Month: March 2024

Why Russia Killed UN Panel That Monitors North Korea Sanctions

Posted on by SeeEA

Seoul, South Korea — The future of international efforts to restrain Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program is in question after Russia voted on Thursday to dismantle a body meant to monitor the implementation of United Nations sanctions against North Korea. 

Since its creation in 2009, the so-called “Panel of Experts” has played a key role in attempts to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions against North Korea. Most notably, the eight-member panel produced regular reports outlining alleged violations of U.N. sanctions, keeping the issue in the public eye and prompting follow-up reporting by independent news outlets. 

Though Security Council cooperation on North Korea had already eroded, and North Korea has steadily found ways to evade existing sanctions, the dismantling of the expert panel could remove remaining barriers to North Korea’s weapons program and undermine global non-proliferation efforts. 

How did we get to this point? 

The Security Council first imposed sanctions on North Korea following its initial nuclear test in 2006. It expanded the measures as North Korea ramped up illicit weapons development in subsequent years. 

As permanent, veto-wielding members of the Security Council, Russia and China voted for the North Korea sanctions. But as their respective ties with the United States deteriorate, both countries are calling for sanctions to be eased or lifted, leading to questions about whether the expert panel will survive. 

During recent negotiations, Russia and China pushed to add “sunset” clauses to at least some of the North Korea sanctions, which would allow them to expire after a fixed amount of time if a consensus is not reached on their extension, according to several media reports. 

With those efforts having apparently failed, Russia on Thursday voted against renewing the annual mandate of the expert panel, while China abstained from the vote. Without unanimous support, the panel’s mandate will expire on April 30. 

Why did Russia kill the UN sanctions panel?  

For years, Russia has argued that the North Korea sanctions are outdated and counterproductive. In Moscow’s view, not only did the sanctions fail to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons, they instead created a humanitarian crisis in the country.  

U.S. officials disagree, saying North Korea is to blame for spending vast sums of money on weapons rather than food for its people. 

In recent years, Russia has grown bolder about conducting activities that may explicitly violate U.N. sanctions. Most notably, U.S. officials say Russia has imported at least 10,000 containers filled with North Korean munitions, including ballistic missiles, for use in its war in Ukraine. 

Both Russia and North Korea deny the weapons transfers, despite mounting evidence in the form of commercial satellite photos appearing to show repeated deliveries of North Korean weapons. 

Britain’s Financial Times newspaper this week reported that Russia also started supplying oil directly to North Korea in defiance of U.N. sanctions. In 2017, the Security Council imposed a strict limit on the amount of oil products North Korea can import. 

By effectively killing the panel, Russia may be trying to make it easier to hide its sanctions-violating activities with North Korea, suggested U.S., South Korean and other Western diplomats who made public statements after Russia’s Thursday vote. 

“This is almost comparable to destroying a CCTV (closed circuit television) to avoid being caught red-handed,” said Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations. 

Russia itself has hinted at selfish motives. Asked Friday whether the vote means Russia has changed its policy regarding enforcement of U.N. sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Such a position is more in line with our interests. The talk was about a group of experts. The issue is that we do not agree with the practical aspects of this project.” 

Will this move make it easier for North Korea to evade sanctions?  

Possibly, according to many Western diplomats and analysts. One reason: The effort to gather and disseminate information about sanctions evasion could become more complicated. 

Expert panel reports included “vast amounts of exclusive information from member states … as well as correspondence, photos and data obtained through panel communication with relevant parties,” Chad O’Carroll wrote on NK News, a North Korea-focused website he founded. “In many cases, journalists, private companies and individual governments lack the authority or clout to secure such materials.” 

In the absence of the expert panel, Washington and its allies are vowing to find workarounds. At a briefing Thursday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States will continue to work to secure information about North Korea’s “pursuit of illegal weapons.” 

“And we will continue to work to make that information public and make it available to other members of the Security Council,” Miller added. 

Earlier this week, the United States and South Korea announced the formation of a task force meant to prevent North Korea from obtaining oil in violation of U.N. sanctions, which are imposed indefinitely. 

Trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan and South Korea may also increase, according to Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. 

“And more evidence of sanctions violations could be released to the public since the restraining influence Russia and China had over headline-generating reports will be gone with the U.N. panel of experts,” he added. 

However, it is not clear if those smaller initiatives can replace the pressure created by a unified Security Council. If they cannot, many fear North Korea will more easily find the financial means to accelerate its nuclear buildup — perhaps even emboldening other countries to follow its example. 

Hwang, the South Korean ambassador, said Russia’s vote represents a setback to the international non-proliferation regime. 

“A permanent member of the Security Council and depository of the non-proliferation treaty completely abandoned its responsibility,” he said.
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China Presses Pakistan to ‘Eliminate Security Risks’ to Its Nationals After Deadly Attack

Posted on by SeeEA

ISLAMABAD — China joined a Pakistan probe Friday into the killing of five of its nationals in a suicide car bombing. That attack has led to the suspension of work on a multibillion-dollar Chinese-funded hydropower project. 

Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s office said that he met with a “special investigation team from China” at Beijing’s embassy in Islamabad and “briefed them on the investigation so far” into Tuesday’s deadly attack.  

According to a statement, they also discussed efforts to enhance the security of Chinese nationals in Pakistan during the meeting.  

The deadly violence occurred when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on the 4,320-megawatt Dasu hydropower project in northwestern Pakistan.  

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack that also killed the Pakistani driver of the slain foreigners.  

“The perpetrators of the attack will be held accountable and brought to justice,” Naqvi was quoted as assuring the Chinese investigators and diplomats.  

