Month: March 2024

Niger Revokes Military Accord With US, Junta Spokesperson Says

Posted on by SeeAF

Niamey, Niger — Niger’s ruling military junta has revoked a military accord that allows military personnel and civilian staff from the U.S. Department of Defense on its soil, junta spokesperson Colonel Amadou Abdramane said on Saturday. 

The decision, which takes effect immediately, follows a visit this week by U.S. officials led by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and included General Michael Langley, commander of the U.S. Africa Command. 

Abdramane, speaking on television in the West African nation, said the U.S. delegation did not follow diplomatic protocol and that Niger was not informed about the composition of the delegation, the date of its arrival, or the agenda. 

He added that the discussions were around the current military transition in Niger, military cooperation between the two countries and Niger’s choice of partners in the fight against militants linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. 

Since seizing power in July of last year, the Niger junta, like the military rulers in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, have kicked out French and other European forces, and turned to Russia for support.  

“Niger regrets the intention of the American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships capable of truly helping them fight against terrorism,” Abdramane said.

“Also, the government of Niger forcefully denounces the condescending attitude accompanied by the threat of retaliation from the head of the American delegation towards the Nigerien government and people,” he added. 

The U.S. Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

There were about 1,100 U.S. troops in Niger as of last year, where the U.S. military operates out of two bases including a drone base known as Air Base 201, built near Agadez in central Niger at a cost of more than $100 million.  

Since 2018, the base has been used to target Islamic State militants and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen, an al-Qaida affiliate, in the Sahel region. 

Abdramane said the status and presence of U.S. troops in Niger was illegal and violated constitutional and democratic rules because, according to the spokesperson, it was unilaterally imposed on the African nation in 2012. 

He said Niger was not aware of the number of U.S. civilian and military personnel on its soil or the amount of equipment deployed and, according to the agreement, the U.S. military had no obligation to respond to any request for help against militants. 

“In light of all the above, the government of Niger, revokes with immediate effect the agreement concerning the status of United States military personnel and civilian employees of the American Department of Defense on the territory of the Republic of Niger,” Abdramane said.  
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Indian Navy Frees Cargo Ship From Somali Pirates After Shootout

Posted on by SeeAF

Washington — The Indian navy has freed the hijacked MV Ruen cargo ship in Somalia’s Puntland region Saturday after a 24-hour standoff and shootout, and it has detained 35 pirates, according to Puntland Ports Minister Ahmed Yasin Salah. The crew is reported to be unharmed.

The pirates — who allegedly hijacked the Maltese-flagged bulk cargo vessel on December 14 — exchanged heavy gunfire with the Indian navy Friday.

“The Indian navy successfully conducted the operation, which has been going on since last night. The navy captured 35 pirates and released the MV Ruen ship, and its crew are safe,” Salah said.

 

“We received the information regarding the gunfight Friday afternoon. Once we followed up with our reliable sources, we were told that the Indian navy engaged in a gunfight with the Somali pirates.”

 

In an interview with VOA Somali, Salah said the pirates on the Ruen had been sailing back and forth across the Somali coast for months, and that the Indians intercepted them Friday, as they approached another pirate-held ship the MV Abdullah.

 

It was not immediately clear if the Somali pirates were using the hijacked ship MV Ruen to take over the Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship, MV Abdullah.

 

The MV Abdullah was sailing from Mozambique’s capital Maputo to the United Arab Emirates with a cargo of 55,000 tons of coal when Somali pirates attacked and seized it on the evening of March 12, taking 23 of its crew members hostage.

 

Quoting an Indian navy spokesperson, Reuters reported Saturday that the Somali pirates opened fire on the Indian navy ship in international waters Friday.

According to the Reuters report, the navy had called on the pirates to surrender and release the vessel and any civilians they may be holding.

 

Until the Ruen was seized, there had been no successful hijacking of a merchant ship by Somali pirates since 2017.

 

At least 17 incidents of hijacking, attempted hijacking or suspicious approaches have been recorded by the Indian navy since December, Indian officials have said.

 

India deployed at least a dozen warships east of the Red Sea in January to provide security against pirates and has investigated more than 250 vessels.

 

Somalia had for years been blighted by piracy, with the peak being 2011, when the U.N. says more than 160 attacks were recorded off the Somali coast.

 

The incidents have declined drastically since then, largely because of the presence of American and allied navies in international waters.

 

A small number of Somalia’s maritime forces have been recently seen conducting patrols in the waters of the Indian Ocean close to Mogadishu, the country’s capital, as part of an ongoing measure by Mogadishu to rebuild its maritime security presence.

 

In tandem with that effort, Somalia’s executive and legislative branches approved last month a crucial 10-year defense and economic cooperation agreement with Turkey.

 

Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said under the agreement, Turkey will build, train and equip the Somali navy and help to remove “any fears of terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing, toxic dumping and any external violations or threats” to Somalia’s sea coast. Somalia has Africa’s longest coastline.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters. 
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America Is Getting Green for Its Largest St. Patrick’s Day Parades 

Posted on by SeeUS

NEW YORK — St. Patrick’s Day parades across the U.S. are going on Saturday, promising to turn a river green in the Midwest, commemorate a big anniversary in the South and put forth the first female leader of a major beer company as a grand marshal of the New York parade that predates the nation’s founding. 

The holiday commemorates Ireland’s patron saint and was popularized largely by Irish Catholic immigrants. While St. Patrick’s Day falls on March 17, it’s being observed with major parades a day early, so it doesn’t land on Sunday, a day of worship for the Christian faithful. 

Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which dates to 1762, is one of the world’s largest Irish heritage festivities. So many people march the 2.4-kilometer route up Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue that the parade is expected to last more than five hours. 

On Saturday, Heineken CEO Maggie Timoney plans to serve as grand marshal of the Manhattan parade, according to organizers. Originally from Ireland, she is the first female CEO of a major beer company.

New York City has multiple parades on various dates around its five boroughs — including, on Sunday, the first St. Patrick’s Day parade allowing LGBTQ+ groups to march on Staten Island. 

Mayor Eric Adams last month announced the plan for the new, privately organized celebration, arranged after a local organization asked for years to join the borough’s decades-old parade. That longstanding event, which does not allow groups to march under LGBTQ+ banners, happened earlier this month. 

The Manhattan parade began allowing LGBTQ+ groups and symbols in 2015, after decades of protests, legal challenges and boycotts by some politicians. 

The Chicago Plumbers Union once again turned the Chicago River green. Organizers say the tradition, started by the union, uses an environmentally friendly powder once used to check pipes for leaks. 

In Savannah, Georgia, organizers expect a historic crowd to participate in the parade, which started in 1824. Ahead of the bicentennial, Georgia’s oldest city had nearly 18,000 hotel rooms booked for the weekend. 
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Indigenous Australians Cast Ballots in Historic Rights Vote

Posted on by SeeEA

sydney — Voting takes place Saturday for Australia’s first state-based First Nations Voice to Parliament. The body will advise the South Australian government and lawmakers on Indigenous issues.

The state of South Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament will be a representative, elected body for the state’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and made up of members of those groups.

