The top diplomats from the United States, China and Russia urged strengthened global cooperation Friday, recognizing the need to tackle growing global challenges and an unprecedented pandemic but sparring over their different worldviews and who’s to blame for threats to multilateralism.The high-level U.N. Security Council meeting marked the first joint appearance, albeit virtually, by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Wang Yi of China. Wang chaired the session as this month’s council president.Despite major differences, especially on human rights and democracy, all three said they were ready to cooperate with all countries to address international challenges — from addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change to ending conflicts and helping people in need.Blinken said the post-World War II commitment by nations to work together to prevent conflict, alleviate suffering and defend human rights is in serious jeopardy,'' pointing to resurgent nationalism, rising repression and deepening rivalries.“Now, some question whether multilateral cooperation is still possible,'' he told the council.The United States believes it is not only possible, it is imperative.”Cooperation called vitalBlinken said no single country — no matter how powerful — can address the challenges alone'' and that's why the U.S. will work through multilateral institutions to stop COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis, stem the spread and use of nuclear weapons, deliver lifesaving humanitarian aid and manage conflicts.We will also work with any country on these issues — including those with whom we have serious differences,” he said. At the same time, we will continue to push back forcefully when we see countries undermine the international order, pretend that the rules we've all agreed to don't exist, or simply violate them at will.''Blinken called for all countries to meet their commitments under the U.N. Charter, treaties, Security Council resolutions, international humanitarian law, the World Trade Organization and other global organizations.The U.S. isn't seeking to uphold thisrules-based order to keep other nations down,” he said, pointing out that the international order the United States helped to create and defend has enabled the rise of some of our fiercest competitors.''Blinken stressed thathuman rights and dignity must stay at the core of the international order.”Governments that insist what they do within their own borders is their own business don’t have a blank check to enslave, torture, disappear, ethnically cleanse their people, or violate their human rights in any other way,'' he said. This was an apparent reference to China's treatment of the Uyghur minority, as well as other countries, including Myanmar's actions against Rohingya Muslims.Border, territorial questionsBlinken also said countries don't respect a founding U.N. principle of equality of all nations when theypurport to redraw the borders of another” country, threaten force to resolve territorial disputes, claim entitlement to a sphere of influence or target another country with disinformation, undermine elections and go after journalists or dissidents.While he didn’t name any countries, that appeared aimed especially at China’s actions in the South China Sea and Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, its attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election and its arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and journalists.China’s Wang and Russia’s Lavrov both stressed the importance of maintaining the United Nations as the center of multilateralism, which Blinken did not.FILE – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech in Beijing, Feb. 22, 2021.Wang recalled the declaration adopted last September by world leaders commemorating the 75th anniversary of the United Nations that multilateralism is not an option but a necessity."He called the U.N.the banner of multilateralism” and said, We stand ready to work with all parties to bring multilateralism and the U.N. forward ... and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.''No 'bullying or hegemony'He said the more complex global issues are, the greater the need for cooperation on the basis of equality among all countries,not zero-sum games.””No country should expect others to lose,” the Chinese minister said. Rather, countries must work together to ensure that all come out as winners to achieve security and prosperity for all.''Wang also called forequity and justice, not bullying or hegemony,” stressing that international law must apply to all and there should be no room for exceptionalism or double standards.'' And he warned thatsplitting the world along ideological lines conflicts with the spirit of multilateralism and is a regression of history.”FILE – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a news conference in Moscow, April 16, 2021.Russia’s Lavrov was more specific in targeting the U.S. and other Western nations.He said the architecture of global governance created at the end of World War II is being sorely tested.''Unfortunately, not all of our partners are guided by the imperative of working honestly to establish genuine multilateral cooperation,” he said.Unable to advance their unilateral or bloc priorities within the U.N.,'' Lavrov said,leading Western countries are now trying to roll back the process of establishing a multipolar, polycentric world and trying to restrain the course of history.”Western rulesHe accused Western nations of developing their own rules, imposing them on everyone else, and taking actions circumventing the United Nations that he called harmful.''Lavrov pointed to U.S. President Joe Biden's call for a summit of democracies, warning thatcreating a new special-interest club on an openly ideologized basis could further exacerbate international tension and draw dividing lines in a world that needs a unifying agenda now more than ever.”He also pointed to the French-German Alliance for Multilateralism, saying it should be considered within the U.N., not outside it. And he said the West has established “narrow partnerships” on issues such as cyberspace, humanitarian law, freedom of information and democracy that are already discussed at the U.N. or its agencies.
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A federal grand jury has indicted Derek Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of African American George Floyd on charges of civil rights violations.
 