‘Eliminate security risks’  

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing told a news conference Friday that the head of its “inter-agency” team engaged with senior Pakistani officials immediately upon arrival. 

“He asked the Pakistani side to conduct speedy and thorough investigations into the attack, properly handle ensuing matters, step up security with concrete measures, completely eliminate security risks, and do everything possible to ensure the utmost safety of Chinese personnel, institutions, and projects in Pakistan,” Lin Jian said.  

“The Pakistani side said that investigations and efforts to handle the ensuing matters are fully underway, and they are taking all possible steps to improve security for Chinese personnel, projects, and institutions,” Lin added.  

China has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including road networks, power plants, and a deep-water Arabian Sea port in Gwadar district in southwestern Baluchistan province.  

The estimated $62 billion bilateral collaboration, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, is an extension of Beijing’s global Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure program.  

Chinese and Pakistani officials confirmed Friday that work on the Dasu project had temporarily been suspended but not stopped following Tuesday’s attack. They said work on all other Chinese-funded projects, including CPEC, is still ongoing.  

In mid-2021, a suicide car bombing targeted a bus convoy of Chinese engineers working on the biggest hydropower project in the South Asian nation, killing nine Chinese nationals and three of their local co-workers. No group claimed responsibility for that attack.  

Pakistan has lately experienced a dramatic surge in insurgent attacks, killing hundreds of civilians and security forces, particularly in Baluchistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Dasu is located. 

Over the past week, separatist insurgents stormed a government building in Gwadar and a significant naval aviation base in nearby Turbat. The ensuing gun battles killed around a dozen assailants and left several Pakistani security personnel dead. 

Both attacks were claimed by the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army or BLA, which the United States has listed as a global terrorist organization.  

The BLA and allied insurgent groups in Baluchistan, which is central to CPEC investments, defend their violent campaign, alleging that Pakistan and China are depriving Balochistan of its natural resources, charges both countries reject.
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Swedish Embassy Exhibit Highlights Uses of Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — Artificial Intelligence for good is the subject of a new exhibit at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, showing how Swedish companies and organizations are using AI for a more open society, a healthier world, and a greener planet.

Ambassador Urban Ahlin told an embassy reception that Sweden’s broad collaboration across industry, academia and government makes it a leader in applying AI in public-interest areas, such as clean tech, social sciences, medical research, and greener food supply chains. That includes tracking the mood and health of cows.

Fitbit for cows

It is technology developed by DeLaval, a producer of dairy and farming machinery. The firm’s Market Solution Manager in North America Joaquin Azocar says the small wearable device the size of an earring fits in a cow’s ear and tracks the animal’s movements 24/7, much like a Fitbit.

The ear-mounted tags send out signals to receivers across the farm. DeLaval’s artificial intelligence system analyzes the data and looks for correlations in patterns, trends, and deviations in the animals’ activities, to predict if a cow is sick, in heat, or not eating well.

As a trained veterinarian, Azocar says dairy farmers being alerted sooner to changes in their animals’ behavior means they can provide treatment earlier which translates to less recovery time.

AI helping in childbirth

There are also advances in human health. The developing Pelvic Floor AI project is an AI-based solution to identify high-risk cases of pelvic floor injury and facilitate timely interventions to prevent and limit harm.

It was developed by a team of gynecologists and women’s health care professionals from Sweden’s Sahlgrenska University Hospital to help the nearly 20% of women who experience injury to their pelvic floor during childbirth.

The exhibition “is a great way to showcase the many ways AI is being adapted and used, in medicine and in many other areas,” said exhibition attendee Jesica Lindgren, general counsel for international consulting firm BlueStar Strategies. “It’s important to know how AI is evolving and affecting our everyday life.”

Green solutions using AI

The exhibition includes examples of what AI can do about climate change, including rising sea levels and declining biodiversity.

AirForestry is developing technology “for precise forestry that will select and harvest trees fully autonomously.” The firm says that “harvesting the right trees in the right place could significantly improve overall carbon sequestration and resilience.”

AI & the defense industry

Outlining the development of artificial intelligence for the defense industry, the exhibit admits that “can be controversial.”

“There are exciting possibilities to use AI to solve problems that cannot be solved using traditional algorithms due to their complexity and limitations in computational power,” the exhibit states. “But it requires thorough consideration of how AI should and shouldn’t be utilized. Proactively engaging in AI research is necessary to understand the technology’s capabilities and limitations and help shape its ethical standards.”

AI and privacy

Exhibition participant Quentin Black is an engineer with Axis Communications, an industry leader in video surveillance. He said the project came out of GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation; an EU policy that provides privacy to citizens who are out in public whose image could be picked up on video surveillance cameras.

The regulations surrounding privacy are stricter in Europe than they are in the U.S., Black said.

“In the U.S. the public doesn’t really have an expectation of privacy; there’s cameras everywhere. In Europe, it’s different.” That regulation inspired Axis Communications to develop AI that provides privacy, he explained.

Black pointed to a large monitor divided into four windows, to show how AI is being used to set up four different filters to provide privacy.

The Axis Live Privacy Shield remotely monitors activities both indoors and outdoors while safeguarding privacy in real time. The technology is downloadable and free, to provide privacy to people and/or environments, using a variety of filters.

In the monitor on display in the exhibition, Black explained the four quadrants. The upper right window of the monitor displays privacy with a full color block out of all humans, using AI to distinguish the difference between the people and the environment.

The upper left window provides privacy to the person’s head. The bottom left corner provides pixelization, or a mosaic, of the person’s entire/whole body, and the immediate environment surrounding the person. And the bottom right corner shows blockage of the environment, so “an inverse of the personal privacy,” Black explained.

