Month: September 2023

Republicans’ Spending Fight Pushes US Closer to Government Shutdown

Posted on by SeeUS

Infighting among Republicans in the House of Representatives over spending bills has brought the United States to within 10 days of a government shutdown, creating uncertainty among the hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors who would be affected.

Unless Congress is able to pass the 12 appropriations bills that fund the government — or can agree on a stopgap measure providing temporary funding — the authority of many federal agencies to spend money will expire at midnight on September 30.

At the heart of the dispute is the decision by some of the most right-wing members of the House to repudiate an agreement that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated earlier this year with President Joe Biden to avoid a default on the nation’s debt. A handful of House Republicans want to cut spending below the amount agreed to in that deal.

They are demanding significant cuts to domestic spending, as well as to the aid that the U.S. has been providing to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion. Because McCarthy’s party has control of the House by only a handful of votes, defections by even a few members of his party mean that he does not have the majority needed to pass the appropriations measures.

McCarthy in a bind

It would be possible for McCarthy to bring appropriations bills to the floor and pass them with support from House Democrats, but the hard-right element of his caucus would regard that as a betrayal, possibly leading them to call for a vote to strip McCarthy of the speakership.

As part of the deal that secured his election as speaker, McCarthy agreed to be subject to a rule under which a single member of the House can force a vote on a motion to strip him of the job.

Arriving at the Capitol on Wednesday, McCarthy signaled to reporters that he has not given up hope of reaching a deal to avoid a shutdown.

“It’s not September 30 — the game is not over,” he said.

What a shutdown means

The term “government shutdown” is somewhat misleading, because in the event of a funding gap, much of the federal government will continue to operate. Services deemed essential to public safety and the national defense will not lapse. Additionally, government activities funded by multiyear appropriations will be able to continue. This includes, for example, many of the infrastructure projects funded by legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

However, even though much of the government would continue to operate, federal workers would not be paid. That includes members of the military. A law passed after the most recent serious shutdown codified the practice of paying government employees back for their lost wages once a shutdown ends. However, experience has shown that forcing federal employees to work without receiving paychecks can be extremely disruptive to their personal economic well-being.

Members of Congress would remain on the job, as would their essential support staff, but many nonessential employees of Congress would be furloughed, along with many of the employees of government contractors that help keep Capitol Hill functioning. Unlike federal employees, the employees of contractors are not guaranteed to receive pay lost during a shutdown.

The federal court system would continue to operate for at least a while because it would be possible to draw on previously appropriated funds and ongoing fee income, and to reallocate money earmarked for things like nonessential travel.

 

Off-ramp possible

Government shutdowns have occurred multiple times since the 1980s, but most of them have been short, affecting one business day or less. Four have lasted longer than a single business day, the most recent being in 2018-19 when the government was partly shut down for 35 days. This shutdown was partial because several appropriations bills had been passed.

Congress has also walked to the brink of a shutdown many times, only to avoid it with a stopgap funding measure known as a continuing resolution or a last-minute spending deal.

Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told VOA that even short and narrowly averted shutdowns have an appreciable impact on the functioning of the federal government because resources have to be reallocated to prepare for the possibility of ceasing operations.

“It’s not like flipping a switch,” Stier said. “Everybody knows, if they’re involved in a complicated operation, to close it down not only is difficult, but starting it back up is incredibly difficult and costly, too. So a one-day shutdown has real cost and consequences, even though federal employees will do everything they can to ensure that the harm is not felt by the public.”

‘Increasingly painful’

Stier said that while the public might not notice a brief shutdown, when government operations cease for a longer time, their absence becomes increasingly obvious.

Passport applications are not processed. Small Business Administration loans are not made. Children cannot be enrolled in the federal Head Start program. These and many other unavailable services begin to take a toll on individuals and the broader U.S. economy.

“It becomes an increasingly painful and costly proposition,” he said. “In the last instance, we saw 35 days of a shutdown. The estimate was that billions of dollars were lost in the economy, and I believe that the costs were probably underestimated.”

Federal workers stressed

The federal workers who would be most directly affected by a government shutdown are frustrated with Congress, said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

Kelley told VOA that, as with the broader American public, many federal employees live paycheck to paycheck and would suffer if they were suddenly left unpaid.

“Our members are frustrated. They are nervous. They are wondering and worried about, ‘OK, how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to make sure my family is fed?’” Kelley said.

“Federal workers go to work every single day and do their job. We need Congress to do their job,” Kelley said. “Because a government shutdown will impact not just federal employees, but our communities. We’re asking Congress to get this job done.”

Ukraine funding

Congress briefly considered a continuing resolution on Tuesday, before it was pulled from the floor out of concern that it lacked the votes to pass. The resolution did not include supplemental funding for Ukraine that the Biden administration has requested.

While a majority of members of Congress support continued U.S. aid for Ukraine, a small number of mostly Republican lawmakers are reluctant to send more money to Kyiv, making the supplemental funding a complicating factor in the discussion of the spending bill.

Several House Republicans who support continued aid for Ukraine told VOA on Wednesday that it would be necessary to consider Ukraine funding as a standalone matter, not as part of the discussion of how to fund the government.

“We need to figure out our bigger issue first with funding our own Defense Department and funding other agencies, and then we can talk about a supplemental,” said Republican Mike Gallagher.

“Putting Ukraine funds in a [continuing resolution], I don’t think that’s the right way to go. We’re not going to get it passed,” said Republican Rich McCormick. “I think it’s a separate issue that needs to be addressed by adults. We need to have a very complex conversation about the history of Ukraine, where the money has already gone, and the success [Ukraine has] already had, going against the third-largest army in the world.”

Kateryna Lisunova, VOA Ukrainian Service congressional correspondent,  contributed to this report.
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Russia-NKorea Ties: Will Putin-Kim Bromance Last?

Posted on by SeeEU

Warming relations between North Korea and Russia could last as long as the war in Ukraine continues, making Pyongyang either disposable or expandable to Moscow, depending on its need for ammunition and interest in overturning the U.S.-led international order, experts said.

As U.S. President Joe Biden called on global leaders to support Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un returned home after his six-day trip to Russia, during which he pledged to provide “full and unconditional support” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Kim arrived in Pyongyang in his private train on Tuesday evening, North Korea’s state-run KCNA said the following day. His “good will visit” to Russia “opened a new chapter of the development” between the two countries, touted KCNA on Tuesday as Kim’s train crossed the border.

