Month: February 2023

Tom Brady Retires, Insisting This Time It’s For Good

Posted on by SeeUS

Tom Brady, who won a record seven Super Bowls for New England and Tampa, has announced his retirement from the U.S. National Football League.

Brady — the most successful quarterback in NFL history, and one of the greatest athletes in team sports — posted the announcement on social media Wednesday morning, a brief video lasting just under one minute.

“Good morning guys. I’ll get to the point right away,” Brady says as the message begins. “I’m retiring. For good.”

He briefly retired after the 2021 season, but wound up coming back for one more year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He retires at age 45, the owner of numerous passing records in an unprecedented 23-year career.

A year ago when he retired, it was in the form of a long Instagram post. But about six weeks later, he decided to come back for one more run. The Buccaneers — with whom he won a Super Bowl two seasons ago — made the playoffs again this season, losing in their playoff opener. And at the time, it begged the question about whether Brady would play again.

Only a couple weeks later, he has given the answer.

“I know the process was a pretty big deal last time, so when I woke up this morning, I figured I’d just press record and let you guys know first,” Brady says in the video. “I won’t be long-winded. You only get one super emotional retirement essay and I used mine up last year.

“I really thank you guys so much, to every single one of you for supporting me. My family, my friends, teammates, my competitors. I could go on forever. There’s too many. Thank you guys for allowing me to live my absolute dream. I wouldn’t change a thing. Love you all.”

Brady is the NFL’s career leader in yards passing (89,214) and touchdowns (649). He’s the only player to win more than five Super Bowls and has been MVP of the game five times.

Brady has won three NFL MVP awards, been a first-team All-Pro three times and selected to the Pro Bowl 15 times.

Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen finalized their divorce this past fall, during the Bucs’ season. It ended a 13-year marriage between two superstars who respectively reached the pinnacles of football and fashion.

It was announced last year that when Brady retires from playing, he would join Fox Sports as a television analyst in a 10-year, $375 million deal.
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Zimbabwe Plans to Build $60 Billion ‘Cyber City’ to Easy Harare Congestion

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Zimbabwe plans to build “Zim Cyber City,” a modern capital expected to cost up to $60 billion in raised funds and include new government buildings and a presidential palace. Critics are blasting the plan as wasteful when more than half the population lives in poverty and the government has let the current capital, Harare, fall apart. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Mount Hampden, Zimbabwe. Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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US Nomination of North Korea Rights Envoy Revives Hope for Divided Families

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The nomination of the U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea, along with new legislation, has revived hopes for Korean Americans who want to see family in North Korea whom they have not seen since their separation during the Korean War.

President Joe Biden nominated Julie Turner, a long-time State Department official, as the U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea on January 23. The position has been vacant for the past six years.

The Divided Families Reunification Act authorizes the special envoy to consult regularly with Korean Americans to make “efforts to reunite” them with their families in North Korea.

The Reunification Act was included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023, which Biden signed into law on December 23. The envoy is to create “potential opportunities” for reunions including video meetings.

“This bill is our last hope because most of the divided family members are in their late 80s and 90s, and probably this is our last chance for the reunion,” said Chahee Lee Stanfield, executive director of the National Coalition for the Divided Families (DFUSA).

Stanfield, 82, has not seen her father and brother in North Korea for more than 70 years. She began a grassroots effort in America in the mid-1990s to help Korean families living in the U.S. reunite with loved ones in North Korea.

“Every day counts for us, and we are hoping that the special envoy will prioritize our issue and seek the reunion process including the video reunion as soon as possible,” Stanfield said.

No travel after war

The Korean War, which began in June 1950, separated more than 10 million individuals from their families. The fighting ended in July 1953 with the signing of the Armistice Agreement ordering a temporary cease-fire and the division of the peninsula between North and South Korea.