“So, if it was a top secret facility, or you want to see the people walking up to your door without a view of your neighbor’s house, this is where this can this be applied.”

Tip of the iceberg

“I think that AI is on everybody’s thoughts, and what I appreciate about the House of Sweden’s approach in this exhibition is highlighting a thoughtful, scientific, business-oriented and human-oriented perspective on AI in society today,” said Molly Steenson, President and CEO of the American Swedish Institute.

Though AI and machine learning have been around since the 1950s, she says it is only now that we are seeing “the contemporary upswing and acceleration of AI, especially generative AI in things like large language models.”

“So, while large companies and tech companies might want us to speed up and believe that it is only scary or it is only good, I think it’s a lot more nuanced than that,” she said.
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All Parties to Conflict in CAR Violate Civilians’ Human Rights, Experts Say

Posted on by SeeAF

GENEVA — Human rights experts accuse all parties to the conflict in the Central African Republic of perpetrating serious human rights abuses and violations against the civilian population.

The experts, who held a high-level dialogue at the United Nations Human Rights Council Thursday to assess developments in the CAR, warned that the ongoing violence and instability in the country have adversely affected the human rights of civilians and kept the country mired in poverty.

Nada Al-Nashif, the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights, blamed armed groups for “51% of the abuses and state actors for the remaining 49% of violations.”

She said between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, 2,100 abuses and violations were reported by U.N. peacekeeping forces, known as MINUSCA, affecting 4,676 victims.

Among the victims, she said, were hundreds of women and girls who were “subjected to conflict-related sexual violence.”

“These violations were mainly attributable to armed groups, but also to the military and other security personnel,” she said, adding that the warring parties have committed other serious violations, as well, such as extrajudicial executions, trafficking, forced recruitment and use, and forced marriage.

She said children also are victims of grave human rights violations, “with the recruitment and use of children and abduction and sexual violence being the most frequent. …Armed groups remain the main perpetrators in this regard.”

Al-Nashif pointed out the government has taken some steps to improve the country’s deplorable human rights situation. However, she stressed that was only a first step, saying strengthened measures are urgently needed to eliminate all forms of exploitation and abuse.

Responding to the deputy high commissioner’s remarks, Arnaud Djoubaye Abazene, CAR’s minister of state for justice, explained that his country’s years of experience with recurrent conflict and turbulence have led to “serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law of which women and girls are the main victims.”

He said President Faustin-Archange Touadera was intent on rectifying the situation, noting that the president has placed “the promotion and protection of human rights at the epicenter of his public policy,” with particular emphasis on the rights of women and girls.

He listed and recounted in detail the many new and revised constitutional laws and other legal remedies that have been implemented by his government related to gender-based violence. Some, he said, are aimed at ending discrimination, strengthening the rights of women, protecting women and children from abuse, and seeking justice for crimes against them.

“During the criminal sessions of the Bangui Court of Appeal in 2020 and 2023, several criminal cases of rape were tried, and the perpetrators and accomplices found guilty were severely punished,” he said, adding that “several cases are currently being investigated at the level of the courts.”

Joanne Adamson, deputy special representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations for MINUSCA, praised the government for “the significant progress it has made on human rights,” including the adoption of a national human rights policy, the extension of a plan of action to combat conflict-related sexual violence, and the government’s commitment to combat against impunity for sexual violence linked to conflict.

“However, despite these efforts and the improvements in certain areas, the security situation remains volatile throughout the country and continues to bring challenges in the context of human rights, particularly in remote areas where armed groups remain active,” she said.

“Conflict-related sexual violence remains a reality because of the ongoing gender inequalities and harmful traditional practices,” and that often causes abused women to remain silent.

Adamson said many victims do not seek justice because they “fear reprisals, are ashamed or fear stigmatization and do not speak out.”

She said allowing women to participate more fully in political and public life would help to “consolidate peace, reconciliation and development.”

Deputy High Commissioner Al-Nashif noted that the Central African Republic ranks 188th out of 191 countries in terms of gender equality.

“Gender-based discrimination and exclusion from public and political life remain deeply entrenched,” she said.

“It is regrettable that the revised Electoral Code, adopted by the National Assembly in January 2024, did not include a provision on the implementation of a 35% quota for women in line with the Gender Parity Law of 2016.”

Adamson called on the government to “ensure the political participation of women in all decision-making bodies through effective legal frameworks and policies.”
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Businesswomen Envision a Greener Mozambique

Posted on by SeeAF

Two female entrepreneurs in Mozambique have started businesses that help fight climate change and reduce pollution. Amarilis Gule has this story from the capital, Maputo. Michele Joseph narrates.
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Replacing Collapsed Bridge Could Take Years, Cost at Least $400 Million

Posted on by SeeUS

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND — Rebuilding Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge could take anywhere from 18 months to several years, experts say, while the cost could be at least $400 million — or more than twice that. 

It all depends on factors that are still mostly unknown. They range from the design of the new bridge to how swiftly government officials can navigate the bureaucracy of approving permits and awarding contracts. 

Realistically, the project could take five to seven years, according to Ben Schafer, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University. 

“The lead time on air conditioning equipment right now for a home renovation is like 16 months, right?” Schafer said. “So, it’s like you’re telling me they’re going to build a whole bridge in two years? I want it to be true, but I think empirically it doesn’t feel right to me.” 

Others are more optimistic about the potential timeline: Sameh Badie, an engineering professor at George Washington University, said the project could take as little as 18 months to two years. 