Using a slightly different tone from North Korea’s, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that Kim and Putin did not sign any agreements on cooperation, military or otherwise.

Putin said during his meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday that Russia does not intend to violate any sanctions on North Korea. Putin made his remarks two days after meeting with Kim.

KCNA said on Sunday that Kim discussed defense and security cooperation and exchanges with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Vladivostok.

Kim’s trip included a summit with Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome satellite launch facility in Russia’s far eastern Amur region on Sept. 13 and inspections of fighter jets in Komsomolsk-on-Amur as well as the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok on Saturday.

Although the specifics of possible but unsigned arms deals between Pyongyang and Moscow were not made public, world leaders gathered at the United Nations are concerned that North Korea and Russia would exchange items banned by the U.N.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries expressed concerns over “Russia-North Korea cooperation” that “could lead to violation” of U.N. sanctions.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned in his speech before the U.N. on Wednesday that Seoul would consider any arms deals between the two nations “a direct provocation.”

North Korea needs technological help to send a spy satellite into orbit after failed attempts in May and August. But the technology used to launch satellites into orbit could be also used to enhance intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are banned by the U.N. sanctions on the North.

Russia wants to replenish its depleting stockpiles of ammunition and artillery shells to sustain its war in Ukraine. It turned to North Korea late last year for those weapons, the U.S. said, even though U.N. sanctions prohibit importing arms from Pyongyang.

Although their military needs brought Kim and Putin together, some experts say their new relationship is based on short-term transactional exchanges bound to end when their needs no longer exist.

Cho Han-Bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank in Seoul, said the Kim-Putin bonding is a temporary alignment rooted in Russia’s need for weapons to fight in Ukraine.

“North Korea and Russian won’t be closely drawn together as they are now if Putin’s needs for the war in Ukraine are satisfied,” he said.

Won Gon Park, a professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, agreed.

“The relationship between North Korea and Russia is a kind of marriage of convenience rather than strategic partnership,” he said.

Putin and Kim are cooperating to evade sanctions, he added, as both countries are isolated by international and U.S.-led sanctions designating them as countries that commit illegal acts.

Russia has been heavily sanctioned by the U.S.-led coalitions since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. North Korea has been sanctioned by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions for testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, especially since 2016.

Attempts to pass new U.N. sanctions on North Korea’s record number of missile launches last year had been blocked by Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council.

Other experts, however, view the war in Ukraine as unlikely to end soon and see a continuation of the Kim-Putin relationship despite differences in their trajectory of cooperation.

“Putin’s calculation is more short-term than Kim’s,” said Alexander Korolev, an expert in Russia’s foreign policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

After Putin’s weaponry needs are fulfilled, “Kim could theoretically be disposed of at some point, but the problem is that the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end soon, and even if it ends, the sanctions regime against Russia will stay for longer, which makes Putin more willing to consider longer term cooperation,” Korolev said.

He added that Kim is not essential to Putin in countering the U.S.-led international order in the long run because “China is a better partner for that.”

“Moreover, given how close North Korea is to China, closer Russia-North Korea cooperation could be a convenient and less visible way for China to support Russia when necessary,” Korolev said.

The warming Kim-Putin relationship “is also about diversifying their options, such as exchanging and securing assets that cannot be gained from Beijing – particularly ammunition and military technologies,” said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Kim, on the other hand, might want “a longer-term partnership” as he needs “a whole range of things,” said Samuel Wells, a Cold War fellow at the Wilson Center.

But Putin is probably satisfied with short-term transactional exchanges because “the Russians don’t need that much from the North Koreans,” Wells said. “A lot of it depends on how the Ukraine war goes.”

Some expect the recent warming of Kim-Putin relations may outlast immediate needs for Russia’s war in Ukraine, evolving into strategic cooperation to overturn the U.S.-led international system, also their common goal.

“Even after the war in Ukraine, both of these countries will want to maintain this newly established allied relationship,” said Joseph DeTrani, special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.

“Both Putin and Kim want a long-term strategic partnership” to “challenge the U.S.-led international order” and each has the other to come to their aid during conflicts, he said.

Although North Korea is “a partner of convenience” for Russia, said Evan Revere, “Putin no doubt sees Pyongyang as a tactically useful partner because of its ability to challenge the U.S.-led alliance system.” Revere served as the acting secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration.

“Moscow finds the DPRK [North Korea] a ‘useful tool’ to remind the United States that, just as Washington is finding ways to hurt Russia by supporting Ukraine, Russia can threaten U.S. interests by supporting North Korea,” he added. 
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King Charles to Address French Senate After Urging Stronger France-UK Ties

Posted on by SeeEU

King Charles III on Thursday follows in his mother Queen Elizabeth II’s footsteps by addressing lawmakers in the French upper chamber of parliament on the second day of a visit that has seen him urge stronger ties between the countries.

At a lavish state banquet late Wednesday, Charles issued a call for France and the UK to reinvigorate their relations, in comments echoed by French President Emmanuel Macron.

It is “incumbent upon us all to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st century,” Charles said in a toast.

Macron added that “despite Brexit… I know, your majesty, that we will continue to write part of the future of our continent together, to meet the challenges and to serve the causes we have in common.”

“Our relations have of course not always been entirely straightforward,” Charles said, in a speech in both English and accented but clearly spoken French that impressed his hosts.

But he set out an optimistic vision of the Entente Cordiale, the pact between the two neighbors forged in 1904, calling it a “sustainable alliance.”

Packed schedule

Charles’ speech at the Senate, France’s upper house of parliament, is the diplomatic high point of a more informal day. The late queen addressed the Senate in 2004 but not in the chamber itself.

He will then visit the northern Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis — home to the French national stadium used for the Rugby World Cup, and the Olympics next year — where he is expected to see residents and sports stars.

Also heading to the Ile de la Cite on the river Seine, Charles — a keen gardener who once admitted he talked to his plants — will tour a flower market named after Queen Elizabeth II on her last state visit in 2014.

From there, he will view renovation and reconstruction work at the nearby Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was partially destroyed by a devastating fire in 2019.

Nearly 1,000 people are working to restore the cathedral, that dates back to the 12th century and is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture.

Following the fire, Charles said in an emotional message to Macron that he was “utterly heartbroken,” calling Notre-Dame “one of the greatest architectural achievements of Western civilization.”

The Paris leg of the state visit wraps up with a formal farewell from Macron at the Elysee Palace.