A three-count indictment unsealed by federal prosecutors Friday alleges that Chauvin, who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine and half minutes while trying to arrest him, and the three other officers present on the scene “willfully deprived Mr. Floyd of his constitutional rights …”
 
The widely expected indictment comes on top of state criminal charges against the four officers in connection with Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. Floyd’s death, captured on video, sparked outrage and an international protest.
 
Last month, a jury found Chauvin, 45, guilty of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter in Floyd’s death. Alleging jury misconduct, Chauvin’s defense team Wednesday requested a mistrial.     
 
The three other former Minneapolis police officers involved in Floyd’s death — Tou Thao, 35, J. Alexander Kueng, 27, and Thomas Lane, 38 — face state charges of aiding and abetting. Their trial is set to start in August.FILE – This combination of photos provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota, June 3, 2020, shows, top row from left, Derek Chauvin, and J. Alexander Kueng, bottom row from left, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao.“The indictment alleges that Chauvin’s actions violated Mr. Floyd’s constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer and resulted in bodily injury to, and the death of, Mr. Floyd,” the Justice Department said in a statement.  
 
In addition to charging Chauvin in Floyd’s death, the federal grand jury indicted the former police officer in connection with the violent arrest of a 14-year-old in 2017.   
 
The indictment alleges that Chauvin, “without legal justification, held the teenager by the throat and struck the teenager multiple times in the head with a flashlight.”  
 
Chauvin’s use of a flashlight — described in court papers as “a dangerous weapon” — resulted in bodily injury to the teenager, according to the indictment.  
 
The indictment also charges that Chauvin “held his knee on the neck and the upper back of the teenager even after the teenager was lying prone, handcuffed, and unresisting, also resulting in bodily injury.”
 
In a statement, the Justice Department said the charges against the four officers are separate from a department “pattern or practice” investigation of the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department that Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last month.
 
The sweeping inquiry will examine whether the Minneapolis Police Department has engaged in a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional policing, Garland said at the Justice Department. It will also examine the department’s use of force against protesters and whether its treatment of people with behavioral disabilities violates federal law.
 
“Building trust between community and law enforcement will take time and effort by all of us, but we undertake this task with determination and urgency, knowing that change cannot wait,” Garland said April 21.
 
A week later, Garland announced a federal investigation of policing practices in the southern U.S. city of Louisville, Kentucky, where officers last year shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a Black emergency technician, during a bungled raid on her home.   
 
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Medical student Natty Jumreornvong has a vaccine and protective gear to shield her from the coronavirus. But she couldn’t avoid exposure to the anti-Asian bigotry that pulsed to the surface after the pathogen was first identified in China.
 
Psychiatry patients have called her by a racist slur for the disease, she said. A bystander spat at the Thai-born student to “go back to China” as she left a New York City hospital where she’s training.
 
And as she walked there in scrubs Feb. 15, a man came up to her, snarled “Chinese virus,” took her cellphone and dragged her on a sidewalk, said Jumreornvong, who reported the attack to police. The investigation is ongoing.
 
For health care workers of Asian and Pacific Islander descent, “it seems like we’re fighting multiple battles at the same time — not just COVID-19, but also racism,” says Jumreornvong, a student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
 
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have faced a tide of harassment and attacks in many settings during the pandemic. But those in health care are feeling the particular, jarring anguish of being racially targeted because of the virus while toiling to keep people from dying of it.
 
“People in my community have gone from being a health care hero to, somehow, a scapegoat,” said Dr. Michelle Lee, a radiology resident in New York. She rallied 100 white-coat-clad medical workers in March to denounce anti-Asian hate crimes.
 
“We’re not bringing you the virus,” said Lee, who recalls strangers on the street spitting on her twice in the last year. “We are literally trying to help you get rid of the virus.”
 
