Month: August 2023

US Commerce Secretary Heads to China Amid Trade Disputes

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will start a four-day visit to China this weekend. The announcement came shortly after the Biden administration issued an executive order restricting certain U.S. investments in China.  

The Department of Commerce said on Tuesday that Raimondo will visit Beijing and Shanghai from August 27 to 30 and meet with senior Chinese government officials and American business leaders. 

The trip is intended to deepen communication between the U.S. and China on issues relating to the U.S.-China commercial relationship, challenges faced by U.S. businesses, and areas for potential cooperation, according to a press release from the Commerce Department.   

Analysts said that as China’s economy may be in long-term trouble, Beijing hopes to use Raimondo’s visit to reverse the impression that China is no longer friendly to foreign companies. But the trip may not bring any breakthrough.  

Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told VOA that Beijing welcomes Raimondo’s visit because of her influence on several economic and trade issues that China cares about.  

“Secretary Raimondo is a pretty big player in all transactions involving either trade in goods or services, electronic services of various kinds, technology flows and investment flows in both directions,” Hufbauer said. 

“My guess is that the Chinese authorities will be interested and quiz her quite closely about what limits she sees on these restrictions that are being put in place, what kind of flows of goods, of technology, of investment are still permitted by the U.S., and what are basically either prohibited or very closely scrutinized.”  

Move seen as goodwill gesture

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning U.S. investments in sensitive technologies in China, aiming to restrict China’s ability to develop next-generation military and surveillance technologies.  

However, right after Raimondo’s trip was announced, the U.S. government unexpectedly removed 27 Chinese companies and institutions from the “Unverified List” of sanctioned commercial entities, which was widely seen as a goodwill gesture from Washington to Beijing. 

The 27 Chinese entities include lithium battery material maker Guangdong Guanghua Technology and sensor maker Nanjing Gaohua Technology.  

China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday that the move is beneficial to the resumption of normal trade between companies of the two countries and is in line with the common interests of both sides. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry also visited China this year. These meetings could pave the way for Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the APEC summit in the U.S. and meet with Biden this fall.  

‘Intense competition requires intense diplomacy’

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Raimondo’s trip is “an encapsulation of the approach that the Biden administration is taking, where we are engaged in an intense competition with the PRC, but intense competition requires intense diplomacy to manage that competition so that it doesn’t tip over into conflict.  

“Secretary Raimondo will carry with her the message that the United States is not seeking to decouple from China, but rather to de-risk, and that means protecting our national security and ensuring resilient supply chains alongside our allies and partners while we continue our economic relationship and our trade relationship,” Sullivan said in a press briefing this week.  

Raimondo is expected to meet Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, among other economic policymakers.  

Clark Packard, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, told VOA he expects Raimondo to bring up U.S. concerns about recent Chinese restrictions on the export of some critical minerals, seen as retaliation for the American measures. 

“I don’t know if that falls on deaf ears because China would argue, ‘We weren’t going to move forward with this, but this is in response to your export controls on semiconductors and advanced computing,'” said Packard. “I don’t know how well that will be received, but again, I think it’s positive that the two sides talk. My hope is it’s not just an airing of the grievances on both sides because, while I think it’s important to engage, you do want to see some movements.”  

Packard said he doesn’t expect Raimondo’s trip to make any substantive breakthroughs on key issues, partly because the Biden administration is “getting a lot of pressure from Congress to continue to ratchet up tensions.”  

“I think that there’s so much political pressure on the Biden administration to not appear weak on China, which is going to prevent any sort of massive thawing in the relationship even if both sides want that to happen economically,” he said.  

Sullivan said, “We are not sending Cabinet officials to China to change China, nor do we expect these conversations to change the United States; rather, we each have the opportunity through this high-level engagement to ensure that there is a basic, stable foundation in the relationship, even as we compete intensively in a number of domains.”   

Likely start of a working group

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the planning, one likely deliverable from the trip is a working group between the commerce agencies of the two sides to discuss U.S. export controls aimed at preventing cutting-edge American technology from being used by China’s military.   

In a letter to Raimondo and Blinken last week, four U.S. Republican lawmakers said, “U.S. export control policy towards the [People’s Republic of China] should not be up for negotiation, period. Decisions on the nature and scope of U.S. export controls should be taken in Washington, not Beijing … 

“It is time for U.S. officials to accept that China has no intention of abandoning its policies that led to expanded U.S. export controls in the first place,” said the letter. “In this vein, we urge you, prior to your trip, to publicly clarify that U.S. export controls are non-negotiable and that the PRC should expect more, not less, U.S. export controls moving forward.” 

The letter was signed by Senator Bill Hagerty and Representatives Mike Gallagher, Michael McCaul and Young Kim. 

The trip also comes as the Chinese economy is grappling with stagnant growth, a real estate crisis, sluggish exports, high youth unemployment, and weak consumer confidence. Analysts believe the downturn in China’s economy gives Beijing more reasons to ease tensions with the U.S.  

“With Secretary Raimondo, one thing they might do is try to lay out how friendly China still is to foreign business, to foreign firms that want to invest in China in a lot of sectors, including household products, but also including things like technology products, Qualcomm, whatever Apple products in China and so on,” said Hufbauer.

“Chinese authorities want to try to combat the notion that they are very unfriendly to business and, in general, private business and foreign firms in particular,” he said. “And that would be a subject they would discuss with Raimondo, and they might come out with some kind of statement saying that China is open to business, and once firms have come, it’s going to reduce regulatory oversight.”          
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Camp David Agreement Seen Likely to Fuel China’s Aggression in S. China Sea

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The Camp David trilateral security agreement between the United States, Japan and South Korea is likely to drive Beijing to be more aggressive in the South China Sea, analysts say.

The trilateral summit, the first stand-alone gathering of leaders from the three countries, yielded security measures aimed directly at what the participants described in a joint statement as China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior,” especially in the South China Sea.

The agreement calls for the three allies to commit to consult with each other to coordinate their response to regional threats.

It also requires them to expand joint military drills and hold annual talks. In a statement, the three countries called out China for “dangerous and aggressive behavior supporting unlawful maritime claims” in what appeared to be a rebuke of China’s aggression in the South China Sea.

Clint Work, a fellow and director of academic affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America, told VOA Korean in an interview that direct mentions of China’s behavior in the South China Sea and its claims had not appeared in previous U.S.-South Korea statements.

“To mention all these specific Chinese behaviors and claims is a new development. And to have it in a trilateral document is notable,” he said.

China’s protest

Beijing expressed deep displeasure with the summit.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the meeting “an act of gross interference in China’s internal affairs, a deliberate attempt to sow discord” between Beijing and its neighbors.

The spokesperson also rejected criticism of Beijing’s behavior in the South China Sea.

“The U.S., together with its allies, frequently conducted military exercises and close-in reconnaissance in waters around China, including the South China Sea, to flex muscle and intensify tensions in the region,” the spokesperson said at a news briefing on Monday.

‘Salami-slicing approach’

Analysts say the trio’s military exercises and increased ballistic missile cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region will likely push China to strengthen its existing aggressive approach in the disputed waters.