The Key Bridge collapsed Tuesday, killing six members of a crew that was working on the span, after the Dali cargo ship plowed into one its supports. Officials are scrambling to clean up and rebuild after the accident, which has shuttered the city’s busy port and a portion of the Baltimore beltway. 

The disaster is in some ways similar to the deadly collapse of Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was struck by a freighter in Tampa Bay in 1980. The new bridge took five years to build, was 19 months late and ran $20 million over budget when it opened in 1987. 

But experts say it’s better to look to more recent bridge disasters for a sense of how quickly reconstruction may happen. 

Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, cited the case of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota, which collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007. The new span was up in less than 14 months. 

“It’s the best comparison that we have for a project like this,” Tymon said. “They did outstanding work in being able to get the approvals necessary to be able to rebuild that as quickly as possible.” 

Tymon expects various government agencies to work together to push through permits, environmental and otherwise. 

“It doesn’t mean that all of the right boxes won’t get checked — they will,” Tymon said. “It’ll just be done more efficiently because everybody will know that this has to get done as quickly as possible.” 

One looming issue is the source of funding. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the federal government will pay for the new bridge, but that remains to be seen. 

“Hopefully, Congress will be able to come together to provide those resources as soon as possible so that that does not become a source of delay,” Tymon said. 

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota helped to obtain funding quickly to rebuild the I-35W bridge in her state. But she said replacing the Baltimore span could be more complicated. 

She noted that the I-35W bridge, a federal interstate highway, was a much busier road with about 140,000 vehicle crossings a day, compared with about 31,000 for the Maryland bridge. 

“But where there’s a will there’s a way, and you can get the emergency funding,” Klobuchar said. “It’s happened all over the country when disasters hit. And the fact that this is such a major port also makes it deserving of making sure that this all gets taken care of.” 

Badie, of George Washington University, said the cost could be between $500 million and $1 billion, with the largest variable being the design. 

For example, a suspension bridge like San Francisco’s Golden Gate would cost more, while a cable-stayed span, like Florida’s Skyway Sunshine Bridge, which handles weight using cables and towers, would be less expensive. 

Whatever is built, steel is expensive these days and there is a backlog for I-beams, Badie said. Plus, the limited number of construction companies that can tackle such a project are already busy with other jobs. 

“A project like this is going to be expedited, so everything is going to cost a lot more,” Badie said. 

Hota GangaRao, a West Virginia University engineering professor, said the project could cost as little as $400 million. But that’s only if the old bridge’s pier foundations are used; designers may want to locate the new supports farther away from the shipping channels to avoid another collision. 

“That’s going to be more steel, more complicated construction and more checks and balances,” GangaRao said. “It all adds up.” 

Norma Jean Mattei, an emeritus engineering professor at the University of New Orleans, said replacing the Key Bridge likely will take several years. Even if it’s a priority, the process of designing the span, getting permits and hiring contractors takes a lot of time. Then you must build it. 

“It’s quite a process to actually get a bridge of this type into operation,” she said. 
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Louis Gossett Jr, 1st Black Man to Win Supporting Actor Oscar, Dies at 87

Posted on by SeeUS

LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87. 

Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed. 

Gossett’s cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor. 

“Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamour, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It’s about the humanity of the people that he stood for,” his cousin said. 

 

Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” 

He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury. 

“I was hooked — and so was my audience,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir “An Actor and a Gentleman.” 

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16. 

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.” 

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen. 

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera. 

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands. 

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964. 

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people. 

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal. 

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof before letting him go. 

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go. 

“Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in his memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.” 

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned. 

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it was not going to destroy me.” 

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left. 

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist. 

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.” 

In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate’s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson’s associates that night. 

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he wrote. 

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father. 

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos. 

Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role. 

“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his memoir. 

“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.” 

He said his statue was in storage. 

“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he said in the book. “I need to be free of it.” 

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House, “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.” 

But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones. 

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.” 

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu. 

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19. 

He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett. 

Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.
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Growing Number of Americans End Up in Russian Jails — Prospects for Their Release Are Unclear

Posted on by SeeEU

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Poll: Many Americans Say Immigrants Contribute to Economy

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — Americans are more worried about legal immigrants committing crimes in the U.S. than they were a few years ago, a change driven largely by increased concern among Republicans, while Democrats continue to see a broad range of benefits from immigration, a new poll shows.

The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that substantial shares of U.S. adults believe that immigrants contribute to the country’s economic growth and offer important contributions to American culture. But when it comes to legal immigrants, U.S. adults see fewer major benefits than they did in the past, and more major risks.

About 4 in 10 Americans say that when immigrants come to the U.S. legally, it’s a major benefit for American companies to get the expertise of skilled workers in fields like science and technology. A similar share (38%) also say that legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture and values.

Both those figures were down compared with 2017, when 59% of Americans said skilled immigrant workers who enter the country legally were a major benefit, and half said legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture.

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who say that there’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S. has increased, going from 19% in 2017 to 32% in the new poll.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say that immigration is an important issue for them personally, and 41% now say it’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S., up from 20% in 2017. Overall, Republicans are more likely to see major risks — and fewer benefits — from immigrants who enter the country legally and illegally, although they tend to be most concerned about people who come to the country illegally.

Bob Saunders is a 64-year-old independent from Voorhees, New Jersey. He disapproves of President Joe Biden’s performance when it comes to immigration and border security and is particularly worried about the number of immigrants coming to the southern border who are eventually released into the country. He stressed that there’s a difference between legal and illegal immigration. Saunders said it’s important to know the background of the immigrants coming to the U.S. and said legal immigration contributes to the economy. He also noted the immigrants in his own family.

