Month: April 2024

Ukraine pulls US-provided Abrams tanks from front lines over Russian drone threats

Posted on by SeeEU

WASHINGTON — Ukraine has sidelined U.S.-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now in its fight against Russia, in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, two U.S. military officials told The Associated Press.

The U.S. agreed to send 31 Abrams to Ukraine in January 2023 after an aggressive monthslong campaign by Kyiv arguing that the tanks, which cost about $10 million apiece, were vital to its ability to breach Russian lines.

But the battlefield has changed substantially since then, notably by the ubiquitous use of Russian surveillance drones and hunter-killer drones. Those weapons have made it more difficult for Ukraine to protect the tanks when they are quickly detected and hunted by Russian drones or rounds.

Five of the 31 tanks have already been lost to Russian attacks.

The proliferation of drones on the Ukrainian battlefield means “there isn’t open ground that you can just drive across without fear of detection,” a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide an update on U.S. weapons support for Ukraine before Friday’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.

For now, the tanks have been moved from the front lines, and the U.S. will work with the Ukrainians to reset tactics, said Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady and a third defense official who confirmed the move on the condition of anonymity.

“When you think about the way the fight has evolved, massed armor in an environment where unmanned aerial systems are ubiquitous can be at risk,” Grady told the AP in an interview this week, adding that tanks are still important.

“Now, there is a way to do it,” he said. “We’ll work with our Ukrainian partners, and other partners on the ground, to help them think through how they might use that, in that kind of changed environment now, where everything is seen immediately.”

News of the sidelined tanks comes as the U.S. marks the two-year anniversary of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of about 50 countries that meets monthly to assess Ukraine’s battlefield needs and identify where to find needed ammunition, weapons or maintenance to keep Ukraine’s troops equipped.

Recent aid packages, including the $1 billion military assistance package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday, also reflect a wider reset for Ukrainian forces in the evolving fight.

The U.S. is expected to announce Friday that it also will provide about $6 billion in long-term military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said, adding that it will include much sought after munitions for Patriot air defense systems. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public.

The $1 billion package emphasized counter-drone capabilities, including .50-caliber rounds specifically modified to counter drone systems; additional air defenses and ammunition; and a host of alternative, and cheaper, vehicles, including Humvees, Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles.

The U.S. also confirmed for the first time that it is providing long-range ballistic missiles known as ATACMs, which allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian-occupied areas without having to advance and be further exposed to either drone detection or fortified Russian defenses.

While drones are a significant threat, the Ukrainians also have not adopted tactics that could have made the tanks more effective, one of the U.S. defense officials said.

After announcing it would provide Ukraine the Abrams tanks in January 2023, the U.S. began training Ukrainians at Grafenwoehr Army base in Germany that spring on how to maintain and operate them. They also taught the Ukrainians how to use them in combined arms warfare — where the tanks operate as part of a system of advancing armored forces, coordinating movements with overhead offensive fires, infantry troops and air assets.

As the spring progressed and Ukraine’s highly anticipated counteroffensive stalled, shifting from tank training in Germany to getting Abrams on the battlefield was seen as an imperative to breach fortified Russian lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on his Telegram channel in September that the Abrams had arrived in Ukraine.

Since then, however, Ukraine has only employed them in a limited fashion and has not made combined arms warfare part of its operations, the defense official said.

During its recent withdrawal from Avdiivka, a city in eastern Ukraine that was the focus of intense fighting for months, several tanks were lost to Russian attacks, the official said.

A long delay by Congress in passing new funding for Ukraine meant its forces had to ration ammunition, and in some cases they were only able to shoot back once for every five or more times they were targeted by Russian forces.

In Avdiivka, Ukrainian forces were badly outgunned and fighting back against Russian glide bombs and hunter-killer drones with whatever ammunition they had left.
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Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone launch malaria vaccination programs

Posted on by SeeAF

COTONOU, Benin — Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone launched large-scale malaria vaccine programs on Thursday under an Africa-focused initiative that hopes to save tens of thousands of children’s lives per year across Africa.

The three West African countries are the latest to participate after successful rollouts of routine malaria immunization for children in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the global vaccine alliance GAVI said in a statement.