The visit, which was rescheduled from March due to mass protests against French pension reforms, also aims to showcase Charles’s stature as a statesman just over a year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The original itinerary in Paris and the southwestern city of Bordeaux is largely unchanged and is packed with ceremony and pomp in a country that abolished its monarchy in the 1789 revolution and executed its king.

Tactile friends

On Wednesday, Macron and Charles were seen chatting amicably while driving down the Champs-Elysees for talks at the Elysee Palace.

After their talks, the pair walked the short distance to the residence of the British ambassador, pausing to shake hands with well-wishers on the upscale Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.

The French president is known to have a strong personal rapport with Charles, with both men known for their love of books.

Macron presented Charles with a book by the 20th-century French writer Romain Gary, while he received a special edition of Voltaire’s “Lettres sur les Anglais” (“Letters on the English”).
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Zelenskyy to Seek Support in Talks with US Leaders

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet U.S. leaders Thursday in Washington as he seeks more support for his country’s fight against a Russian invasion.

Zelenskyy is expected to meet with both Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and have talks with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon before an afternoon meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House.

The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that the funding, which includes more than $20 billion for defense, would have a “significant impact on Ukraine’s fighting” in coming months.

“It’s really important for members of Congress to be able to hear directly from the president about what he’s facing in this counteroffensive,” Kirby said, “and how he’s achieving his goals, and what he needs to continue to achieve those goals.”

Additional support for Ukraine has met resistance from some Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“Is Zelenskyy elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think I have to commit anything and I think I have questions for him,” McCarthy told reporters Wednesday.  “Where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent? What is the plan for victory? I think that’s what the American public wants to know.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday he would make the case for “sustained support of the Ukrainian cause, not out of charity, but out of primary focus on America’s interests.”

McConnell was critical of Biden, saying he has been too timid in making the case that the United States has “a fundamental interest in Ukrainian victory and European security.”

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse. 
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Morocco to Spend $11.7B on 5-Year Post-Quake Reconstruction

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Morocco plans to spend at least $11.7 billion in a post-earthquake reconstruction plan over the next five years, the royal palace said Wednesday.

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Sept 8, killing more than 2,900 people, mostly in the hard-to-reach villages of the High Atlas mountains.

The plan would target 4.2 million people in the worst-hit provinces of Al Haouz, Chichaoua, Taroudant, Marrakech, Ouarzazate and Azizlal, the royal palace said, following a meeting of King Mohammed VI with government and army officials.

The plan covers rehousing and the upgrade of infrastructure in a way that is conducive to social and economic development in the quake-hit areas, it said in the statement.

The quake-stricken areas are among Morocco’s poorest, with many remote villages lacking proper roads and public services.

The royal palace said the plan would be funded by the government’s budget, international aid and by a fund set up in response to the quake.

The fund has so far received some $700 million in donations.

Last week, the palace said that 50,000 houses were known to have been damaged and that authorities would provide shelter and $3,000 to affected households.

It also pledged to offer reconstruction aid of $14,000 for collapsed homes and $8,000 for damaged ones.
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No Mood for Compromise at UN Security Council Meeting

Posted on by SeeUS

During Wednesday’s meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Russia’s war in Ukraine took precedence in the speeches of world leaders who have been pulled into the conflict in different capacities. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias took note of what was said and filed this report from New York.
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Senate Confirms Chairman of Joint Chiefs

Posted on by SeeUS

 The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, putting him in place to succeed Gen. Mark Milley when he retires at the end of the month.

Brown’s confirmation on an 83-11 vote, months after President Joe Biden nominated him for the post, comes as Democrats try to maneuver around holds placed on hundreds of nominations by Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville over the Pentagon’s abortion policy. The Senate is also expected to confirm Gen. Randy George to be Army Chief of Staff and Gen. Eric Smith as commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps this week.

Tuberville has been blocking the Senate from the routine process of approving military nominations in groups, frustrating Democrats who had said they would not go through the time-consuming process of bringing up individual nominations for a vote. More than 300 nominees are stalled amid Tuberville’s blockade and confirming them one-by-one would take months.

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, reversed course on Wednesday and moved to force votes on Brown, George and Smith.

“Senator Tuberville is forcing us to face his obstruction head on,” Schumer said. “I want to make clear to my Republican colleagues — this cannot continue.”

Tuberville did not object to the confirmation votes, saying he will maintain his holds but is fine with bringing up nominations individually for roll call votes.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said that Brown’s confirmation, along with expected votes on Smith and George, is positive news. But “we should have never been in this position,” he said.

“While good for these three officers, it doesn’t fix the problem or provide a path forward for the 316 other general and flag officers that are held up by this ridiculous hold,” Kirby told reporters.

Brown, a career fighter pilot, was the Air Force’s first Black commander of the Pacific Air Forces and most recently its first Black chief of staff, making him the first African American to lead any of the military branches. His confirmation will also mark the first time the Pentagon’s top two posts were held by African Americans, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as the top civilian leader.

Brown, 60, replaces Joint Chiefs Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley, who is retiring after four decades in military service. Milley’s four-year term as chairman ends on Sept. 30.

Tuberville said on Wednesday that he will continue to hold up the other nominations unless the Pentagon ends its policy of paying for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care. The Biden administration instituted the policy after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion and some states have limited or banned the procedure.

“Let’s do one at a time or change the policy back,” Tuberville said after Schumer put the three nominations up for a vote. “Let’s vote on it.”

The votes come as a host of military officers have spoken out about the damage of the delays for service members. While Tuberville’s holds are focused on all general and flag officers, they carry career impacts on the military’s younger rising officers. Until each general or admiral is confirmed, it blocks an opportunity for a more junior officer to rise.

That affects pay, retirement, lifestyle and future assignments — and in some fields where the private sector will pay more, it becomes harder to convince those highly trained young leaders to stay.

The blockade has frustrated members on both sides of the aisle, and it is still unclear how the larger standoff will be resolved. Schumer did not say if he will put additional nominations on the floor.
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Zelenskyy Calls Out Russia at UN Security Council

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared before the U.N. Security Council in New York on Wednesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion to garner support for his country and accuse Russia of carrying out “a criminal and unprovoked aggression” that shatters the norms of war and the U.N. Charter.

During a somewhat contentious meeting, Zelenskyy promoted action taken, including arming Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia.

