim.Huawei has continued to use U.S. software and technology to design semiconductors, the Commerce Department said, despite being placed on a U.S. economic blacklist in May 2019.FILE – A chip by Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon is displayed in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, March 21, 2019.Under the rule change, foreign companies that use U.S. chipmaking equipment will be required to obtain a U.S. license before supplying certain chips to Huawei, or an affiliate like HiSilicon. The rule targets chips designed or custom-made for Huawei.In order for Huawei to continue to receive some chipsets or use some semiconductor designs tied to certain U.S. software and technology, it would need to receive licenses from the Commerce Department.National security concernsCommerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Fox Business “there has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been in able, in effect, to use U.S. technology with foreign fab producers.” Ross called the rule change a “highly tailored thing to try to correct that loophole.”Ross said in a written statement Huawei had “stepped-up efforts to undermine these national security-based restrictions.”The Commerce Department said the rule will allow wafers already in production to be shipped to Huawei as long as the shipments are complete within 120 days from Friday. Chipsets would need to be in production by Friday or they would be ineligible under the rule.The United States placed Huawei and 114 affiliates on its economic blacklist citing national security concerns. That forced some U.S. and foreign companies to seek special licenses from the Commerce Department to sell to it, but China hawks in the U.S. government have been frustrated by the vast number of supply chains beyond their reach.Separately, the Commerce Department extended a temporary license that was set to expire Friday to allow U.S. companies, many of which operate wireless networks in rural America, to continue doing business with Huawei through Aug. 13. It warned it expected this would be the final extension.Reuters first reported the administration was considering changes to the Foreign Direct Product Rule, which subjects some foreign-made goods based on U.S. technology or software to U.S. regulations, in November.Most chip manufacturers rely on equipment produced by U.S. companies like KLA, Lam Research and Applied Materials, according to a report last year from China’s Everbright Securities.Other recent actionThe Trump administration has taken a series of steps aimed at Chinese telecom firms in recent weeks.The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last month began the process of shutting down the U.S. operations of three state-controlled Chinese telecommunications companies, citing national security risks. The FCC also in April approved Alphabet Inc. unit Google’s request to use part of an 8,000-mile undersea telecommunications cable between the United States and Taiwan, but not Hong Kong, after U.S. agencies raised national security concerns.This week, President Donald Trump extended for another year a May 2019 executive order barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by companies deemed to pose a national security risk, a move seen aimed at Huawei and peer ZTE Corp. 
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Under a sky of fast-moving clouds, Ron Kindred waits for a break in what has been a steady few weeks of wet weather to begin planting corn and soybeans.The storm clouds over his Atlanta, Illinois, farm are delaying his ability to get seeds into the ground on time, adding to the mounting pressure and uncertainty he faces this year, as Kindred and farmers across the country deal with unprecedented economic headwinds brought on by the coronavirus.“This could be the worst year we’ve had in a long time,” Kindred said.  Last year he wondered how low soybean prices would go amid a trade war with the biggest market for them – China.This year his biggest concern is how low corn prices will go.“Corn has become an energy market. It follows the crude oil. It follows ethanol, and ethanol follows crude oil.”Crude oil reached historic lows in April, with trading in negative territory amid a standoff between Saudi Arabia and Russia on production amounts.  Compounding the issue is that drivers around the world are staying home amid the coronavirus outbreak, reducing demand for corn-based ethanol, which is added to fuel supplies.In 2018, the United States exported about 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol to more than 80 countries. That amount is expected to drop this year, a troubling sign for U.S. farmers beginning a planting season in the country that produces the world’s largest amount of corn, and ethanol.While prices have rebounded slightly from historic lows, the record price drop sent a shockwave around the world that extended all the way to Kindred’s rural Illinois farm.“It’s depressed our corn prices from in the $3.60s to $2.80 now,” Kindred said.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyAccording to the Renewable Fuels Association, about 70 ethanol plants in the United States are idled as a result of plummeting demand with at least 70 more reducing operations. U.S. production is down by almost 50%.  Amid weak demand, some U.S. lawmakers want controversial exemptions for oil companies required to blend ethanol in their gasoline, which could further depress prices.“Ethanol plants purchase about a third of the U.S. corn crop,” said Mike Doherty, senior economist for the Illinois Farm Bureau. “Since ethanol is blended at a 10% level for the most part, that has just been devastating to the U.S. corn market.”Doherty said it’s already too late for many farmers to transition to another crop.“How much can they really shift at this late stage in the game when they’ve already purchased their seed, they’ve already booked their fertilizer they need, the chemicals they need to grow these crops?”“Our input costs for corn per acre are over $800,” said Cambridge, Wisconsin, farmer Tina Hinchley. “Recently, the extra corn we have in our grain bins usually goes to the ethanol plant, which is 20 minutes away, but that has shut down because of the stay-at-home order and not traveling, so our bins are full.”The main product raised on Hinchley’s farm is milk from her dairy cows. But she and her family also manage several hundred acres of farmland, and their full corn bins are forcing a change in plans.“We are switching up to plant enough corn to make sure our cows have plenty of feed and maybe a little bit extra to fill our bins,” Hinchley said, “but then we’ll switch to the soybeans.”While Hinchley’s situation illustrates how the price of one crop can affect farm management of other crops and food sources, Illinois farmer Kindred said even soybeans aren’t immune to coronavirus-related price declines.“This slowdown in the economy has also had a big impact on the volume of biodiesel that’s being moved around the countryside, so our biodiesel plants are cutting back so there’s less demand for soybean oil, so there’s less crushing for soybean meal, so it all adds up to impacting soybeans as well,” he told VOA.The true economic impact of the coronavirus on overall farm income won’t be understood immediately.  “It’s added a lot of stress because we don’t know how long it’s going to last and how low these markets are going to go,” Kindred said, adding there’s little he can do to prevent the likelihood he’ll lose money on whatever he grows this year, but he believes he can manage the financial hardship.  Not every farming operation can weather the economic storm.While growing steadily over the past five years, the number of family-farm bankruptcies in the U.S. has risen 23 percent in the 12-month period that ended in March, just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting in many U.S. states.