The World Health Organization-approved vaccine is meant to work alongside existing tools such as bed nets to combat malaria, which in Africa kills nearly half a million children under the age of 5 each year.

“This introduction … will help save lives and offer relief to families, communities and hard-pressed health systems,” said Aurelia Nguyen, GAVI chief program officer.

Benin has 215,900 doses of the vaccine, which will be available to children from around 5 months old, according to GAVI.

Sierra Leone has 550,000 doses and neighboring Liberia has 112,000 doses, it said.

At the official launch in Benin, which took place in the town of Allada, some 54 kilometers from the country’s largest city, Cotonou, 25 children received the vaccine.

“I came to have my children vaccinated against malaria. It’s important to me because when children get this malaria disease, we spend a lot of money,” said Victoire Fagbemi, a 41-year-old mother of four.

Another mother, Victoire Boko, who had her 10-month-old child vaccinated at the launch, said the health minister’s explanations about the vaccine in the local Fon language had allayed any anxieties she had about its safety. “When I get home, I will share the information … with my neighbors and friends,” she said on the sidelines of the launch.

The African region is home to 11 countries that carry approximately 70% of the global burden of malaria, according to GAVI.
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Thailand’s most radical party braces for ban, eyes ‘reincarnation’

Posted on by SeeEA

Bangkok — Thailand’s most popular political party, Move Forward, is facing the familiar threat of dissolution by court order, but senior members say plans are already in place for a swift comeback if they are disbanded, refusing to let their reform movement die.

MFP secured a plurality in Thailand’s May 2023 elections with 14 million votes and 151 seats, ending nine years of military-dominated government.

The party did it with a radical slate of reforms for equitable governance — to cut the military from power, break up an economic monopoly and amend the royal defamation law, known as lèse-majesté, which criminalizes criticism of the powerful monarchy.

Yet the party’s candidate for prime minister, Pita Limjaroenrat, was blocked from forming a government by the appointed Senate of ultraconservatives allied to the generals who seized power in a coup nearly a decade earlier.

Forced into the opposition, MFP has since faced an obstacle course of legal challenges brought by rivals determined to kill its reform agenda.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court is expected within weeks to decide whether the centerpiece of MFP’s agenda — a proposed amendment of lèse-majesté — is tantamount to subversion.

The court dissolved MFP’s previous incarnation, Future Forward, in 2020, triggering vigorous street protests by pro-democracy activists.

A repeat of that ruling potentially sets a precedent for any future review of the law, which carries penalties of up to 15 years in prison and has been cited in the prosecution of at least 260 people in the past four years.

“We’ve seen party dissolution being used as one of the tools against parties that are opposite from the establishment institution of Thailand,” MFP spokesperson Parit Wacharasindhu told VOA.

“It’s not normal for any democratic country to have this kind of party dissolution but … if it were to happen, it highlights why there’s a need for a party like Move Forward Party to exist in Thai politics,” he said.

If banned, MFP will have to rebrand under a new name and work quickly to keep its lawmakers from being poached by the coalition parties led by Pheu Thai — Thailand’s previously dominant electoral force, which now holds the premiership through property tycoon Srettha Thavisin.

It will also most likely have to replace Pita, leader Chaithawat Tulathon and several other front-line figures who could be banned from politics for 10 years if the party is ordered to dissolve.

Parit, 31, is widely tipped to emerge as the next leader with a strong speaking style and connection with the public.

“The party has plans in place for all scenarios,” he said, without confirming any possible future role.

An MFP lawmaker, who also faces a ban from politics as a possible result of the imminent ruling, summed up the limbo of political life in a country where courts routinely eliminate talented new politicians and parties as feeling similar to “knowing your friend is really sick and knowing he can go any day.”

“I’ve put in so much in this political career and it could just be the end of it just like that,” the lawmaker told VOA, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of political reprisals.

MFP is set to present its final argument on May 3, and the head of Thailand’s nine-member constitutional court, Nakarin Mektrairat, has publicly called it “impossible” to prejudge the bench’s decision.

But political observers say the dissolution is a virtually done deal as the establishment seeks to politically suffocate Thailand’s most radical movement of the last two decades.