“Helping Ukraine with weapons in this exercise, by imposing sanctions and exerting comprehensive pressure on the aggressor, as well as voting for relevant resolutions, would mean helping to defend the U.N. Charter,” Zelenskyy said.

The council has met dozens of times and voted repeatedly since Russia invaded 19 months ago and has demanded that the Kremlin remove its troops from Ukraine, though it has been unable to take any action on the matter because Russia has a veto.

Zelenskyy urged support of the Ukrainian effort, emphasizing that his peace proposal begins with adherence to the charter that ensures the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all 193 U.N. member nations.

Prior to the meeting, there was speculation about whether Zelenskyy and Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, would confront one another, hold a discussion or just avoid each other. But Zelenskyy left the council soon after his address.

There were heated words exchanged, though, as the meeting kicked off before Lavrov arrived. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia protested Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s decision to allow Zelenskyy to speak ahead of the 15 council members. Nebenzia accused Rama — this month’s council president — of trying to reduce the meeting to “a one-man stand-up show,” asserting it would result in “nothing more than a spectacle” — a dig at Zelenskyy’s career as a comedian before being elected Ukrainian president.

Rama cited the council rule allowing a nonmember to speak first and said, “This is not a special operation by the Albanian presidency,” which prompted laughter at Russia’s claim that its offensive against Ukraine is a “special military operation.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres then briefed the council, noting that Russia’s invasion was “in clear violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.”

The war “is aggravating geopolitical tensions and divisions, threatening regional stability, increasing the nuclear threat and creating deep fissures in our increasingly multipolar world,” the U.N. chief said.

Guterres reiterated his condemnation of the war and called for “a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine in line with the U.N. Charter and international law — for Ukraine, for Russia and for the world.”

Zelensky’s speech came at a time when some are questioning the Ukrainian war effort. Kyiv’s counteroffensive is being met with staunch Russian defense, and cold weather soon will render some rural roads impassable.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also addressed the Security Council on Wednesday, condemning Russia for its repeated violations of the U.N. Charter.

“Russia has shredded the major tenets of the United Nations Charter, the universal declaration of human rights, international humanitarian law, and flouted one Security Council resolution after another,” the top U.S. diplomat said.

Zelenskyy will travel to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden, where Biden is expected to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine.

Biden has been a staunch advocate of Ukraine and has asked other world leaders to stand with Kyiv to end the war.

Some members of the U.S. Republican Party have questioned the need to continue sending arms and aid totaling billions of dollars to Ukraine.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Mahsa Amini, Elon Musk Nominated for EU’s Top Rights Prize

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Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody a year ago, and billionaire Elon Musk were among a field of nominations put forward Wednesday for the EU’s top rights prize.

The European Parliament’s three biggest political groups each backed Amini as the recipient for this year’s Sakharov Prize, making her the front-runner for the award, which will be presented in December.

The legislature’s small far-right bloc was the only one to nominate Musk, the tech titan behind X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, as well as electric car company Tesla and space rocket firm SpaceX.

Other parliamentary groupings put forward activists from Afghanistan, Georgia, Nicaragua, Poland, El Salvador and the United States as their nominations.

Amini died at age 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran’s religious police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Iranian authorities, fearing the anniversary of her death could renew widespread street protests, detained her father and warned her family not to publicly mark the occasion, rights groups said.

Security forces also blocked access to the cemetery where Amini is buried.

But Persian-language channels based outside Iran showed Iranians in major cities in the country, including Tehran, yelling anti-government slogans.

Rallies also took place around the world, including in Paris, Sydney, Toronto and New York.

Amini has become emblematic of a movement in Iran calling for “Women, Life, Freedom,” seen as the biggest challenge to the country’s clerical-run government.

The EU lawmakers’ nominations of Amini for the Sakharov Prize include the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement.

Musk was put forward by the Identity and Democracy grouping in the parliament, which counts nationalistic and extreme-right lawmakers among its members.

Musk has sought to portray himself as a champion of free speech, but has been criticized by some rights groups as permitting increased anti-Semitic rhetoric and other hate speech on X.

He also has courted controversy for allowing Donald Trump, the scandal-plagued, twice-impeached former U.S. president, and other populist figures adored by the far-right back onto X.
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Biden Administration Announces $600M to Produce COVID Tests, Will Reopen Website to Order Them

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The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is providing $600 million in funding to produce new at-home COVID-19 tests and is restarting a website allowing Americans to again order up to four free tests per household — aiming to prevent possible shortages during a rise in coronavirus cases that has typically come during colder months.

The Department of Health and Human Services says orders can be placed at COVIDTests.gov starting September 25, and that no-cost tests will be delivered for free by the United States Postal Service.

Twelve manufacturers that employ hundreds of people in seven states have been awarded funding and will produce 200 million over-the-counter tests to replenish federal stockpiles for government use, in addition to producing enough tests to meet demand for tests ordered online, the department said.

Federal officials said that will help guard against supply chain issues that sparked some shortages of at-home COVID tests made overseas during past surges in coronavirus cases.

Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said the website will remain functional to receive orders through the holidays and “we reserve the right to keep it open even longer if we’re starting to see an increase in cases.”

“If there is a demand for these tests, we want to make sure that they’re made available to the American people for free in this way,” O’Connell said. “But, at this point, our focus is getting through the holidays and making sure folks can take a test if they’re going to see Grandma for Thanksgiving.”

The tests are designed to detect COVID variants currently circulating and are intended for use by the end of the year. But they will include instructions on how to verify extended expiration dates, the department said.

The initiative follows four previous rounds where federal officials and the U.S. Postal Service provided more than 755 million tests for free to homes nationwide.

It is also meant to complement ongoing federal efforts to provide free COVID tests to long-term care facilities, schools, low-income senior housing, uninsured individuals and underserved communities which are already distributing 4 million per week and have distributed 500 million tests to date, the department said.

O’Connell said manufacturers would be able to spread out the 200 million tests they will produce for federal use over 18 months. That means that, as demand for home tests rises via the website or at U.S. retailers when COVID cases increase around the country, producers can focus on meeting those orders — but that they will then have an additional outlet for the tests they produce during period when demand declines.

“We’ve seen every winter, as people move indoors into heated spaces, away from the outside that, over each of the seasons that COVID’s been a concern, that we have seen cases go up,” O’Connell said.

She added that also “there’s always an opportunity or chance for another variant to come” but “we’re not anticipating that.”

