Month: May 2022

Putin Fast-Tracks Russian Citizenship in Southern Ukraine

Posted on by SeeEU

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday fast-tracked citizenship for residents of two regions of Ukraine, prompting protests from Kyiv that the move violated its sovereignty.

Putin signed a decree affecting residents of the southern region of Kherson, which is under the full control of Russian troops, and the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, which is partially controlled by Moscow.

Moscow and pro-Moscow officials have said both regions could become part of Russia.

“The simplified system will allow all of us to clearly see that Russia is here not just for a long time but forever,” the Moscow-appointed deputy leader of Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, told Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency.

“We are very grateful to Russian President Vladimir Putin for all he is doing for us, for protecting Russian people in historically Russian lands that have now been liberated,” he added.

The new authorities want to help those wishing to “join the big family of Russia,” he said.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry swiftly protested against the “illegal issuing of passports.”

The move “is a flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as norms and principles of international humanitarian law,” it said in a statement.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ned Price voiced concern that the plan was part of “Russia’s attempt to subjugate the people of Ukraine — to impose their will by force.”

“That is something that we would forcefully reject,” Price told reporters.

The official order published Wednesday came on the heels of a 2019 decree that allowed the same fast-track procedure for residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, eastern Ukraine’s breakaway regions.

Applicants are not required to have lived in Russia, do not need to provide evidence of sufficient funds or pass a Russian language test.

Applications will be processed within three months and the Kherson region has already begun work on launching centers to issue Russian passports, Stremousov said.

Several hundred thousand residents of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions have already received Russian passports.

On Monday, the authorities in Kherson introduced the ruble as the official currency alongside the Ukrainian hryvnia. On Wednesday, officials installed by Moscow announced the same measure in parts of the region of Zaporizhzhia.
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Near-Term Changes to Gun Laws Unlikely in Wake of Texas School Shooting

Posted on by SeeUS

On Wednesday, less than 24 hours after a teenage gunman massacred 19 children and two teachers and left others severely wounded inside an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would not seek a vote on two gun control measures that have passed the House of Representatives.

Schumer suggested there was little point in bringing up the measures because Senate Republicans would use the chamber’s filibuster rule to prevent them from coming to a final vote. He also suggested that supporters of stricter gun laws might have to wait until the midterm elections in November, saying, “Americans can cast their vote in November for senators or members of Congress that reflect how he or she stands with guns with this issue.”

Later in the day, however, after furious blowback on social media from supporters of stricter controls on firearms, the majority leader returned to the Senate floor with a different message: “Let me be clear. We are going to vote on gun legislation.”

It remained unclear, however, when such a vote would take place and how it would change the status quo. There have been more than 200 mass shootings in the U.S. since the beginning of 2022.

Complicated gun politics

Schumer’s preemptive concession that it would be impossible to pass the two bills, which call for background checks on gun buyers, illustrates the difficulty of getting gun control measures through Congress.

His rapid turnaround reflects the support for stricter background checks that runs broad and deep through American public opinion.

An April 2021 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 81% of American adults, including 71% of Republicans, believe the federal background check requirement should be extended to cover guns sold privately and guns sold at gun shows.

Filibuster rule blocks bills

The two background check bills passed the House in early 2021 with overwhelming support from the body’s Democratic majority and, in each case, a small number of Republican votes.

Though similar bills were introduced in the Senate in March 2021, neither has made any progress toward a floor vote. That is primarily because of the Senate’s filibuster rule, which requires 60 of 100 senators to agree to end debate on a matter and put it to a final vote.

The Democrats and Republicans hold 50 seats each, and no 10 Republicans are willing to vote to end debate on either measure. The Democrats have control of the Senate only because its rules allow Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, to cast the deciding vote when it is deadlocked at 50-50.

That one extra vote does no good in overcoming the filibuster’s 60-vote requirement.

Possible bipartisan compromise

In a fiery speech on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, Schumer excoriated his Republican colleagues for what he characterized as their “obeisance” to the National Rifle Association, a gun rights lobbying organization that gives millions of dollars in political donations to members of Congress.

Despite his harsh rhetoric, Schumer held out the possibility that ongoing bipartisan discussions might result in some sort of gun control measure coming to the floor with votes available from both parties.

However, he said, “I think it’s a slim prospect. Very slim. All too slim. We’ve been burnt so many times before. But this is so important. … We must pursue action and even ask Republicans to join us again.”

McConnell speaks

After Schumer spoke Wednesday morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took the floor and, in remarks that lasted less than four minutes, said, “Our country is sickened and outraged by the senseless evil that struck Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, yesterday.”

McConnell described some of the victims and offered prayers for the injured and the families of the dead, saying, “Most of all, the entire nation’s hearts are broken for the victims and their families. Words simply fail.”

McConnell did not mention that a firearm was used in the massacre, and he did not respond to Schumer’s criticism of Republicans for blocking the background check bills.

He also was silent on prospects for a bipartisan agreement to reduce gun violence.

Prospects of compromise

On Tuesday, a furious Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut took the Senate floor to beg his Republican colleagues to compromise on guns.

“I know I have Republican partners,” he said. “I know there’s 10 Republicans that will vote for something under the right circumstances, with the right leadership.”

He added, “I don’t understand why people here think we are powerless. … I am so willing to bend over backwards to find compromise.”

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois was less optimistic, however, telling Politico, “We can’t budge the Republicans an inch on this issue of gun safety.”

Other Republicans call for caution

Some Senate Republicans called for a cautious reaction to the shooting in Texas, arguing it would be a mistake to restrict the rights of Americans to own and carry firearms.

“You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz told reporters. “That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime. We know what does prevent crime is going after felons and fugitives and those with serious mental illness.”

Cruz also called for more armed law enforcement officers on school grounds.

Others argued that new laws wouldn’t stop a determined mass shooter.

In an interview with HuffPost, Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, said that he had studied mass shootings going back to the 1999 attack at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in which 12 students were killed.

“You go back and look at these horrible, evil perpetrators — either the existing laws were broken and in most cases the proposed laws would not have stopped the violence,” he said.

Republican measure proposed

On Wednesday afternoon, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sought unanimous consent in the Senate to pass a law that would require the federal government to provide a “clearinghouse” that makes “best practices” for school security available to administrators across the country.

That clearinghouse already exists. The law, if passed, would mandate that the clearinghouse continue to be available, though it did not appear in danger of being discontinued.

On the Senate floor, Schumer said he would object to the unanimous consent request.

“What the American people want is real solutions to our nation’s gun violence epidemic,” he said. “We’ve had too many moments of silence, too many ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Americans are sick of it. Many in this chamber are sick of it.”
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US Envoy: Iran Nuclear Deal Looks ‘Tenuous’ But Worth Seeking

Posted on by SeeUS

The United States’ top negotiator for Iran nuclear talks made the case to lawmakers Wednesday for sticking with what may be a last try for a deal reimposing limits on Iran’s nuclear development, despite Iran closing in on completing a bomb-capable nuclear program.