People of Asian and Pacific Islander descent make up about 6% to 8% of the U.S. population but a greater share of some health care professions, including around 20% of non-surgeon physicians and pharmacists and 12% to 15% of surgeons, physical therapists and physician assistants, according to federal statistics.
 
Before the pandemic, studies found that 31% to 50% of doctors of Asian heritage experienced on-the-job discrimination ranging from patients refusing their care to difficulty finding mentors. That’s a lower proportion than Black physicians, but higher than Hispanic and white doctors, according to a 2020 study that reviewed existing research. In a separate 2020 study of medical residents, all those of Asian heritage said patients had quizzed them about their ethnicity.
 
Columbia University medical student Hueyjong “Huey” Shih recalls being confronted with “a lot of assumptions, all boiled into one very inappropriate question” from a colleague in a hospital: Was Shih an only child because of China’s former one-child policy?
 
The Maryland-born Shih, whose family hails from Taiwan, said the colleague apologized after being set straight. Writing in the health news site Stat, he and medical students Jesper Ke and Kate E. Lee implored health institutions to include Asian Americans’ and Pacific Islanders’ experiences in anti-racism training.
 
For generations, Asian Americans have contended with being perceived as “perpetual foreigners” in a country with a history of treating them as threats. Officials wrongly blamed San Francisco’s Chinatown for an 1870s smallpox outbreak, barred many Chinese immigrants under the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and forced Japanese Americans into internment camps even as tens of thousands of their relatives served in the U.S. military during World War II.
 
During the pandemic, former President Donald Trump repeatedly called COVID-19 the “China virus” and by other terms that activists say fanned anger at Asian Americans.
 
Police reports of anti-Asian hate crimes in 26 big U.S. cities and counties shot up 146% last year, while hate crimes overall rose 2%, according to California State University, San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate fielded nearly 3,800 reports of assault, harassment and discrimination from mid-March 2020 through the end of February — before a gunman killed eight people, including six of Asian heritage, at Atlanta-area massage businesses in March.
 
The statistics don’t break out health care workers among the victims.
 
The escalation “makes racism seem a lot scarier than the virus” to Dr. Amy Zhang, an anesthesiology resident at the University of Washington’s hospitals.
 
“It’s a constant fear. You never know when you’re going to get targeted,” she says.
 
Early in the pandemic, she came face-to-face with the risk of COVID-19 while intubating patients. And face-to-face with racism when a white man on the street muttered a vulgarity at her about China and “giving us smallpox,” then started following her while yelling racial epithets and sexual threats until she got inside the hospital, she said.
 
“Despite the fact that I clawed myself out of poverty to chase the American dream, despite the fact that I can and have saved lives under stressful conditions, none of this protects me from racist vitriol,” Zhang wrote in Crosscut, a Pacific Northwest news site She’s a daughter of Chinese immigrants who worked long hours for low wages.
 
These days, New York physician assistant student Ida Chen carries pepper spray all the time, sets her cellphone to let all her friends know her location and doesn’t roam far alone. For a time, she hid the roots of her dark brown hair under a hat so only the dyed blonde ends would show.
 
She started taking those precautions after a man biked up to her on a Manhattan street in March 2020 and sneered that he’d be “into you, but I don’t want to get the coronavirus,” then followed her while hollering slurs until she called 911, she said.
 
“I went into medicine thinking: I treat people with the best intention possible,” said Chen, who has Chinese heritage. “It hurts that someone’s not reciprocating that kind of empathy and good intentions.”
 
Chen and some others say the Georgia shootings propelled them to speak out about what they see as longtime minimization of anti-Asian racism.
 
“The whole reason I became a doctor is to help my community,” says Lee, a daughter of South Korean immigrants with no other physicians in the family. “If I don’t speak up for my community, what have they sacrificed — done everything they’ve done — for?”
 
Jumreornvong, who identifies as queer, said she had experienced discrimination before. But it felt different to be targeted because of her race, and in a country where she pictured the American dream as trying “to make it a better place for everyone and yourself.”
 
“For a moment, I was a little pessimistic about whether or not the people want me here,” she said. But she focused on how colleagues rallied around her, how the hospital expressed support, how patients have shown appreciation for her work.
 