“China will stage its own military exercises in response, perpetuating the action-reaction cycle,” said Carl Thayer, professor emeritus of politics at the University of New South Wales Canberra, in an email to VOA Khmer.

Thayer added that although the trilateral partnership on ballistic missiles is mainly directed at North Korea, “the greater interoperability and proficiency in ballistic missile defense” resulting from the partnership will offset the threat posed by China’s ballistic missiles.

“China’s response will be to improve its offensive capabilities and increase the number of ballistic missiles it can deploy,” he said.

John Ciorciari, professor of research and policy engagement at the University of Michigan, said in an email to VOA Khmer that in the short term, China will likely act assertively to show that closer cooperation among South Korea, Japan and the U.S. is counterproductive, but in the long term, “the stronger trilateral cooperation is likely to induce more caution in Beijing.”

“China is not likely to engage in dramatic military escalation, but it will probably take economic measures to punish South Korea and Japan. This could accelerate economic decoupling,” Ciorciari said.

“China will likely continue pursuing its salami-slicing approach in the South China Sea, building steadily without escalating to major-power armed conflict,” he added.

Sweeping maritime claims

China has made sweeping claims to sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, a combined area estimated to hold 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The claims have angered competing claimants, including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

In July 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled against China in a claim brought by the Philippines under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

China, despite being a signatory to the treaty that established the tribunal, refused to accept the court’s ruling.

China has been increasingly aggressive in asserting its claim, using naval presence and exercises to deter opponents from inside and outside the region, and carefully conducting gray zone operations — offensive tactics below the use of armed force by its coast guard, maritime militia and fishing vessels — to harass and intimidate littoral states.

Beijing is also constructing what appears to be an airstrip on Triton Island, a contested territory that is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

Recently, the Philippine Coast Guard released a video showing a China Coast Guard vessel firing a water cannon at one of its ships.

The United States has no territorial claim over the contested waters but has asserted that freedom of navigation and flight, as well as peacefully resolving disputes, are in its national interest.

VOA’s Korean Service contributed to this report.
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Maui County Sues Utility, Alleging Negligence Over Deadly Fires

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Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric Company on Thursday over the fires that devastated Lahaina, saying the utility negligently failed to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions.

Witness accounts and video indicated that sparks from power lines ignited fires as utility poles snapped in the winds, which were driven by a passing hurricane. The Aug. 8 fires killed at least 115 people and left an unknown number of others missing, making them the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.

Hawaii Electric said in a statement it is “very disappointed that Maui County chose this litigious path while the investigation is still unfolding.”

The lawsuit said the destruction could have been avoided and that the utility had a duty “to properly maintain and repair the electric transmission lines, and other equipment including utility poles associated with their transmission of electricity, and to keep vegetation properly trimmed and maintained so as to prevent contact with overhead power lines and other electric equipment.”

The utility knew that high winds “would topple power poles, knock down power lines, and ignite vegetation,” the lawsuit said. “Defendants also knew that if their overhead electrical equipment ignited a fire, it would spread at a critically rapid rate.”

A drought in the region had left plants, including invasive grasses, dangerously dry. As Hurricane Dora passed roughly 800 kilometers south of Hawaii, strong winds toppled at least 30 power poles in West Maui. Video shot by a Lahaina resident shows a downed power line setting dry grasses alight. Firefighters initially contained that fire, but then left to attend to other calls, and residents said the fire later reignited and raced toward downtown Lahaina.

With downed power lines, police or utility crews blocking some roads, traffic ground to a standstill along Lahaina’s Front Street. A number of residents jumped into the water off Maui as they tried to escape the flaming debris and overheated black smoke enveloping downtown.

Dozens of searchers in snorkel gear have been combing a 6.4-kilometer stretch of water this week for signs of anyone who might have perished. Crews are also painstakingly searching for remains among the ashes of destroyed businesses and multistory residential buildings.

For now, the number of confirmed dead stands at 115, a number that the county said is expected to rise.

Maui County on Thursday released eight additional names of people who have been identified, including a family of four whose remains were found in a burned car near their home: 7-year-old Tony Takafua; his mother, Salote Tone, 39; and his grandparents Faaoso Tone, 70, and Maluifonua Tone, 73.

The FBI and Maui County police are still trying to figure out how many others might be unaccounted for. The FBI said Tuesday there were 1,000 to 1,100 names on a tentative, unconfirmed list.

“Our primary focus in the wake of this unimaginable tragedy has been to do everything we can to support not just the people of Maui, but also Maui County,” Hawaiian Electric’s statement said.

Hawaiian Electric is a for-profit, investor-owned, publicly traded utility that serves 95% of Hawaii’s electric customers. It is also facing several lawsuits from Lahaina residents as well as one from some of its own investors, who accused it of fraud in a federal lawsuit Thursday, saying it failed to disclose that its wildfire prevention and safety measures were inadequate.

Maui County’s lawsuit notes other utilities, such as Southern California Edison Company, Pacific Gas & Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric, have procedures for shutting off power during bad windstorms and said the “severe and catastrophic losses … could have easily been prevented” if Hawaiian Electric had a similar shutoff plan.

The county said it is seeking compensation for damage to public property and resources in Lahaina as well as nearby Kula.

Other utilities have been found liable for devastating fires recently.

In June, a jury in Oregon found the electric utility PacifiCorp responsible for causing devastating fires during Labor Day weekend in 2020, ordering the company to pay tens of millions of dollars to 17 homeowners who sued and finding it liable for broader damages that could push the total award into the billions.

Pacific Gas & Electric declared bankruptcy and pleaded guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter after its neglected equipment caused a fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills in 2018 that destroyed nearly 19,000 homes, businesses and other buildings and virtually razed the town of Paradise, California.
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Police Secretly Copied Kansas Newspaper’s Data After Raid, Attorney Says

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During a police raid earlier this month on the Marion County Record newspaper in Kansas, law enforcement secretly copied data from at least one computer they seized during the raid and didn’t return it when ordered to do so, the outlet’s attorney said.

Officers illegally copied 17 gigs of data from the newspaper’s computer system, said Bernie Rhodes, the newspaper’s lawyer.

“This simply raises even further the level of suspicion that what occurred here was not done for any legitimate purpose,” Rhodes told VOA.

On Aug. 11, local police — led by Chief Gideon Cody — raided the weekly newspaper’s office and the co-owner’s home. They seized computers, cellphones, hard drives and other items, which were then held in a storage locker at the sheriff’s office.

Police later said the raid was over a complaint filed by a local restaurant owner that a Record reporter had committed identity theft by looking up public information through the Kansas Department of Revenue website.

After the raid was widely condemned by press freedom groups and news organizations around the world, the county attorney ruled on August 16 that there was insufficient evidence to justify the raid, and a judge ordered the seized devices to be returned. Eight seized items were included on the inventory list provided to the Record.

But when the district court released an inventory list earlier this week, it included nine items, according to Rhodes. The missing item is listed as “OS Triage Digital DATA” in the court filing.

