Many thousands of international students come to study at American universities and colleges each year. VOA’s Laurel Bowman met four students who have just landed at campuses in the Washington area. Camera — Adam Greenbaum and Saqib Ul Islam.
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An American soldier who illegally crossed into North Korea in July arrived back in the United States early Thursday, according to a U.S. defense official.

The official said Travis King landed in San Antonio, Texas.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters Wednesday that King was transferred out of the DPRK and crossed the border to China with the help of the government of Sweden. The official said the U.S. received him in China and transferred him home.

DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“We thank the government of Sweden for its diplomatic role serving as the protecting power for the United States in the DPRK and the government of the People’s Republic of China for its assistance in facilitating the transit of Private King,” National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement Wednesday.

Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder praised the “the hard work of personnel in the Army, United States Forces Korea, and across the Department of Defense to bring Private King home.”

There were no concessions given to North Korea for this exchange, a senior administration official told VOA during a briefing to reporters Wednesday.

“We’re going to focus for the next several weeks for as long as it takes to get private King on good – on solid footing. And then we’ll address any administrative actions that may follow after the reintegration process,” the official said.

A statement Wednesday from a representative of Claudine Gates, King’s mother, said, “Ms. Gates will be forever grateful to the United States Army and all its interagency partners for a job well done.”

Earlier Wednesday, North Korea said it was expelling King after wrapping up its final investigation of him. He was taken by North Korean soldiers in July after dashing through the Koreas’ heavily militarized border.

King was facing pending administrative separation from the U.S. Army when he returned to his base in Fort Bliss, Texas, after spending time in a South Korean jail on assault charges. He was about to board a plane to the United States on July 17 when he snuck out of the airport and made it onto a civilian tour of the border complex between North and South Korea one day later.

King was taken by North Korean soldiers on duty at the Joint Security Area, KCNA reported, when the plain-clothed soldier “deliberately intruded into the area of the DPRK side between the room for the DPRK-U.S. military contacts and the restroom of security officers along the Military Demarcation Line.”

The North’s official news agency, KCNA, said Wednesday that King had harbored ill feelings over inhumane treatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. army. It added that North Korea’s interim findings were that King wanted refuge in North Korea or elsewhere because of that same reason.

The Military Demarcation Line is the official border separating the two Koreas, put in place by an armistice that paused the 1950-53 Korean War, which remains without a formal end and peace treaty.

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara and Eunice Kim in Seoul contributed to this report. 
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The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI are helping Ukrainian prosecutors investigate alleged Russian war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. investigators are gathering evidence of illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, atrocities against civilians, and alleged crimes against humanity. They also are creating new practices in prosecuting crimes against the environment, cyberattacks, and illicit trafficking of cultural heritage as war crimes.

After Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin participated in U.N. General Assembly events and meetings at the U.S. State Department, FBI, Justice Department and Congress, he sat for an interview with VOA’s Ukrainian Service and discussed his team’s cooperation with the U.S.

Kostin said there is no international mechanism to help bring home children illegally deported to Russia. He argues that restoring justice for Ukrainian children can help children whose rights were violated in other wars and conflicts. He added that the international community should put more pressure on Russia to demand their return.

In May, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged responsibility for the unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, but the Kremlin has denied responsibility for war crimes.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: This is one of your multiple trips to the U.S. in the last year. Whom did you meet this time and what are the main results of these meetings?

Andriy Kostin, prosecutor general of Ukraine: My meetings with Attorney General Merrick Garland and his team — once again we have substantial support now from not only [the] war crimes accountability team of [the] Department of Justice, but also from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We shared some cases with these two teams — some of them are world-known as a matter of Russian atrocities — and we are looking forward to [receiving] results from this cooperation.

So our work with the DOJ is very wide, substantial in not only for prosecuting war crimes, with our top priority cases like forced deportation of Ukrainian children, but also helping us to create practice in spheres which had never been prosecuted before in history.

We are now prosecuting crimes against [the] environment as war crimes, we’re approaching prosecuting cyberattacks as war crimes. And just now we have a very good meeting with a special team from [the] FBI about prosecuting cases on attacks on cultural heritage and illicit trafficking of cultural heritage as war crimes. So we are approaching new … dimensions of crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine and against Ukrainians.

[The] Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation and all state authorities are assisting us. Not only from the point of view of cooperation in specific cases, but also capacity building, also training of our prosecutors and investigators. Because we [are] approaching new avenues, we have no right to make a mistake. Creating new practice, we need to be sure that the results of our investigations would be credible on the international level and will be accepted by the international community as true, fair justice.

VOA: The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union has issued this report that prosecutors and policemen, different law enforcement people, including in your office, are sometimes lacking skills or time, they have too much pressure on them, so there are some problems with the course of those investigations. How are those things addressed?