Powerful royal legacy

Thailand’s monarchy is extremely powerful, and the royal defamation law protects it from criticism, with sentences of up to 15 years per conviction.

Dozens of young pro-democracy activists have been jailed in the last few years under the law.

MFP leaders have been touring the country, saying the mere fact of a looming court decision signals the rot within Thailand’s current political system.

“I’m not sure if those who have the power to dissolve us have asked themselves what they gain by doing it,” Pita said before a party meeting April 6.

“Sure, it may weaken us in the short term, but it may turbocharge us into the next election … whatever the name of the party may be.”

Analysts say banning the party is futile given two factors: millions of young people joining the electorate and the looming term limit of Thailand’s 250-member militarily appointed Senate, which has been instrumental in blocking MFP’s progress.

“It makes no difference,” Prinya Thaewanarumitkul, law professor at Thammasat University, told VOA. “The coalition government will get slightly stronger [without an opposition]. But when it comes to the next election, there will be four million new voters. Without the appointed Senate, it’s highly likely that the MFP’s next version will be the government.”

But MFP’s “next reincarnation” may have to be politically expedient, softening calls for reform of the royal defamation law to reach power, he added.

As MFP awaits its legal fate, party leaders say they are focusing on their work as the opposition, especially challenging the government’s efforts to draft a new constitution to reflect the changing political realities.

Meanwhile, the Pheu Thai-led government is newly confident with billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s late-February release from prison. Thaksin, Pheu Thai’s longtime patron, has toured parts of the country and routinely hosted the great and the good of Thai politics at his Bangkok home, where he is serving out a house-arrest sentence for corruption.

So long as the kingdom’s old political allegiances continue to crumble and MFP’s call for sweeping social, political and economic reforms continue to resonate with a substantial part of Thailand’s electorate, it may mean the country’s progressive movement, whatever its name may be, emerges stronger in the long-term.

“No one is distracted by the legal struggle, no one is less energetic,” Parit told VOA.  “We remain as committed as ever in terms of pushing ahead for change …whether by submitting draft laws to the parliament, contesting local elections or expanding party membership.” 
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China skips red-carpet welcome for Blinken, whose visit prompts cynicism

Posted on by SeeEA

washington — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in China on Wednesday has been met with skepticism, cynicism and suggestions that the absence of a red carpet for the top U.S. diplomat’s arrival was a not-so-subtle message from Beijing.

Blinken kicked off his three-day visit to China in Shanghai with online commenters and analysts noting China had omitted the usual practice of laying out a red carpet for a distinguished visitor.

Posting on X, Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of Chinese state media Global Times, said, “Blinken has arrived in Shanghai, China. Many people noticed when he stepped off the plane that there seemed to be no red carpet on the ground. His China visit should be seen as an ‘imploring’ one, although the U.S. made some tough public opinion preparations in advance.”

Gordon Chang, a distinguished senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute think tank, responded to Hu Xijin’s post, “#China, before #Blinken even stepped off his plane in #Shanghai today, insulted him.”

An X user under the name Lord Bebo, who claims to be anti-mainstream media, posted, “Blinken arrives in China and is met WITHOUT RED CARPET. No band or anything … he’s welcomed like a somebody unimportant.” His post received more than 10,000 likes.

U.S.-China relations have eased since the two sides resumed high-level contacts, but many differences remain.

Before Blinken’s visit, U.S. media reported that the U.S. discussed sanctioning some Chinese banks to counter their support for Russia. Blinken also stated in releasing the State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices that the Uyghurs in Xinjiang are victims of genocide and crimes against humanity.

He arrived in China the same day President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that includes Taiwan military aid and pushes TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest its U.S. operations.

“What an awkward moment for Blinken as he lands in China,” Canadian geopolitics expert Abishur Prakash said. “The U.S. is full-steam ahead on taking on China, led by the bills around TikTok, Taiwan and support nations in the Indo-Pacific against Beijing.”

‘Face-to-face diplomacy matters’

On his day of arrival, Blinken posted a video speech against a backdrop of Shanghai’s iconic buildings, such as the neon-lit Oriental Pearl Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center.

“We just arrived here in Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China to work on issues that matter to the American people,” he said in the video. “One of those is fentanyl, synthetic opioids, the leading killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 49.