“It’s called fruit of the poisonous tree,” Rhodes said, using a legal metaphor that describes evidence obtained illegally. This latest development supports the belief that “the entire search was invalid,” he said.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

This development confirms the newspaper’s concerns about what the police may have done with their seized devices.

“I’m concerned about what the police looked through,” Record publisher Eric Meyer told VOA earlier this week in Marion. “They’re supposed to look for certain things. But who watches the watchers? You don’t know.”

Rhodes told VOA that if the newspaper cannot come to a resolution with the city, they plan to take legal action over the raid.

“We would intend to sue Chief Cody, the police department and the city of Marion for the constitutional violations that occurred,” he said.
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Last-Minute Gabon Voting Rule Change Poses Governance Risk, Experts Say

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Political analysts say a last-minute rule change in Gabon’s August 26 national elections, which now stipulates voters must select their presidential and parliamentary candidate from the same political party, poses a governance issue — if the ultimate winner is anyone other than a candidate of the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party, or the PDG.

The Gabonese Center for Elections announced the new rule last month, which critics immediately denounced, saying it is meant to favor the ruling PDG.

According to the rule, any vote for a local deputy would automatically be a vote for that deputy’s presidential candidate.

But critics say some opposition parties have not fielded candidates for the National Assembly elections.

Annaick Moubouyi-Boyer, a political analyst in the Gabonese capital Libreville, told VOA that the change, coupled with a constitutional change reducing two rounds of presidential voting to one, raises concerns as the stakes rise ahead of Saturday’s ballot.

“What’s at stake is thus to know if Gabon will find itself for the first time in its history with a president elected without a majority in parliament, which could pose a problem of governance,” she said.

Moubouyi-Boyer said that unlike previous elections, “everything will be played out in the first round,” adding that if the results are close — because of the support of a recently announced opposition coalition known as Alternance 2023 — “tensions will be high.”

Fourteen candidates are vying for the Gabonese presidency, including the ruling party’s incumbent, Ali Bongo Ondimba.

Five candidates joined the Alternance 2023 coalition to support the candidacy of Albert Ondo Ossa, 69, a former education minister and main challenger to President Bongo.

Although Ondo Ossa is the candidate for Alternance 2023, the coalition does not have corresponding candidates for the parliamentary vote.

Bongo, who is 64 and the son of former President Omar Bongo, is seeking a third term after serving two seven-year terms.

Gabon has no presidential term limits.

Moubouyi-Boyer said like voters in many other African countries, Gabonese are waiting for change.

“The population is waiting for a change with its concerns at the center — access to water, electricity, quality education, an efficient retirement system,” she said. “These are in particular the demands of an African youth, increasingly frustrated and who no longer have anything to lose.”

She said political leaders in the Central African nation must put in place policies to address the challenges or “risk exacerbating the already existing tensions.”

Ondo Mengue Jean-Cyrille, a Libreville-based political analyst, told VOA that the rule change puts at a disadvantage any candidates who are not running on a political party’s ticket — like Alexandre Barro, who is part of the opposition supporting the candidacy of Ondo Ossa.

“This is the case for all those movements, political parties which have decided to support Albert Ondo Ossa — they have decided not to have any MP at the National Assembly,” Jean-Cyrille said.

“But the big question is that if Albert Ondo Ossa is elected president, how is he going to rule because he’s not going to have any member of parliament at the National Assembly.”

In response, Ondo Ossa has said he would dissolve the National Assembly if elected and organize separate elections for members of parliament, because he will be unable to govern with a majority of seats being held by the PDG, which has been in power for over five decades.

Mays Mouissi, a Paris-based Gabonese political analyst, says that the coalition’s support for Ondo Ossa could undermine Bongo’s resolve for a third term, adding that the opposition’s formation is “significant.”

“I think that (the coalition) will change the game in the election, because this coalition is made up of very important opposition parties that could help give power to Mr. Ondo Ossa, and he could win the election,” Mouissi said.

“This is a strategy to give more push to the group of opposition parties to wrest power from Ali Bongo Ondimba and his ruling PDG party.”

Mouissi also regretted the non-participation of election observers in this year’s elections, saying this will be the first vote in the Central African nation where independent national and international election observers will be absent.

“International journalists have been denied accreditation to cover the elections, as have diplomats in Gabon who have been shunned from visiting voting centers,” he said.

“I am very concerned about the lack of election observers in this election. This is not good and not enough.” 
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Vote Counting Starts in Zimbabwe

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Vote counting has started in Zimbabwe after a general election Wednesday that was marred by delays at polling stations and ballot paper shortages. Rights groups and observers have expressed concerns about the electoral process. Columbus Mavhunga files this report from Harare, where the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission extended voting an additional day in some places.
Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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Pentagon to Train Ukrainian Pilots on F-16s in US 

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The Pentagon says the military will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets inside the United States beginning in October.

Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that the training would involve “several” Ukrainian pilots and dozens of Ukrainian ground staff who will provide maintenance of the aircraft given to Kyiv.

The training is part of a U.S. and European effort to provide advanced fighter jets to Ukraine for long-term defense.

Ryder stressed that the F-16s are not intended for the current counteroffensive underway against Russian forces.

The flight training will be conducted at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona. Prior to this training, the pilots will conduct English-language training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, “given the complexities and specialized English that’s required to fly these aircraft,” Ryder said.

Training typically lasts about eight months for a new F-16 pilot in the United States, but an experienced pilot could complete the training within about five months, according to Ryder.

Courses include centrifuge training to learn how to cope with gravitational forces, basic fighter maneuvers and weapons employments.

Ukraine has repeatedly asked for advanced fighter jets to help defend its cities from Russian forces. Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have announced they will supply the F-16s to Ukraine.

The U.S. military’s top general warned in May that F-16s won’t act as a “magic weapon” for Ukraine, but the U.S. fully supports those leading the F-16 training and transfer process.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also warned the cost to get these aircraft to Ukraine and sustain them would be high.

“Ten F-16s is a billion dollars. You add the sustainment costs, that’s another billion dollars. So, you’re talking about $2 billion for 10 aircraft [while] the Russians have 1,000 fourth- and fifth-generation fighters,” he said.
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What Does Death of Wagner Group Chief Prigozhin Mean for Russia?

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On Thursday, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Russian mercenary organization known as the Wagner Group. Prigozhin was on the passenger manifest of the plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday. Anna Rice has the story. Contributor: Lilily Anisimova.
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US Sanctions Russians Involved in Abduction, Deportation of Ukrainian Children

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The United States announced new sanctions Thursday against several Russian entities and individuals for their roles in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and for human rights abuses against minors in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

“Children are literally being ripped from their homes. In the year 2023. By a country sitting in this very chamber. By a permanent member of this council,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “This is straight out of a dystopian novel. But this is not fiction. Colleagues, this is not fiction. This is real life.”

She said the human rights violations are being orchestrated at all levels of the Russian government and noted that the International Criminal Court at The Hague has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights. Those warrants were issued on March 17, for their involvement in the alleged deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

At a meeting held on the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union, focusing on the protection of children, Thomas-Greenfield said the United States would not stand by “as Russia carries out these war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“And today, the United States is imposing sanctions on two entities and 11 individuals – including individuals who reportedly have facilitated the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children to camps,” Thomas-Greenfield announced. “Additionally, we are taking steps to impose visa restrictions on three Russia-installed purported authorities for their involvement in human rights abuses of Ukrainian minors.”