In October, Australians overwhelmingly rejected a national proposal to change the constitution to recognize First Nations people and create a body for them to advise the federal government.

In South Australia, officials have said it would give First Nations communities the chance to have their say at “the highest levels of decision-making … including to Parliament on matters, policies and laws that affect them.”

The state Parliament passed laws last year to set up the advisory body. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said then that it was a powerful show of respect toward Australia’s First Nations people.

Unlike the defeated nationwide proposal, the South Australian Voice to Parliament will not be incorporated into the state constitution and so it could be scrapped by future governments.

South Australia Attorney General Kyam Maher told local media the body will advise the state Parliament on policies affecting First Nations Australians.

“It won’t have the power to vote in Parliament,” Maher said. “It won’t have the power to veto anything. But what it will have the power to do is not just give advice to Parliament but speak within our Parliament.”

Unlike other local, state and federal elections, where voting is compulsory, the South Australian Voice to Parliament ballot is voluntary and open only to about 30,000 registered Aboriginal voters.

Travis Nash, an Aboriginal voter, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he was looking forward to having his views heard by lawmakers in the state capital, Adelaide.

“We are going to be having country people representing country people,” he said. “The people that will be appointed is my neighbor, in a way, instead of going to Adelaide [where] when I talk to people they are in suits and expensive shoes.”

Supporters said the plan would unite Australia and help address disadvantage. First Nations Australians have a lower life expectancy than non-Indigenous people and suffer high rates of poverty, incarceration and unemployment.

Opponents of the national Indigenous Voice to Parliament said the idea was divisive and would create special “classes” of Australian citizens, in which some were more equal than others. The debate in South Australia has been muted because the State Voice does not involve changing the state’s constitution and the vote is only open to registered First Nations people.

First Nations people make up just over 3% of Australia’s population and nearly 2.5% in South Australia, according to official data.

Voters will choose from 113 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates for 46 positions.

Results are expected late this month, after the return of mail-in votes from remote areas.
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Post-pandemic, Young Chinese Seek Studies Abroad, Just Not in US

Posted on by SeeEA

WASHINGTON — In Shanghai, two young women seeking an education abroad have decided against going to the United States, a destination of choice for decades that may be losing its shine.

For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “It doesn’t work for me when you have to spend 2 million [yuan] [$278,000] but find no job upon returning,” she said. Dong is headed to Hong Kong this fall instead.

Costs were not a concern for Yvonne Wong, 24, now studying comparative literature and cultures in a master’s program at the University of Bristol in Britain. For her, the issue was safety.

“Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not banned — that was the primary reason,” Wong said. “Between the U.S. and the U.K., the U.K. is safer, and that’s the biggest consideration for my parents.”

With an interest in studying abroad rebounding after the pandemic, there are signs that the decadeslong run that has sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S., including many of the country’s brightest, could be trending down, as geopolitical shifts redefine U.S.-China relations.

“International education is a bridge”

Cutting people-to-people exchanges could have a lasting impact on relations between the two countries.

“International education is a bridge,” said Fanta Aw, executive director of the NAFSA Association of International Educators, based in Washington. “A long-term bridge, because the students who come today are the engineers of the future. They are the politicians of the future; they are the business entrepreneurs of the future.

“Not seeing that pipeline as strong means that we in the U.S. have to pay attention, because China-U.S. relations are very important.”

Aw said the decrease is more notable in U.S. undergraduate programs, which she attributed to a declining population in China from low birthrates, bitter U.S.-China relations, more regional choices for Chinese families and the high costs of a U.S. education.

But graduate programs have not been spared. Zheng Yi, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, has seen the number of Chinese applicants to one of the school’s engineering programs shrink to single digits, compared with 20 to 30 students before the pandemic.

He said the waning interest could be partly due to China’s growing patriotism that nudges students to attend Chinese institutes instead.

Andrew Chen, chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based WholeRen Education, which has advised Chinese students in the U.S. for the past 14 years, said the downward trend is here to stay.

“This is not a periodic wave,” he said. “This is a new era.” The Chinese government has sidelined English education, hyped gun violence in the U.S., and portrayed the U.S. as a declining power. As a result, Chen said, Chinese families are hesitant to send their children to the U.S.

China’s criticisms of the U.S.

Beijing has criticized the U.S. for its unfriendly policy toward some Chinese students, citing an executive order by former President Donald Trump to keep out Chinese students who have attended schools with strong links to the Chinese military.

The Chinese foreign ministry also has protested that a number of Chinese students have been unfairly interrogated and sent home upon arrival at U.S. airports in recent months. Spokeswoman Mao Ning recently describing the U.S. actions as “selective, discriminatory and politically motivated.”

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said fewer than “one tenth of 1%” of Chinese students have been detained or denied admission.

Another State Department official said Chinese students selected for U.S.-funded exchange programs have been harassed by Chinese state agents. Half of the students have been forced to withdraw, and those who participated in the programs have been faced with harassment after returning to China, the official said, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S.-China Education Trust acknowledged the predicament facing Chinese students. “Students from China have been criticized in the U.S. as potential spies, and in China as too influenced by the West,” the organization said in a report following a survey of Chinese students in the U.S. between 1991 and 2021.

Still, many young Chinese, especially those whose parents were foreign educated, are eager to study abroad. The China-based education service provider New Oriental said the students hope degrees from reputable foreign universities will improve their career prospects in a tough job market at home, where the unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 stood at nearly 15% in December.

But their preferences have shifted from the U.S. to the U.K., according to EIC Education, a Chinese consultancy specializing in international education. The students like the shorter study programs and the quality and affordability of a British education, as well as the feeling of safety.

Wong, the Shanghai student now studying in the U.K., said China’s handling of the pandemic pushed more young people to go abroad. “After three years of tight controls during the pandemic, most people have realized the outside world is different, and they are more willing to leave,” she said.

The State Department issued 86,080 F-1 student visas to Chinese students in the budget year ending in September, up nearly 40% from the year earlier. Still, the number remains below the pre-pandemic level of 105,775.
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Somali Pirates in Shootout With Indian Navy Ship

Posted on by SeeAF

Washington — Authorities in Somalia’s Puntland region said Saturday that Somali pirates who hijacked the cargo ship MV Ruen engaged in a shootout with an Indian navy warship in international waters.

Puntland Ports Minister Ahmed Yasin Salah said the pirates — who allegedly hijacked the Maltese-flagged bulk cargo vessel on December 14 — exchanged gunfire with the Indian navy Friday.

“We received the information regarding the gunfight Friday afternoon,” Salah said. “Once we followed up with our reliable sources, we were told that the Indian navy engaged in a gunfight with the Somali pirates.”

In an interview with VOA Somali Service, Salah said that the pirates on the Ruen have been sailing back and forth across the Somali coast for months and that the Indians intercepted them Friday as they approached another pirate-held ship, the MV Abdullah.

It was not immediately clear if the Somali pirates were using the hijacked ship Ruen to take over the Bangladesh-flagged cargo ship Abdullah.

The Abdullah was sailing from Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, to the United Arab Emirates with a cargo of 55,000 tons of coal when Somali pirates attacked and seized it on the evening of March 12, taking 23 of its crew members hostage.