“It’s not anti-immigration,” Saunders said. “It’s anti-illegal immigration.”

Many Republicans, 71%, say there’s a risk of people in the country illegally coming to the U.S. and committing crimes, although many studies have found immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens. Even more, 80%, think there’s a major risk that people in the country without permission will burden public service programs, while about 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned that there’s a major risk of them taking American jobs, that their population growth will weaken American identity or that they will vote illegally — although only a small number of noncitizen voters have been uncovered.

Amber Pierce, a 43-year-old Republican from Milam, Texas, says she understands that a lot of migrants are seeking a better life for their children, but she’s also concerned migrants will become a drain on government services.

“I believe that a lot of them come over here and get free health care and take away from the people who have worked here and are citizens,” Pierce said. “They get a free ride. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to see benefits from immigration, although the poll did find that only half of Democrats now think that legal immigrants are making important contributions to American companies, a decrease of more than 20 percentage points from 2017. But they’re more likely than Republicans to say that the ability of people to come from other places in the world to escape violence or find economic opportunities is extremely or very important to the U.S’s identity as a nation.

“People who are coming, are coming for good reason. It’s how many of us got here,” said Amy Wozniak, a Democrat from Greenwood, Indiana. Wozniak said previous waves of immigrants came from European countries. Now immigrants are coming from different countries but that doesn’t mean they’re not fleeing for justifiable reasons, she said: “They’re not all drugs and thugs.”

There’s also a divide among partisans about the value of diversity, with 83% of Democrats saying that the country’s diverse population makes it at least moderately stronger, compared with 43% of Republicans and Independents. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that a shared American culture and set of values is extremely or very important to the United States’ identity as a nation, although about half of Democrats also see this as important.

U.S. adults — and especially Republicans — are more likely to say that the country has been significantly changed by immigrants in the past five years than they are to say that immigrants have changed their own community or their state. About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say immigrants have had a major impact on their local community while about 6 in 10 say they’ve had a major impact on the country as a whole. The gap between perceptions of community impact and effects on the country as a whole is particularly wide among Republicans.

There is some bipartisan agreement about how immigration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico should be addressed. The most popular option asked about is hiring more Border Patrol agents, which is supported by about 8 in 10 Republicans and about half of Democrats. Hiring more immigration judges and court personnel is also favored among majorities of both parties.

About half of Americans support reducing the number of immigrants who are allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. when they arrive at the border, but there’s a much bigger partisan divide there, with more Republicans than Democrats favoring this strategy. Building a wall — former President Donald Trump’s signature policy goal — is the least popular and most polarizing option of the four asked about. About 4 in 10 favor building a wall, including 77% of Republicans but just 12% of Democrats.

Donna Lyon is a Democratic-leaning independent from Cortland, New York. She believes a border wall would do little to stop migrants. But she supports hiring more Border Patrol agents and more immigration court judges to deal with the growing backlog of immigration court cases: “That would stop all the backup that we have.”

Congress just recently approved money to hire about 2,000 more Border Patrol agents but so far this year, there’s been no significant boost for funding for more immigration judges. Many on both sides of the aisle have said it takes much too long to decide asylum cases, meaning migrants stay in the country for years waiting for a decision, but the parties have failed to find consensus on how to address the issue.

The poll of 1,282 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
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‘Oppenheimer’ Finally Premieres in Japan to Mixed Reactions, High Emotions

Posted on by SeeEA

TOKYO — Oppenheimer finally premiered Friday in the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Japanese filmgoers’ reactions understandably were mixed and highly emotional.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called “the father of the atomic bomb” for leading the Manhattan Project.

“What were the Japanese thinking, carrying out the attack on Pearl Harbor, starting a war they could never hope to win?” he said, sadness in his voice, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He is now chairperson of a group of bomb victims called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization and he saw Oppenheimer at a preview event. “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said.

Oppenheimer does not directly depict what happened on the ground when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, turning some 100,000 people instantly into ashes, and killed thousands more in the days that followed, mostly civilians.

The film instead focuses on Oppenheimer as a person and his internal conflicts.

The film’s release in Japan, more than eight months after it opened in the U.S., had been watched with trepidation because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

Former Hiroshima Mayor Takashi Hiraoka, who spoke at a preview event for the film in the southwestern city, was more critical of what was omitted.

“From Hiroshima’s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted,” he was quoted as saying by Japanese media. “The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.”

Some moviegoers offered praise. One man emerging from a Tokyo theater Friday said the movie was great, stressing that the topic was of great interest to Japanese, although emotionally volatile as well. Another said he got choked up over the film’s scenes depicting Oppenheimer’s inner turmoil. Neither man would give his name to an Associated Press journalist.

In a sign of the historical controversy, a backlash flared last year over the “Barbenheimer” marketing phenomenon that merged pink-and-fun Barbie with seriously intense Oppenheimer. Warner Bros. Japan, which distributed Barbie in the country, apologized after some memes depicted the Mattel doll with atomic blast imagery.

Kazuhiro Maeshima, professor at Sophia University, who specializes in U.S. politics, called the film an expression of “an American conscience.”

Those who expect an anti-war movie may be disappointed. But the telling of Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when justification of nuclear weapons dominated American sentiments, Maeshima said.

“The work shows an America that has changed dramatically,” he said in a telephone interview.

Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story.

Takashi Yamazaki, director of Godzilla Minus One, which won the Oscar for visual effects and is a powerful statement on nuclear catastrophe in its own way, suggested he might be the man for that job.

“I feel there needs to an answer from Japan to Oppenheimer. Someday, I would like to make that movie,” he said in an online dialogue with Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan.