“That’s not why we’re doing this,” O’Connell said. “We’re doing this for the fall and winter season ahead and the potential for an increase in cases as a result.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said that the “Biden-Harris Administration, in partnership with domestic manufacturers, has made great strides in addressing vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain by reducing our reliance on overseas manufacturing.”

“These critical investments will strengthen our nation’s production levels of domestic at-home COVID-19 rapid tests and help mitigate the spread of the virus,” Becerra said in a statement.
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Fed Keeps Rates Unchanged, Signals Another Hike Later This Year

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The Federal Reserve left its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday for the second time in its past three meetings, a sign that it’s moderating its fight against inflation as price pressures have eased. But Fed officials also signaled that they expect to raise rates once more this year.

Consumer inflation has dropped from a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.7%. Yet it’s still well above the Fed’s 2% target, and its policymakers made clear Wednesday that they aren’t close to declaring victory over the worst bout of inflation in 40 years. The Fed’s latest decision left its benchmark rate at about 5.4%, the result of 11 rate hikes it unleashed beginning in March 2022.

The Fed’s hikes have significantly raised the costs of consumer and business loans. In fine-tuning its rate policies, the central bank is trying to guide the U.S. economy toward a tricky “soft landing” of cooling inflation without triggering a deep recession.

The Fed’s decisions Wednesday underscored that even while its policymakers approach a peak in their benchmark rate, they intend to keep it at or near its high for a prolonged period. Besides forecasting another hike by year’s end, Fed officials now envision keeping rates high deep into 2024.

They expect to cut interest rates just twice next year, fewer than the four rate cuts they had predicted in June. They predict that their key short-term rate will still be 5.1% at the end of 2024 — higher than it was from the 2008-2009 Great Recession until May of this year.

The policymakers’ inclination to keep rates high for an extended period suggests that they remain concerned that inflation might not be falling fast enough toward their 2% target. The job market and the economy have remained resilient, confounding expectations that the Fed’s series of hikes would cause widespread layoffs and a recession.

“The process of getting inflation sustainably down to 2% has a long way to go,” Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference. “We’ve seen progress, and we welcome that, but we need to see more progress” before concluding that it’s appropriate to end the rate hikes.

At the same time, Powell said he feels confident that the end of the rate-hiking cycle is near: “We’re fairly close, we think, to where we need to get.”

Treasury yields moved sharply higher Wednesday after the Fed issued a statement after its latest policy meeting and updated its economic projections. The yield on the two-year Treasury note, which tends to track expectations of future Fed actions, rose from 5.04% to 5.11%.

In their new quarterly projections, the policymakers estimate that the economy will grow faster this year and next year than they had previously envisioned. They now foresee growth reaching 2.1% this year, up from a 1% forecast in June, and 1.5% next year, up from their previous 1.1% forecast.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is considered a good predictor of future trends, is now expected to fall to 3.7% by year’s end, better than the 3.9% forecast in June. Core inflation, under the Fed’s preferred measure, is now 4.2%.

The approach to rate increases the Fed is now taking reflects an awareness among the officials that the risks to the economy of raising rates too high is growing. Previously, they had focused more on the risks of not doing enough to slow inflation.

In generating sharply higher interest rates throughout the economy, the Fed has sought to slow borrowing — for houses, cars, home renovations, business investment and the like — to help ease spending, moderate the pace of growth and curb inflation.

Though clear progress on inflation has been achieved, gas prices have lurched higher again, reaching a national average of $3.88 a gallon as of Tuesday. Oil prices have surged more than 12% in just the past month.

And the economy is still expanding at a solid pace as Americans, buoyed by steady job growth and pay raises, have kept spending. Both trends could keep inflation and the Fed’s interest rates high enough and long enough to weaken household and corporate spending and the economy as a whole.

While overall inflation has declined, the costs of some services — from auto insurance and car repairs to veterinary services and hair salons — are still climbing faster than they were before the pandemic. Still, most recent data is pointing in the direction the Fed wants to see: Inflation in June and July, excluding volatile food and energy prices, posted its two lowest monthly readings in nearly two years.
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US House Republicans Set to Hold First Biden Impeachment Hearing Next Week

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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are set to hold their first hearing next week in the impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Joe Biden. But with a very slim majority in the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress, it appears unlikely Republicans will be able to pass the articles of impeachment needed to trigger a trial of the president in the U.S. Senate.

The House Oversight Committee next Thursday will investigate allegations Biden improperly used his position as vice president to help his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings. Republicans also allege Biden used his official office to coordinate those efforts and was protected from investigations into those claims by his own administration.

“These allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy told reporters last week while announcing the launch of the inquiry.

Multiple Republican-led House committees investigated the allegations for months prior to the launch of the inquiry and did not find any evidence supporting those claims.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said during a hearing Wednesday that Republicans “have wasted countless taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations into President Biden and his family. Desperate to find evidence for an absurd impeachment and desperate to distract from the mounting legal peril facing Donald Trump.”

What are the allegations against President Biden?

Chief among House Republicans’ claims of corruption is an allegation that then-Vice President Biden pushed for the removal of Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in 2015 because of Shokin’s investigations into Burisma, the Ukrainian company whose board membership included Hunter Biden.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, one of the three members of Congress leading the impeachment inquiry, told conservative news network Newsmax, this week, “We’ve got a president that’s compromised. We’ve got a president who has violated laws who should be treated as a criminal.”

How has the White House responded?

In a memo to reporters, the White House noted that years of independent reporting and an investigation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee found that Biden committed no wrongdoing and was carrying out a policy developed by the U.S. State Department and carried out by the International Monetary Fund. Additionally, the White House said evidence shows Biden pushed for Shokin to be harder on corruption and that the Ukrainian prosecutor general was not investigating Burisma.

Do Republicans have the votes to impeach Biden?

The two-step process for removing federal officials from office is laid out in the U.S. Constitution. In the first step of the process, the U.S. House of Representatives must pass articles of impeachment by a majority vote. Republicans only hold a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, with 221 Republicans, 212 Democrats and 2 vacancies. Many Republicans from more moderate districts have expressed concerns about impeaching Biden, particularly heading into a presidential election year.

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post this week, Rep. Ken Buck, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote, “Republicans in the House who are itching for an impeachment are relying on an imagined history.”

House Speaker McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of Republican votes or risk failure on a vote to impeach Biden.

Will the impeachment inquiry continue if there is a government shutdown?