“I still do believe in the best of America,” she said.
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G. Balachandran turned 80 this spring — a milestone of a birthday in India, where he lives. If not for the coronavirus pandemic, he would have been surrounded by family members who gathered to celebrate with him.But with the virus ravaging his homeland, Balachandran had to settle for congratulatory phone calls. Including one from his rather famous niece: Vice President Kamala Harris.The retired academic said he cannot have such an elaborate function during a Zoom interview Thursday from his home in New Delhi.Harris’ uncle says he spoke with the vice president and her husband, Doug Emhoff, for quite a while. To close out the conversation, Harris assured him she’d take care of his daughter — her cousin — who lives in Washington.”Don’t worry, Uncle. I’ll take care of your daughter. I talk to her quite a lot,” Balachandran recalls Harris telling him in their March conversation.It was the last time they had a chance to speak. Since then, the coronavirus has raged out of control in India, overwhelming the nation’s health care system and killing hundreds of thousands of people.FILE – In this Nov. 8, 2020, photo, Vice President Kamala Harris’ maternal uncle, Balachandran Gopalan, talks to media outside his house, in New Delhi, India.While the crisis in India has created diplomatic and humanitarian challenges for the Biden administration, for Harris it is also personal: Her mother was born there, and she’s spoken emotionally throughout her political career about the influence of her many visits to India as a child.On Friday, she’s set to deliver remarks at a State Department event focused on the effort to combat COVID-19 in India, and she’s expected to express U.S. solidarity with the nation.Speaking at a fundraiser for the Indian nongovernmental organization Pratham in 2018, Harris talked about walking hand-in-hand with her grandfather, P.V. Gopalan, and listening to him speak with friends about the importance of a free and equal democracy.”It was those walks on the beach with my grandfather on Besant Nagar that have had a profound impact on who I am today,” she said.She spoke often on the campaign trail about her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a headstrong and resilient woman who bucked tradition and decided to leave India to pursue a career as a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.And during her acceptance speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Harris opened her speech with a shout-out to her “chithis” — a Tamil word for aunt. One of those chithis, Sarala Gopalan, is a retired obstetrician who lives in Chennai.As a child, Harris used to visit India every other year. Now all that remains of her extended family there are her aunt and uncle. Another Indian-born aunt lives in Canada.Balachandran said that while he used to hear about friends of friends getting the virus, now it’s hitting close to home. Those he knows personally or worked with are getting the virus, and some are dying.”The conditions are pretty bad in India,” he said.Balachandran considers himself one of the lucky ones, as he’s retired and largely stays home alone, leaving only occasionally for groceries, so that “nobody can infect me other than myself.”His sister Sarala is the same, he says, and has largely isolated herself in her apartment in Chennai to avoid exposure. Both are fully vaccinated, something he knows is a luxury in India, which has suffered from a severe vaccine shortage.That shortage is part of what prompted criticism in India of what many saw as an initially lackluster U.S. response to a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the nation over the past month. The U.S. initially refused to lift a ban on exports of vaccine manufacturing supplies, drawing sharp criticism from some Indian leaders.When COVID-19 cases in India started to spin out of control in April, there were calls for other countries — particularly the U.S. — to get involved. While a number of countries, including Germany, Saudi Arabia and even India’s traditional foe Pakistan, offered support and supplies, U.S. leaders were seen as dragging their feet on the issue.The White House had previously emphasized the $1.4 billion in health assistance provided to India to help with pandemic preparedness and said when asked that it was in discussions about offering aid.The delay in offering further aid was seen as putting a strain on long-standing close diplomatic relations between the two nations, and on April 25, after receiving scrutiny over the U.S. response, a number of top U.S. officials publicly offered further support and supplies to the nation — including a tweet and a call to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi from President Joe Biden himself.Harris’ niece in California, Meena Harris, has retweeted a half-dozen accounts calling for more aid to India, including one from climate activist Greta Thunberg admonishing the global community to “step up and immediately offer assistance.”Harris’ office declined to comment for this article.The U.S. announced it would lift the export ban on vaccine manufacturing supplies and said it would send personal protective equipment, oxygen supplies, antivirals and other aid to India to help the nation combat the virus.The administration gets no criticism from S.V. Ramanan, a temple