Among the sanctioned individuals are the commissioners for children’s rights in several Russian regions, as well as a Russian government-owned “summer camp” and its director, located in Russia-occupied Crimea. Washington says the camp conducts “extensive ‘patriotic’ re-education programs” and prevents the children from returning to their families.

A human rights briefer from Ukraine told the council that according to the Ukrainian National Information Bureau, Russian agents have taken at least 19,546 children to 57 regions of Russia since February 2022, and only 386 have returned home. But Ukrainian officials say the real number could be much higher.

“After deportation to Russia or to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, our children are exposed to aggressive brainwashing aimed at changing their consciousness, erasing their Ukrainian identity and preparing obedient soldiers for the Russian army in the future,” Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the council.

He thanked Washington for imposing sanctions on Russia and urged other countries to do the same.

The Russian envoy dismissed the accusations as lies.

“The lie about our alleged abductions of Ukrainian children, who we are actually saving,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

UN reporting

In its annual report on violations against children in conflict zones, the United Nations said in June it had verified the abduction of 91 children by Russian armed forces, all of whom were released. The U.N. also verified the transfer of 46 children to Russia from occupied areas of Ukraine, “including children forcibly separated from parents, children removed from schools and institutions without the consent of guardians, and a child who was given Russian citizenship.”

Verification is difficult and the U.N. has criticized Russia for its lack of cooperation and access. The secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, included Moscow in his annual blacklist of perpetrators of grave violations against children, citing the high number of attacks on schools and numbers of children killed and maimed by Russia’s military and affiliated armed groups.

“I am troubled by reports, some of which were verified by the United Nations, of children transferred to the Russian Federation from areas of Ukraine that, in part, are or have been under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation,” Guterres wrote in the report. “I urge the Russian Federation to ensure that no changes are made to the personal status of Ukrainian children, including their nationality.”

Russia is listed in Annex II, Section B of the report, which is for parties to conflicts that have put in place measures during the reporting period aimed at improving the protection of children. Ukraine’s ambassador criticized Moscow, however, for not implementing them.

On Friday, Kyiv signed its own action plan with the United Nations to strengthen the protection of children in Ukraine.
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BRICS Welcomes 6 New Members in Push to Reshuffle World Order

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The BRICS bloc of developing nations agreed on Thursday to admit Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates in a move aimed at accelerating its push to reshuffle a world order it sees as outdated.

In deciding in favor of an expansion, the bloc’s first in 13 years, BRICS leaders left the door open to future enlargement as dozens more countries voiced interest in joining a grouping they hope can level the global playing field.

The expansion adds economic heft to BRICS, whose current members are China, the world’s second largest economy, as well as Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa. It could also amplify its declared ambition to become a champion of the Global South.

But long-standing tensions also could linger between members who want to forge the grouping into a counterweight to the West — notably China, Russia and now Iran — and those that continue to nurture close ties to the United States and Europe.

“This membership expansion is historic,” Chinese President Xi Jinping, the bloc’s most stalwart proponent of enlargement, said. “It shows the determination of BRICS countries for unity and cooperation with the broader developing countries.”

The six new candidates will formally become members on January 1, 2024, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said when he named the countries during a three-day leaders’ summit he is hosting in Johannesburg.

“BRICS has embarked on a new chapter in its effort to build a world that is fair, a world that is just, a world that is also inclusive and prosperous,” Ramaphosa said.

“We have consensus on the first phase of this expansion process and other phases will follow.”

The countries invited to join reflect individual BRICS members’ desires to bring allies into the club.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had vocally lobbied for neighbor Argentina’s inclusion, while Egypt has close commercial ties with Russia and India.

The entry of oil powers Saudi Arabia and UAE highlights their drift away from the United States’ orbit and ambition to become global heavyweights.

Russia and Iran have found common cause in their shared struggle against U.S.-led sanctions and diplomatic isolation, with their economic ties deepening in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“BRICS is not competing with anyone,” Russia’s Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. He is attending the summit remotely because of an international warrant for alleged war crimes. “But it’s also obvious that this process of the emerging of a new world order still has fierce opponents.”

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi celebrated his country’s BRICS invitation with a swipe at Washington, saying on Iranian television network Al Alam that the expansion “shows that the unilateral approach is on the way to decay.”

Beijing is close to Ethiopia and the country’s inclusion also speaks to South Africa’s desire to amplify Africa’s voice in global affairs.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended Thursday’s expansion announcement, reflecting the bloc’s growing influence. He echoed BRICS’ longstanding calls for reforms of the U.N. Security Council, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

“Today’s global governance structures reflect yesterday’s world,” he said. “For multilateral institutions to remain truly universal, they must reform to reflect today’s power and economic realities.”

BRICS countries have economies that are vastly different in scale and governments with often divergent foreign policy goals, a complicating factor for the bloc’s consensus decision-making model.

Though home to about 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of global gross domestic product, internal divisions have long hobbled BRICS ambitions of becoming a major player on the world stage.

It has long been criticized for failing to live up to its grand ambitions.

The regularly repeated desire of its member states to wean themselves off the dollar, for example, has never materialized. And its most concrete achievement, the New Development Bank, is now struggling in the face of sanctions against founding shareholder Russia.

Even as BRICS leaders this week weighed expanding the group — a move every one of them publicly supported — divisions surfaced over how much and how quickly.

Last-minute deliberations over entry criteria and which countries to invite to join extended late into Wednesday evening.
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Kenyan Innovator Makes Leather Clothes From Fish Skin

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A Kenyan innovator is recycling fish skin into leather clothes through a process known as fish skin tanning. As Juma Majanga reports from Kisumu, Kenya, Newton Owino’s enterprise also aims to sustainably manage waste emanating from the fish-filleting industries along the Lake Victoria coast.
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US Intel: Intentional Explosion Brought Down Wagner Chief’s Plane

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A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that the plane crash presumed to have killed Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was intentionally caused by an explosion, U.S. and Western officials said Thursday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin eulogized the man who staged the biggest challenge to his 23-year rule.

One of the officials said the initial assessment determined that it was “very likely” Prigozhin was targeted, and that the explosion falls in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, did not offer details on what caused the explosion, which was believed to have also killed several of Prigozhin’s lieutenants, to avenge a mutiny that challenged Putin’s authority.

U.S. officials had no information to suggest a surface-to-air missile was launched against the private aircraft, according to one official.

Details of the U.S. assessment surfaced as Putin expressed his condolences to the families of those who were reported to be aboard the jet and referred to “serious mistakes” by Prigozhin.

10 people on board

The founder of the Wagner Group military company and six other passengers were on the jet that crashed Wednesday soon after taking off from Moscow with a crew of three, according to Russia’s civil aviation authority. Rescuers found 10 bodies, and Russian media cited anonymous sources in Wagner who said Prigozhin was dead. But there has been no official confirmation.