McCarthy is facing difficulties within his own party passing a spending bill that will fund the U.S. government past a September 30th deadline. If disagreements within the Republican party remain, the U.S. government will shut down. This will stop all but the most essential work throughout government agencies and in the U.S. House of Representatives, meaning lawmakers will not be able to hold an impeachment hearing.

The White House said in a statement this week, the impeachment inquiry was a distraction from Republicans’ inability to govern.

“Extreme House Republicans are already telegraphing their plans to try to distract from their own chaotic inability to govern and the impacts of it on the country. Staging a political stunt hearing in the waning days before they may shut down the government reveals their true priorities: to them, baseless personal attacks on President Biden,” White House Spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.

What will happen in the Senate?

If the U.S. House of Representatives is able to pass articles of impeachment, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will be in charge of deciding when and if the Senate holds a trial of Biden. Schumer has called the charges “absurd” and could decide not to hold a trial, where the Democratic majority would almost certainly never attain the two-thirds majority required to convict the president and remove him from office.
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UK PM: We Will Not Force Households To Take Energy Efficiency Measures

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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday the government would not force households to take energy efficiency measures as he announced new changes to some of its commitments to tackle climate change.

He said that although the nation will continue to subsidize energy efficiency, it “will never force any household to do it.”

“The proposal to make you change your diet and harm British farmers by taxing meat or to create new taxes to discourage flying or going on holiday — I scrapped those too,” Sunak said at the press conference.

The prime minister also said there would be no ban on new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea that would leave Britain “reliant on expensive imported energy.”

Sunak also reiterated that the aim was to still meet Britain’s international commitments and hit net zero carbon emissions by 2050 despite the raft of changes to previous climate pledges.
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Report: Africa Steering Geopolitical Challenges with Resilience, Economic Opportunities

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A leading global risk consultancy says that despite the impacts of the war in Ukraine, global inflation, climate and security challenges, Africa continues to find resilience. A new report by Control Risks and its economics consulting partner, Oxford Economics Africa, finds that as global tensions create disruptions, they are also providing many African governments significant political, economic, and security opportunities.

The research, released on Tuesday, examines how African countries, governments, and corporations navigate a world marked by global tension and competition for resources and alliances, particularly among China, Russia, and the United States.

Given the continent’s security measures and developing financial sector, the researchers focused on African states’ efforts to retain neutrality while under pressure to join with global geopolitical corporations.

Patricia Rodrigues, a Senior Analyst at Control Risks, a firm specializing in political, security, and integrity risks, said Africa is attracting investment from various countries vying for support and access to the continent’s economic opportunities.

“What we’ve seen from major geopolitical actors, be that the U.S., China, Russia, or the EU as a bloc, everybody’s increasingly viewing Africa as a place where they can entice to either align with them on key geopolitical or global affairs. And in doing so, there’s a lot of at least pledged investment that is being directed towards the continent. In addition to this, African governments are attempting to, I guess, play all sides, attempting to secure pledges of investment,” she said.

During the U.S.-Africa Summit in December, Washington committed to allocate $55 billion to Africa over the next three years, focusing on healthcare, trade, climate change, and women’s issues.

Recent reduced U.S. involvement in Africa has created opportunities for China, which has invested $10 billion in the continent from 2017 to 2022, and has also led to increased trade between Africa and Russia, growing from $9.9 billion in 2013 to $17.7 billion in 2021.

These three major global powers compete to secure access to Africa’s mineral resources, which are critical in advancing new technologies. Africa holds almost one-third of the world’s mineral reserves and eight and twelve percent of global gas and oil reserves.

Vincent Rouget is the head of Control Risks. He said the demand for African mineral wealth has also created the urge to industrialize in the continent.

“What we have seen in the last few months is more assertive moves by various countries to try to make sure that this surge in interest also benefits their economies. And we’re seeing what you could call a critical resource nationalism coming back in some economies, where we see an insistence on local processing, more stringent local content requirements and generally an attempt to integrate these critical mineral supply chains with a broader drive for industrialization,” he said.

In most African countries, natural capital accounts for between 30% to 50% of their overall wealth.

The continent loses $195 billion yearly of its natural capital due to illicit financial flows, illegal mining, logging, the illegal trade in wildlife, unregulated fishing and environmental damage.

Researchers say North African countries are positioning themselves as manufacturing destinations as Western countries are looking to disengage from China.

The head of Africa Macro at Oxford Economics Africa, Jacque Nel, said African economies will face challenges in an increasingly competitive global environment.

“We continue to see progress. It wasn’t a short-term boost to access to financial services that we’ve seen. We continue to see the expansion and access to financial services improve across the continent, which is really important because, secondly, this is a catalyst for broader economic growth. Access to financial services is required and supports economic growth in most, if not all, other sectors of the economy,” said Nel.

According to researchers, wars on the continent are receiving little attention from the international community, although it is affecting the continent and attracting external actors, such as Wagner and terror organizations. 
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EU Withdrawing Funds for Zimbabwe Elections Body Over Lack of Transparency

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The European Union says it is withdrawing $5 million in financial support to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission because of what it calls a lack of independence and transparency in the country’s disputed August polls.

In a statement late Tuesday, the EU embassy in Harare said Brussels is pulling out its $5 million financial support to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission because of the way the commission ran the country’s August general election.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa defeated Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change in the hotly contested August 23 election.

“We did not set institutions that underpin our democracy in chapter 12 of our constitution so that they can be funded by foreigners,” said Nick Mangwana, the government spokesman. “As government, we always provide for ZEC’s needs through the fiscus. So as far as we are concerned, this is a non-event. We did not apply for this funding. And it’s withdrawal, does not mean anything. ZEC will fulfill its mandate through the funding that it gets from the people of Zimbabwe.”

Promise Mkwananzi is the spokesman for the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change, which disputes the president’s victory.

“ZEC is improperly composed, it is not independent, it is not professional. We saw it in the previous elections, we’ve seen it even more glaringly in this election,” said Mkwananzi. “So we were quite surprised that the EU entrusted the taxpayer’s money of Europeans to such a group. The way forward really, like we’ve already articulated, is the disbandment of ZEC, totally, and the firing of all the individuals we involved both at commission and secretary level, and re-commissioning and re-composing ZEC based on individuals of integrity, of honor and independence, who then reconstitute ZEC in accordance with the constitution and the laws of our country in preparation for a fresh free and free election.”