Quoting an Indian navy spokesperson, Reuters reported Saturday that the Somali pirates opened fire on the Indian navy ship in international waters on Friday.

According to the Reuters report, the navy had called on the pirates to surrender and release the vessel and any civilians they may be holding.

Salah said his administration could not provide details regarding casualties or if the Indian navy warship succeeded in forcing the pirates to surrender.

Until the Ruen was seized, there had been no successful hijacking of a merchant ship by Somali pirates since 2017.

At least 17 incidents of hijacking, attempted hijacking or suspicious approaches have been recorded by the Indian navy since December, Indian officials have said.

India deployed at least a dozen warships east of the Red Sea in January to provide security against pirates and has investigated more than 250 vessels.

Somalia had for years been blighted by piracy, with the peak being 2011, when more than 160 attacks were recorded off the Somali coast, the U.N. says.

The incidents have declined drastically since then, largely because of the presence of American and allied navies in international waters.

A small number of Somalia’s maritime forces have recently been seen conducting patrols in the waters of the Indian Ocean close to Mogadishu, the country’s capital, as part of an ongoing measure by Mogadishu to rebuild its maritime security presence.

In tandem with that effort, Somalia’s executive and legislative branches approved a crucial 10-year defense and economic cooperation agreement with Turkey last month.

Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said under the agreement, Turkey will build, train and equip the Somali navy and help to remove “any fears of terrorism, piracy, illegal fishing, toxic dumping and any external violations or threats” to Somalia’s sea coast.

Somalia has Africa’s longest coastline.
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Germany Calls for More Aid to Gaza as Scholz Heads to Israel

Posted on by SeeEU

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Israel on Saturday to allow humanitarian aid access to Gaza on a larger scale, ahead of a two-day trip to the Middle East. 

Scholz will travel to the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba on Saturday to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Sunday before flying to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

“It is necessary for aid to reach Gaza on a larger scale now. That will be a topic that I also have to talk about,” Scholz told journalists ahead of his trip. 

He also voiced concern about Israel’s planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the Palestinian population of 2.3 million have taken shelter. 

“There is a danger that a comprehensive offensive in Rafah will result in many terrible civilian casualties, which must be strictly prohibited,” he said. 

Germany’s air force said it dropped pallets with 4 tons of relief goods by air into the enclave Saturday. 

“Every package counts. But airdrops are just a drop in the ocean,” the foreign ministry said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ terror attack on October 7, has displaced most of the population and left people in dire need of food and other essentials. 
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Russian Officials Say Ukrainian Shelling Kills 2 in Border City

Posted on by SeeEU

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine, killed two people, Russian officials said Saturday.  

A man and a woman died in the attack and three other people were wounded, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. It was the latest in exchanges of long-range missile and rocket fire in Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

Five people were also wounded when a Ukrainian drone hit a car in the village of Glotovo, some 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Gladkov said. 

Also on Saturday, a Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at an oil refinery belonging to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. He said an attack on another refinery was thwarted. No casualties were reported. 

The attacks come a day after a Russian assault on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed at least 20 people. The ballistic missile attack blasted homes in the southern city Friday, followed by a second missile that targeted first responders who arrived at the scene, officials said.  

Forty people are still in the hospital following the attacks, Odesa regional Governor Oleh Kiper said Saturday. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a “just response” to the attack in a video address Friday evening. 

Saturday’s attacks occurred as Russians entered the second day of voting in a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule by another six years after he crushed dissent. 
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Home Price Key Reason Some Voters Frustrated by US Economy

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — Lori Shelton can’t fathom ever having the money to buy a home — and that’s a major reason why so many voters feel down on the economy ahead of this year’s presidential election.

Shelton, 67, drives an Uber to help pay rent in Aurora, Colorado. An advance on her pay covered her apartment’s security deposit. But it also cut into her next paycheck, leaving her bank account dangerously low when the rent was due — a cycle that never seems to end.

“I’m always one step behind,” said Shelton, her voice choking up. “It’s a nightmare, it’s a freaking nightmare right now.”

The United States is slogging through a housing affordability crisis that was decades in the making. At the root of this problem: America failed to build enough homes for its growing population. The shortage strikes at the heart of the American dream of homeownership — dampening U.S. President Joe Biden’s assurances that the U.S. economy is strong and underscoring the degree to which Republican Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive GOP nominee for 2024, has largely overlooked the shortage.

The lack of housing has caused a record number of renters to devote an excessive amount of income to housing, according to a Harvard University analysis. Not enough homes are for sale or being built, keeping prices elevated. Average mortgage rates have more than doubled and further worsened affordability.

In fact, the Census Bureau reported that homeownership fell slightly at the end of last year in an otherwise solid economy. If it wasn’t for shelter costs, inflation — Biden’s most pronounced economic problem — would be running at a healthy and stable 1.8%. Instead, it’s hovering around 3.2%.

Administration officials are confident that shelter inflation will soon cool, but the damage across several years is apparent to advocates and economists.

“I’ve been doing housing work for 30 years — the housing affordability challenge is the worst I’ve ever seen in my career,” said Shaun Donovan, a former secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama years who now leads the nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners.

Donovan noted that this is an increasingly bipartisan challenge that could bring the political parties together. Expensive housing was once the domain of Democratic areas such as New York City and San Francisco. It’s now moved into Republican states as places such as Boise, Idaho, grapple with higher prices.

“It is a first-tier issue almost everywhere,” he said. “And that is changing the national politics around it in a way that I think is quite different than I’ve ever seen.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that the outcome of the November election could ultimately depend on the path of 30-year mortgage rates.

Rates currently average about 6.74%. If they dropped closer to 6%, the odds of a Biden victory would increase. But rates moving near 8% might enable Trump to prevail, Zandi said.

“Given the current housing affordability crisis, higher rates will make owning a home completely out of reach for nearly all potential first-time homebuyers,” he said. “Since homeownership is a key part of the American dream, if it appears unattainable, this will deeply impact voters’ sense of the economy.”

Biden, a Democrat, acknowledged the pain many are feeling in his State of the Union address earlier this month and in his budget proposal released on Monday.

The president wants to fund the building and preservation of 2 million housing units — a meaningful sum, but not enough to solve the shortage. He also proposed a tax credit worth up to $10,000 to homebuyers. Over the past three years, he has increased rental assistance to 100,000 households.

“The bottom line is we have to build, build, build,” Biden said Monday in a speech to the National League of Cities. “That’s how we bring down housing costs for good.”

Rapidly climbing home prices were also a festering problem under Trump, who first achieved celebrity status as a real estate developer. While president, Trump called for limiting construction in the suburbs. He claimed during the 2020 election that Biden’s policies to spur building and affordability would “destroy your neighborhood.”

During the 2018 to 2020 years of Trump’s presidency, the country’s housing shortage surged 52% to 3.8 million units, according to the mortgage company Freddie Mac.