Rob Malley, President Joe Biden’s envoy to negotiations aimed at getting the U.S. and Iran back in a breached 2015 Iran nuclear deal, faced lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Some Democrats on the committee joined Republicans in saying it was past time to break off talks and move to tougher means to block Iran from taking the final, technical steps needed to build a bomb.

Biden has made a priority of returning the U.S. and Iran to the nuclear pact, abandoning what his administration says was a failed get-tough strategy by President Donald Trump. Failing to do so would be a politically damaging setback to his foreign policy agenda and risk a dangerous escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

Malley acknowledged to lawmakers the chances of success were “tenuous” in what the administration depicts as a final push to try close an agreement.

The accord would ease punishing international sanctions on Iran in exchange for Iran accepting limits and oversight of its nuclear work.

Malley underlined to lawmakers that the administration still believed Iran’s nuclear program was less of a threat inside a deal than outside of one.

“How long is this going to go on?” Sen. James Risch of Idaho, the committee’s top Republican, demanded of the often slow-moving, off and on talks.

The Biden administration is “prepared to get back into the JCPOA for as long as our assessment is that its nonproliferation benefits are worth the sanctions relief,” Malley responded.

Iran jumped back into building its nuclear capacity after Trump in 2018 pulled the U.S. out of the international nuclear deal negotiated with the Obama administration.

The many opponents of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action increasingly argue Iran’s progress since then toward the ability to weaponize what it says is a civilian nuclear program means it’s too late for any accord to block Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that Iran has amassed about 40 kilograms (about 90 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

“I think we must prepare for the increasingly obvious reality we face in 2022 — a return to the 2015 nuclear deal is not around the corner, and I believe it is not in the U.S. strategic interests,” committee chairman Bob Menendez, one of the lawmakers of Biden’s own party opposed to the Iran nuclear deal, said.

“We need to tackle what comes next,” Menendez said.

Biden has insisted the U.S. will never allow Iran to take the final steps toward attaining nuclear programs.

Malley repeated that the administration and its allies are preparing options if talks fail. The administration has declined to detail publicly what steps it would take to knock offline Iran’s centrifuges and other nuclear gear, much of it deep underground and well-defended against airstrikes.

“Being at the table doesn’t mean we’re waiting. We’re not waiting, we’re acting,” Malley told lawmakers.

Democratic lawmakers in support of the negotiation effort argued that giving up on peaceful pressure and negotiations now to move to military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program would be dangerous, and likely futile.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., urged U.S. leaders to resist what he called the siren song of the option of Israeli warplanes to move against the nuclear targets of Iran, Israel’s top opponent.

“It’s difficult to bomb knowledge out of existence,” added Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., suggesting Iran would only rebuild its program after strikes. “And the risk of spillover of a regional war is significant.”

Malley promised lawmakers on Wednesday that the administration would allow Congress to review any deal that does come out of talks. That answered a demand of Menendez and other hard-liners on the nuclear accord. Lawmakers could try to block any new deal, but could face a presidential veto.

The talks to get Iran and the U.S. back into compliance with the nuclear deal appeared to have reached agreement on all but the final points of the accord itself by late winter. But talks deadlocked since then in part over Iran’s demand for the United States to lift a terrorist designation on the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

European diplomacy over the past several days is believed to have persuaded Iranian leaders to drop that demand. It was a politically untenable one for the Biden administration, which is eager to show U.S. conservatives and ally Israel it remains vigilant against Iran’s efforts to build strength and influence in the Middle East.

Even as Malley urged more time for the talks, the Biden administration announced new sanctions Wednesday against Iran, among what Malley said were about 150 sanctions designations targeting Iran by the Biden administration. Wednesday’s sanctions hit what the U.S. said was an operation by a current Revolutionary Guard official and a former one to smuggle oil in violation of international sanctions.
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Controversial Russian Opera Star Takes Stage in Paris

Posted on by SeeEU

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Western nations have sidelined a raft of Russian artists, dancers and musicians with links to President Vladimir Putin. That includes star opera singer Anna Netrebko, who was dropped by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Netrebko, however, is making a comeback of sorts with an appearance Wednesday night in Paris — underscoring a broader debate over the limits of cultural boycotts.

Soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska received a standing ovation starring earlier this month in Puccini’s Turandot. The Ukrainian singer took her curtain call at New York’s Metropolitan Opera draped in her country’s flag. 

Celebrated Russian sorprano Anna Netrebko was originally tapped for the role. But the war in Ukraine changed that. Netrebko has condemned the conflict, but not Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

She publicly endorsed Putin’s reelection in 2012, although not in 2018. In 2014, she was photographed alongside a Russian-backed separatist leader from Ukraine’s Donbas region. She recently told Le Monde newspaper her intentions hadn’t been political, and said she was uninformed about the area’s history. 

Now Netrebko is back on stage — singing at the Paris Philharmonic with another Russian, mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova. Beyond a last-minute appearance in Monaco, the event is considered her formal return to the Western stage.

The Paris Philharmonic declined an interview request. But in a statement, it said that while it has canceled artists formally linked to the Russian government, it aims to keep ties whenever possible with those who are not. After Netrebko’s criticism of the war, it noted, Russia’s Duma, the lower house of parliament, called her a traitor. 

The Paris institution has a different position from the Metropolitan’s, where Netrebko will not be singing for the foreseeable future. 

Russian singers aren’t the only ones under Western scrutiny. Dancers and other Russian artists are being boycotted for their ties to Moscow. It’s a very different situation from Cold War days, when artists from the United States and the former Soviet Union were often welcomed on each other’s stages. 

“The two superpowers were in a competition for hearts and minds the world over, and they were attempting to demonstrate to the world and to one another’s populations that theirs was the superior system,” said Kenneth Platt, a professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. “So from the perspective of each of the superpowers, it was their interest to showcase their culture and to engage their cultural exchanges.”

Today, it will be hard for Russia to overcome Western revulsion over its reported atrocities in Ukraine. Still, Platt is one who does not support a blanket boycott of Russian artists.  

“My basic position on canceling and national identities is if you want to cancel people, cancel them because they are in support of the war, or aligned with this inimical Russian state or because their books and films are pro-war.  Not because they are Russians, or their books are Russian,” he said.

That’s also the position of Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, who spoke to France 24 TV at the Cannes Film Festival going on now. The festival has banned Russians with official ties to the Kremlin and slotted time for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to speak at the venue via video link. 

“Yet I do not agree with excluding those Russian authors, artists, filmmakers who are against this war, who are just like the rest of the civilized world — just trying to fight against the evil,” he said. 

Loznitsa is not in lockstep with some of his compatriots who back a broader ban of Russian artists. 

Meanwhile, the University of Pennsylvania’s Platt has his doubts about Netrebko’s operatic return. 

“I think Ms. Netrebko has a prominent public voice,” he said. “I would want her to see her using that voice far more vociferously to condemn this war and Putin’s dictatorial regime in the strongest possible terms — much more so than she has done — before welcoming her back into the limelight.” 