Since their separation, families divided by the 38th parallel have been unable to travel to see each other due to the differences between the democratic Republic of Korea (ROK), as South Korea is known, and socialist North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

From 1985 to 2018, the governments of the North and South authorized 21 family reunion programs. These allowed more than 24,500 divided families in both countries to meet either in person in Seoul, Pyongyang and Mount Kumgang or virtually.

However people like Stanfield, who moved from South Korea to America and became U.S. citizens, were unable to participate in the programs because diplomatic ties between Washington and Pyongyang do not exist.

There are more than 1.7 million people of Korean descent living in the U.S. As many as 10,000 Korean Americans were separated from their families in North Korea during the war, according to Wonseok Song, executive director of Korean American Grassroots Conference (KAGC).

“Unfortunately, there is no reported information of the exact number of divided families residing in the United States,” Song said. “There are no mechanisms in the United States that formally track these families, and no terms that clearly define who may be considered family either.”

California Republican Representative Young Kim, who cosponsored the bipartisan Reunification Act, is pushing for a system of identifying Korean Americans divided from their families in North Korea.

“I want the special envoy … to identify the Korean Americans, some 10,000 of those still living in the United States, to coordinate better with our U.S. State Department and the South Korean government to include them in the next round of family reunification,” said Kim during an interview with the VOA Korean Service this week.

The number is shrinking yearly due to deaths among the aging population who have now waited much of their lives to see their families in North Korea. About 3,000 elderly South Koreans with family ties to North Korea die each year, according to the Reunification Act.

A lifetime of hoping

Even though inter-Korean family reunion programs were temporary and held under strict surveillance by North Korean officials, Korean Americans have long hoped that similar programs would unite them with their families in the North.

Some, like Song Yoonchae, a white-haired 90-year-old in Los Angeles, thought he would return home when he boarded the SS Meredith Victory. He thought he was taking a brief voyage to escape the ravages of the war.

He recalled leaving behind his sister and two brothers to board the U.S. merchant freighter turned rescue vessel docked at the port of Hungnam in North Korea in December 1950.

“My family and I were told we just need to stay on the ship for three days,” said Song, who was 17 years old at the time, in “The Three Days Is a Lifetime,” a documentary produced by the VOA Korean Service. It captures the wrenching stories of Korean Americans yearning to meet their families in the North.

 

The ship carried tens of thousands of densely packed refugees to Port Jangseungpo on Geoje Island off the southern tip of South Korea. The rescue operation became known as “the Miracle of Christmas” as the ship unloaded the refugees on Christmas Eve.

Displaced by the war, Yoonchae began a new life in the South before moving to the U.S.

“I consider the issue of bringing divided Korean American families together to be a human rights issue,” said Robert King, who served as the U.S. special envoy for North Korea’s human rights under the Obama administration. He was the last person to serve in the position.

“The first step will be to get North Korea to talk with the United States,” King continued.

An opening for dialog

Dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang has remained stalled since October 2019. Even though the Biden administration said efforts were made to engage in talks, North Korea has refused.

Evans Revere, a former State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said, “In the absence of any dialogue with North Korea, with tensions rising on the Korean Peninsula because of Pyongyang’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and with U.S.-DPRK and ROK-DPRK relations in a bad state, it is hard to imagine that there is any real prospect for progress in this important area.”

Revere continued, “Nevertheless, the existence of this legislation keeps open a potential area for U.S.-ROK-DPRK dialogue and cooperation if and when circumstances allow in the future.”

North Korea launched more than 90 ballistic and cruise missiles last year while dismissing any prospects for talks with the U.S.

Wonseok Song of the KAGC said, “While tensions do remain unfavorable between the two countries” of the U.S. and North Korea, “we at KAGC are hopeful” that talks focusing on reunions will open. He added, “The issue is dire to an aging population eager to make peace with their estranged loved ones.”