Nolan heartily agreed.

Hiroyuki Shinju, a lawyer, noted Japan and Germany also carried out wartime atrocities, even as the nuclear threat grows around the world. Historians say Japan was also working on nuclear weapons during World War II and would have almost certainly used them against other nations, Shinju said.

“This movie can serve as the starting point for addressing the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as humanity’s, and Japan’s, reflections on nuclear weapons and war,” he wrote in his commentary on Oppenheimer published by the Tokyo Bar Association. 
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China Eyes US-Japan Security Upgrade Plan 

Posted on by SeeEA

washington — Washington and Tokyo are gearing up to unveil plans to restructure the U.S. military command in Japan in what would be the biggest upgrade to their security alliance in decades.

China has already objected, saying it does not want to be a target of the defense plans that Washington and Tokyo are expected to announce at a summit in April.

“China always believes that military cooperation between states should be conducive to regional peace and stability, instead of targeting any third party or harming the interests of a third party,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday via email to VOA.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson pushed back in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday. “The U.S.-Japan alliance has served as the cornerstone of peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and across the world for over seven decades and has never been stronger,” the spokesperson said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Japanese counterpart, Akiba Takeo, met at the White House on Tuesday to discuss “next steps to finalize key deliverables” that President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will announce when they meet April 10 in Washington.

During a news briefing Monday in Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said his country was in discussion with Washington about strengthening the command and control of their militaries to enhance readiness.

The discussion comes as Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral John Aquilino told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on March 20 that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is preparing to invade Taiwan by 2027.

‘Long overdue’

Ralph Cossa, president emeritus and WSD-Handa chair in peace studies at the Pacific Forum, told VOA via email on Wednesday, “The time is long overdue to upgrade the command structure in Japan so that the U.S. and Japanese militaries can operate together more seamlessly” in the region.

The plan to restructure the command is meant to “strengthen operational planning and exercises” between the two and is seen as “a move to counter China,” according to the Financial Times, which first reported about the plan on March 24.

James Schoff, senior director of the U.S.-Japan NEXT Alliance Initiative at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, said, “This is probably the single most important step that the allies can take to enhance deterrence against regional threats and respond to any sort of major crisis.”

“This is especially true at this moment as Japan prepares to stand up its first joint operational command and introduces longer-range counterstrike capabilities,” he said via email to VOA on Wednesday.

Japan plans to set up a joint operations command by March 2025 to improve coordination among its air, ground and maritime Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).

The updated command structure within U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ) is expected to complement Japan’s establishment of its joint operations command.  

Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said, “Although the details are yet to be determined, the plan is to enhance the USFJ’s authority within INDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command].”

He continued via email to VOA on Tuesday that the revised U.S. military command “will also have greater institutional ability to communicate and coordinate with the JSDF.”

Currently, USFJ has limited authority to conduct joint operations with Japan. The commander of USFJ needs to coordinate its operation with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, located in Hawaii.

On Tuesday, Biden nominated Air Force Major General Stephen F. Jost as the new commander of USFJ and promoted him to lieutenant general.

Schoff said that “the existing parallel chain of command would remain” in the U.S. and Japanese militaries rather than “a single allied chain of command for both U.S. and Japanese forces.”

This will be unlike the South Korean-U.S. Combined Forces Command led by a U.S. general during wartime.

James Przystup, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and its Japan chair specializing in alliance management in the Indo-Pacific, said the upgrades in U.S. military command in Japan “would serve to enhance U.S.-Japan defense cooperation and deterrence in Northeast Asia, both with respect to North Korea and China.”

He continued via email to VOA on Wednesday, “As for what this might look like in practice, the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command could be one model, but not necessarily the one [into which it] eventually evolves.” 
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Blinken Heading to Paris, Brussels to Seek Unity on Ukraine, Gaza Wars

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to go to France and Belgium next week to try to build unity among allies in support of Ukraine in its war against Russia and of Israel in its war against Hamas. Analysts say he faces a tough task. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Wagner Mercenaries Helping Mali Army Kill Civilians, Rights Groups Say

Posted on by SeeAF

DAKAR, Senegal — The Russian mercenary group known as Wagner is helping government forces in central and northern Mali carry out raids and drone strikes that have killed scores of civilians, including many children, rights groups said in reports published this week that span the period from December to March. 

Mali, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by Islamic extremist groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance instead. 

Violence has escalated in Mali since Russian mercenaries arrived there following a coup in 2021. Its ruling junta has ramped up operations, carrying out deadly drone strikes that have hit gatherings of civilians, and raids accompanied by Russian mercenaries that have killed civilians. 

Residents of the Sahel region that includes Mali say Russia’s presence does not appear to have changed since Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a suspicious plane crash last year. 

“Mali’s Russia-backed transitional military government is not only committing horrific abuses, but it is working to eliminate scrutiny into its human rights situation,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Thursday. 

In an example of a raid carried out by Russian-backed government forces in January, Human Rights Watch said the army entered a village near a military base in central Mali and arrested 25 people, including four children. Their bodies were found later that day blindfolded and with bullet wounds to the heads, the report said. 

Amnesty International said in a separate report earlier this week that two drone strikes in northern Mali killed at least 13 civilians, including seven children aged 2 to 17. A pregnant woman who was injured in the bombing miscarried days after the attack, it said. 

Human Rights Watch has said the Turkish-supplied drones in Mali are capable of delivering precise laser-guided bombs. The group has also documented how drone strikes have killed civilians. In one example, a drone strike in central Mali’s Segou region killed at least seven people at a wedding, including two boys, it said. The following day, a second drone strike targeted a funeral held for those killed in the previous day’s strike. 