The Paris Philharmonic has also welcomed Ukrainian musicians who fled the war in their homeland, It’s working with the head of the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra to place them in various French orchestras. Some have already performed in concerts in recent weeks.
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Sanctions Frustrating Russian Ransomware Actors

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appears to be having an unanticipated impact in cyberspace — a decrease in the number of ransomware attacks. 

“We have seen a recent decline since the Ukrainian invasion,” Rob Joyce, the U.S. National Security Agency’s director of cybersecurity, told a virtual forum Wednesday. 

Joyce said one reason for the decrease in ransomware attacks since the February 24 invasion is likely improved awareness and defensive measures by U.S. businesses. 

He also said some of it is tied to measures the United States and its Western allies have taken against Moscow in response to the war in Ukraine. 

“We’ve definitively seen the criminal actors in Russia complain that the functions of sanctions and the distance of their ability to use credit cards and other payment methods to get Western infrastructure to run these [ransomware] attacks have become much more difficult,” Joyce told The Cipher Brief’s Cyber Initiatives Group. 

“We’ve seen that have an impact on their [Russia’s] operations,” he added. “It’s driving the trend down a little bit.” 

Just days after Russian forces entered Ukraine, U.S. cybersecurity officials renewed their “Shields Up” awareness campaign, encouraging companies to take additional security precautions to protect against potential cyberattacks by Russia itself or by criminal hackers working on Moscow’s behalf. 

 

 

And those officials caution Russia still has the capability to inflict more damage in cyberspace. 

“Russia is continuing to explore options for potential cyberattacks,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Matthew Hartman told a meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week. 

“We are seeing glimpses into targeting and into access development,” Hartman said, noting Russia has for now held back from launching any major cyberattacks against the West. “We do not know at what point a calculus may change.” 

FBI cyber officials have likewise voiced concern that it could be a matter of time before the Kremlin authorizes cyberattacks targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, including against the energy, finance and telecommunication sectors. 

 

 

U.S. and NATO officials on Wednesday also cautioned that it would be a mistake to think that just because there have been few signs of “catastrophic effects” that Russia has not tried to leverage its cyber capabilities to its advantage. 

“It has been happening and it’s still happening,” said Stefanie Metka, head of the Cyber Threat Analysis Branch at NATO. “There’s a lot of cyber activity that’s happening all the time and probably we won’t know the full extent of it until we turn the computers back on.”  

Said the NSA’s Joyce: “If you look at Ukraine, they have been heavily targeted. What we’ve seen are a number of wiper viruses, seven or eight different or unique wiper viruses that have been thrown into the ecosystem of Ukraine and its near abroad.” Wiper viruses are viruses that erase a computer’s memory.

These included a cyberattack against a satellite communications company, which hampered the ability of Ukraine’s military to communicate and had spillover effects across Europe. 

 

But with help from the U.S. and other allies, Ukraine was able to mitigate the impact, Joyce said. 

“The Ukrainians have been under threat and under pressure for a number of years, and so they have continued to adapt and improve and develop their tradecraft to the point where they mount a good defense and, equally as important, they mount a great incident response,” he said.  

Some cybersecurity experts say that ability to respond might be one of the biggest take-aways, so far, from the invasion. 

“Resiliency matters,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, the founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and the former chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, at Wednesday’s virtual forum. “The Ukrainians have gotten really, really good at rebuilding networks, quickly mitigating damage.” 

Another key lesson, he said, is the limitations of cyber. 

“If you’ve got kinetic options, if you can create a crater somewhere, take out a substation, take out a communication system, that’s what you’re going to prefer to use,” Alperovitch said. “That’s what’s easiest [to do] to get lasting damage.” 

 
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Ivory Coast Chocolatier Strives to Sweeten Cocoa Processors’ Earnings

Posted on by SeeAF

In Ivory Coast, an artisanal chocolatier blends good flavor and good intentions in his work. Axel-Emmanuel Gbaou trains women to get good taste and good profits from the cocoa beans they process, as Yassin Ciyow observes in this report narrated by Carol Guensburg.
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Somalia Prime Minister Suspends Foreign Minister Abdisaid Muse

Posted on by SeeAF

Somalia’s prime minister has suspended his foreign affairs minister over allegations that he authorized an illegal shipment of charcoal to Oman. The Somali government banned charcoal exports a decade ago to prevent deforestation and the funding of conflicts.  However, analysts say the shipment was not the real reason for the suspension. 

The suspension of Foreign Affairs Minister Abdisaid Muse is equivalent to a dismissal and came after he authorized a ship to leave Somalia carrying a load of charcoal.  The shipment violates Somalia’s laws preventing charcoal exports.

However, Muse’s suspension was long expected because Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble is expected to be replaced by incoming Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. 

Isak Farhan, deputy director of Somali Public Agenda, a research group based in Mogadishu, notes that Muse was close to outgoing Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, and had ignored letters from the prime minister, including one that fired African Union Special Envoy to Somalia Francisco Maidera.  

Isak says the suspension could be seen as a result of poor cooperation between the minister of foreign affairs and the prime minister. He says, we know that minister was the national security adviser to the outgoing president, and with the confidence of the president, he was later appointed foreign minister. Apparently, he says, the minister did not report to the prime minister and did not listen to his suggestions.   

Isak says the export of charcoal is a highly sensitive issue in Somalia because makers of charcoal cut down trees and cause damage to the environment.

He says, it is illegal to export and log coal in Somalia because it contributes to land degradation, drought, and famine. Somalia is semi-arid, he says, so logging forests will exacerbate desertification.

Hassan Sheikh, a professor who teaches at Somalia’s universities, says Muse’s action sends a bad signal.  

He says, I find it particularly regrettable that some people are still involved with logging trees in Somalia, let alone a government official, such as the foreign minister, to permit a ship to carry charcoal to Oman.  He says that will certainly encourage those who were discouraged to continue logging the trees. 

The professor noted that charcoal exports were banned by both the Somalia government and the United Nations Security Council in 2012, and that U.N. monitors are particularly vigilant about enforcing the ban.  

He says, among the U.N. monitoring group’s work is the ban on charcoal, which threatens Somalia’s environment as it continues to become a desert, because Somalia is progressing towards desert.  

It is still a mystery why the foreign affairs minister authorized an illegal charcoal export, but it is no secret that many Somali politicians take advantage of transitions between administrations, by putting their own interests ahead of the general public’s.
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In Photos: School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas

Posted on by SeeUS

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 children and two adults.
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South African Flood Victims’ Shelters Damaged by More Rains

Posted on by SeeAF

Flood victims in South Africa’s port city of Durban had yet to recover from last months’ historic rain when another storm hit this weekend. Victims and experts say it is a signal that better urban planning is needed to protect residents and their livelihoods from future extreme weather. Linda Givetash reports from Durban, South Africa.
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UK’s Johnson ‘Humbled’ But Wants to Move on From ‘Partygate’

Posted on by SeeEU

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior officials bear responsibility for a culture of rule-breaking that resulted in several parties that breached the U.K.’s COVID-19 lockdown rules, a report into the events said Wednesday.

Revelations that Johnson and his staff repeatedly flouted the rules they imposed on others have elicited outrage in Britain and led to calls from opponents for the prime minister to resign.