Joeun Lee contributed to this report.
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Russian Journalist Sentenced for Speaking Out on Ukraine 

Posted on by SeeEU

A court in Moscow on Wednesday sentenced a Russian journalist in absentia to eight years in prison on charges of disparaging the military, the latest move in the authorities’ relentless crackdown on dissent.

Alexander Nevzorov, a television journalist and former lawmaker, was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the military under a law that was adopted soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine. The law effectively exposes anyone critical of the Russian military action in Ukraine to fines and prison sentences of up to 10 years.

Nevzorov was accused of posting “false information” on social media about the Russian shelling of a maternity hospital in the Sea of Azov port of Mariupol. Moscow has fiercely denied its involvement.

Nevzorov, who moved abroad after the start of the Ukrainian conflict, didn’t have an immediate comment on the verdict.

Prominent opposition politician Ilya Yashin was sentenced in December to 8½ years in prison under the same law. Another leading opposition figure, Vladimir Kara-Murza, has been in custody facing the same charges.
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Russia Says Longer-Range Western Weapons Would Escalate Ukraine Conflict

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Russia said Wednesday that supplies of long-range weapons to Ukraine would not deter Russian forces, but would increase tensions and escalate the conflict.

The comments from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov came amid reports the United States is preparing a new round of aid that would include longer-range rockets to help Ukrainian forces fight off a Russian invasion.

Reuters reported that according to two U.S. officials briefed on the matter, a weapon called the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb with a range of 150 kilometers was part of the package expected to be announced as soon as this week.

Also expected to be included were Javelin anti-tank weapons, counter-drone and counter-artillery systems, armored vehicles, communications equipment, and enough medical equipment to support three field hospitals.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, tweeted Wednesday that each stage of war requires certain weapons. He said there is already a coalition of partners helping Ukraine obtain and train to use tanks, and that there are “talks on longer-range missiles and attack aircraft supply.”

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleskii Reznikov said Wednesday, a day after meeting with French officials, that he was grateful to France for providing howitzers, air defense missiles and armored vehicles, as well as fuel, equipment and training for Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukraine won a boost last week when the United States and Germany both promised to send tanks to Ukraine, after Germany hesitated for weeks over sending its advanced Leopard 2 tanks.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba estimated Tuesday that a dozen countries have now promised more than 100 tanks, which he described as the “first wave of contributions.”

Ukrainian officials have called on their Western allies to send fighter jets in order to better respond to the Russian attack, but so far, those calls have been met with wariness.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Day of Disruption in UK as up to Half a Million Join Walkout

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Thousands of schools in the U.K. are closing some or all of their classrooms, train services will be paralyzed and delays are expected at airports Wednesday in what’s shaping up to be the biggest day of industrial action Britain has seen in more than a decade, as unions step up pressure on the government to demand better pay amid a cost-of-living crisis.  

The Trades Union Congress, a federation of unions, estimated that up to half a million workers, including teachers, university staff, civil servants, border officials and train and bus drivers, will walk out of their jobs across the country. 

More action, including by nurses and ambulance workers, is planned for the coming days and weeks. 

Britons have endured months of disruptions to their daily lives as a bitter dispute over pay and work conditions drags on between unions and the government. But Wednesday’s strikes mark an escalation of disruptive action across multiple key industries. 

The last time the country saw mass walkouts on this scale was in 2011, when well over 1 million public sector workers staged a one-day strike in a dispute over pensions. 

Union bosses say that despite some pay rises, such as a 5% offer the government proposed to teachers, wages in the public sector have failed to keep pace with soaring inflation, effectively meaning workers have been taking a pay cut.  

The Trades Union Congress said Wednesday the average public sector worker is $250 a month worse off compared with 2010, once inflation has been taken into account. 

Inflation in the U.K. stands at 10.5%, the highest in 40 years, driven by skyrocketing food and energy costs. While some expect price rises to slow down this year, Britain’s economic outlook remains grim. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund said that Britain will be the only major economy to contract this year, performing worse even than sanction-hit Russia. 