President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said he believed Putin was behind the crash, although he acknowledged that he did not have information verifying his belief.

“I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” Biden said. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind.”

The passenger manifest also included Prigozhin’s second-in-command, as well as Wagner’s logistics chief, a fighter wounded by U.S. airstrikes in Syria, and at least one possible bodyguard.

It was not clear why several high-ranking members of Wagner, including top leaders who are normally exceedingly careful about their security, were on the same flight. The purpose of their joint trip to St. Petersburg was unknown.

At Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, lights were turned on in the shape of a large cross, and Prigozhin supporters built a makeshift memorial, piling red and white flowers outside the building Thursday along with company flags and candles.

In his first comments on the crash, Putin said the passengers had “made a significant contribution” to the fighting in Ukraine.

“We remember this, we know, and we will not forget,” the president said in a televised interview with Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader of Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk region.

Putin recalled that he had known Prigozhin since the early 1990s and described him as “a man of difficult fate” who had “made serious mistakes in life, and he achieved the results he needed — both for himself and, when I asked him about it, for the common cause, as in these last months. He was a talented man, a talented businessman.”

Russian state media have not covered the crash extensively, instead focusing on Putin’s remarks to the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, via video link and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Several Russian social media channels reported that the bodies were burned or disfigured beyond recognition and would need to be identified by DNA. The reports were picked up by independent Russian media, but The Associated Press was not able to independently confirm them.

Prigozhin supporters claimed on pro-Wagner messaging app channels that the plane was deliberately downed, including suggesting it could have been hit by a missile or targeted by a bomb on board. Those claims could not be independently verified.

Sergei Mironov, leader of the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia Party and former chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament, suggested on his Telegram channel that Prigozhin had been deliberately killed.

“Prigozhin messed with too many people in Russia, Ukraine and the West,” Mironov wrote. “It now seems that at some point his number of enemies reached a critical point.”

Russian authorities have said the cause of the crash is under investigation.

Opponents and critics meet untimely demise

Kuzhenkino resident Anastasia Bukharova, 27, said she was walking with her children Wednesday when she saw the jet. “And then — boom! It exploded in the sky and began to fall down.” She said she was scared it would hit houses in the village and ran with the children, but the plane crashed into a field.

“Something sort of was torn from it in the air, and it began to go down and down,” she said.

Numerous opponents and critics of Putin have been killed or gravely sickened in apparent assassination attempts. U.S. and other Western officials long expected the Russian leader to go after Prigozhin, despite promising to drop charges in a deal that ended the June 23-24 mutiny.

“It is no coincidence that the whole world immediately looks at the Kremlin when a disgraced ex-confidant of Putin suddenly falls from the sky, two months after he attempted an uprising,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, while acknowledging that the facts were still unclear.

“We know this pattern … in Putin’s Russia — deaths and dubious suicides, falls from windows that all ultimately remain unexplained,” she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also pointed the finger. “We have nothing to do with this. Everyone understands who does,” he said.

Soon after the plane went down, people on social media and news outlets began to report that it was a Wagner plane. Minutes after Russian state news agencies confirmed the crash, they cited the civil aviation authority as saying Prigozhin’s name was on the manifest.

Prigozhin was long outspoken and critical of how Russian generals were waging the war in Ukraine, where his mercenaries were some of the fiercest fighters for the Kremlin. For a long time, Putin appeared content to allow such infighting — and Prigozhin seemed to have unusual latitude to speak his mind.

But Prigozhin’s brief revolt raised the ante. His mercenaries swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there without firing a shot. They then drove to within about 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow and downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen Russian pilots.

Putin first denounced the rebellion — the most serious challenge to his 23-year rule — as “treason” and a “stab in the back.” He vowed to punish its perpetrators, and the world waited for his next move, particularly since Prigozhin had publicly questioned the Russian leader’s justifications for the war in Ukraine.

But instead, Putin made a deal that saw an end to the mutiny in exchange for an amnesty for Prigozhin and his mercenaries and permission for them to move to Belarus.

Now many are suggesting the punishment has finally come.

“The downing of the plane was certainly no mere coincidence,” Janis Sarts, director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, told Latvian television.

The Institute for the Study of War argued that Russian authorities likely moved against Prigozhin and his top associates as “the final step to eliminate Wagner as an independent organization.”

Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Putin, said Putin had to step in because by carrying out the mutiny and remaining free, Prigozhin “shoved Putin’s face into the dirt in front of the whole world.”

Failing to punish Prigozhin would have offered an “open invitation for all potential rebels and troublemakers,” Gallyamov said.

Videos shared by the pro-Wagner Telegram channel Grey Zone showed a plane dropping like a stone from a large cloud of smoke, twisting wildly as it fell, one of its wings apparently missing. A free-fall like that typically occurs when an aircraft sustains severe damage, and a frame-by-frame AP analysis of two videos was consistent with some sort of explosion midflight.
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US Sues SpaceX for Discriminating Against Refugees, Asylum-Seekers

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The U.S. Justice Department is suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX for refusing to hire refugees and asylum-seekers at the rocket company.

In a lawsuit filed on Thursday, the Justice Department said SpaceX routinely discriminated against these job applicants between 2018 and 2022, in violation of U.S. immigration laws.

The lawsuit says that Musk and other SpaceX officials falsely claimed the company was allowed to hire only U.S. citizens and permanent residents due to export control laws that regulate the transfer of sensitive technology.

“U.S. law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are advanced weapons technology,” Musk wrote in a June 16, 2020, tweet cited in the lawsuit.

In fact, U.S. export control laws impose no such restrictions, according to the Justice Department.

Those laws limit the transfer of sensitive technology to foreign entities, but they do not prevent high-tech companies such as SpaceX from hiring job applicants who have been granted refugee or asylum status in the U.S. (Foreign nationals, however, need a special permit.)

“Under these laws, companies like SpaceX can hire asylees and refugees for the same positions they would hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents,” the Department said in a statement. “And once hired, asylees and refugees can access export-controlled information and materials without additional government approval, just like U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.”

The company did not respond to a VOA request for comment on the lawsuit and whether it had changed its hiring policy.

Recruiters discouraged refugees, say investigators

The Justice Department’s civil rights division launched an investigation into SpaceX in 2020 after learning about the company’s alleged discriminatory hiring practices.

The inquiry discovered that SpaceX “failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement.

“Our investigation also found that SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company,” Clarke said.

According to data SpaceX provided to the Justice Department, out of more than 10,000 hires between September 2018 and May 2022, SpaceX hired only one person described as an asylee on his application.

The company hired the applicant about four months after the Justice Department notified it about its investigation, according to the lawsuit.

No refugees were hired during this period.

“Put differently, SpaceX’s own hiring records show that SpaceX repeatedly rejected applicants who identified as asylees or refugees because it believed that they were ineligible to be hired due to” export regulations, the lawsuit says.

On one occasion, a recruiter turned down an asylee “who had more than nine years of relevant engineering experience and had graduated from Georgia Tech University,” the lawsuit says.