The Associated Press contacted Trump’s campaign for his policy plans but did not get a response. The America First Policy Institute, a think tank promoting Trump’s vision, said the key is to cut government borrowing to reduce mortgage rates. The former president has pledged to reduce deficits, but an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget shows that his policies in office will have likely added more than $8 trillion to the national debt.

“The best way for us to improve access to homeownership for young people is to get interest rates back down, not to provide subsidies that cause housing unaffordability to worsen,” said Mike Faulkender, chief economist at the institute.

Lower rates might play well with voters, but most economists say they would at best offer temporary financial relief. Purchase prices would likely adjust upward in response to greater demand from falling rates.

Construction, the more enduring solution, would take years to achieve and require new rules by states and cities. The administration is trying to incentivize zoning changes, but the major choices are outside the White House’s control.

“Even as incomes are going up and the economy is doing well and inflation is coming down, people can’t buy homes,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at the brokerage Redfin. “That’s like the biggest problem for Biden because it’s not one that he can solve.”

The general rule of thumb is that people should pay no more than 30% of their income on rent or a mortgage. A typical household looking to buy a home would have to devote 41% of its income to mortgage payments, according to Redfin.

There are far-reaching economic risks because of this. High housing costs can lead people to cut back spending elsewhere. Advocates said it enables landlords to neglect their properties since there is always a ready tenant.

Evictions can worsen health and educational outcomes for children and exact an even wider cost on society, said Zach Neumann, a Denver-based lawyer who provides more than $30 million annually in rental assistance through the nonprofit Community Economic Defense Project.

The cumulative costs of evicting poorer renters are “$20,000 to $30,000 a year when you include shelter nights and emergency room visits,” Neumann said. “It’s really overwhelming when you think about the total numbers and these folks are fighting to have a roof over their heads.”

While there is bipartisan agreement on the need for more housing, there has yet to be a significant plan that has passed the House and Senate. Biden has proposed housing aid throughout his administration that never materialized.

“Had Congress passed some of the investments that the president has called for since the beginning of the administration, had they done that three years ago, as he was advocating, we’d have affordable units coming online right now,” said Daniel Hornung, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council.

But Mark Calabria, who was director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency during the Trump administration, said that many of the federal tools to increase housing such as the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit could further push up demand without adding enough construction.

“My worry would be we’ve done a number of things that increased demand when the problem is supply,” said Calabria, now an adviser with the libertarian Cato Institute.

But for renters such as Lori Shelton in Colorado, the debate about how to add housing supply is cold comfort when she owes rent now. She’s previously dealt with the threat of eviction and late fees. She gets some rent money from her son, but she has also relied at times on her church to cover the $2,399 a month.

“I don’t think the majority of us have that savings account,” she said. “If you spend that much on your rent and your groceries and your car and your bills, you don’t have much for a fallback.”
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Number of Chinese Workers in Africa Drops Substantially

Posted on by SeeAF

Johannesburg, South Africa — The number of Chinese workers across Africa has hit its lowest level in more than a decade, new data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show.

From a record high of 263,696 workers on the continent in 2015, only 88,371 were recorded in 2022, the most recent year on record.

The China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which analyzed data from 2009 to 2022, attributed the drop in numbers partially to the pandemic as Chinese workers left during that period and the country only reopened in early 2023.

But the plummeting numbers are also due to a variety of other factors, experts said, including oil prices and the downscaling of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative, which initially saw thousands of Chinese sent out across the continent to work on large infrastructure projects.

Uptick expected?

“We have no data for 2023, but anecdotally we hear that more postponed projects are resuming. Yet we are unlikely to see the high numbers of the past,” said Deborah Brautigam, director at the China Africa Research Initiative, when asked whether the numbers could have rebounded last year and might continue to do so.

Yunnan Chen, a researcher at ODI Global, a U.K.-based research group, was also bearish.

“It might be that some construction has restarted since 2022, but we know the number of overall Chinese-financed projects has been in decline for a number of years, and the last few years have put a damper on any new project deals. So I wouldn’t expect any dramatic increases in these numbers anytime soon,” she told VOA.

The five countries with the most Chinese workers in 2022 were Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While still leading in the number of workers, Algeria and Angola also saw the biggest drops.

Algeria had more than 91,000 Chinese workers in 2016 while Angola had a peak of 50,000. By 2022, only about 7,000 workers remained in each country.

Brautigam told VOA the huge drops “are explained by the price of oil. They’re both highly reliant on oil exports and they use this oil to pay for nearly all government spending.”

In Angola, after its civil war ended in 2002, the Chinese helped the country rebuild, with the Export-Import Bank of China pledging $2 billion in oil-backed loans. But then global oil prices fell and Angola become mired in debt.

The country’s president, Joao Lourenco, who was first elected in 2017, has sought to diversify the economy and reduce reliance on China, resulting in fewer Chinese projects and workers.

But more Chinese workers may soon be in Angola’s future. During a visit to Beijing on Friday, Lourenco and China’s Xi agreed to upgrade bilateral ties, which will allow for more trade and investment.

Bucking the trend

Not all countries in Africa have seen recent declines in Chinese workers, however, with the DRC, Egypt and Zimbabwe being the most notable outliers.

Egypt had more than 7,000 Chinese working in 2022, compared with around 2,000 pre-pandemic. The DRC had more than 8,000 in 2022, a rise from around 3,000 in 2012. Zimbabwe, meanwhile, has been stable with around 1,000 Chinese workers over the past four years.

“Zimbabwe is especially interesting as there is a big near-completion steel plant and other minerals processing going on,” said Lauren Johnston, an expert on China with the University of Sydney, noting China was becoming less dependent on African oil and was shifting toward green energy and minerals.

Zimbabwe has huge deposits of lithium, one of the critical minerals needed for the move to electric vehicles, and China has invested heavily in the industry there.

“There are large value-added mineral-processing facilities being constructed in Zimbabwe and also power projects which are needed for mining and mineral processing,” Brautigam noted.

The DRC is likewise rich in minerals, particularly cobalt, and in Egypt, the Chinese are building the government a whole new capital outside Cairo.

Local jobs boost?

China has often been criticized for failing to aid job creation in Africa or equip locals with new skills, despite its massive projects. While large numbers of local workers have indeed been employed, it’s often been in the most basic of roles, while more senior jobs have been reserved for Chinese.

“Generally, Chinese projects do hire local laborers,” said Chen.

“Usually at the beginning of projects there is a higher proportion of Chinese engineers and skilled labor, but over time this tends to shift, as more local laborers are hired,” she said, noting however that the majority are in unskilled roles.

Even as China sends fewer of its own people to Africa, hiring Africans for higher-paid, skilled jobs by Chinese companies may not happen immediately, said Brautigam.

“What they need to increase is hiring managers locally,” said Brautigam. “But this will take time and the development of Chinese language skills among local managers.”
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Navalny’s Allies Continue Fight to Undermine Putin’s Grip on Power

Posted on by SeeEU

TALLINN, Estonia — Alexey Navalny’s team is used to working independently. The most potent foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin was frequently absent for long stretches after being arrested, assaulted, poisoned, or imprisoned. 

But when Navalny died suddenly in February at age 47 in a remote Arctic prison, his team was left with a monumental challenge: sustaining an opposition movement against Putin — who is all but certain to be reelected — without the living example of their defiant and charismatic leader. 