Kostin: First of all, it’s an unprecedented amount of war crimes. … We have registered [more than 108,000 registered incidents of possible war crimes by publication of the article] and … many war crimes are underreported because they are still being committed on the occupied territories.

I always tell my prosecutors and all law enforcement authorities that we need to ensure that the quality of your investigation and prosecution should be of a high standard. For us, it’s a standard of the International Criminal Court.

It is difficult to investigate, practically impossible to investigate, these number of crimes simultaneously. That’s why our main approach is, first of all, to make it a matter of strategic solutions.

And one of the elements of the strategy is combining cases. So, when we understand, for instance, that several missile and drone attacks were committed, for instance, by one unit of [the] Russian army, we can then try to combine these cases into a big one because in this case it will be easier for us to establish a chain of command.

One of the new directions of our efforts is civilian detainees. We all know the criminal cases on deportation of Ukrainian children where their parents are awaiting their children who are kidnapped to Russia. Civilian detainees are the same crime, but … it’s their children who are awaiting their parents who are illegally detained in Russia. And one of our messages during this visit and United Nations General Assembly side events and other events was to raise awareness of the international community. Because we are talking about thousands of people who are illegally detained. We need to return them home. … We have a lack of international mechanisms. We have some set of international legislation to protect Ukrainian children, but it’s not enough to return them back home at the moment.

As I mentioned at one side event of [the U.N. General Assembly], if the United Nations is so active in feeding children of other countries [with] Ukrainian grain, the United Nations should play, could play, a leading role in bringing Ukrainian children home from Russia using all the elements of communication and pressure over Russian authorities to bring our children back home. And this is important not only for Ukrainian children, it’s important for many other children in many other countries of the world where their rights are violated.

VOA: Do you feel that you are being heard on an international level and especially in the United States? What is being done right now?

Kostin: As I mentioned, we’ve been at this side event on deportation of Ukrainian children together with [Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court] Karim Khan. And I spoke after him, and I said we will do our job with Karim. We will deliver more results. But this is not enough to make [Russia] accountable for deportation.

For Ukrainian children, it doesn’t mean automatically that our children will be returned home. There is no mechanism which automatically returns children to Ukraine from Russia just because more and more criminal cases will be investigated and prosecuted against those who commit this crime.

Of course, we also will expand sanctions [on] those who are involved in Russia for this illegal activity. What is important for me is that all United States authorities are not only ready to support, they are really helping us, and this is important. I would be really glad to give more details, but when we see results, of course, we will speak about it.

This interview originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service.
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The White House says a new advisory council composed of prominent Americans of African heritage aims at “enhancing dialogue between U.S. officials and the African diaspora” — a key focus of President Joe Biden’s partnership-focused revamped Africa strategy. 

The initiative coincides with a steady, two-decade rise in immigration from the continent that will have a significant demographic impact in coming decades.  

The 12 members of the volunteer council — called the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States — were chosen from more than 100 “exceptional” applications and recommendations, said Johnnie Carson, a longtime Africa diplomat who serves as Biden’s special representative to oversee the implementation of the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. 

The council, whose quarterly meetings will be open to the public, is packed with business leaders but also includes artistic figures and a WNBA player. 

Carson said it will advise the White House and State Department on how to “deepen the connections that exist between the U.S. and Africa in the business world, in the financial world, in the sporting world, in the creative world, and to stress and bring to the attention of American policymakers issues of concern to the diaspora community.” 

Group includes clergy, artists, writers

The council members come from eight U.S. states and the capital, and have ties spanning the African continent. 

Some members are U.S.-born, including council leader the Rev. Silvester Beaman, a bishop at the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and decorated artist, actress, producer and author ​Viola Davis. 

Others were born on the continent, like Eritrea-born Almaz Negash, founder of the African Diaspora Network, and Congo-born Patrick Gaspard, the former U.S. ambassador to South Africa.  

Gaspard, who now leads the Center for American Progress think tank, told VOA that his priorities on the council will be promoting two key programs soon up for congressional renewal: the trade-related African Growth and Opportunity Act and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). 

Both programs, started under President George W. Bush, have been credited with boosting trade and saving lives.  

Other members, he said, bring different perspectives. He anticipates they will cover “everything from cultural ties, to economic ties to what we do together to solve for the big challenges. … We have the chance to turn that into opportunities.” 

One in 10 Black Americans is a recent immigrant, according to the Pew Research Center, which projects that the nation’s Black immigrant population will account for roughly a third of the U.S. Black population’s growth through 2060. 

And, said Cameroon-born analyst and writer Yaya Moussa, the large size of the African diaspora in the U.S. offers a “potential powerful role in the soft power competition.” 