The EU’s observer mission to Zimbabwe’s elections was among other missions which condemned the way Zimbabwe Electoral Commission ran the August polls.

The Southern Africa Development Community mission said the elections fell far short of the regional body’s electoral guidelines and infringed on the country’s constitution and electoral laws.

Linda Masarira, is the founder of the opposition Labor, Economists and African Democrats party. She says African countries need to run elections without EU help.

“They’ve always wanted to meddle with how we do elections in this country,” said Masarira. “And it should be a wake-up call to the government of this country to start funding its own elections, its own processes, its own government programs. We cannot continue running with begging bowls to the West and the East.”

Gibson Nyikadzino, Harare-based independent political analyst, agrees with Masarira.

“It only shows us that the European Union or the Western order has a way it wants to construct some truths in the knowledge regarding the issues to do with elections, the issues to do with democratic processes in the nations of the South,” said Nyikadzino. “And this explains why they are failing to come to terms with the reality that the Zanu-PF was officially declared the winner.”

But Brighton Mutebuka, a lawyer and political commentator, says the EU was justified in withdrawing the money.

“It is not just the EU who here on the ground versus with their electoral observer mission,” said Mutebuka. “But we have the regional bodies SADC and the AU as well. And they concluded that the election that ZEC delivered fell far short of those standards and quite brazenly saw in many respects in what we saw. So the ball is in ZEC’s court.”

On Wednesday, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission refused to comment on the EU’s announcement.
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Ukraine, European Allies Clash Over Food Import Bans   

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Ukraine lodged a complaint this week at the World Trade Organization after several eastern European states imposed import bans on Ukrainian food products, exposing divisions in the European Union as its members try to support Kyiv in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Hungary, Poland and Slovakia banned the import of Ukrainian grain and other food products last Friday, saying the shipments were undercutting their own farmers.

Kyiv confirmed on Monday that it had filed a complaint at the WTO.

“It is crucially important for us to prove that individual [EU] member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods. That is why we are filing lawsuits against them to the WTO,” Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said in a statement.

The WTO is not likely to make a ruling anytime soon, according to David Kleimann, a trade expert with the Bruegel research group in Brussels, Belgium.

“The process starts with 60 days of consultations in which the parties basically have the time to come to a mutually agreeable solution to the dispute. That is not entirely unlikely given the fact that some of this is a result of election prologue in Slovakia and Poland. There might still be time in that consultation period to come to a resolution,” Kleimann told VOA. Slovakia is due to go to the polls on September 30, while Poland’s election is scheduled for October 15.

Solidarity

Ukraine’s president said it’s vital that European states reopen their export routes. “We need our neighbors to support Ukraine in times of war. Europe always wins when agreements work and promises are kept,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a televised statement Friday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year cut off many of Kyiv’s export routes. In July, Moscow withdrew from a Black Sea Grain Initiative — a mechanism that had allowed Ukrainian grain to be shipped onto world markets — causing global food prices to rise. The Kremlin warned that it could not guarantee the safety of merchant ships. Russian missiles have repeatedly targeted Ukrainian Black Sea ports, causing widespread damage.

The European Union offered Ukraine other land routes to allow its food products to reach global markets via member states bordering Ukraine — what the EU calls “solidarity lanes.”

Olia Tayeb Charif, head of research at the Farm Foundation, a French think tank focused on agriculture, explained that some of the food products entered the European market.

“Ukrainian wheat is among the most competitively priced in the world, alongside Russian wheat. Since the start of the conflict, 50% of Ukrainian wheat exports have arrived in Europe, whereas before the conflict it was a really small amount. So the European Union is faced with an unprecedented situation, seeing very competitive wheat arriving in these markets which was not initially intended for them. This eventuality had not really been foreseen by the European authorities,” Charif told VOA.

Farmer protests

Farmers in several neighboring European states have staged protests, claiming that Ukrainian food is being dumped on local markets. “Low-quality, cheaper products than ours are sold in the shops. We have very high costs to produce quality meat and milk. We are operating at a loss, and therefore we will give up,” Bulgarian farmer Vassil Dzhorgov told The Associated Press on Monday.

In May, the EU offered the farmers compensation and allowed five eastern European states — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania — to impose temporary import bans on some Ukrainian products. When the deadline expired on September 15, the EU said there was no need to renew these measures as the market distortion caused by the influx of Ukrainian products had largely disappeared.

 

Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, however, imposed their own unilateral import bans. Croatia also said Tuesday it would only allow the transit of Ukrainian grain.

EU criticism

European allies strongly criticized the import restrictions.

“Ukraine is under aggressive attack by Russia. And so we need to understand that here we have to see the bigger picture and support all these solidarity lanes, and also support the possibility for Ukraine to export its grain,” Finland’s minister of agriculture, Sari Essayah, told reporters in Brussels Monday.

In the meantime, the European Commission has told Ukraine to impose so-called “voluntary export restraint” as it tries to persuade eastern European member states to remove the import bans.

“What the commission is doing here is kicking the can down the road by giving an obligation to Ukraine to limit, to manage or to channel its exports to the European Union — and at the same time waiting out the time until the elections, most particularly in Poland, and hoping that the Polish political sentiment will change after the election. This is really not a sustainable solution,” analyst David Kleimann told VOA.

European divisions

The EU is caught between the demands of its member states and the need to support Ukraine, said Olia Tayeb Charif of Farm Foundation.

“Europe is really having to play a balancing act between, on the one hand, preserving its internal cohesion — that is to say, putting in place market regulation measures which prevent these agricultural markets from being disturbed by cheaper wheat — and on the other hand, helping Ukraine by allowing the transit of these grains to reach international markets. It should also be emphasized that historically, Ukraine’s export destinations are largely Africa and the Middle East, and they are also very large customers of the European Union,” Charif told VOA.

The dispute is exposing divisions within the European Union as it tries to show unity following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, said Kleimann.

“Single market fragmentation in in these difficult times, with the security interest of the European Union and the interest of keeping pro-Russian sentiments in check — this is pretty much a worst-case scenario,” he told VOA.
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Putin Accepts Invitation to Visit China in October

Posted on by SeeEU

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he accepted an invitation from his Chinese counterpart to visit China in October during the Belt and Road Summit.

Speaking after a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Moscow, Putin said Russia and China are “integrating our ideas of creating a large Eurasian space,” noting that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a part of that.