After the initial shock wore off, Navalny’s closest allies returned to the work that cost Navalny his freedom and life: undermining Putin’s iron-fisted grip on power. 

A significant test will come Sunday, the last of three days that voters can go to the polls in an election that is widely viewed as more of a formality than an exercise in democracy. 

That’s when Navalny’s team — with the endorsement of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya — is calling for a protest dubbed “Noon Against Putin.” They are asking Russians to flock to polling stations Sunday at noon local time across the country’s 11 time zones to demonstrate their discontent with Putin’s rule and his war against Ukraine. 

“It is a very simple and safe action, it can’t be banned,” Navalnaya said in a video address. “It will help millions of people to see their like-minded allies and to realize that we are not alone, we’re surrounded by people who are also against the war, against corruption and against lawlessness.” 

Navalny’s followers have expressed a wide mix of emotions in the weeks since his death, from renewed inspiration to a sense of defeat. 

Maria Obukhova of Moscow, who paid tribute to Navalny on Wednesday at the Borisovskoye Cemetery, said the crowds she saw at his funeral — which numbered in the thousands — were motivational. 

“It was a huge surprise for me, because it seemed before like everything had died here, that Russia is no longer, that it had died,” said Obukhova, who placed white daisies at Navalny’s gravesite. 

Another Muscovite at the cemetery, a man named Valery who withheld his last name for security reasons, said he had little hope for the future and that after Navalny’s death, “something has really broken” inside of him. 

Just several days after her husband’s death, Navalnaya expressed determination to keep his mission alive. 

In the past month, she has addressed the European Parliament, met with United States President Joe Biden, and urged Western countries not to recognize the results of Russia’s election. She also has called on the West to impose more sanctions on those close to Putin.  

Leading up to the election, Navalny’s team urged supporters to cast their ballots for any candidate other than Putin, or to invalidate them by choosing two or more candidates. They also had dozens of volunteers call ordinary Russians to ask them about their grievances and try to turn them against Putin. 

The phone campaign was announced by Navalny over the summer, and since then “tens of thousands” of calls were made, Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s top strategist, said a video. “We will not stop doing that,” he vowed. 

Volkov also gave a video address shortly after Navalny’s death to rally supporters and perhaps tap into his longtime ally’s spirit of persistence. “It will be a monument to Alexey’s cause if you and I live to see how this regime disintegrates before Putin’s eyes,” he said. 

Still, the Putin opposition’s uphill battle has only gotten steeper with its leaders in exile.  

“(Putin’s) regime pushes people out of the country because it understands very well that the possibilities of influencing political processes in Russia from abroad are minimal,” said Nikolay Petrov, a visiting researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. 

Sunday’s “Noon Against Putin” protest will be a test of how much Navalny’s team can do in Russia from abroad, said Sam Greene, a director at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.  

“One part of what they want to do is to send a message to those who remain in Russia that you’re not alone, that the opposition in exile has their back to a certain extent and will support them,” said Greene. “But then the question is, how do they support them?” 

Efforts are underway to disrupt the protest. Navalny’s team said fake emails have been sent around purporting to be from them telling Putin opponents to show up at the polls at 5 p.m. instead of noon. 

Russia’s independent election watchdog, Golos, reported that officials in at least one region are being instructed to report large gatherings near polling stations to the police.  

On Thursday night, the Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow warned that unauthorized rallies near polling stations “may prevent citizens from freely exercising their voting rights and the work of election commissions,” a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.  

The personal risks for Putin’s opponents remain high. 

On Tuesday, Volkov was attacked near his home in Lithuania. Assailants smashed a window of his car, sprayed tear gas into his face and beat him with a hammer, according to Navalny’s team. 

Volkov was taken to a hospital, and upon release said his arm was broken and his leg was injured so much it was painful to walk. 

He accused “Putin’s henchmen” of the attack and said it was an attempt to intimidate the team ahead of the “Noon Against Putin” protest. 

With Navalny gone, some of his supporters are recalibrating their expectations. 

Valery, one of many people who visited Navalny’s grave in southeastern Moscow in recent weeks, said he is less optimistic about the opposition’s prospects going forward. 

“Even though Yulia, his wife — his widow — has picked up the baton, I’m not sure that it is going to be the same as it was when Alexey was alive,” he said.  
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Q&A: Ukraine’s Prosecutor General: ‘Over 20 Countries’ to Investigate Russian War Crimes

Posted on by SeeEU

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UN Says 5 Million at Risk of Starvation in Sudan

Posted on by SeeAF

United Nations — The United Nations appealed Friday for Sudan’s battling factions to allow delivery of humanitarian relief to fend off looming catastrophic hunger.

About 5 million Sudanese could face calamitous food insecurity in coming months as a nearly yearlong war between rival generals continues to tear the country apart, according to a U.N. document seen Friday by AFP.

The war between army chief Abdel Fattah Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has since April last year killed tens of thousands, destroyed infrastructure and crippled the economy.

It also has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis and acute food shortages, with the country teetering on the brink of famine.

Noting that 18 million Sudanese are facing acute food insecurity — a record during harvest season — U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned in a letter to the Security Council that “almost 5 million people could slip into catastrophic food insecurity in some parts of the country in the coming months.”

He noted that nearly 730,000 Sudanese children, including more than 240,000 in Darfur, are thought to suffer from severe malnutrition.

“Aid organizations require safe, rapid, sustained and unimpeded access, including across conflict lines within Sudan,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. “A massive mobilization of resources from the international community is also critical.”

The U.N.’s World Food Program has warned that the war risks “triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis.”

Jill Lawler, the emergency chief in Sudan for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, said there were enough aid stocks in Port Sudan, but the problem was getting the aid from there to the people in need.

Lawler said that last week that she led the first U.N. mission to reach Khartoum state since war erupted 11 months ago.

They had seen firsthand that “the scale and magnitude of needs for children across the country are simply staggering,” she told reporters in Geneva via video link from New York.

The war “is pushing the country towards a famine” with hunger “the number one concern people expressed.”

Mandeep O’Brien, UNICEF representative in Sudan, said 14 million children needed humanitarian aid and 4 million were displaced.

There was only a “small window left to prevent mass loss of children’s lives and future,” she warned on X, formerly known as Twitter.

World Health Organization regional director Hanan Balkhy, who recently returned from Sudan, underlined the acute needs in Darfur, saying most health facilities had been looted, damaged or destroyed.

Griffiths, the U.N. aid chief, lamented that fighting continued to rage during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan despite a Security Council resolution calling for a cessation of hostilities.

“This is a moment of truth,” he wrote on X. “The parties must silence the guns, protect civilians and ensure humanitarian access.”

The U.N. on Friday called for more financial support for aid operations in Sudan.

U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told reporters in Geneva that the world body had appealed for $2.7 billion to provide aid this year but had received 5% of that amount so far.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence Says He’s Not Endorsing Trump

Posted on by SeeUS

new york — Former Vice President Mike Pence says he will not be backing Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” Pence said Friday in an interview with Fox News, weighing in for the first time since the former president became the presumptive GOP nominee. Pence ran against Trump for their party’s nomination but dropped his bid before voting began last year.