“President [Joe] Biden, President Xi [Jinping], when they met in San Francisco at the end of last year, agreed to cooperate to help prevent fentanyl and the ingredients that make it from getting to the United States. We will be working on that.”

Blinken said he would be talking not only to his counterparts in the Chinese government, but also to students, academics, business leaders and “the people who are building bridges and ties between our countries.

“And of course, we will be dealing with areas where we have real differences with China, dealing with them directly, communicating clearly. Face-to-face diplomacy matters,” he said. “It’s important to avoid miscommunications, misperceptions, and to advance the interests of the American people.”

Reaction takes anti-American tone

On Chinese social media, Blinken’s overtures were met with cynicism.

On Weibo, China’s largest social platform, Blinken’s second visit to China had limited coverage, and the discussion was dominated by an anti-American tone.

A Weibo user under the name of Xiao Fan Hao She argued that the United States has not officially listed all fentanyl-like substances on the control list.

“We ask whether the United States believes that it can solve the domestic problems in the United States by shifting the blame externally, shirking responsibility, and smearing China’s image,” she wrote.

A Weibo user under the name of An Hao Xin said, “Coming with him is also the bargaining chip of ‘bank sanctions.’ To be honest, if you want to kick SWIFT out, just do it quickly. Why are you hesitating?”

Another commenter said, “If you dare to overturn the table, then we just aid Russia with weapons and see who suffers.”

Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch and visiting professor at Princeton University, linked the visit to U.S. Middle East policy, saying on X that Blinken “would have an easier time telling the Chinese government not to provide military supplies to Russia as it commits war crimes in Ukraine if the U.S. government were not arming Israel as it commits war crimes in Gaza.”

But Roth also said, “It will be shameful if Blinken is so determined to make nice to Beijing that he doesn’t publicly mention its crimes against humanity targeting Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.”

Jonathan Cheng, the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, said on X, “Unnamed Chinese official to Blinken: ‘Perception is always the first button that must be put right. Whether China and the United States are rivals or partners is a fundamental issue, on which there must not be any catastrophic mistake.’ ”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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‘This is my home’: Life inside Chernobyl’s exclusion zone

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Thirty-eight years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, hundreds of people work to dismantle the long-defunct power plant and control the contaminated exclusion zone, a 30-kilometer area surrounding it. Lesia Bakalets has the story of a man who lived through the tragedy and still works there.
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Congolese woman excels in beekeeping

Posted on by SeeAF

Goma, DR Congo — In the eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of Congo, women entrepreneurs in Goma continue to catch the eye of the business world, thanks to their creativity and resilience. Thirty-year-old Deborah Nzarubara is one of Central Africa’s pioneers of beekeeping, repeatedly recognized worldwide for the quality of her honey and its contribution to environmental preservation.

Armed with courage and the desire to face down the myth that women and bees can’t cohabitate, she’s become a world-renowned beekeeper.

When she was growing up, she says, she loved just looking at bees. People used to tell her that a woman couldn’t be a beekeeper because if she tried to keep the bees, they’d leave. It wasn’t true.

For Nzarubara, the first step in changing the game was to create an association to raise awareness about the environmental value of bee protection, and then build a business around it.

When she saw that she was starting to produce a lot for her association, she says, the idea of setting up a business came to her. Today, with her company, Green Community Mind, or GRECOM, she sells honey and beeswax, transforms honey into ointments and organizes training courses for aspiring beekeepers.

More than 1,500 beekeepers have already been trained by GRECOM, including some 100 women such as Rehema Mapendo, who now feeds her family thanks to beekeeping.

Today, she says, she has at least eight hives from which she harvests honey. Selling it helps her pay school fees and meet other household needs.

Emmanuel Ndimwiza, an environmental expert, points out the vital ecological importance of bees, suggesting that Congolese lawmakers introduce legislation to protect the increasingly endangered species.

He says that bees play a major role in pollination, because without bees, you can’t have fruit. In pollination, bees move from flower to flower, fertilizing plants. Today, if bees were to disappear, as Albert Einstein once said, humanity would only have to wait four years before being definitively destroyed.