 
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Defying a wave of layoffs that has sent the U.S. job market into its worst catastrophe on record, at least one major industry is making a comeback: Tens of thousands of auto workers are returning to factories that have been shuttered since mid-March due to fears of spreading the coronavirus.
Until now, it was mostly hair salons, restaurants, tattoo parlors and other small businesses reopening in some parts of the country. The auto industry is among the first major sectors of the economy to restart its engine.  
About 133,000 U.S. workers — just over half of the industry’s workforce before the pandemic — are expected to pour back into assembly plants that will open in the coming week, according to estimates by The Associated Press. In addition, parts-making companies began cranking this week to get components flowing, adding thousands more workers.  
Looming in the background is an economy decimated by the pandemic. Nearly 3 million laid-off U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, raising the total seeking aid in the past two months to about 36 million. Although some states have begun to let selected businesses reopen, workers are still reporting difficulty getting unemployment benefits. Freelance, gig and self-employed workers are struggling.  
Even the auto sector won’t see a full return to normal yet, and if people don’t start buying vehicles again, workers could be sent home. Yet automakers say there’s enough pent-up demand, especially for pickup trucks, to get factories humming again.
That could help states slow the drain on their unemployment benefit funds. In Michigan, where over one-third of the labor force sought benefits, the fund fell from $4.6 billion before the pandemic to $4.1 billion on April 30, said Jeff Donofrio, director of the state Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. Some returning auto employees could work part-time and get still some unemployment benefits, but federal programs could cover part of their payments, he said.
At Ford, where about 47,000 U.S. factory workers will return by next week, there’s optimism that consumer demand will accompany them. Chief Operating Officer Jim Farley said the company, using data collected from new Ford models from the past two years, is seeing sales recover.
In Europe, China and the U.S., Ford has found a correlation between the number of trips people take and auto sales, with trips increasing as restrictions eased.  
“We started to see in early April a change where people started to take more trips,” Farley said Thursday. “The (sales) decline stopped and our retail sales improved a lot.”
Auto sales in China, where the virus peaked before the U.S., could be a harbinger of things to come. China sales fell just 2.6% in April from a year earlier, compared with a 48% free-fall in March.
Production at many plants is nearly back to normal after being shut down in January and February. Volkswagen, Honda, Mercedes and Ford reported no virus cases among employees since reopening. Fiat Chrysler had two, but said the workers never entered factories.
Things are worse in Europe, where sales plummeted 55% in March and some factories are running at only 40% of capacity. The pandemic has affected over 1.1 million European auto industry workers, almost half the sector’s manufacturing jobs. Most are getting paid through government support. A survey of auto parts suppliers shows that a third of executives believe it will take at least two years for the industry to recover.
U.S. sales fell 46% in April as the virus took hold, but analysts are forecasting a smaller decline of 30% in May. Sales have been juiced by huge incentives, with some automakers offering 0% financing for as long as seven years.  
Pickup trucks are giving automakers the most hope, said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president at LMC Automotive, a consulting firm. Through April, total auto sales were down 21%, but pickups were only off 4%, he said.
Yet Schuster says automakers could be a little too optimistic about sales overall. “Those consumers who are still unemployed are not likely to be making auto purchases,” he said.
Some U.S. automakers, like General Motors, are restarting slowly, only bringing back workers on one shift in factories, some of which ran around the clock before the pandemic. Others, like Subaru in Indiana, have a full complement of employees.
Although companies are taking precautions, one big virus outbreak at an auto plant could send the industry back into hibernation. And the industry could face parts supply interruptions from Mexico, where the government wants to reopen factories despite rising virus cases.
Automakers in the U.S. are requiring employees to fill out questionnaires daily to see if they have symptoms, taking temperatures with no-touch thermometers before workers enter buildings, and requiring gloves, masks and face shields. They’ve also tried to keep at least six feet between workers, staggered time between shifts so workers don’t interact, and put up plexiglas barriers when possible.
All the steps were tested on U.S. workers who volunteered to make protective gear and breathing machines while they were laid off. Automakers say they know of no virus cases among workers in the effort.  
But Phil Cuthbertson a worker at GM’s transmission plant in Toledo, Ohio, who will return Monday, said he has mixed feelings.  
“I just don’t want the whole thing to be pushed on us to go back if it’s not safe,” he said.
Cindy Estrada, United Auto Workers vice president for Fiat Chrysler, said she’s been impressed by the companies’ safety commitment. But she’s sure some workers, especially in the hard-hit Detroit area, will be fearful because family members or co-workers have had COVID-19. At least 25 UAW members employed by Detroit automakers have died from the virus, although no one is sure if they caught it at a factory.
The union will be watching in case workers get infected, though there’s no magic number for when it will try to close a factory, Estrada said.  
“If something looks like it’s becoming a hot spot, then we need to act quickly and make adjustments,” she said. “No one wants to see that happen.”
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