The juntas ruling Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso earlier this month announced a joint security force to fight the worsening extremist violence in their Sahel region. This follows steps taken by the juntas to step away from other regional and Western nations that don’t agree with their approach. 

Although the militaries had promised to end the insurgencies in their territories after deposing their respective elected governments, conflict analysts say the violence has worsened under their regimes. They share borders and their security forces fighting extremist violence are overstretched.
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Stakes Are High for Turkish President, Opposition in Local Elections

Posted on by SeeEU

washington — Millions of Turkish citizens will head to the polls Sunday to elect mayors and local administrators for their cities and districts.

The elections come less than a year after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan secured his term for another five years last May.

“Now we have 2024 ahead of us,” Erdogan said in his victory speech, adding, “Are you ready to win both Uskudar [a district in Istanbul where Erdogan’s personal residence is] and Istanbul in the local elections in 2024?”

Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) aims to win back key cities, including Turkey’s largest, Istanbul, and its capital, Ankara, which it lost to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 2019 through its alliance with the nationalist IYI Party.

Istanbul race

Winning Istanbul and Ankara, two cities that account for a quarter of Turkey’s population, gave the CHP a key position in power for the past five years.

Some analysts observe that the Istanbul race will be one of the main contested races.

“This election largely revolves around Istanbul. In the presidential elections, [opposition alliance candidate] Kemal Kilicdaroglu received more votes than Erdogan in both rounds in Istanbul,” political scientist Ismet Akca told VOA.

Istanbul, with its 15 million population, is symbolically important for political parties. An old saying in Turkish politics – “Whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey” – was used by Erdogan a couple of times. Early in his career Erdogan was the city’s mayor, from 1994 to 1998.

The current Istanbul mayor and CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu was considered one of the possible vice presidents if the opposition alliance had won the May 2023 parliamentary and presidential elections.

However, after Erdogan’s victory in May 2023, the opposition alliance, headed by CHP and IYI, collapsed. The two parties are running their own candidates in the local elections.

Also, new political parties, including the center-right DEVA, the far-right Victory Party and the Islamist New Welfare Party, have emerged over the past five years, and they will compete in the Istanbul race with their own candidates.

In the 2019 election, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP, which is using a new name, DEM Party) did not announce a candidate and supported the opposition alliance’s Imamoglu. However, this year, the DEM Party has campaigned for prominent Kurdish politician Meral Danis Bestas, its candidate for Istanbul.

Erdogan’s AKP selected Murat Kurum, 47, former minister of environment and urbanization, who was one of the leading figures in the government’s response to the February 2023 earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in southeastern Turkey.

Main opposition CHP has Imamoglu, 52, seeking a second term. Already one of the most prominent figures in Turkey’s opposition, he is expected to run for president in 2028 if he wins.

With the lack of a broader alliance and Kurdish votes, Imamoglu is facing a tough race against Kurum, as Erdogan and his Cabinet officials are quite active in his campaign.

Erdogan’s ‘last election’

During a meeting of the Turkish Youth Foundation on March 8, Erdogan, 70, asked for support in the local elections, saying, “This is a final for me; under the mandate given by the law, this is my last election.”

“The eyes of the entire Islamic world are on Turkey. What will happen in Turkey? What result will the AKP get in these elections?” the president continued.

Erdogan came to power in 2002 and served as prime minister until 2014, when he became the first president elected by the public. He was re-elected in June 2018 and May 2023.

The Turkish constitution, which was last amended in 2017, enables the president to serve only two terms of five years. However, according to Article 116, if the parliament decides to repeat the elections during the president’s second term, the president may run for election again.

Erdogan hinted in November 2023 that his party aimed to work on a new constitution. Political scientist Akca thinks Erdogan’s statement was meant to consolidate his party’s voters.

“Erdogan does not want to lose this election to Imamoglu for the second time. The latest elections reveal that the lower classes and young people dissatisfied with the AKP are looking for other options,” Akca told VOA. Many of those voters have shifted allegiance from AKP to the Islamist New Welfare Party.

“The president is trying to overcome this problem with his emphasis on the Islamist cause and his speech with a high emotional tone.”

Gonul Tol, director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, said Erdogan is involved “as if he were the one on the ballot box.”

“So he is intervening in the electoral process so often and attacking the incumbent, CHP Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, almost on a daily basis. It sounds like this is turning into a referendum on Erdogan, which I personally believe is a bad strategy,” Tol said Thursday in a webinar.

Kurdish votes  

Several prominent Kurdish politicians, including Ahmet Turk, Leyla Zana and the imprisoned former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas, have recently named Erdogan as one of the vital actors in the solution to the conflict with the Kurds.

“Our door is closed to terrorists and those who play a political game under the guidance of a terrorist organization,” Erdogan said Wednesday while campaigning in Diyarbakir.

Some analysts think that Erdogan ended the possibility of a peace process.

“Considering Erdogan’s speech, I do not expect anything like a new compromise, negotiation or a meeting between DEM Party and Erdogan,” Reha Ruhavioglu, director of the Diyarbakir-based Kurdish Studies Center, told VOA.

The Turkish government says the DEM Party has links with the PKK, which the United States, European Union and Ankara have designated as a terrorist group. The party denies this allegation.

In 2019, the then-HDP won 65 municipalities, but later, the mayors of at least 48 municipalities were sacked over terror accusations and placed under the control of government-appointed trustees.