Johnson said he took “full responsibility for everything that took place” but that he would not step down.

In her report into the “partygate” scandal, senior civil servant Sue Gray said the “senior leadership team … must bear responsibility” for a culture that allowed events to take place that “should not have been allowed to happen.”

Gray investigated 16 gatherings attended by Johnson and his staff in 2020 and 2021 while people in the U.K. were barred from socializing, or even from visiting sick and dying relatives, because of coronavirus restrictions.

Gray said there had been “failures of leadership and judgment in No. 10,” a reference to the address of the prime minister’s office.

“Those in the most junior positions attended gatherings at which their seniors were present, or indeed organized,” she said.

A separate police investigation resulted in 83 people getting hit with fines, including Johnson — making him the first British prime minister ever found to have broken the law while in office.

Speaking to lawmakers after the report was published, Johnson said he was sorry but again insisted again that he did not knowingly break any rules.

The prime minister said he was “humbled” and had “learned a lesson” but that it was now time to “move on” and focus on the government’s priorities.

Critics, some of them inside Johnson’s Conservative Party, have said the prime minister has lied to Parliament about the events. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign.

Johnson said Wednesday that when he told Parliament last year that no rules were broken and there were no parties, “it was what I believed to be true.”

The British media and opposition politicians have found that hard to square with staff member’s accounts of “bring your own booze” parties and regular “wine time Fridays” in the prime minister’s 10 Downing St. office at the height of the pandemic.

Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, said Gray’s report was a “catalogue of criminality.” Starmer said Johnson’s government had “treated the sacrifices of the British people with utter contempt.”

Much of Gray’s 37-page report was devoted to a detailed account of the events, including a May 2020 party in the Downing Street garden to which “the Prime Minister brought cheese and wine from his flat” and a party the following month at which “one individual was sick” and “there was a minor altercation between two other individuals.”

At another party — held the night before the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, Prince Philip — revelers in the garden broke a swing belonging to Johnson’s toddler son Wilf and partied until 4 a.m.

“Many will be dismayed that behavior of this kind took place on this scale at the heart of government,” Gray wrote. “The public have a right to expect the very highest standards of behavior in such places and clearly what happened fell well short of this.”

Johnson has clung on to power so far, partly because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine diverted public and political attention. Some Conservatives who considered seeking a no-confidence vote in their leader decided it would be rash to push Johnson out in the middle of the war, which is destabilizing Europe and fueling a cost-of-living crisis.

The prime minister got a further reprieve when the Metropolitan Police told him last week that he wouldn’t be getting any more fines even though he attended several events under investigation.

But Gray’s conclusions could revive calls from Conservative lawmakers for a no-confidence vote in the leader who won them a big parliamentary majority just over two years ago. Under party rules, such a vote is triggered if 15% of party lawmakers — currently 54 people — write letters calling for one.

If Johnson lost such a vote, he would be replaced as Conservative leader and prime minister. It’s unclear how many letters have been submitted so far.

Environment Secretary George Eustice defended the prime minister on Wednesday but acknowledged that the “boundary between what was acceptable and what wasn’t got blurred, and that was a mistake.”

“The prime minister himself has accepted that and recognizes there were of course failings and therefore there’s got to be some changes to the way the place is run,” Eustice told Times Radio.
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Gallaudet University Celebrates its Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Graduates

Posted on by SeeUS

Gallaudet University in Washington hosted its first undergraduate commencement ceremony since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Gallaudet is the only university in the world where deaf, deaf-blind and hard-of-hearing students live and learn bilingually in American Sign Language and English. Keynote speaker Apple CEO Tim Cook and Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin, among others, addressed the graduating students. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has the story
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Seven Key Races in Georgia, Alabama Midterm Primaries, Texas Runoffs  

Posted on by SeeUS

Voters in Georgia and Alabama picked candidates for the U.S. Congress and other offices in primaries on Tuesday, testing former President Donald Trump’s power over the Republican Party ahead of the November 8 midterm elections.

Arkansas and Minnesota also held nomination contests while Texas held runoff elections for races that were unresolved in that state’s March 1 primaries.

Following are seven key races:

David Perdue loses big to Brian Kemp

Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, easily dispatched his Trump-backed challenger, former U.S. Senator David Perdue, dealing another knock to Trump’s endorsement power. Perdue wasn’t even able to force a runoff with Kemp, who had drawn Trump’s ire by declining to help the former president’s effort to overthrow his 2020 loss in the state. Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams in what is expected to be a close November contest.

Herschel Walker’s US Senate bid

Also in Georgia, Trump-backed Herschel Walker won the Republican primary to face Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock in November. Walker, a former professional football player with scant political experience, was on track to win well more than 50% of the Republican vote in a six-person field, Edison Research projected. The November contest against Warnock is widely seen as a toss-up.

Raffensperger deals blow to Trump-backed Hice

 

As in the race against Kemp, Trump also backed a challenger to Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on the grounds that he did too little to bolster Trump’s false allegations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. But also as in that race, the Trump-endorsed candidate — U.S. Representative Jody Hice — fell short. The race had been seen as Trump’s best chance at unseating an incumbent in Georgia.

Mcbath prevails in democratic duel with Bourdeaux

Georgia’s newly drawn 7th congressional district pitted two Democratic U.S. representatives — Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux — against one another. McBath was a gun control advocate before winning a congressional seat in 2018, while Bourdeaux was the only Democrat to flip a Republican House seat in the November 2020 elections. McBath was the projected winner in the heavily Democratic district.

Paxton survives again

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has already won one re-election campaign since his indictment in 2015 on state securities fraud charges. On Tuesday, he won the Republican nomination to defend his seat again in November, defeating state Land Commissioner George P. Bush in a runoff after neither won 50% in a March 1 primary contest. Bush is the grandson of former President George H. W. Bush.

Mo Brooks heads to a runoff in Alabama race

U.S. Representative Mo Brooks, a Republican firebrand from Alabama, got his struggling campaign back on track in time to force a runoff with Katie Britt to decide who will be the party’s nominee for a U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Richard Shelby. Brooks, who is seeking a return to the Senate, was an early supporter of Trump, but the former president withdrew his endorsement of Brooks’ then-struggling campaign in March after Brooks said it was time to move on from Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. Britt is a former chief of staff to Shelby.

Moderate democrat vs progressive challenger

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, a moderate Democrat, was locked in a tight race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in a runoff that threw a spotlight on abortion and immigration. Cuellar declared victory, but Cisneros said the race was too close to call and major media outlets had not yet projected a winner in the early hours on Wednesday. Cuellar is the House of Representatives’ sole Democrat who opposes abortion rights, a position Cisneros has attacked. Whoever prevails will compete in one of the few competitive House races in Texas in November.
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Pope ‘Heartbroken’ by Texas School Shooting, Calls for Gun Control  

Posted on by SeeEU

Pope Francis on Wednesday said he was “heartbroken” by the shooting at a school in Texas that killed at least 19 children and two teachers, calling for greater controls on weapons.