administrator of the Shri Dharma Sastha Temple in Harris’ Indian grandfather’s hometown Thulasendrapuram in Southern Tamil Nadu state, 215 miles (350 kilometers) from the coastal city of Chennai.”Everyone has their priorities. America also passed through something similar and we helped then. Now they are helping us,” he said.Ramanan added that he didn’t expect that having Harris as vice president fast-tracked aid to India or that it somehow meant help should have come earlier, adding: “I think in general all other countries should help, and I’m glad the U.S. has stepped up.”He hopes Harris can make a visit to her ancestral village when things are better.While Harris has embraced her Indian heritage as part of her political profile, in responding to the crisis there she’s been careful to speak from the perspective of a vice president rather than an Indian American worried about her family’s safety.”We are all part of a world community. And to the extent that any of us, as human beings who have any level of compassion, see suffering anywhere around the world, it impacts all of us. You know, it impacts us all,” she told reporters last week in Ohio.A ban on travel to and from the country was announced that day. Harris said only that she hadn’t spoken to her family since the ban was announced.And G. Balachandran, Harris’ uncle, doesn’t fault his niece for how the U.S. response has played out.He said that, knowing Kamala, “she would have done all that she can in order to expedite the matter.”For now, he’s content with the occasional phone call from his niece. When the two talk, it’s mostly about family; he doesn’t share much about current affairs in India because, he joked, “she’s got a whole embassy that’s sending her cables every hour on all of India!”But he does hope to visit the vice president’s residence in Washington at the Naval Observatory when he can travel again. Balachandran said he’d like to meet Biden again and remind him that the last time they met was when Biden was vice president and swore in Harris as a U.S. senator.”I wish we could all be together at the same time,” he said of the extended family, “but that’s a big wish to look for at this moment.”
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On a visit to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reassured leaders there that the United States will support Kyiv against what he termed “reckless and aggressive” Russian actions but stopped short of announcing increased military aid. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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A shooting at an eastern Idaho middle school Thursday injured two students and a custodian, and a male student has been taken into custody, authorities said.The victims’ injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, Jefferson County Sheriff Steve Anderson said.”Today we had the worst nightmare a school district could encounter. We had a school shooting here at Rigby Middle School,” Jefferson School District Superintendent Chad Martin said. “What we know so far is the shooter has been apprehended. There is no further threat to the students.”Police were called to the school about 9:15 a.m. Multiple law enforcement agencies were on the scene.Students were evacuated to a nearby high school, and parents lined up to be reunited with their children.Adela Rodriguez, left, walks with her son, Yandel Rodriguez, 12, at the high school where people were evacuated after a shooting at the nearby Rigby Middle School, May 6, 2021, in Rigby, Idaho.Neighboring Bonneville County sheriff’s Sgt. Bryan Lovell said the investigation is under way and no additional information was available. He said the school was still in the process of accounting for and releasing all the students.Rigby is a small city about 145 kilometers (95 miles) southwest of Yellowstone National Park. Rigby Middle School has about 1,500 students in sixth through eighth grades, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”I am praying for the lives and safety of those involved in today’s tragic events,” Gov. Brad Little said in a statement. “Thank you to our law enforcement agencies and school leaders for their efforts in responding to the incident.”The president of the Idaho Education Association, Layne McInelly, said the union was ready to provide whatever support school staffers, students and the community needs.”We send positive thoughts to the victims of this tragic incident and hope for their full and rapid recovery. Patience will need to be at a premium while school officials and law enforcement agencies investigate the situation,” McInelly said in a statement.Community members were rounding up bottles of water and packaged snacks to bring to students while they waited in hot weather to be reunited with their families.The attack appears to be Idaho’s second school shooting. In 1999, a student at a high school in Notus fired a shotgun several times. No one was struck by the gunfire, but one student was injured by ricocheting debris from the first shell.In 1989, a student at Rigby Junior High pulled a gun, threatened a teacher and students, and took a 14-year-old girl hostage, according to a Deseret News report. Police safely rescued the hostage from a nearby church about an hour later and took the teen into custody. No one was shot in that incident.
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