Suit seeks penalties, change

SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, California, designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit asks an administrative judge to order SpaceX to “cease and desist” its alleged hiring practices and seeks civil penalties and policy changes.
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Trump Surrendering in Georgia on 4th Indictment

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump is heading Thursday to Atlanta, Georgia, to surrender on racketeering and conspiracy charges linked to his efforts to upend his 2020 reelection loss in the southern state.

After flying in from his golf resort in New Jersey, Trump will head to the Fulton County jail in Atlanta, where he will be arrested and booked for an unprecedented fourth time in the past five months. After being fingerprinted and having a mug shot taken, he is expected to be released pending trial on a $200,000 bond his lawyers negotiated earlier this week with Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis.

“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday to be ARRESTED,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account earlier this week.

No previous U.S. president has been charged with criminal offenses, but Trump is now facing 91 charges across the four indictments for his alleged actions before, during and after his single-term presidency ended in early 2021.

He faces 13 charges in Georgia, where Willis on Thursday called for an October 23 start date for his trial and that of 18 co-defendants. But Trump and others could object to a trial starting in two months. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will ultimately pick the date.

Even with the array of charges he is facing, Trump is the leading Republican contender for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination to run against the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.

Regardless of when the trial in Atlanta might start, Trump is already facing weeks of criminal trials he would be obligated to appear at in the first half of 2024. But he made a calculated decision that his national polling lead over other Republican presidential hopefuls is so commanding — 40 percentage points or more — that he skipped the party’s first presidential debate Wednesday night.

The 77-year-old Trump, if convicted in any of the cases, could face years in prison.

He has denied all wrongdoing while assailing the three prosecutors pursuing the four cases against him and two of the four judges randomly picked to oversee his trials. He has claimed that the allegations leveled against him are a political witch hunt aimed at thwarting his 2024 campaign to reclaim the presidency.

In agreeing to the bond for his release in Georgia — the first time he has had to post cash to stay free pending trial — Trump also agreed to not threaten or intimidate witnesses, including on social media platforms.

For months, Trump has claimed that Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who has filed two of the cases against him, is “deranged” and a “crackhead,” while contending that two other prosecutors, Alvin Bragg in a New York case, and Willis, both of whom are Black, are “racist” for filing their indictments against him.

About half of Trump’s 18 co-defendants have already met Willis’ demand that they surrender by noon on Friday. Former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, best known as the New York mayor during the 2001 al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the city, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell all turned themselves in on Wednesday and were released on bail.

Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and former senior Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark both reached $100,000 bond deals with Willis to secure their release pending trials. 

Ahead of his flight to Georgia, Trump hired veteran Atlanta criminal defense lawyer Steve Sadow to oversee his defense.

Sadow said in a statement that Trump “should never have been indicted,” adding, “he is innocent of all the charges brought against him.”

He added that “prosecutions intended to advance or serve the ambitions and careers of political opponents of the president have no place in our justice system.”

The Georgia case against Trump stems broadly from his taped January 2, 2021, telephone call to the state’s election chief, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” 11,780 votes, one more than Biden’s margin of victory, so he could claim victory in the state. Until Trump, no Republican presidential candidate had lost the state since 1992.

In addition, Trump is accused in Georgia of conspiring to create a slate of fake electors in the state to cast their ballots for him, rather than the legitimate ones for Biden, when Congress met on January 6, 2021, to certify the election outcome in the Electoral College.

At stake were Georgia’s 16 electoral votes, although the state counted the popular presidential vote three times, with Biden winning each time.

The U.S. does not pick its presidents in the national popular vote, although Biden won 7 million more votes than Trump in 2020. Rather, the national outcome is determined in 50 state-by-state elections, with the biggest states holding the most sway in the subsequent Electoral College vote count.

Trump contested the outcome in seven states he narrowly lost to Biden, claiming that voting irregularities and cheating cost him another four-year term in the White House. Overturning the Georgia result by itself would not have changed the national outcome.

To this day, Trump denies he lost the election. But dozens of judges have ruled against his fraud claims. None of the seven states Trump contested reversed its conclusion that Biden had legitimately won its electoral votes.
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VOA on the Scene: Ukraine Counteroffensive Captures ‘Only Villages in Name’

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Slower than expected but still moving forward, frontline soldiers say the Russian defenses are fierce in southern Ukraine as they take villages after brutal fights. From Makarivka, a recently re-captured village in Ukraine, VOA’s Heather Murdock reports with Videographer Yan Boechat.
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Trial to Begin Over Biden Policy Letting Migrants From 4 Countries Into the US

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A key portion of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy that grants parole to thousands of people from Central America and the Caribbean was set to be debated in a Texas federal courtroom beginning Thursday.

Under the humanitarian parole program, up to 30,000 people are being allowed each month to enter the United States from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Texas is leading a lawsuit filed by 21 Republican-leaning states to stop the program, arguing the Biden administration has overreached its authority. Other programs the administration has implemented to reduce illegal immigration also have faced legal challenges.

The parole program was started for Venezuelans in fall 2022 and then expanded in January. People taking part must apply online, arrive at an airport and have a financial sponsor in the United States. If approved, they can stay for two years and get a work permit.

The program has “been tremendously successful at reducing migration to the southwest border,” attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department, which is representing the federal government in the lawsuit, wrote in court documents.

A trial on the states’ lawsuit is being presided over by U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton in Victoria, Texas. Tipton, a Donald Trump appointee, has previously ruled against the Biden administration on who to prioritize for deportation.

The trial was scheduled to last two days and be livestreamed from Victoria to a federal courtroom in Houston. Tipton was expected to issue a ruling at a later date.

In court documents, Texas and the other states have called the Biden administration’s program an “extreme example” of not enforcing immigration laws that require it to “grant parole only on a case-by-case basis for significant public benefit or urgent humanitarian reasons.”

While the Republican states’ lawsuit is objecting to the use of humanitarian parole for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, it hasn’t raised any concerns for its use to grant entry to tens of thousands of Ukrainians since Russia invaded that country.

Texas has also argued that the parole program causes financial harm because it has to provide services, including detention, educational, social services and driver’s license programs, to the paroled migrants.

Immigrant rights groups joined the legal proceedings on behalf of seven people who are sponsoring migrants. One of the sponsors was expected to testify during the trial.

The rights groups have defended the humanitarian parole program, saying it’s a safe pathway to the U.S. for desperate migrants who would otherwise be paying human smugglers and bogging down border agents. The program is also helping reduce the humanitarian crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border, the groups said.

As of the end of July, more than 72,000 Haitians, 63,000 Venezuelans, 41,000 Cubans and 34,000 Nicaraguans had been vetted and authorized to come to the U.S. through the parole program.
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BRICS Bloc Adds Six New Members

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The BRICS group of emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – is admitting six new members, its leaders announced Thursday on the final day of their annual summit. The group considers itself an alternative to the U.S.-led world order.

On the third and final day of the summit in Johannesburg, its host, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, announced that BRICS had decided to admit Argentina, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in January of 2024. 

While the bloc’s leaders all expressed their support for the decision, analysts say expansion has been spearheaded mainly by a Russia increasingly isolated by Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine — and China, which hailed the move as “historic.”