The crowed in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly general audience applauded his appeal, made a day after worst school shooting in the United States in nearly a decade.

“I am heartbroken by the massacre at the elementary school in Texas. I pray for the children and the adults who were killed and for their families,” Francis said of the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

“It is time to say ‘enough’ to the indiscriminate trafficking of weapons. Let us all make a commitment so that tragedies like this cannot happen again,” he said.

Speaking from the White House hours after the shooting, a visibly shaken President Joe Biden urged Americans to stand up to the politically powerful gun lobby, which he blamed for blocking enactment of tougher firearms safety laws.

Francis has often taken on the weapons industry. In 2015 he said people who manufacture weapons or invest in weapons industries are hypocrites if they call themselves Christian.
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Zelenskyy Says Only Path for Talks is Directly With Putin

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday he would be open to negotiations with Russia, but only direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking by video link to the World Economic Forum, Zelenskyy said there is a potential for finding a diplomatic way out of the conflict if Putin “understands reality.”

Zelenskyy added that a first step toward talks with Russia would be for Russian forces to withdraw back to the lines that were in place before Russia launched its invasion in late February.

There has been no sign of movement toward a negotiated end to the conflict in recent weeks with both sides accusing the other of not being willing to engage in talks.

Zelenskyy also used part of his address to express his condolences to the family members of those killed Tuesday in a mass shooting at a U.S. elementary school.

“As far as I know, 21 people were killed, including 19 children. This is terrible, to have victims of shooters in peaceful time,” he said.

The key to peace

As Russian forces bombarded eastern Ukraine, including Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region, Zelenskyy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak pushed foreign governments to take action to pressure Russia to end its fighting in Ukraine.

“Today, the future of Europe is not formed in Brussels or Davos. It is formed in the trenches near Severodonetsk and Bakhmut. The duration of this war depends on the speed of imposing energy sanctions and weapons supply. Want to end the war? The key to peace is in your capitals,” Podolyak tweeted.

That followed a Zelenskyy message late Tuesday in which he said sending Ukraine rocket-propelled grenades, tanks, anti-ship missiles and other weapons is “the best investment” to prevent future Russian aggression.

 

Economic pressure

The United States said it will not extend a waiver, set to expire Wednesday, that allowed Russia to pay back its debts to international investors.

The Treasury Department had let Russia use U.S. banks to make the payments, saying that was a temporary measure meant to provide an “orderly transition” and allow for the investors to sell their stakes.

Closing that pathway raises the prospect that Russia may default on its debt.

NATO expansion

Delegations from Sweden and Finland were in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Wednesday for talks with Turkish officials about the two nations’ applications to join NATO, which have been met with opposition from Turkey.

Turkey accused Sweden and Finland of harboring people linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey says orchestrated a 2016 coup attempt.

NATO bids need approval from all of the alliance’s current members. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said he is confident any objections will be overcome and both Sweden and Finland will be welcomed into the alliance.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Trump-Pence Proxy Fight in Georgia Raises Questions About GOP’s Future 

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On its face, Tuesday’s primary election for the Republican party’s gubernatorial nominee in the U.S. state of Georgia was nothing remarkable. Brian Kemp, the sitting governor, faced off against former U.S. Senator David Perdue and comfortably won his party’s nod to pursue another term in office by 73% to 22%.   

Normally, two veteran politicians slugging it out over the chance to win a state’s highest office wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows. But some wonder whether the Georgia race presages a larger fight in the GOP that will play out in both the 2022 midterms and the 2024 general elections. 

That’s because the two highest-profile supporters of Kemp and Perdue were, respectively, former Vice President Mike Pence and former President Donald Trump. 

Trump’s influence varies 

A clear takeaway from Tuesday night is that the Trump endorsement doesn’t carry the weight it used to and that the former president’s inner circle appeared to believe it did just days ago.  

As Pence prepared to campaign for Kemp in Georgia on Monday, a spokesman for Trump said in a statement, “Mike Pence was set to lose a governor’s race in 2016 before he was plucked up and his political career was salvaged. Now, desperate to chase his lost relevance, Pence is parachuting into races, hoping someone is paying attention. The reality is, President Trump is already 82-3 with his endorsements, and there’s nothing stopping him from saving America in 2022 and beyond.” 

That, however, was not how things played out Tuesday. And according to Charlie Cook, founder of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, Perdue’s weakness in Georgia highlights the limits of Trump’s power over individual races. 

“In a Republican primary, when the voters don’t know much about either candidate, the Trump endorsement is enormous,” Cook told VOA.  

But in a high visibility race like Georgia’s, where a sitting governor ran against a challenger who had served as one of the state’s U.S. senators, Trump’s influence is clearly less potent, Cook said. 

“If it’s a blank slate, his endorsement means a lot in a Republican primary,” he said. “But if they already knew a lot about both people, it doesn’t mean nearly as much.” 

Deeper conflict in GOP 

There are multiple reasons Pence and Trump, who spent four years together in the White House, find themselves on different sides of the Georgia gubernatorial race. 

One is that Pence is clearly testing the waters for a run, possibly against Trump, in the GOP presidential primary in 2024.  

But the most significant factor is the ongoing battle within the Republican Party for control of the narrative surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when Trump supporters — some threatening to “hang” Pence — disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. 

‘Proxy conflict’ 

“This is a proxy conflict between the former president and the former vice president,” William A. Galston, a senior fellow in Brookings’ Governance Studies program, told VOA as ballots were being cast on Tuesday. 

“And it is a conflict not just over the candidates that they’ve backed but also about the two very different stories about the end of the Trump administration, and January 6, that each of them represents.” 

Galston said that he had begun to notice “a steady undertone” of resistance to the former president’s fixation on his 2020 loss, even among Republicans who supported Trump during his presidency.  

“They don’t think it’s helpful to the party or the country to continue this endless retrospective on the 2020 presidential election, and Mr. Trump keeps it up,” Galston said. “He may well be opening the door for candidates who strike Republicans — including staunch Republicans, including Trump Republicans — as more forward-looking.” 

A likely Trump challenger 

That Pence would challenge his former running mate was not always clear. 

Trump, both on the day of the Capitol riot and after, criticized Pence for his refusal to reject the electoral votes submitted by a number of states after it had become clear that Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election. Trump and a number of his advisers had come up with a plan to throw the election to the House of Representatives, where Republican lawmakers could have voted to declare Trump the president. 

The plan was illegal, and Pence refused to go along with it, inciting the fury of both Trump and the crowd that stormed the Capitol. 

In the year that followed the January 6 assault, Pence slowly and cautiously distanced himself from his former running mate. 

Pence steps away 

After more than a year of remaining mostly quiet, Pence delivered a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in February in which he publicly broke from the former president, saying that Trump’s claims about Pence’s ability to reject electoral votes were incorrect. 

“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.” 

He added, “The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.” 

That same day, Trump issued a statement repeating his false claim that the 2020 election results had been marred by fraud. “I was right and everyone knows it,” he said. “If there is fraud or large-scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out.” 