In recent years, GRECOM has won numerous continental and worldwide awards for its performance.
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US official announces business partnership with Kenya

Posted on by SeeAF

nairobi, kenya — About 1,300 delegates and 400 companies participated in the fourth American Chamber of Commerce summit in Nairobi, Kenya, where Kenya’s president William Ruto says his country is ready for business — and means business.

“The 2024 summit’s theme — catalyzing the future of U.S. East Africa Trade and Investment intentionally — draws on the previous edition to develop a strategic platform for commercial advocacy, which will strengthen bilateral trade between Kenya and the U.S., as well as between our region and the U.S.,” said Ruto.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo participated in this year’s summit — which ended Thursday — saying it’s not enough to state the intentions of the United States to invest more and collaborate with Kenya.

“You also have to show up and that’s why I am here,” she said. “And when we show up, we also have to listen and learn.”

Raimondo announces US-Kenya partnership

In her first official trip to East Africa, Raimondo reiterated President Joe Biden’s December 2022 message that the U.S. is all-in on Africa. To that end, she said she traveled with 14 members of the President’s Advisory Council on doing business in Africa.

“Africa has changed the narrative and the companies that are here today know that,” said Raimondo. “And they reflect the optimism and the commitment from the U.S. business community about the opportunities in Kenya and across the continent.”

Raimondo also announced a partnership “to harness artificial intelligence, facilitate data flows and empower digital upskilling with Kenya.”

The partnership, she said, is the first of its kind with an African nation to promote the safe development and deployment of AI. In addition, seven private-sector deals on digital transformation and commitments were made involving companies including the NBA, CISCO, Pfizer, and Qualcomm.

Two new grants by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency were announced to expand semiconductor fabrication in Kenya and the construction of a fiber network along the railways.

Rebecca Miano, Kenya’s cabinet secretary with the Ministry of Investments, Trade, and Industry, told participants that Kenya should be a destination for investors and not only because of its young, educated and innovative workforce.

“We also have a green story: decarbonizing the world,” Miano said. “Kenya is a key player.”

Miano said that up to 95 percent of the electricity consumed in Kenya is renewable.

“We have a target to make it 100% in the next few years,” she said.

Summit explores tech, climate, energy

The two-day AmCham summit brought together businesses to stimulate commercial opportunities, said Maxwell Okello, CEO of AmCham Kenya.

This year’s summit focused on key areas such as the tech space, climate action and green energy, said Okello.

“I am sure you’ve walked around and seen the pavilion under the title ‘Digital Transformation Africa,’ which brings together technology ecosystems both Kenyan but American as well,” said Okello. “Secondly, we have shone the light on … matters related to climate action and green business because we know we need to be green as we are moving forward.”

Out of 400 companies at the event, Wandia Gichuru, CEO of Vivo Fashion Group, got a special shout-out from U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman, who said she was wearing a top made by Gichuru’s apparel company.

“We were very excited, not only she was wearing something Vivo, but she also made the announcement that we would be opening our very first U.S. store in Atlanta this May,” said Gichuru. “… and we hope that the ambassador and our president will visit the store while they are in the U.S. for the state visit in May.”

President Ruto is set to visit the United States next month in the first state visit since he was elected.
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Old style dresses help Namibian women look ahead

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Victorian dress was forcibly imposed on Namibia’s indigenous ǂNūkhoe women by German colonizers in the late 1800s. Despite the origins, these styles persist today as a symbol of resilience. Lee Garises reports from Windhoek, Namibia. Camera: Jesaya Abraham
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Bangladesh, Myanmar exchange prisoners amidst Rakhine strife

Posted on by SeeEA

Washington — Bangladesh and Myanmar exchanged hundreds of their citizens from custody over two days this week, following a deal reached between the two countries. Bangladesh repatriated 288 members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police and other security agencies on Thursday, after Myanmar on Wednesday released 173 Bangladeshi nationals, mostly fishermen. 

Officials of the Bangladesh border security agency Border Guard Bangladesh said a Myanmar navy ship, the Chin Dwin, left Cox’s Bazar port early Thursday morning with the Myanmar police and immigration officials on board. The same ship brought the freed 173 Bangladeshi fishermen the previous day. 