The decision makes Pence the latest in a series of senior Trump administration officials who have declined to endorse their former boss’s bid to return to the Oval Office. While Republican members of Congress and other GOP officials have largely rallied behind Trump, a vocal minority has continued to oppose his bid.

It also marks the end of a metamorphosis for Pence, who had long been seen as one of Trump’s most loyal defenders but broke with his two-time running mate by refusing to go along with Trump’s unconstitutional scheme to try to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

When Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, trying to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s win, Pence was forced to flee to a Senate loading dock as rioters outside chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”

To participate in the Republican primary debates, Pence was required to sign a pledge saying that he would support the party’s eventual nominee. And during the first debate in Milwaukee, Pence was among the candidates who raised their hands when asked whether they would support Trump even if he were convicted in one of his four criminal indictments.

But Pence had made clear he had come to harbor serious reservations about Trump’s actions and his policy stances.

“I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again,” he said during his campaign launch speech.

As the campaign progressed, he raised alarms about the party’s resistance to sending aid to Ukraine and called on his fellow Republicans to reject what he called the “siren song of populism” espoused by Trump and his followers.

Pence declined to say for whom he would be voting — “I’m going to keep my vote to myself,” he said — but made clear it wouldn’t be Biden.

“I would never vote for Joe Biden,” he said. “I’m a Republican.”
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Judge Delays Trump’s Hush-Money Criminal Trial, Citing Late Evidence Dump

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new york — Donald Trump’s New York hush-money criminal trial was delayed Friday until at least mid-April as the judge seeks answers about a last-minute evidence dump that the former president’s lawyers said has hampered their ability to prepare their defense. 

Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day delay starting Friday and scheduled a hearing for March 25 after Trump’s lawyers complained that they only recently started receiving more than 100,000 pages of documents from a previous federal investigation into the matter. 

Merchan said he was holding the hearing to determine whether prosecutors should face sanctions or whether the case should be dismissed, as Trump’s lawyers have requested. 

The trial had been scheduled to start March 25. The delay means the trial would start no earlier than April 15. Prosecutors had said they wouldn’t object to a short delay. 

In a letter Friday, Merchan told Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s defense team that he wanted to assess “who, if anyone, is at fault for the late production of the documents,” whether it hurt either side and whether any sanctions were warranted. 

The judge demanded a timeline of events detailing when the documents were requested and when they were turned over. He also wants all correspondence between the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Trump, and the U.S. attorney’s office, which previously investigated the matter in 2018. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche also declined to comment. 

Merchan’s decision upended what had been on track to be the first of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial. Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has fought to delay all of his criminal cases, arguing that he shouldn’t be forced into a courtroom while he should be on the campaign trail. 

Trump’s lawyers wanted a 90-day delay, which would’ve pushed the start of the trial into the early summer, and asked Merchan to dismiss the case entirely. Prosecutors said they were OK with a 30-day adjournment “in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.” 

The hush-money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s records to hide the true nature of payments to his attorney, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign to suppress her claims of having had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
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China-Russia-Iran Maritime Drills Send Signal to West

Posted on by SeeEU

tel aviv, israel — China conducted joint military drills this week with Russia and Iran in the Gulf of Oman, a critical water conduit near the entry to the Persian Gulf.

The five-day exercise, “Maritime Security Belt 2024,” involved both naval and aviation forces, with the primary objective of enhancing the security of maritime economic activities, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

The drills may have been planned long in advance of the current Israel-Hamas war, but their implication and message to regional players and the West are highly significant, analysts say.

More than 20 ships, combat boats, support carriers and navy helicopters participated in the exercise.

Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) debuted new warships in the exercise, including the Shahid Soleimani corvette.

“That’s a game changer,” Wendell Minnick, an arms specialist and “China in Arms” podcaster,  told VOA.

“Pay close attention to anti-ship missiles on ships,” Minnick said. “The U.S. Navy has a real problem with these types of missiles.”

The IRGC-operated Shahid Soleimani corvette is equipped with long- and short-range anti-ship cruise missiles. It’s the first Iranian warship outfitted with advanced VLS, or Vertical Launching Systems, for firing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.

“This gives the U.S. Navy a nightmare scenario of being saturated by multidirectional vectors of attack that they cannot possibly defeat en masse,” Minnick said. “Like being attacked by bees or ants. Eventually they will get you.”

Rear Admiral Mohammad Nozari, the IRGC commander of Iran’s base at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, told the Mehr News Agency the drill’s chief objectives were consolidating regional security, promoting China-Russia-Iran cooperation, and safeguarding global peace and maritime security.

Analysts say Chinese, Russian and Iranian objectives go far beyond the IRGC top naval commander’s stated claims.

“The Chinese and the Russians are using this exercise as a variety of tools disposable to them to show their presence and to pressure the West,” said Meir Javedanfar, who teaches Iranian security studies at Reichman University, in Herzliya, Israel.

“The Chinese are saying these exercises are normal and have nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East,” Javedanfar said in an interview with VOA.

“Nevertheless, the fact that these exercises are taking place against the background of an unprecedented U.S. and Western naval presence in the Middle East shows that the rivalry between the China-Russia-Iran front against the Western front is now heating up, and the Middle East waters are playing an important part in this rivalry.”

The rivalry takes on heightened significance when weighed against the recent uptick in Chinese participation in regional drills.

In November, China collaborated with Pakistan in “Sea Guardian 3” joint naval exercises in the Arabian Sea. It was the biggest joint People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Pakistani Navy drill to date and included land and sea phases.

China’s warships are stationed at a naval base in Djibouti near the Red Sea waters where Iranian-backed Houthis declaring solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas conflict have since last year repeatedly fired drones and missiles at ships. China has not publicly condemned the attacks.

“If China really wanted the Houthis to stop these attacks against Western shipping, they could pressure the Iranians and the Iranians would listen, but they’re not doing this because they want to pressure Western economies and to show that they have influence in the region,” Javedanfar said.

“The drills play a part in the larger strategy led by China and Russia and Iran,” Javedanfar said.

Sophie Kobzantsev, a Russia analyst and research fellow at the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem, says the Gulf of Oman drill is part strategy, part message.

“From the beginning — the Russia-Ukraine war — Russia’s goal was to create a new world order in which it gets a role or a place as super world power,” Kobzantsev told VOA.

“Part of this concept of the new world order is to partially create a military balance vis-a-vis the West. The drill serves Russia — and Iran and China — in creating the image and the message to the West that there is a counterstrategic military coalition.”

Leading the Russian contingent was the missile cruiser Varyag from its Pacific Fleet, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Naval representatives from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Oman, India and South Africa served as observers during the exercises.

The drills come just a week after NATO’s Nordic Response exercises, the most expansive NATO drills since the Cold War ended in 1991. Nordic Response incorporated military participation of NATO’s newest member states Sweden and Finland.