The National Education Union said some 23,000 schools will be affected Wednesday, with an estimated 85% fully or partially closed. Others also on strike range from museum workers and London bus drivers to coastguards and border officials manning passport control booths at airports.  

“It’s everybody out … of course there’s going to be some disruption and some queues,” Phil Douglas, director-general of Border Force, told reporters.  

Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train driver’s union ASLEF, said the government must now listen  

“Everybody knows somebody working somewhere that’s out on strike, about to go on strike or being balloted for strike action,” he said. “Quite simply, the government has now got to listen – the people in this country are speaking, and they’re speaking volumes that they want a cost-of-living increase.” 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office acknowledged that Wednesday’s wave of walkouts will cause “significant disruption” to people and maintained that “negotiations rather than picket lines are the right approach.” But union leaders say the government has refused to negotiate and offer enough to halt the strikes.  

Unions have also been angered by the government’s plans to introduce a new law aiming to curb strike disruptions by enforcing minimum service levels in key sectors, including health and transport.  

Lawmakers on Monday backed the bill, which has been criticized by the unions as an attack on the right to strike.  

On Wednesday thousands of people are expected to take part in protests against the bill in London and other cities. 
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Before a Crowd of 1 Million, Pope Urges Congolese to Forgive

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Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Congo’s people to forgive those who have harmed them as he presided over a Mass before an estimated 1 million people who flocked to his first main event in Africa dedicated to peace and reconciliation for a country wracked by decades of violence. 

Many of the Congolese faithful spent the night before the Mass on the vast airfields of Kinshasa’s Ndolo airport and passed the hours before Francis’ arrival singing, dancing and getting jazzed up for the first papal visit since St. John Paul II’s last trip in 1985. 

They cheered wildly when Francis began a languid loop around the airfields in his open-sided popemobile, some of them running alongside or waving flags. Many of the women wore dresses and skirts made of pagne, a wax print fabric featuring images of Francis or other religious symbols. 

“Today I understand the enthusiasm of my grandmother when Pope John Paul II came,” said Julie Mbuyi, a 45-year-old mother of two who was wearing a Francis-themed outfit. “She was so excited to see him and the night before she couldn’t close her eyes!” 

The crowd cheered again when the Argentine pope greeted them in Lingala, one of four national languages of Congo that is widely spoken in the capital, Kinshasa. And they listened attentively as he urged them in his homily to open their hearts to forgiveness, citing the example of Christ who forgave those who betrayed him. 

“He showed them his wounds, because forgiveness is born from wounds,” Francis said. “It is born when our wounds do not leave scars of hatred, but become the means by which we make room for others and accept their weaknesses. Our weakness becomes an opportunity, and forgiveness becomes the path to peace.” 

Referring to the decades of violence especially in Congo’s east that has forced millions to flee their homes, Francis stressed that forgiving doesn’t mean pretending that nothing bad has happened. But he said the act of forgiveness creates an “amnesty of the heart.” 

“What great good it does us to cleanse our hearts of anger and remorse, of every trace of resentment and hostility!” he said. 

The morning Mass was Francis’ first big event in Congo after he arrived on Tuesday and, in his opening speech to government authorities, condemned the centuries-long plundering of Africa’s mineral and natural wealth by foreign powers. 

Later Tuesday, Francis was to meet with victims of the fighting in Congo’s east, where rebel groups have intensified attacks over the past year as they seek to expand their territory. The meeting was to feature testimonies of people who have suffered unspeakable atrocities. 

Francis had originally planned to visit the North Kivu provincial capital, Goma, but had to cancel the stop due to the fighting that has forced some 5.7 million people to flee their homes, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Congo where already some 26.4 million people were facing hunger, according to the World Food Program. 