Trump targets Kemp 

The Georgia gubernatorial primary became a flashpoint between Pence and Trump because Kemp had been one of the Republican elected officials who had refused to go along with the former president’s effort to overturn the election.  

Georgia, which Trump lost in 2020 by just under 12,000 votes, was one of the states where Trump and his advisers had hoped to reverse the election results. Kemp, however, publicly refused their request that he decertify the election results and appoint electors who would vote for Trump. 

Trump has been highly critical of Kemp ever since, and when Perdue announced his campaign in December 2021, Trump endorsed him immediately. 

Perdue’s loss on Tuesday suggests that the former president’s consistent focus on the results of the 2020 election may not continue to pay political dividends.
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19 Children, 2 Adults Killed in Texas School Shooting

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A gunman killed at least 19 children and two adults Tuesday in an attack at an elementary school in the southwestern U.S. state of Texas, one of the deadliest mass shootings at a school in the country’s history. 

The attack happened in the city of Uvalde, where authorities said the 18-year-old gunman first shot his grandmother, then crashed a car and entered the school, carrying out the shootings before being killed by law enforcement. 

Texas Department of Public Safety Sergeant Erick Estrada told CNN that officers saw the gunman, who was wearing body armor, leave the crashed car carrying a rifle, and that officers “engaged” the suspect, but that he was still able to go into the school. 

In the chaotic minutes and hours following the attack, the extent of the massacre was unclear, with some shooting victims taken to local hospitals and the number of those killed and wounded difficult to confirm. 

Lydia Martinez Delgado wrote on Facebook that her niece, Eva Mireles, was a teacher at the school and among those killed. 

“I’m furious that these shootings continue,” Martinez Delgado said in a statement. “These children are innocent. Rifles should not be easily available to all. This is my hometown, a small community of less than 20,000. I never imagined this would happen to especially loved ones.” 

The school district’s superintendent, Hal Harrell, told reporters that grief counseling services were being made available for students and that the remaining few days of the school year were canceled. 

“My heart is broken today,” Harrell said. “We’re a small community, and we’re going to need your prayers to get through this.” 

A spokesman said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “is deeply shocked and saddened by the heinous mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. It is particularly heart-wrenching that most of the victims are children.” 

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke to the nation late Tuesday, expressing condolences to the victims’ families, questioning why mass shootings are so common in the country and urging lawmakers to support what he called “commonsense gun laws.” 

“I am sick and tired,” he said. “We have to act.” 

Biden said he learned about the shootings as he was returning from a trip to Asia. 

“What struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” Biden said. “Why? They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” 

Tuesday’s attack was the deadliest school shooting in Texas and the deadliest elementary school shooting since the 2012 attack on Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 people dead, 20 of them schoolchildren.  

Texas Governor Greg Abbott identified the gunman as Salvador Ramos. 

“Texans across the state are grieving for the victims of this senseless crime and for the community of Uvalde,” Abbott said in a statement. 

Abbott said he and his wife, Cecilia, “mourn this horrific loss and we urge all Texans to come together to show our unwavering support to all who are suffering.” 

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas echoed similar sentiments. “Today is a dark day. We’re all completely sickened and heartbroken,” he said in a statement. “We’ve seen too many of these shootings. No parent should have to bear the pain of burying their child. We need to come together, as one nation, and support Uvalde as they try to heal from this devastating loss.”  

Both Abbott and Cruz were among a group of Republican figures scheduled to appear Friday in Houston at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association, the gun rights group that has opposed gun control measures. 

The school has an enrollment of about 600 students in the second, third and fourth grades and sits in a mostly residential neighborhood of modest homes. The town has a population of about 16,000 people and is the seat of government for Uvalde County. It is about 135 kilometers (84 miles) west of San Antonio and about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the border with Mexico.   

Texas has been the scene of several mass shootings over the past five years. One year before the Santa Fe school shooting in 2018, a gunman at a Texas church killed more than two dozen people during a Sunday service in the small town of Sutherland Springs. In 2019, another gunman at a Walmart in El Paso killed 23 people in a racist attack.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Latest Developments in Ukraine: May 25

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For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:

12:15 a.m.: Reuters reports that Russian-born tennis star Daria Saville, who plays for Australia, says she cannot return to Russia because she spoke publicly against its invasion of Ukraine.

In a social media post, Saville urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict and encouraged Russian soldiers to leave Ukraine.

Even though her parents still live in Ukraine, “I can’t really go back,” she said.
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Biden Says ‘We Have to Act’ After Texas School Shooting

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An anguished and angry President Joe Biden called for new restrictions on firearms Tuesday night after a gunman massacred 18 children at a Texas elementary school. “We have to act,” Biden told the nation, after years of failure to pass new laws.

“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said at the White House shortly after returning from a five-day trip to Asia that was bookended by tragedy.

With first lady Jill Biden standing by his side in the Roosevelt Room, the president said, “It’s time we turned this pain into action.”

At least 18 students were killed in Texas, according to a state senator who said he was briefed by law enforcement. One teacher was killed. So was the gunman.

“To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away,” Biden said. “There’s a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.”

Just two days before Biden left on his trip, he met with victims’ families after a hate-motivated shooter killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.

“These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world,” Biden said. “Why?”

It’s unclear if the latest tragedy will change the political dynamic around guns after so many others — including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 26, including 20 children — failed to do so.

In a reminder of the issue’s divisiveness, Biden’s call for gun control on Tuesday was booed at a campaign event in Georgia hosted by Herschel Walker, a Republican running for U.S. Senate.

Vice President Kamala Harris said earlier that people normally declare in moments like this, “our hearts break — but our hearts keep getting broken … and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families.”

“We have to have the courage to take action … to ensure something like this never happens again,” she said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was briefed on the shooting aboard Air Force One.

Shortly before landing in Washington, he spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from the presidential plane “to offer any and all assistance he needs in the wake of the horrific shooting in Uvalde, TX,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted.

Biden directed that American flags be flown at half-staff through sunset Saturday in honor of the victims in Texas.
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Texas Elementary School’s End-of-year Plans Shattered by Shooting

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The children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, were two days away from their summer break when Tuesday’s massacre unfolded.

They had visited the zoo and participated in a gifted-and-talented showcase, recent posts on the school’s Facebook page showed. Tuesday was awards day, according to the calendar, and students were invited to wear a nice outfit and fun shoes as part of a “footloose and fancy” theme.

But at 11:43 a.m., a note was posted on the Facebook feed: “Please know at this time Robb Elementary is under a Lockdown Status due to gunshots in the area. The students and staff are safe in the building,” it read.

Then came a second message: “There is an active shooter at Robb Elementary. Law enforcement is on site.”

School administrators asked parents to stay away. The school serves about 570 children in second through fourth grades, nearly 90% of them Hispanic.

The details that came next were devastating: an 18-year-old gunman had opened fire at the school, killing 18 children and one adult, officials said. Read full story

Messages poured in from around the world, offering prayers and expressing outrage at yet another U.S. mass shooting.

“Our hearts are breaking for the families that have been affected by this evil,” Susan Vanderwier of Indiana wrote on the school’s Facebook page.