The Myanmar security personnel fled the fighting last month in the province of Rakhine between Myanmar’s military and rebel Arakan Army and took shelter in Bangladesh. This was the second such incident of Myanmar border police and officials escaping to Bangladesh in as many months. 

The Myanmar province of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh, has been the site of heavy fighting between the rebels and Yangon’s forces since October. While the Arakan Army is mostly ethnic Rakhine, the Muslim Rohingyas have borne the brunt of the Myanmar military’s actions over the past few decades. Over a million Rohingyas who fled atrocities by the military in 2017 are currently living in makeshift shelters in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district. 

In February, 330 Myanmar police and officials were repatriated but nothing was sought in return. This time, officials said the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry took the initiative to take back their nationals who had either served their prison terms or were still in jail. 

 

Despite the apparent success of the negotiations, analysts in Dhaka see this as a lost opportunity rather than a triumph. Long-term Myanmar watcher and defense analyst Mohammad Emdadul Islam called it an “empty gesture” and said the fishermen would have been released at some point anyway. 

“If Myanmar had taken back 20,000 Rohingyas in return for the repatriation of their officials, then I would’ve seen it as a positive outcome,” said Islam, who served as the head of mission at the Bangladesh Consulate in Sittwe, Rakhine, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

Islam, a retired Army major, negotiated the release of 1,100 Bangladeshi fishermen from Myanmar prisons while serving at the consulate in 2001. He said the fishermen stray into Myanmar waters either because their boats have poor navigation equipment or they take a chance to illegally fish there. 

Myanmar naval forces often intercept them and hand them to the courts, which sentence them to up to 12 years in jail — five for illegal fishing and seven for illegal entry. 

Bangladesh’s decision to promptly repatriate the Myanmar officials has also been the subject of debate among international human rights groups that campaign for the rights of the Rohingya people. 

One such group, Fortify Rights, urged Bangladesh in February to investigate the Myanmar security personnel seeking refuge for potential involvement in atrocities against the Rohingyas. The group’s CEO, Matthew Smith, told Dhaka’s New Age newspaper that while it was important for Bangladesh to provide aid and protection to the fleeing officials, their past actions needed to be questioned. 

“These border guards might have information that could help hold perpetrators accountable for the Rohingya genocide and other crimes unfolding in Myanmar, and they should be properly investigated,” Smith said.

Bangladeshi officials emphasize their desire to keep the border calm and not confront Myanmar. “[The border police] have been given shelter on humanitarian grounds and we are working to ensure their safe return,” Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud told reporters in the southern city of Chattogram on Wednesday.

Analysts agree that Bangladesh does not want to get into a direct conflict with Myanmar, but other factors make an investigation of sheltered officials difficult. 

“The atrocities against the Rohingyas in 2017 were committed by special brigades of the Myanmar army,” Islam told VOA. “These brigades are no longer deployed in the area. Besides, the officials and police who are coming across the border are not part of the regular army. They are mostly border police, intelligence, customs and immigration officials.”

Hasan Mahmud told reporters that what was happening in Rakhine was “Myanmar’s internal affairs,” even though it often spilled across the border in the form of stray artillery shells or fleeing officials. He said the Bangladeshi government, working closely with various countries, especially the United States, China and India, is putting pressure on Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas living in Bangladesh. 

Meanwhile, Islam is concerned about the impact recent developments in Rakhine may have among the Rohingyas in Bangladesh. He said the Myanmar military has, in recent months, started recruiting Rohingyas to fight against the Arakan Army.

“How will the Rohingyas living in Bangladesh react when they see their relatives and friends back home joining the Myanmar army, and how will authorities in Bangladesh tackle the reaction? This could be a big challenge,” Islam said.

In March 2022, the U.S. recognized the atrocities committed against the Rohingya population as a genocide. 

This story originated in VOA’s Bangla Service. 
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US communications regulator restores net neutrality annulled under Trump

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washington — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 on Thursday to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules and reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet rescinded under former President Donald Trump. 

The commission voted along party lines to finalize a proposal first advanced in October to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission’s broadband authority. 

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the agency “believes every consumer deserves internet access that is fast, open, and fair.” 

“The last FCC threw this authority away and decided broadband needed no supervision,” she said. 

Net neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. 