With an increased U.S. foothold in the Middle East due to its role in mediating the Israel-Gulf States Abraham Accords, pursuing the normalization of Israel-Saudi ties and now mediating between Israel and Hamas, the drill also takes on “countermessage” significance, said Kobzantsev.

The area where the joint drills are taking place is also significant.  An estimated 20% of globally traded oil moves through the narrow Strait of Hormuz passage linking the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Since 2019 the Gulf of Oman has seen a series of ship seizures and attacks that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, although Tehran has denied any involvement.

“We actually see a kind of formation of the world that is reminding us of the Cold War and that there is a new clash between superpowers in this world,” said Kobzantsev. “The West vs. Russia, China and Iran.”

Marine Security Belt 2024 is the fourth joint China-Russia-Iran military exercise since 2019. 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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At UN, Ukraine Protests Russian Presidential Elections on Its Territory

Posted on by SeeEU

united nations — Ukraine, joined Friday by more than 55 countries at the United Nations, condemned Russia’s attempts to organize elections on occupied Ukrainian land, saying they were not valid.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the Russian Federation’s illegitimate attempts to organize Russian presidential elections in temporarily occupied areas within the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine,” the group said in a statement read by Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, flanked by his counterparts.

“Holding elections in another U.N. member state’s territory without its consent is in manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said. “Such elections have no validity under international law.”

Starting Friday and continuing through Sunday, Russians are casting votes in polls that international election observers have dismissed as having no chance of being free or fair and are designed to return President Vladimir Putin to power for another six years.

Ukraine, supported by council member Slovenia, requested that the U.N. Security Council meet Friday to discuss Russia’s holding of the vote in areas of Ukraine that Russian forces have seized and occupied, including Crimea and the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

“You convened an entire Security Council meeting to criticize Russia for Russia’s conduct of democratic elections on territories which administratively, politically and economically are part of our country — like it or not,” Russia Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said.

Ukraine’s envoy dismissed the Russian election as a “travesty” and said residents in the occupied areas have been subject to broad intimidation by local authorities to participate in the “sham” election.

“Among them, threats against life, illegal detention, denial of access to health care and social services, threats of deportation and deprivation of property,” Kyslytsya said. “We should not forget that these actions take place at gunpoint.”

“Let’s call this what this is: It’s a blatant propaganda exercise, undertaken in the hopes of somehow strengthening Russia’s false claim to the parts of Ukraine it illegally invaded,” said U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said as the occupying power, Russia is obligated to uphold Ukrainian laws in the occupied territories. She said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned Russia’s intention to conduct presidential elections in these areas as “unacceptable.”
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China Gives Warnings on Vietnam-Australia Strategic Relationship

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washington — A new, closer diplomatic relationship between Australia and Vietnam is drawing warnings from China against forming “exclusive circles” in the Indo-Pacific region.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at Monday’s daily news briefing, “To advocate bloc confrontation and build exclusive circles goes against the trend of the times and the common aspiration of regional countries.”

Although Wang did not mention Vietnam or Australia by name, he was responding to a question posed by one of China’s official media outlets, Shenzen TV, about an agreement the two nations signed March 7.

Longtime observers of Vietnam’s diplomacy say Beijing’s response to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) reveals its unease with Hanoi’s push to upgrade ties throughout the region. 

In August, Vietnam signed a CSP with the United States, China’s rival.

A CSP is the highest level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy, a relationship Hanoi maintains with China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. A CSP commits partners to cooperation on a wide range of concerns and typically contains a military dimension. 

A joint statement issued March 7 by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasized that the nations share a common vision of a peaceful, stable, independent and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.

It also mentioned a joint commitment to the “settlement of disputes, including those in the South China Sea, by peaceful means without resorting to the threat or use of force, in accordance with international law.” China’s increasingly aggressive claim of sovereignty over those waters has met challenges from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Pham Thu Hang, spokesperson for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Thursday at a news conference, “The upgrade of Vietnam-Australia relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is a natural development step and in line with the level of relationship between the two countries after more than 50 years of establishment and development, for the common interests and aspirations of the people of the two nations and for peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity in the region and the world.”

The Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not respond to VOA’s request for a comment on Wang’s remarks. Instead, the ministry referred to Albanese’s statement from the day the CSP was signed.

“Australia and Vietnam share an ambitious agenda across climate change and sustainability, digital transformation and innovation, defense and security, economics and trade, and education,” he said, adding that the CSP reflects “our cooperation, our strategic trust and shared ambition for our region.”

“China is of course concerned,” said Ha Hoang Hop, an associate senior fellow with Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Research Institute. Speaking on the telephone with VOA Vietnamese from Hanoi on Monday, he said, “China may, in fact, be concerned that Vietnam may move closer to the United States and its allies. But China cannot be offended because Vietnam first aims to create a security balance.”

The CSP “is both beneficial for Vietnam and beneficial for our comprehensive strategic partners, including China. … The establishment of partnerships is not intended to create factions or cause trouble for countries in the region,” said Ha. “Everyone is aware that it only creates a better environment for development cooperation, and more broadly, ensuring peace and prosperity for the Asia-Pacific region.”

The agreement with Australia reflects Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” as its ruling Communist Party tries to navigate rising regional and global tensions. The reference is to the bamboo plant’s qualities of adaptability and resilience. 

Vu Duc Khanh, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who follows Vietnamese politics, told VOA Vietnamese via email on Monday that although he can understand China’s reactions, he believes it is too early for Beijing to be overly concerned by Vietnam’s latest CSP. He pointed to Hanoi’s endorsement in December of China’s “community of common destiny” with objectives of “common development” and “common security.” 

“China’s comments [are] largely in line with its strategy of keeping Vietnam neutral,” said Vu Xuan Khang, a doctoral candidate at Boston College who specializes in international security.

“China does not want Vietnam to join any blocs made up of countries that China sees to be anti-China because Vietnam could then become a springboard for those countries to hurt Chinese interests,” Vu Xuan wrote to VOA via email on Monday.

“Vietnam thus needs to be careful and should not stoke too much Chinese suspicion to avoid unnecessary Chinese retaliations,” he added.

On March 9, the Vietnam News Agency quoted emeritus professor Carl Thayer of the Australian Defense Force Academy, University of New South Wales, as saying that upgrading bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership will create opportunities for more in-depth discussions on various issues between Vietnam and Australia, noting that most Australians support strengthening this relationship, especially in the field of education.

Thayer believes that Australia will prioritize cooperation with Vietnam and promote dialogue, helping both countries to deal with future challenges such as climate change, economic instability, and competition between world and regional superpowers.
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Japanese Bar Urges Tokyo to Halt Park Development

Posted on by SeeEA

TOKYO — The Japanese bar association is urging Tokyo’s metropolitan government to suspend a disputed redevelopment of the city’s beloved park area, saying that its environmental assessment by developers lacked objective and scientific grounds.

The metropolitan government approved the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project in February 2023, based on the environmental assessment submitted by the developers, allowing the start of construction.

The plan involves razing a famous baseball stadium and rebuilding it as part of a vast construction project that critics say would threaten thousands of trees in a city of meager green space.

Hundreds of outside experts, including architects, environmentalists and academics, have demanded the suspension of the project in open letters and petition campaigns.