The school district said the elementary school, where the mission statement is “Live. Learn. Love. Lead,” would remain closed for the final days of the school year.
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Connecticut Senator Begs for Gun Compromise After Texas Shooting

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Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, who came to Congress representing Sandy Hook, begged his colleagues to finally pass legislation that addresses the nation’s continuing gun violence problem as the country’s latest school shooting unfolded Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas. 

A gutted Murphy took to the floor and demanded that lawmakers do what they failed to do after 26 students and educators were killed in Newtown. 

The Democrat gave an impassioned speech, urging his colleagues to finally find a compromise. 

“Our heart is breaking for these families. Every ounce of love and thoughts and prayers we can send, we are sending,” said Murphy, who represented Newtown, Connecticut, where Sandy Hook Elementary School is located, as a former U.S. representative. 

“But I’m here on this floor to beg to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues. Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely,” he said. 

The tragedy in Texas appeared to be similar to the 2012 mass shooting in Connecticut, where 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his way into the locked building and then killed 20 first-graders and six educators with an AR-15-type rifle legally purchased by his mother. He then killed himself as police arrived. Before going to the school, Lanza fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home. 

“I just don’t understand why people here think we’re powerless,” Murphy told reporters. “We aren’t.” 

Murphy said he is “so willing to bend over backwards to find compromise” on the legislation. “I want to show … this country that that we care.” 

A report by the Connecticut’s child advocate said Lanza’s severe and deteriorating mental health problems, his preoccupation with violence and access to his mother’s weapons “proved a recipe for mass murder.” 

Advocacy groups that formed in the wake of the Connecticut shooting expressed dismay at the news of shooting the Robb Elementary School, where at least 14 children and one educator were killed. 

“We are devastated by yet another heart wrenching school shooting incident in America – this time in Uvalde, Texas, nearly 10 years after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting tragedy,” said Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance, in a written statement. “For the past decade, we have warned all Americans, including elected politicians across the nation, that if a mass shooting can happen in Sandy Hook, then it can happen anywhere. We have begged presidents, all members of Congress, governors and state representatives to strengthen the federal and state gun laws to keep our families and our communities safe.” 

Murphy expressed hope that compromise on gun control measures is possible. 

“I understand my Republican colleagues will not agree to everything that I may support, but there is a common denominator that we can find,” he said, acknowledging the problem of gun violence can’t be solved overnight. “But by doing something, we at least stop sending this quiet message of endorsement to these killers … who see the highest levels of government doing nothing, shooting after shooting.” 
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Biden to Address Nation Following Texas School Shooting

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President Joe Biden prepared to address the nation Tuesday night shortly after returning to the White House from a five-day trip to Asia that was bookended by “horrific” mass tragedy.

Biden was on Air Force One Tuesday afternoon when officials said a gunman acting alone killed at least 14 students and a teacher at a Texas elementary school. His departure for Asia last week came just two days after he met with victims’ families after a hate-motivated shooter killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The back-to-back tragedies served as sobering reminders of the frequency and brutality of an American epidemic of mass gun violence.

Biden directed that American flags be flown at half-staff through sunset Saturday in honor of the victims.

Vice President Kamala Harris said that people normally say in a moment like this, “our hearts break — but our hearts keep getting broken … and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families.”

“We have to have the courage to take action … to ensure something like this never happens again,” she said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was briefed on the shooting by deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley-Dillon and other members of his senior team aboard Air Force One.

Shortly before landing in Washington, Biden spoke with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from the presidential plane “to offer any and all assistance he needs in the wake of the horrific shooting in Uvalde, TX,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield tweeted.
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South Africa’s Ramaphosa: Russia Sanctions Hurt ‘Bystander’ Countries

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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday that “bystander countries” were suffering due to sanctions against Russia and called for talks as the African Union (AU) prepared a mission to foster dialog between Moscow and Kyiv.   

Ramaphosa spoke as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited South Africa on the final leg of a trip to the continent that aimed in part to rally diplomatic support for Ukraine. 

South Africa has close historical ties to Moscow due to the Soviet Union’s support for the anti-apartheid struggle. It abstained from a United Nations vote denouncing the invasion of Ukraine and has resisted calls to condemn Russia.    

The European Union has aggressively pursued sanctions and a severing of economic ties in a bid to punish Moscow for its military operations in Ukraine, a strategy which Ramaphosa said was causing collateral damage.   

“Even those countries that are either bystanders or not part of the conflict are also going to suffer from the sanctions that have been imposed against Russia,” he said during a news conference in Pretoria.   

Africa, which has already seen millions pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic, has been hit hard by rising food costs caused in part by disruptions linked to the war.   

Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat and barley, and two-thirds of the world’s exports of sunflower oil used for cooking. The conflict has damaged Ukraine’s ports and agricultural infrastructure and that is likely to limit its agricultural production for years.    

In an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle earlier on Tuesday, Scholz called on countries to increase oil and gas supply to curb global energy price increases.  

Standing beside Ramaphosa, Scholz said he was pleased to have the opportunity to discuss South Africa’s position on the war but underlined that what he called an attempt by Russia to alter international borders by force was unacceptable.   

“Mr. President, I think it is important that we continue these discussions intensively,” he said. “We are very concerned about the outcome of the war for Africa.” 

Senegal’s President Macky Sall — the current chairman of Africa’s top political bloc, the AU — said on Sunday he was preparing to visit Kyiv and Moscow to foster peace. 

Ramaphosa, who has been invited to attend the G-7 summit being hosted by Germany next month, said the only way to resolve the war is through dialog and Africa “does have a role to play because it has access to both leaders (of Ukraine and Russia). 
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Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Campaigners See No Misuse of Western Military Aid

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Prominent Ukrainian anti-corruption campaigners say they have seen no signs that their armed forces are misusing Western military supplies in the three months since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a country long perceived as among the world’s most corrupt.

The head of the Ukrainian government’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), Oleksandr Novikov, told VOA in a May 17 interview that his counterparts at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), a sister agency, had not opened any new investigations into high level corruption in the Ukrainian military since the full-scale Russian invasion started on February 24.

Novikov’s NACP, one of Ukraine’s three main official anti-corruption bodies, develops regulations aimed at preventing corruption and seeks to ensure compliance. NABU investigates corruption and prepares cases for prosecution, while the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) charges and prosecutes suspects.

Novikov appointed NABU’s last chief, Artem Sytnyk, as his deputy earlier this month. Asked if there have been any recent government investigations of high-level corruption in the military, Novikov said, “I know NABU did not have any new cases since February 24.”

Asked for a comment, NABU emailed VOA to say that its acting director, Gizo Uglava, who replaced Sytnyk last month, could not discuss the matter “due to its sensitivity.”

Novikov said each delivery of Western military aid is monitored by a separate intelligence officer of the Security Service of Ukraine. He said the SSU monitoring is part of Kyiv’s “rigorous process that guarantees the integrity” of those supplies.

Ukraine’s handling of the Western military aid is under increasing scrutiny in the U.S., which last week approved sending more weapons and equipment to Kyiv after supplying several billion dollars’ worth of security assistance in recent months to help it repel the Russian invaders.