While critics are divided over the success of the bloc so far, with some saying it’s mainly symbolic, the group already collectively accounts for 40% of the world’s global population and about a quarter of global GDP — and the new members will certainly add to both.

But like the current disparate group, which includes three democracies and two autocracies, the new members are not all natural allies, noted Priyal Singh, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.  

“My first impression is that it’s quite a strange, odd grouping of countries to be admitted,” he said. “It’s, you know, very highly concentrated amongst Middle East and North African countries, which is going to give that region of the world a lot of sway over the BRICS grouping moving forward.”

Singh said that like two of the bloc’s current members, China and India, which are involved in a border dispute, several of the new additions also have tense relations.

“Tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt, for example, will also very likely escalate over the coming years and could undermine the coherence of the BRICS grouping, very similar to what we’ve already seen between India and China over the last couple of years.”

Ethiopia and Egypt have had differences over the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam on the Nile River.

Likewise, Iran and Saudi Arabia have a history of diplomatic and military hostility, and they have been involved for years in a proxy war in Yemen.

They also make strange diplomatic bedfellows, according to Steven Gruzd, from the South African Institute of International Affairs.

“There might be some surprises there, particularly Iran and Saudi Arabia in the same organization, given their rivalry over many years … although the Chinese did broker a rapprochement earlier in the year,” he said.

The six nations that will be admitted next year are only a fraction of some 40 countries that have expressed interest in joining the bloc, which positions itself as a champion of the developing world, or what’s dubbed the Global South.

In its final declaration at the end of the summit, the BRICS leaders also spoke about the need to reform global financial institutions and move away from the dollar-dominated system toward greater use of local currencies.

Throughout the summit, Ukraine was the elephant in the room, with Russian President Vladimir Putin attending remotely to avoid possible arrest under an International Criminal Court warrant. While all BRICS leaders expressed their desire for peace, there was no direct criticism of Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine also went unmentioned, at least directly, in the group’ s final declaration, which referred to numerous other conflicts by name and expressed support for other nations’ sovereignty.
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Jailed American Journalist’s Arrest Extended by Moscow Court

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A Moscow court on Thursday extended by three months the pre-trial detention of jailed U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich. He will now stay behind bars on espionage charges until at least the end of November, Russian state news agency Tass reported.

The Wall Street Journal reporter was detained at the end of March while on assignment in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

Moscow has accused him of spying, which he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The State Department has classified him as wrongfully detained.

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be detained in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War.

Gershkovich, 31, arrived at the Moscow court Thursday in a white prison van and was led out handcuffed. He appeared in court to hear the result of the prosecution’s motion to extend his arrest from August 30.

This is the second time his pre-trial detention has been extended, both times by three months.

Reporters were not allowed to witness Thursday’s proceedings in the court. Tass said it took place behind closed doors due to the classified nature of some details in the case.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal said in a statement, “Today, our colleague and distinguished journalist Evan Gershkovich appeared for a pre-trial hearing where his improper detention was extended yet again. We are deeply disappointed he continues to be arbitrarily and wrongfully detained for doing his job as a journalist. The baseless accusations against him are categorically false, and we continue to push for his immediate release. Journalism is not a crime.”
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Nigerian Immigrant Uses Farm to Help His New US Community

Posted on by SeeUS

A husband and wife who were farmers in their native Nigeria have turned the skills they learned there into a thriving small business in the U.S. state of Maryland.
VOA’s Thierry Kaore has the story from their farm in Brookeville, Maryland, narrated by Salem Solomon
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Nigeria Building Collapse Kills 2 

Posted on by SeeAF

Emergency officials in Nigeria said Thursday rescue efforts were ongoing after a building collapse in Abuja killed at least two people.

The Federal Capital Territory Emergency Management Agency said crews had rescued 37 people.

An agency statement said rescue teams planned to use excavators to search the rubble for any remaining victims.

The two-story residential and commercial building collapsed late Wednesday, the statement said.
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After Delays, Ballot Paper Shortages, Zimbabwe’s Election Extended

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Zimbabwe’s election on Wednesday was marred by massive delays and shortages of ballot papers that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission blamed on legal problems it had faced ahead of the polls. At some polling stations, voting was extended for another day. Columbus Mavhunga has the story from the capital, Harare, where both main presidential candidates are hopeful of victory.
Camera: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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Russian Missile Attack Injures 7 in Dnipro

Posted on by SeeEU

A Russian missile attack wounded at least seven people early Thursday in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Serhiy Lysak, the regional governor, said on Telegram that six of the injured were hospitalized.

Lysak said Ukrainian air defenses shot down one Russian missile but that strikes from others destroyed a transport facility and damaged a dozen other buildings including a bank, a hotel and two residential buildings.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down three Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.

The ministry said two of the drones were shot down in the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine.  The third drone was destroyed in the Kaluga region, located southwest of Moscow.

Ukraine has conducted daily drone attacks targeting Russian territory during the past week, with Russia reporting it shot down the aircraft or brought them down by way of electronic jamming.  In some cases, falling debris has caused damage on the ground, including crashing into a building in Moscow.

Russia has used Iranian-made drones through much of its invasion of Ukraine, while also using missiles in aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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Ukrainian Families Demand Return of Loved Ones From Russia

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Mykola and Natalia Navrotsky are from the small town of Dymer, about 48 kilometers from Kyiv. They last saw their son, Oleksandr, in March 2022, when the 33-year-old man tried to lead his family out of the then Russian-occupied region.

“Our son was taken by the military of the Russian Federation at the Dymer checkpoint when he was driving his wife and son from the village of Havrylivka to Hlibivka. They found something in the phone and detained him. His wife and son were released, they came home at night in freezing cold,” the Navrotskys said.

Dymer and neighboring towns in the Kyiv region had come under Russian occupation on Feb. 26, 2022. Roadblocks, arbitrary arrests and the torture of civilian prisoners quickly followed, according to the locals and Ukrainian officials.

“They took him away on March 8, 2022, they were severely beating him, they tortured him, then they took him to Hostomel,” Mykola and Natalia Navrotsky said in an interview, relating what they had learned from a neighbor who also was arbitrarily detained in the same prison until the Russian forces retreated.

According to the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR), made up of Ukrainian journalists who investigate alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, Russian forces created two prisons in Dymer, a town of about 7,000 people. In just more than a month of occupation, about 500 prisoners went through those prisons and about 50 of them are still in Russian captivity.

Navrotsky was kept at an industrial facility in Dymer until the retreating Russian forces transported him to Belarus, and finally to Russia, his parents said, based on information Ukrainian military prisoners of war who met their son in the prison in Russia.

“He is still in captivity. At the moment, we don’t know anything about his condition, what happened to him, or how and when he will return home — we don’t know anything at all,” the Navrotskys said.

Their son was able to send a note to them through the Red Cross last year.

“We know about his whereabouts as of August 29 [2022] — there was a note written almost a year ago, in April: ‘Hello. I am alive and well, everything is fine,'” the Navrotskys told VOA. They assume he hasn’t been moved since he wrote the note.