“When we heard that Pope Francis was no longer coming to our province of North Kivu, my husband and I decided to come all the way to Kinshasa to see and hear him,” said Jeanne Kahota as she waited for Francis’ Mass to begin. She said she was old enough to remember John Paul’s visit but wasn’t able to follow it closely. 

“That’s why we said to ourselves that this kind of appointment doesn’t happen every day, it’s exceptional and we didn’t want to miss it again.” 

Roughly half of Congo’s 105 million people are Catholic, according to Vatican statistics. 

Fighting in eastern Congo, which has more than 120 armed groups, has simmered for years but spiked in late 2021 with the resurgence of the M23 group, which had been largely dormant for nearly a decade. The rebels have captured swaths of land and are accused by the United Nations and rights groups of committing atrocities against civilians. 

Francis on Tuesday condemned the fighting and was to repeat his call for peace during his meeting with victims of the conflict. The appointment was to include a joint call for the victims to pardon their assailants, according to Vatican organizers. 

The Vatican estimated that 1 million people were on hand for Francis’ Mass, citing local organizers. The airport fields had a capacity of 1.5 million people and were not full by the time Francis’ Mass began. 

Among the faithful was Clément L’onde, who travelled from Kisantu, a town in the province of Central Kongo, more than 150 kilometers from Kinshasa. He planned to participate in all of Francis’ events. 

“To my children and to the children who stayed in my city, I will bring them the message of the Holy Father, the message of peace and reconciliation,” he said. 
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Winter Storm Blamed for Two Deaths in Texas

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Winter weather warnings and advisories were in effect across a string of U.S. states from Texas to Maryland on Wednesday with forecasters expecting freezing rain and sleet to affect many areas. 

The storm was blamed for at least two deaths on slick roads in Texas on Tuesday as authorities reported numerous crashes. 

The weather also forced the cancelation of hundreds of flights and knocked out power to thousands of homes. 

As the storm moved to the east, watches and warnings were in effect in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
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VP Harris to Attend Funeral for Tyre Nichols

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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton will be among the mourners Wednesday at the funeral of Tyre Nichols, whose death earlier this month after being beaten by police once again focused attention on police brutality. 

Nichols’ mother and stepfather, RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells, invited Harris to attend the service at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. She expressed her condolences in a phone call with the family on Tuesday. 

“The persistent issue of police misconduct and use of excessive force in America must end now,” Harris said in a statement Friday, the same day police released video of the January 7 traffic stop and beating that led to his death. 

Sharpton is set to give the eulogy at Wednesday’s funeral. He gathered with family members late Tuesday at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis, where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his final speech the night before he was assassinated in 1968. 

“This is holy ground. And this family now is ours and they’re in the hands of history,” Sharpton said. 

Also expected to attend Wednesday were Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd. The deaths of Taylor and Floyd at the hands of police in 2020 sparked widespread protests in the United States about racial injustice. 

Five Black officers have been fired and charged in connection with the death of Nichols, who was also Black. Two other officers have been disciplined, while three emergency responders have been fired. 

The Memphis Police Department also disbanded a special unit that targeted violent criminals in high-crime areas that included six of the officers involved. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Boeing Bids Farewell to an Icon, Delivers Last 747 Jumbo Jet

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Boeing bid farewell to an icon on Tuesday, delivering its final 747 jumbo jet as thousands of workers who helped build the planes over the past 55 years looked on. 

Since its first flight in 1969, the giant yet graceful 747 has served as a cargo plane, a commercial aircraft capable of carrying nearly 500 passengers, a transport for NASA’s space shuttles, and the Air Force One presidential aircraft. It revolutionized travel, connecting international cities that had never before had direct routes and helping democratize passenger flight. 

But over about the past 15 years, Boeing and its European rival Airbus have introduced more profitable and fuel efficient wide-body planes, with only two engines to maintain instead of the 747’s four. The final plane is the 1,574th built by Boeing in the Puget Sound region of Washington state. 