The initiative is a huge program in which Beijing has been expanding its influence in developing regions through infrastructure projects.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin has pivoted the country toward China, selling it more energy and increasingly carrying out joint military exercises.

China adopted a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and even denounced Western sanctions against Moscow. It also accused NATO and the United States of provoking Putin’s military action and declared last year that it had a “no-limits” friendship with Russia.

On Tuesday, senior Russian security official Nikolai Patrushev called for closer policy coordination between Moscow and Beijing to counter what he described as Western efforts to contain them as he hosted Wang Yi for security talks.

The Kremlin has continuously expressed support for Beijing as Russia and China have grown closer as their relations with the West deteriorate.

Wang arrived in Russia on Monday on a four-day visit following his talks with U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser in Malta over the weekend.

Putin’s plan to visit China was initially announced in July.
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New Violence in Nagorno-Karabakh Pushes Armenia to Debate Alliances

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The new flare-up of hostilities in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the separatist enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is raising the possibility of geopolitical change in the region, as some in Armenian society say they feel betrayed by what they see as the inaction of Russian peacekeepers. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.
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Nigerian Authorities Pledge Cleaner Energy Transition after Climate Change Summit

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At the recent Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, Nigerian officials said they hope to create millions of jobs and much cleaner air through the country’s Energy Transition Plan. The initiative envisions Nigeria moving from the use of firewood and coal to natural gas and other environmentally friendly sources of energy. Timothy Obiezu reports from the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
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US Senators Relax Their Dress Code

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Critics warn decorum is falling apart at the seams in the U.S. Senate after the Democratic leadership changed the rules to end the requirement of wearing a jacket and tie in the tradition-bound chamber.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday told the Senate Sergeant at Arms that the chamber’s unwritten dress code need no longer be enforced.

The relaxed attire rule applies to all of the chamber’s lawmakers, but the switch was seen as a special deal for Democratic Senator John Fetterman, whose love of shorts and hoodies has turned dress-down Friday into dress-down every day.

Fetterman’s dress style, or perhaps lack of style, became his signature on the campaign trail before entering the Senate this year. He also gained sympathy from many after he underwent treatment for clinical depression soon after taking office.

Schumer said senators will be able to wear what they want, even if “I will continue to wear a suit.”

But the new rules, first reported by Axios, were met with mockery on the right.

Republican Susan Collins joked to NBC that she planned to “wear a bikini.”

“I think there is a certain dignity that we should be maintaining in the Senate, and to do away with the dress code, to me, debases the institution,” she said.

Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican, told Fox Business that the move was “just another step in the movement by the Democrats to transform America, to take us to a place that is much less respectful than we historically have been.”

Lawmakers who dropped in to vote in gym clothes or other unusual attire had previously been able to circumvent the rules by keeping one foot in the adjacent cloakroom, according to U.S. media.

Fetterman said he may “dress like a slob,” but the sartorial sniping meant “the right have been losing their mind.”

Both the House and Senate have in recent years relaxed rules to allow women to wear sleeveless dresses. And in 2019, the House green-lighted religious headwear to allow for the hijab worn by Representative Ilhan Omar.
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Students Another Casualty of Morocco’s Earthquake

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Children are returning to class in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains less than two weeks after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake killed and injured thousands of people there and razed whole villages. With about 600 area schools destroyed, many students will be studying in tents for now, or in the nearest city of Marrakesh. Lisa Bryant reports from the town of Amizmiz
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Musk’s Neuralink to Start Human Trial of Brain Implant

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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients. 

Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, Neuralink said, but did not reveal how many participants would be enrolled in the trial, which will take about six years to complete. 

The study will use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone. 

The company, which had earlier hoped to receive approval to implant its device in 10 patients, was negotiating a lower number of patients with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency raised safety concerns, according to current and former employees. It is not known how many patients the FDA ultimately approved. 

Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.  

In May, the company said it had received clearance from the FDA for its first-in-human clinical trial, when it was already under federal scrutiny for its handling of animal testing. 

Even if the BCI device proves to be safe for human use, it would still potentially take more than a decade for the startup to secure commercial use clearance for it, according to experts. 
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Almost 50 Children From Occupied Ukrainian Regions Brought to Belarus

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Belarusian state media reported that 48 children from Ukraine arrived in Belarus on Tuesday from Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims it has annexed. 

The group of children came from the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. They include children from towns that were captured by the Russian army in July 2022. Those regions were illegally annexed by Moscow in December last year, but Russia doesn’t have full control over them. 

In photos published by the Belarus state news agency Belta, the children were pictured holding the red and green state flag of Belarus and reportedly thanked the Belarusian authorities, while being flanked by police and riot police. 

The removal of the children from Ukraine was organized by a Belarusian charity, supported by President Alexander Lukashenko, which has previously organized health recuperation programs for Ukrainian children in Belarus. 

“The president, despite external pressure, said this important humanitarian project should continue,” Alexei Talai, the charity’s head, said in an interview with Belta. “All the Belarusian people,” he said, want to help “children from dilapidated cities and towns in the new territories of Russia.” 

It’s not clear if the children were orphans or were removed from their parents with or without consent as Belarusian authorities didn’t provide any details about them. Belarusian officials have previously denied allegations that Belarus has helped to illegally remove children from Ukraine. 

In June, Belarusian opposition figures gave the International Criminal Court materials that they said showed more than 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 Russian-occupied Ukrainian cities who were forcibly removed to Belarus with Lukashenko’s approval. 

Pavel Latushka, a former Belarusian culture minister, hopes the material will prompt the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Lukashenko, as it did with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

“We are seeing more and more evidence relating to the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus and this will continue until international organizations react and stop Minsk,” Latushka said in an interview with The Associated Press. 

In March, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague, Netherlands, said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” the two were responsible for war crimes, including the illegal deportation and transfer of children from occupied Ukrainian regions to Russia — something an AP investigation detailed earlier this year. 

Belarus has been Moscow’s closest ally since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, when Lukashenko allowed the Kremlin to send troops and weapons into Ukraine from Belarus. Russia has also deployed tactical nuclear weapons there. 
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At UNGA, Biden Offers US Leadership, Denounces Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

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At the U.N. General Assembly in New York, U.S. President Joe Biden sought to convince world leaders that his vision of American leadership and multilateral approach to foreign policy will help solve the world’s most pressing problems. He again denounced Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a violation of a core tenet of the U.N. Charter. VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report from New York.
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