Several other residents of Dymer, whose relatives disappeared during the Russian occupation, told VOA similar stories.

Russian intimidation

About 25,000 civilians, like Navrotsky, have been taken from the occupied territories of Ukraine, according to Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament commissioner for human rights.

“These are civilian hostages, citizens of Ukraine, who were arrested by the Russian Federation and kept in captivity with no legal grounds. And more continue being detained en masse,” Lubinets said.

He said the arbitrary arrests and torture of civilians started during the occupation of Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014, “and all this continues.”

He said this is a “systemic pressure on the population” intended to intimidate Ukrainians and suppress the will to resist.

“This is their preventive work against everyone who may pose any danger to the Russian occupation authorities — former law enforcement officers, pro-Ukrainian people, former volunteers,” the Ukrainian ombudsman said.

Russian authorities do not comment on the detention of Ukrainian civilians. Russia does not differentiate between civilians and prisoners of war. Both are considered by the Russian authorities as those who were “detained for counteracting the SVO,” or special military operation, according to Ukrainian human rights lawyers interviewed by the BBC.

Russia rarely replies to queries from attorneys but  Russian human rights lawyer Alexei Ladukhin did receive one while working for the family of another Ukrainian detained by the Russian occupying forces.

The Russian Defense Ministry told Ladukhin in a letter that information about “persons detained for countering a special military operation” is classified and cannot be shared with third parties.

The letter was signed by Major General Vitaly Kokh, the deputy head of the Main Directorate of the Military Police of the Ministry of Defense.

Widespread torture

The Navrotskys say their son was beaten by the Russian soldiers so badly that the soldiers had to seek medical aid for him when he was still in Ukraine. His parents learned of this, as they have much of what happened to him, from one of the prisoners who was freed by the Russian soldiers.

The former prisoner said the Russians kept them in the dark, blindfolded to prevent them from finding out who was around them and where they were being taken.

Numerous former civilian prisoners, including some who spoke to VOA, said that people are kept without food and water in the Russian prisons and that torture is widespread, including with electric current.

A United Nations report published in June says civilians were often detained during so-called filtration procedures in the occupied territories because of their perceived support for Ukraine.

“We documented 864 individual cases of arbitrary detention by the Russian Federation, many of which also amounted to enforced disappearances,” Matilda Bogner, head of the U.N. Monitoring Mission, told journalists in Geneva while presenting the report.

The report documented 77 executions of civilian prisoners and one death due to torture.

According to documents obtained by The Associated Press dating from January, Russia plans to build 25 new prison colonies and six other detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026 in addition to at least 40 detention facilities in Russia and Belarus, and 63 makeshift and formal ones in occupied Ukrainian territory.

Civilian exchanges

Desperate relatives are trying their best to attract the attention of authorities and international organizations to help get their loved ones returned from captivity.

“We appealed to all authorities, wherever we could, we went on a peaceful rally, we went on a peaceful march to attract the attention of society, the world community, to help bring our relatives back home, all those who are in captivity,” the Navrotskys said.

Lubinets said exchanges of prisoners do take place. They started after Russia first occupied Ukrainian territory in 2014 and continued until February 2022.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as of the beginning of June 2023, Ukraine has gotten back about 2,500 of its citizens from Russian captivity, including about 400 children and 150 civilians.

He explained that was it is difficult to negotiate the return of civilians because “you exchange military personnel for military personnel. … We do not have very many [Russian] civilians that we can exchange for civilians.”

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service. 
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Republican Presidential Candidates, Minus Trump, Spar Sharply

Posted on by SeeUS

Eight Republicans who want to be president of the United States shared a stage Wednesday night in Wisconsin for their party’s first debate ahead of next year’s election.

The two-hour televised debate, the first held by Republicans in this election cycle, featured spirited exchanges about what one of the moderators called “the elephant who is not in the room” – the absent party front-runner, former President Donald Trump, who decided he is so far ahead in the polls he did not need to be on the stage.

Some of the contenders, such as Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, deemed Trump disqualified from serving again because of what they said was his disrespect for the Constitution, as well as the 91 felony counts he now faces.

Trump is set to surrender for arrest and booking in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday in connection with the fourth indictment, which accuses him of racketeering and interference in trying to upend his 2020 reelection loss in the southern state.

“The American people need to know that the president asked me to put him over the Constitution,” demanding he refuse to oversee the congressional certification that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated Trump in the 2020 election, Pence told the audience in the Fiserv Forum.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley declared, ”Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can’t win a general election that way.”

However, political novice Vivek Ramaswamy, rising in the polls, stood by Trump, saying he believed he was “the best president of the 21st century.”

Other Republican presidential contenders, while acknowledging Pence’s role on Jan. 6, 2021, in rejecting Trump’s demand to stop congressional certification of Biden’s victory, described the prosecution of Trump as the political weaponization of the Justice Department overseen by Biden.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared, “This election is not about January 6. We’ve got to focus on your future, look forward.”

Only two of the eight candidates on the debate stage, Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, said they would not support Trump if he were convicted and still won the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump leads by about 40 percentage points over his closest Republican presidential challenger, DeSantis, with all the other Republican opponents getting less than 10% apiece in national polls.

Ramaswamy on Wednesday evening stood apart in questioning American support for Ukraine, saying China is a bigger threat to the United States than Russia. Several other candidates, including Haley, also a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressed strong support for Ukraine in defending itself against Russian forces.

Others on the debate stage were South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

All of the candidates said they favored restrictions on U.S. abortion rights but differed on the details, such as at what gestational number of weeks it ought to be banned. Last year’s Supreme Court decision upended a nearly 50-year right to the procedure in the U.S., leaving it up to the 50 states to decide whether to allow abortions or severely restrict them.

Ramaswamy, the youngest of the candidates at 38, claimed at one point, “It’s going to take an outsider” to create “a vision of what it means to be an American.”

Pence retorted, “Now is not the time for on-the-job training.”   

After the debate, Pence told reporters no one should have been surprised by his vigor on the debate stage.

“I was the leading champion of conservative values in the Trump-Pence administration. I know how to fight and I was happy to bring that fight tonight,” said the former vice president.

Pence’s primary sparring opponent of the evening, Ramaswamy, said he relished the verbal barrages directed at him.

“Mike Pence coming at me with the experience differential, I think that’s a great thing because I don’t think the people in this country are interested in going back to people who recite slogans they memorized in 1980,” said Ramaswamy.

“There’s a lot of people who had a good night tonight,” according to Sean Spicer, who was Donald Trump’s first White House press secretary. “But does that good night move a needle? We’re going to find out really soon.”

Spicer, speaking to VOA in the post-debate “spin room,” said DeSantis and Haley had a good night while Ramaswamy “landed a bunch of good hits” but it remains to be seen “whether that was a good strategy or was he too aggressive?”

Spicer, who now hosts his own digital TV political show, added that none of the other candidates “had a bad night.”

“The rest of them were fine. I just don’t know that any of them landed a punch that’s going to move the needle,” he said.

The Republicans hold their second debate next month in California but only one of the candidates will be back on the same stage in Wisconsin in July to accept the party’s nomination. 
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