The FCC said it was also using its authority to order the U.S. units of China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile to discontinue broadband internet access services in the United States.  

Rosenworcel noted the FCC has taken similar actions against Chinese telecom companies in the past using existing authority. 

Reinstating the net neutrality rules has been a priority for President Joe Biden, who signed a July 2021 executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate net neutrality rules adopted under Democratic President Barack Obama. 

Democrats were stymied for nearly three years because they did not take majority control of the five-member FCC until October. 

Under Trump, the FCC had argued the net neutrality rules were unnecessary, blocked innovation and resulted in a decline in network investment by internet service providers, a contention disputed by Democrats. 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized the FCC action saying it was “imposing a flawed, pre-television era regulatory structure on broadband” and “will only deter the investments and innovation necessary to connect all Americans.” 

Public interest group Free Press said the vote is a “major victory for the public interest” saying it “empowers the FCC to hold companies like AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum and Verizon accountable for a wide range of harms to internet users across the United States.” 

A group of Republican lawmakers, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Senator Ted Cruz, called the plan “an illegal power grab that would expose the broadband industry to an oppressive regulatory regime” giving the agency and states power to impose rate regulation, unbundle obligations and tax broadband internet providers. 

Democrats on the FCC say they will not set rate regulations. 

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Amazon.com, Apple, Alphabet and Meta Platforms, back net neutrality, arguing the rules “must be reinstated to preserve open access to the internet.” 

USTelecom, whose members include AT&T, Verizon and others, called reinstating net neutrality “entirely counterproductive, unnecessary, and an anti-consumer regulatory distraction.” 

Despite the 2017 decision to withdraw the requirement at the federal level, a dozen states now have net neutrality laws or regulations in place. Industry groups abandoned legal challenges to those state requirements in May 2022. 
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US high court appears skeptical of Trump claim of absolute presidential immunity

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washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday appeared likely to reject former President Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from prosecution over election interference, but it seemed possible Trump could still benefit from a lengthy trial delay, possibly beyond November’s election. 

Chief Justice John Roberts was among at least five members of the court who did not appear to embrace the claim of absolute immunity that would stop special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump on charges he conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. 

But in arguments lasting more than 2-1/2 hours in the court’s first consideration of criminal charges against a former president, Roberts also was among several justices who suggested that the case might have to be sent back to lower courts before any trial could begin. Roberts indicated he was unhappy with the reasoning adopted by the federal appeals court that ruled against Trump. 

The timing of the Supreme Court’s decision could be as important as the outcome. Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has been pushing to delay the trial until after the election, and the later the justices issue their decision, the more likely he is to succeed. 

The active questioning of all nine justices left the strong impression that the court was not headed for the sort of speedy, consensus decision that would allow a trial to begin quickly. 

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, two of Trump’s three high court appointees, suggested that former presidents might have some immunity and that in this case, lower courts might have to sort out whether that applied to Trump. That could further delay a trial. 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the other Trump appointee, seemed less open to arguments advanced by Trump lawyer D. John Sauer. 

Smith’s team is asking for a speedy resolution. The court typically issues its last opinions by the end of June, about four months before the election. 

Trump team’s argument

Trump’s lawyers argue that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Otherwise, they say, politically motivated prosecutions of former occupants of the Oval Office would become routine and presidents couldn’t function as the commander in chief if they had to worry about criminal charges. 

Lower courts have rejected those arguments, including a unanimous three-judge panel of an appeals court in Washington. 

The election interference conspiracy case brought by Smith in Washington is one of four criminal cases confronting Trump. 

Smith’s team says the men who wrote Constitution never intended for presidents to be above the law and that, in any event, the acts Trump is charged with — including participating in a scheme to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by Biden — aren’t in any way part of a president’s official duties. 

Nearly four years ago, all nine justices rejected Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from a district attorney’s subpoena for his financial records. That case played out during Trump’s presidency and involved a criminal investigation, but no charges. 

Justice Clarence Thomas, who would have prevented the enforcement of the subpoena because of Trump’s responsibilities as president, still rejected Trump’s claim of absolute immunity and pointed to the text of the Constitution and how it was understood by the people who ratified it. 

“The text of the Constitution … does not afford the president absolute immunity,” Thomas wrote in 2020. 