“These connections simply do not exist in China and Russia, America’s biggest strategic rivals in Africa,” writes Moussa. “African-Americans have been instrumental in shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Africa, and the U.S. government has begun to recognize the latent strength of its diaspora communities.” 

‘There may be opportunities’

Oye Owolewa is among a small group of Africa-born immigrants who has risen within the American system: in 2020, the Nigeria-born pharmacist was elected as Washington, D.C.’s shadow representative in the House of Representatives. That position does not make him a voting member of Congress.  

Owolewa, who is not on the diaspora council, offered his take:  

“If it isn’t just a one-off, then I believe that there may be opportunities for people outside of the White House to also have their own collective impact and continue what we’re doing,” he told VOA.  

His office has taken a particular interest in an issue that he believes uplifts residents of his constituency, of whom 13% are foreign-born and 45% are Black: That is teaching women- and minority-owned businesses how to apply for often-lucrative U.S. government contracts. 

VOA pointed out that there are set-asides in government contracting regulations for those very kinds of businesses. 

“That’s true,” he said. “But no one teaches these businesses how to get contracts. So our office has been doing that. Because if you roll out the money, but don’t teach those that fall between the cracks how to retrieve it, it’s the same few getting more opportunities.” 

And that, Gaspard said, is what the council broadly aims to do, but on a larger scale. 

“There really is a need to strengthen those ties, the umbilical cord that stretches from the continent to its diaspora,” he said. 

“The diaspora is growing leaps and bounds in places like Detroit, certainly my hometown of New York, and you can’t go into a public institution in Washington, D.C. without encountering the African diaspora,” he said. “It’s now more important than ever for us to kind of more broadly socialize awareness of the disparate cultures, but that leads to real opportunities for partnership.” 
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In a grand farewell to its beloved giant pandas, Smithsonian’s National Zoo is hosting “Panda Palooza,” a celebration ending October 1. From their longtime Washington base, the pandas have brought joy to millions of visitors and generations of fans — and now they are being moved to China. Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Sergey Sokolov.
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The United States will be admitting Israel into its Visa Waiver Program, or VWP, which will allow the entry of Israeli citizens into the country without a visa for up to 90 days, beginning November 30.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has been tested recently by Washington’s vocal opposition to Israel’s judiciary overhaul plan and its policy toward Palestinians. This decision, however, is seen as a step forward for the Biden administration’s relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“The designation of Israel into the Visa Waiver Program is an important recognition of our shared security interests and the close cooperation between our two countries,” Mayorkas said in a statement.

“This designation, which represents over a decade of work and coordination between the United States and Israel, will enhance our two nations’ collaboration on counterterrorism, law enforcement, and our other common priorities. Israel’s entry into the Visa Waiver Program, and the stringent requirements it entails, will make both of our nations more secure.”

The decision also allows U.S. travelers to enter Israel for 90 days without first obtaining a visa.

To be admitted into the VWP, the United States requires countries to meet requirements on issues such as counterterrorism, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, document security and border management. Countries must also treat all U.S. travelers equally, regardless of other passports they hold.

This means U.S. citizens who also hold Palestinian passports would need to be granted free passage at Ben Gurion Airport.

“This important achievement will enhance freedom of movement for U.S. citizens, including those living in the Palestinian Territories or traveling to and from them,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the joint statement with Mayorkas.

Granting Israel access to the VWP has been met with backlash from some Palestinians who claim Israel has discriminated against and harassed Arab Americans at the border.

Some Democratic lawmakers have also spoken out against Israel’s admission into the program, alleging the country has failed to meet the requirement to treat all American citizens equally, regardless of other passports held.

“Adherence to this important American tenet of reciprocity and equal treatment of all U.S. citizens is critical to the integrity of the Visa Waiver Program, and we are deeply concerned with the administration’s decision to move forward in violation of that principle,” said Senators Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz, Jeff Merkley and Peter Welch in a joint statement.

“We will carefully monitor the situation to determine whether Americans continue to face discrimination based on their ethnicity, national origin, or religion.”

J Street, the Washington-based liberal Jewish advocacy group, called Wednesday’s move a step in the right direction but expressed concern that Israel “does not meet the criteria for entry that every other country must meet.”

“The Memorandum of Understanding signed with Israel in July does not require it to fully implement one system that all U.S. citizen visitors, including those who Israel deems residents of the West Bank, can use for purposes of visa waiver travel until May 1, 2024,” J Street said in a statement.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday to halt Israel’s acceptance into the program. The motion to file suit was denied by a U.S. judge in Detroit, as proper notice of a lawsuit was not given to the Department of Homeland Security.
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