Corruption had been rampant in the Ukrainian defense industry until 2014, leaving the military unable to function effectively that year as Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and helped pro-Russian separatists seize parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

U.S. Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served as U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017 to 2019, told VOA there was an improvement after 2014 as the U.S., Canada and other nations advised Kyiv in fighting corruption within its defense establishment.

But Ukraine still had much work to do to improve its global reputation prior to February 24. It ranked a lowly 122 out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International, a Berlin-based research group whose annual corruption rankings are among the world’s most influential. Ukraine’s CPI ranking had been even lower at 144 in 2013.

In an article published last month, CNN cited U.S. defense officials and analysts as saying the lack of U.S. military personnel inside Ukraine means Washington has few ways to track how Kyiv uses Western military supplies, which they fear could be trafficked in the long run.

There are no indications of Western military supplies in Ukraine being diverted in recent months, according to a former U.S. official involved in training and equipping Ukraine’s armed forces after 2014. The source spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.

The executive director of Transparency International’s Ukraine branch, Andrii Borovyk, told VOA that he also has not seen any concrete reports of recent corruption in the Ukrainian military.

His group had appealed to Ukrainians in an April 29 statement to report such activity to relevant authorities.

Speaking via Zoom on May 18, Borovyk said one reason for the lack of corruption reporting is Ukraine’s martial law, under which the government has stopped publishing details about what it is buying and for what prices. “I’m not saying there is no corruption. In this uncertain situation, I’m sure there are people who want to profit from government procurement processes,” he said.

The SSU reported on May 19 that it busted a scheme by local officials to illegally sell more than 1,000 bulletproof vests that had been produced by a Ukrainian company for provision to Ukrainian security personnel at no cost. The SSU said the vests were worth $407,000.

The rarity of such public reporting about military-related corruption, Borovyk said, also reflects a shift in priorities for Ukraine’s independent and governmental anti-corruption campaigners.

“We all work only toward one aim, which is for a victory against Russia,” Borovyk said. “If we will not have a country, where are we going to fight corruption? We want to build up the rule of law here in Ukraine.”

Yuri Nikolov, another Ukrainian anti-corruption researcher who co-founded independent group Nashi Groshi (Our Money), told VOA in a May 19 interview that he believes Russia’s full-scale invasion has effectively forced corrupt actors in the Ukrainian military to stop illicit behavior.

“That [Western] military hardware is the only thing that will protect our lives,” Nikolov said. “That’s why we are not interested in stealing it. It is more needed in the battlefields.”

Volker, now a fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said theft of Western military supplies under such circumstances would be viewed by many Ukrainians as treason, a much more serious offense than the petty or systemic corruption that existed before.

The assertion that wartime pressures have stamped out military corruption in Ukraine is viewed skeptically by former U.S. diplomat James Wasserstrom, who served as an anticorruption advisor at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and led a U.S. government oversight team that reported on corruption in Afghanistan.

Wasserstrom later worked in Ukraine from 2016 to 2019 as an international expert for an independent committee monitoring defense sector corruption. That committee evolved into Ukraine’s Independent Anti-Corruption Commission, known by its Ukrainian acronym NAKO, and is a partner organization of Transparency International.

Speaking to VOA on May 18, Wasserstrom was unimpressed by NACP chief Novikov’s assertion that SSU intelligence agents were safeguarding Western military supplies. He noted a 2017 NAKO study citing Ukrainian media accusations that Ukrainian security service personnel were involved in illegal trading of goods between government-controlled territory and regions run by pro-Russian separatists.

“I’ve heard nothing that would indicate any change in SSU behavior in the last three years,” Wasserstrom said, adding that assigning the agency to monitor Western military aid is “like putting a fox in charge of the henhouse.”

Wasserstrom also was skeptical about independent campaigner Borovyk’s assertion that Ukraine’s anti-corruption organizations have been so pre-occupied with helping their armed forces to fight Russian invaders that investigating corruption within those Ukrainian forces is not a priority. He noted that his former investigative committee had worked in Kyiv while the Ukrainian military was fighting pro-Russian separatists in the east.

“Just because you’re fighting a war does not mean that you have to tolerate corruption. You don’t need to. It’s a false choice,” he said.

Wasserstrom said he believes the lack of public reporting about corruption in Ukraine’s military is a result of many Ukrainians feeling that speaking out about corrupt activity would be as treasonous to their nation’s war effort as engaging in the activity itself. “So I’d be shocked if you found anybody who would admit to any of this,” he said.

Borovyk said whoever may have engaged in corruption in the past three months will be investigated eventually. “These people should understand that when we get the victory against Russia, we will find all of them.”

He also vowed that his group will keep pressing the Ukrainian government for stronger reforms, including the appointment of a credible new leader for the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. “Regarding those who are against these reforms or are trying to slow them down, how else can I describe them as internal enemies,” he said.
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US to End Russia’s Ability to Pay International Investors

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The U.S. will close the last avenue for Russia to pay its billions in debt back to international investors on Wednesday, making a Russian default on its debts for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution all but inevitable.

The Treasury Department said in a notification that it does not plan to renew the license to allow Russia to keep paying its debtholders through American banks.

Since the first rounds of sanctions, the Treasury Department has given banks a license to process any bond payments from Russia. That window expires at midnight May 25.

There had already been signs that the Biden administration was unwilling to extend the deadline. At a press conference heading into the Group of Seven finance minister meetings in Koenigswinter, Germany, last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the window existed “to allow a period of time for an orderly transition to take place, and for investors to be able to sell securities.”

“The expectation was that it was time-limited,” Yellen said.

Without the license to use U.S. banks to pay its debts, Russia would have no ability to repay its international bond investors. The Kremlin has been using JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup as its conduits to pay its obligations.

Jay Auslander, a prominent sovereign debt lawyer who previously litigated other debt crises like the one in Argentina, said at this point most of the institutional investors in Russian debts have likely sold their holdings, knowing this deadline was coming. Those who are still holding the debts are either distressed debt investors or those willing to wait to litigate it over the next few years.

“The majority who wanted out have gotten out. The only issue is finding buyers,” he said. 

The Kremlin appears to have foreseen the likelihood that the U.S. would not allow Russia to keep paying on its bonds. The Russian Finance Ministry prepaid two bonds on Friday that were due this month to get ahead of the May 25 deadline.

The next payments Russia will need to make on its debts are due on June 23. Like other Russian debt, those bonds have a 30-day grace period — which would cause default by Russia to be declared by late July, barring the unlikely scenario that the Russia-Ukraine war would come to an end before then.

Investors have been almost certain of Russia going into default for months now. Insurance contracts that cover Russian debt have priced a 80% likelihood of default for weeks, and rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s have placed the country’s debt deep into junk territory.

Russia has not defaulted on its international debts since the 1917 Revolution, when the Russian Empire collapsed and the Soviet Union was created. Russia defaulted on its domestic debts in the late 1990s during the Asian Financial Crisis but was able to recover from that default with the help of international aid.
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