The developers are the real estate company Mitsui Fudosan, Meiji Jingu shrine, Itochu Corp. and the government-affiliated Japan Sports Council.

In the latest opposition to the project, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations issued a statement Thursday in which the lawyers’ group said the environmental assessment lacks sufficient data and used erroneous research methods.

In one example, the developers’ report failed to mention the status of gingko trees even though a United Nations-affiliated environmental group has detected deterioration in the health of gingko trees in the area, the statement said. Environmentalists have said that high-rise buildings planned as part of the development would come too close to nearby gingko trees.

Also, the Japan branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which has issued a “heritage alert” for Tokyo’s Gaien area, was never invited to environmental assessment meetings, the bar association said.

“We do not consider the report objective or scientific,” the statement said.

It urged the Tokyo metropolitan government to suspend the project, ask the developers to resubmit their environmental assessment and have it reviewed by an investigative panel of experts.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told a news conference Friday that she was unaware of details in the bar association’s statement but defended the metropolitan government’s 2023 approval of the development plans as appropriate.

Although the Tokyo government has never formally suspended the project, the developers have voluntarily delayed portions of it, including the felling of trees, presumably due to the outcry. The main developer, Mitsui Fudosan, has said it is reexamining the project’s effects on nearby gingko trees and is working to improve transparency and communication with the public.

The bar association also noted that a respected group, the International Association for Impact Assessments, urged the Tokyo governor in June 2023 to stop the project, but that the appeal was ignored.
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Europe to Use Frozen Russian Profits to Arm Ukraine, Scholz Says

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BERLIN — Ukraine’s backers will use windfall profits on frozen Russian assets to finance arms purchases for Kyiv, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said following a meeting with his French and Polish counterparts aimed at showing unity after weeks of friction. 

At a joint news conference in Berlin, Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, whose ammunition-starved troops face their toughest battles since the early days of Russia’s invasion two years ago. 

European support has become increasingly key as U.S. President Joe Biden has been unable to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress and much of his foreign policy energy is focused on the war in Gaza. 

Scholz said the leaders had agreed on the need to procure more weapons for Ukraine on the global market and to boost the production of military gear, including through cooperation with partners in Ukraine. 

“We will use windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in Europe to financially support the purchase of weapons for Ukraine,” Scholz said as he listed European Union efforts to increase support for Ukraine. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called last month for the EU to consider using such profits to “jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine.” 

The Commission is expected to make a concrete proposal in the coming days. 

Some EU member countries such as Hungary have signaled reservations about the idea, according to diplomats in Brussels. But Scholz’s comments suggested he is confident that EU countries will ultimately approve the proposal. 

Scholz said the leaders also agreed on the need for the Ukraine Defense Contact group — a U.S.-led group of some 50 countries that provide military support to Ukraine — to set up a coalition to provide long-distance artillery to Kyiv. 

A proposal to set up a long-range missile coalition had already been agreed to in Paris on February 26. It was unclear whether Scholz’s comments referred to this or how Germany, which has opposed sending its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, would participate. 

Defense ministers from the contact group are set to meet early next week at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany. 

Macron reiterated his warning that it was not just Ukrainian but European security at stake. 

“We will do everything as necessary for as long as needed so that Russia cannot win this war,” Macron said. “This determination is steadfast and implies our unity.” 

He added that the three leaders had agreed on the need to reinforce support for Moldova, which says Russia is trying to destabilize it through a “hybrid war.” 

He said the three leaders had agreed to never initiate an escalation with Russia, a possible way to downplay talk of sending Western ground troops to Ukraine, which has irked Germany. 

The meeting of the so-called Weimar triangle — Germany, France and Poland — came after weeks of tensions, in particular between Scholz and Macron, that had alarmed officials in Kyiv and across the continent. 

A hastily arranged summit in Paris last month had aimed to give fresh impetus to stagnating Western efforts to help Ukraine repel a full-scale Russian invasion that has entered its third year. 

Instead, Macron’s refusal to rule out deploying Western troops to Ukraine triggered a dressing down from Scholz. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Reuters that “indecision and uncoordinated action” among Kyiv’s allies was leading to “grave consequences.” 

“Russia starts to get cocky and begins to believe that it can quantitatively squeeze Ukraine,” he said. “Ukraine, in turn, is experiencing a severe shortage of specific resources, primarily shells, and is partially losing the initiative.” 

Tusk said the meeting on Friday showed “that some malicious rumors that there are differences between European capitals are very exaggerated.” 

Tusk, who is seeking to revitalize the Weimar Triangle after eight years of nationalist rule in Warsaw, said Macron and Scholz had accepted his invitation to meet again in early summer to present their next joint plans. 
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EU Plans More Environmental Concessions to Farmers

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BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive arm Friday proposed sacrificing even more climate and environmental measures in the bloc’s latest set of concessions to farmers apparently bent on continuing disruptive tractor protests until the June EU elections.

Angering environmentalists across the 27 nations, the Commission proposed to further loosen rules imposed on agriculture that they said, not so long ago, were inherent parts of the bloc’s strategy to become climate neutral by 2050. That iconic challenge put the EU in the global vanguard of fighting climate change.

“The main goal of these legislative proposals is to further ease the administrative burden for EU farmers and give farmers and Member States greater flexibility for complying with certain environmental conditionalities,” said a statement from Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission.

Under the proposals, the conditions to move farming to become more climate friendly were weakened or cut in areas such as crop rotation, soil cover protection and tillage methods. And small farmers, representing some two-thirds of the workforce and the most active within the continentwide protest movement, will be exempt from some controls and penalties under the new rules.

Politically, the bloc has moved rightward over the past year and the plight of farmers has become a rallying cry for populists and conservatives who claim EU climate and farm policies are little more than bureaucratic bungling from elitist politicians who have lost any feeling for soil and land. The Christian Democratic European People’s Party of von der Leyen had been among the most vocal and powerful in defending the farmers’ cause.

Scientists and environmentalists from around the globe have insisted drastic measures are necessary to keep global warming from getting worse and have pointed out Europe as one of the places with the bleakest prospects.

The Commission’s proposals still need to be endorsed by the member states, but considering previous concessions, they stand a good chance of being accepted quickly, observers said.

Friday’s plans were the EU’s latest concessions in reaction to protests that have affected the daily lives of tens of millions of EU citizens and cost businesses tens of millions of euros due to transportation delays. Others have included shelving legislation on tighter pesticide rules and requirements to let some land lie fallow.

On top of the EU itself, member states have also caved in to several of the demands as the tractor protests shot up the political agenda. Complaints have centered on excessive bureaucracy, intrusive environmental rules and unfair competition from third countries, including Ukraine.

The Commission said that even though more-flexibile measures for farmers were now proposed, the overall EU climate goals remained valid.

“We are the first continent to have made a binding legal commitment to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Not only have we done that,” said Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer, “but we actually fixed a roadmap to 2030 with the legal act to ensure that we are on the right path to meet that objective.”

He insisted Friday’s proposals would not veer from that commitment, even though the fact that “we … adapt from time to time to changing circumstances is obvious.”
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