This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service. VOA Turkish’s Hilmi Hacaloglu and Mahmut Bozarslan contributed from Istanbul and Diyarbakir.
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At Police Officer’s Wake, Trump Seeks Contrast With Biden on Crime

Posted on by SeeUS

MASSAPEQUA PARK, New York — Donald Trump attended Thursday’s wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty and called for “law and order” as part of his attempt to show a contrast with President Joe Biden and focus on crime as part of his third White House campaign.

The visitation for Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday, was held in suburban Massapequa on Long Island. Police said the 31-year-old Diller was shot below his bulletproof vest while approaching an illegally parked car in Queens.

Diller, who was married and had a 1-year-old son, was rushed to a hospital, where he died.

The visit by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came as Biden was also in New York for a previously scheduled fundraiser with former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump has accused Biden of lacking toughness, and his campaign sought to contrast his visit with Biden’s fundraiser.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, in a post on X, noted Trump’s visit and said, “Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the president has spoken with New York City’s mayor, but she said she didn’t have any “private communications to share” when asked if Biden had spoken to the family of the officer who was killed. Jean-Pierre said the administration’s hearts go out to the officer’s family.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, she said Biden has supported law enforcement throughout his entire career and took a dig at Trump’s record.

“Violent crime surged under the previous administration,” Jean-Pierre said. “The Biden-[Vice President Kamala] Harris administration have done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime.”

After visiting in the funeral home with Diller’s family, Trump spoke outside to news reporters with about a dozen local police officers, half in patrol uniforms, half in tactical gear, forming as a backdrop behind him.

“We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently. This is not working. This is happening too often,” Trump said.

He did not elaborate.

Mixed views on law enforcement

Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, has called for shoplifters to be shot immediately, and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.

He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.

Massapequa and the surrounding South Shore towns have long been a popular destination for city police officers and firefighters looking to set down roots on Long Island. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York, this area is a heavily Republican part of Long Island that Trump won in the 2020 presidential election.

On Thursday, prosecutors in Queens charged Diller’s alleged shooter, Guy Rivera, with first degree murder and other charges. Rivera, who was shot in the back when Diller’s partner returned fire, was arraigned from his hospital bed. Rivera’s lawyers at Legal Aid declined to comment, according to spokesman Redmond Haskins.

Biden has pledged that the federal government will work more closely with police to combat gun violence and crack down on illegal guns.

New FBI statistics released earlier this month showed that overall violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike. The FBI data found murders dropped 13% in the last three months of 2023 compared with the same period the year before, and violent crime overall was down 6%.

The FBI’s report was in line with the findings of the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice, which found that homicides were down an average of 10% from the year before in a survey of 32 cities, though it found violent crime still remained higher than before the coronavirus pandemic in many cities.
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House Republicans Invite Biden to Testify as Impeachment Inquiry Stalls 

Posted on by SeeUS

washington — House Republicans on Thursday invited President Joe Biden to testify before Congress as part of their impeachment inquiry into him and his family’s business affairs. 

Representative James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Democratic president, inviting him to sit for a public hearing to “explain, under oath,” what involvement he had in the Biden family businesses. 

“In light of the yawning gap between your public statements and the evidence assembled by the committee, as well as the White House’s obstruction, it is in the best interest of the American people for you to answer questions from members of Congress directly, and I hereby invite you to do so,” the Kentucky Republican wrote. 

While it is highly unlikely that Biden would agree to appear before lawmakers in such a setting, Comer pointed to previous examples of presidents’ testifying before Congress. 

“As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the subcommittee on criminal justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974,” Comer wrote. 

The invitation comes as the monthslong inquiry into Biden is all but winding down as Republicans face the stark reality that it lacks the political appetite from within the conference to go forward with an actual impeachment. Nonetheless, leaders of the effort, including Comer, are facing growing political pressure to deliver something after months of work investigating the Biden family and its  international business transactions. 

The White House has repeatedly called the inquiry baseless, telling Republicans to “move on” and focus on “real issues” Americans want addressed. 

“This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment,” spokesman Ian Sams said in a social media post last week. “Call it a day, pal.” 

The committee has asserted that the Bidens traded on the family name, an alleged influence-peddling scheme in which Republicans are trying to link a handful of phone calls or dinner meetings between Joe Biden, when he was vice president or out of office, and his son Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business associates. 

But despite dedicating countless resources over the past year, interviewing dozens of witnesses, including Hunter and the president’s brother James, Republicans have yet to produce any evidence that shows Joe Biden was directly involved in or benefited from his family’s businesses while in public office. 

Democrats have remained unified against the inquiry, with Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on Oversight, calling for his GOP counterpart to end the investigation absent any credible evidence. 

“The GOP impeachment inquiry has been a circus,” Oversight Democrats wrote on the social media platform X. “Time to fold up the tent.” 

Seeking testimony from the president could ultimately be the inquiry’s final act.  

Late last year, Republicans leading the investigation had privately discussed holding a vote on articles of impeachment in the new year, but growing criticism from within their party forced a shift in strategy. Now, Comer is eyeing potential criminal referrals of the family to the Justice Department, a move that will be largely symbolic and unlikely to be taken up by the department. 
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Kenyan Health Care Business Brings Low-Cost Ultrasound to Expectant Mothers

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For most pregnant women in the slums of Nairobi, ultrasound services are an unaffordable luxury. Now, a Kenyan health care business is using portable, low-cost ultrasound systems to give expectant mothers a chance to see their babies and detect any health problems before the delivery day. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Videographer: Jimmy Makhulo
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Aborted Space Launch Sees Success on Second Try

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A space launch aborted only to find success days later. Plus, Japan makes a push into private spaceflight, and NASA really wants you to see the solar eclipse — but safety first. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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