Thousands of workers joined Boeing and other industry executives from around the world — as well as actor and pilot John Travolta, who has flown 747s — Tuesday for a ceremony in the company’s massive factory north of Seattle, marking the delivery of the last one to cargo carrier Atlas Air. 

“If you love this business, you’ve been dreading this moment,” said longtime aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia. “Nobody wants a four-engine airliner anymore, but that doesn’t erase the tremendous contribution the aircraft made to the development of the industry or its remarkable legacy.” 

Boeing set out to build the 747 after losing a contract for a huge military transport, the C-5A. The idea was to take advantage of the new engines developed for the transport — high-bypass turbofan engines, which burned less fuel by passing air around the engine core, enabling a farther flight range — and to use them for a newly imagined civilian aircraft. 

It took more than 50,000 Boeing workers less than 16 months to churn out the first 747 — a Herculean effort that earned them the nickname “The Incredibles.” The jumbo jet’s production required the construction of a massive factory in Everett, north of Seattle — the world’s largest building by volume. The factory wasn’t even completed when the first planes were finished. 

Among those in attendance was Desi Evans, 92, who joined Boeing at its factory in Renton, south of Seattle, in 1957 and went on to spend 38 years at the company before retiring. One day in 1967, his boss told him he’d be joining the 747 program in Everett — the next morning. 

“They told me, ‘Wear rubber boots, a hard hat and dress warm, because it’s a sea of mud,'” Evans recalled. “And it was — they were getting ready for the erection of the factory.” 

He was assigned as a supervisor to help figure out how the interior of the passenger cabin would be installed and later oversaw crews that worked on sealing and painting the planes. 

“When that very first 747 rolled out, it was an incredible time,” he said as he stood before the last plane, parked outside the factory. “You felt elated — like you’re making history. You’re part of something big, and it’s still big, even if this is the last one.” 

The plane’s fuselage was 225 feet (68.5 meters) long and the tail stood as tall as a six-story building. The plane’s design included a second deck extending from the cockpit back over the first third of the plane, giving it a distinctive hump and inspiring a nickname, the Whale. More romantically, the 747 became known as the Queen of the Skies. 

Some airlines turned the second deck into a first-class cocktail lounge, while even the lower deck sometimes featured lounges or even a piano bar. One decommissioned 747, originally built for Singapore Airlines in 1976, has been converted into a 33-room hotel near the airport in Stockholm. 

“It was the first big carrier, the first widebody, so it set a new standard for airlines to figure out what to do with it, and how to fill it,” said Guillaume de Syon, a history professor at Pennsylvania’s Albright College who specializes in aviation and mobility. “It became the essence of mass air travel: You couldn’t fill it with people paying full price, so you need to lower prices to get people onboard. It contributed to what happened in the late 1970s with the deregulation of air travel.” 

The first 747 entered service in 1970 on Pan Am’s New York-London route, and its timing was terrible, Aboulafia said. It debuted shortly before the oil crisis of 1973, amid a recession that saw Boeing’s employment fall from 100,800 employees in 1967 to a low of 38,690 in April 1971. The “Boeing bust” was infamously marked by a billboard near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport that read, “Will the last person leaving SEATTLE — Turn out the lights.” 

An updated model — the 747-400 series — arrived in the late 1980s and had much better timing, coinciding with the Asian economic boom of the early 1990s, Aboulafia said. He took a Cathay Pacific 747 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong as a twentysomething backpacker in 1991. 

“Even people like me could go see Asia,” Aboulafia said. “Before, you had to stop for fuel in Alaska or Hawaii and it cost a lot more. This was a straight shot — and reasonably priced.” 

Delta was the last U.S. airline to use the 747 for passenger flights, which ended in 2017, although some other international carriers continue to fly it, including the German airline Lufthansa. 

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr recalled traveling in a 747 as a young exchange student and said that when he realized he’d be traveling to the West Coast of the U.S. for Tuesday’s event, there was only one way to go: riding first-class in the nose of a Lufthansa 747 from Frankfurt to San Francisco. He promised the crowd Lufthansa would keep flying the 747 for many years to come. 

“We just love the airplane,” he said. 

Atlas Air ordered four 747-8 freighters early last year, with the final one — emblazoned with an image of Joe Sutter, the engineer who oversaw the 747’s original design team — delivered Tuesday. Atlas CEO John Dietrich called the 747 the greatest air freighter, thanks in part to its unique capacity to load through the nose cone. 
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South Sudan Prepares for Visit by Pope Francis

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Pope Francis arrives in South Sudan Friday for his first visit to the world’s youngest country, which is struggling to quell unrest that has displaced more than 2 million people. Sheila Ponnie reports from Juba, South Sudan. Videographer: Bebe Joel.
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US Curbs Exports to Iranian Firms for Producing Drones for Russia

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The United States on Tuesday put new trade restrictions on seven Iranian entities for producing drones that Russia has used to attack Ukraine, the U.S. Department of Commerce said. 

The firms and other organizations were added to a U.S. export control list for those engaged in activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. 

The additions to the Commerce Department’s “entities list” were posted in a preliminary filing in the U.S. Federal Register, the government’s daily journal, and will be officially published on Wednesday. 

Since Russia launched its war against Ukraine in February 2022, the United States and more than 30 other countries have sought to degrade its military and defense industrial base by using export controls to restrict its access to technology. 

The Iranian entities are Design and Manufacturing of Aircraft Engines, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization, Oje Parvaz Mado Nafar Company, Paravar Pars Company, Qods Aviation Industry and Shahed Aviation Industries. 

Any suppliers to the entities are required to have licenses to ship goods and technology, but these are expected to be denied, apart from those for food and medicine. The licenses will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. 

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said: “Sanctions have no effect on Iran’s drone production capacity because its drones are all produced domestically. This is a strong indication that the drones shot down in Ukraine and using parts made by Western countries don’t belong to Iran.” 

In January, Canada announced it would buy a U.S.-made National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) for Ukraine. NASAMS is a short- to medium-range ground-based air defense system that protects against drone, missile and aircraft attacks. The United States has provided two NASAMS to Ukraine, and more are on the way. 

Other ground-based air defense systems such as Raytheon Technology Corp.’s Patriot have been pledged to Ukraine by the United Kingdom, the United States and the Netherlands as allies hope to stave off further power disruptions. 
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Hungary Most Corrupt EU Member in 2022: Watchdog

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Hungary slid to bottom place among EU nations in a corruption index, with graft watchdog Transparency International on Tuesday alleging misuse by “political elites” of state and bloc funds.   

Hungary has been embroiled in a long-running spat with Brussels over corruption and rule of law concerns that have led to the freezing of billions of euros of bloc funding.    

In a bid to unlock the funds, Budapest committed to a range of legal and anti-corruption reforms, including the set-up of a watchdog that includes a Transparency International staff member.   

Hungary replaced Bulgaria as the last among EU and Western European countries in the group’s “Corruption Perceptions Index” report for 2022 launched on Tuesday.   

The report noted “a decade of democratic backsliding and systemic deterioration of the rule of law at the hands of the ruling party.”  

“Evidence is mounting against political elites on their misuse of both state and EU funds,” it said.   

Budapest hit back at Transparency, pointing to a corruption scandal in Brussels that emerged last month with one of the assembly’s vice presidents charged in connection with allegations of bribery.   

“It is interesting that Transparency International did not investigate either the Brussels bureaucracy or the European Parliament,” a government statement said.    

The statement accused the watchdog of “belonging to the Soros network” referring to the 92-year-old Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros who Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accuses of meddling in Hungarian and global politics.   

The annual Transparency report ranks 180 countries around the world and territories on a corruption scale since 1995 based on surveys with experts and businesspeople. 
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