The court has several options for deciding the case. The justices could reject Trump’s arguments and unfreeze the case so that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan can resume trial preparations, which she has indicated may last up to three months. 

The court could end Smith’s prosecution by declaring for the first time that former presidents may not be prosecuted for official acts they took while in office. 

It also might spell out when former presidents are shielded for prosecution and either declare that Trump’s alleged conduct easily crossed the line or return the case to Chutkan so that she can decide whether Trump should have to stand trial. 
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Nothing off the table in US response to China overcapacity, Yellen says

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washington — The Biden administration is not taking any options off the table to respond to China’s excess industrial capacity, which is a top concern for the U.S. and its allies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters on Thursday.

China exporting its way to full employment is not acceptable to the rest of the world, Yellen said in a Reuters Next interview in Washington.

Yellen said that during her trip to China earlier this month, she was “successful” in raising U.S. concerns with Chinese officials about Beijing flooding global markets with electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels and other clean energy goods, threatening U.S. jobs. She added that Chinese officials acknowledge a problem with industrial overcapacity, but they need to address it.

She said the issue, which threatens producers of similar goods in the U.S., Europe, Japan and emerging markets such as India and Mexico, was again “discussed intensively” with Chinese officials in Washington on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings last week.

Yellen added that the problem will not be resolved “in a day or a week.”

“So it’s important that China recognize the concern and begin to act to address it,” Yellen said. “But we don’t want our industry wiped out in the meantime, so I wouldn’t want to take anything off the table.”

The Biden administration is completing a review of the “Section 301” unfair trade tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, which U.S. officials have said could lead to higher tariffs on some products. President Joe Biden last week called for the review to triple the Section 301 duties on Chinese steel to 25%.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai also told U.S. senators that the U.S. needed to take “early action, decisive action” to protect the fledgling American EV sector from Chinese imports. U.S. tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports are now about 27.5%, and few Chinese EVs are sold in the U.S. at the moment.

“We have no problem with China producing and selling globally and exporting, but the United States and Europe and other countries also want to have some involvement in the ability to produce clean energy products that are going to be of great importance,” Yellen said.

 
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UN threatens to reduce humanitarian assistance to South Sudan

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Juba, South Sudan — South Sudanese farmers who have relied on United Nations agencies operating in that country now say they are afraid of losing a ready market for their produce should the U.N. follow through on its threat to scale down operations in the world’s youngest nation. This comes after the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom expressed concerns about Juba’s decision to impose taxes on some commodities purchased by the U.N.

The United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan — UNMISS — has already scaled down its security operations in South Sudan.

U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan Nicholas Haysom says Juba’s move to enforce taxes on various services offered by the U.N. in South Sudan will lead to severe consequences, including cuts in aid and other humanitarian support.

“Our concern is that the authorities have blocked our fuel, and we are unable to implement our mandate, including important elements, which affect and support South Sudanese — including the delivery of aid and food to vulnerable communities,” he said.

A joint statement by the United States, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom accused Juba of imposing taxes on a range of approvals and fees, contrary to international practice and to South Sudanese laws. These include the E-Petroleum Accreditation Permit, customs charges, the electronic cargo tracking note, the laboratory test on food rations, and the security escort fee.

The U.N. warns this move has forced them to scale down operations in South Sudan, including security patrols, as a direct response to the action.

“We have reached an agreement that the blocking of these vehicles is unlawful, and that they should be released as soon as possible,” Haysom said.

He warned that the ripple effect will be felt far and wide. So far, more than 60-thousand people are losing access to health services after the U.N. stopped airdrop exercises.

South Sudan relies heavily on the U.N. for humanitarian aid.

Amos Valerio is the chairperson of the Gitikiri farmer cooperative in Western Equatoria state that supports local farmers by connecting them with a ready market. One of their key markets is the World Food Program, which has been buying farm produce from local farmers and then taking this food to millions of South Sudanese in refugee camps across the country.

“The fear we have right now is that if the U.N. withdraws from South Sudan, we will not have any partner again,” Valerio said. “We encourage the government to restore the U.N. to continue helping farmers and to continue with their activities in South Sudan.”

Louise Wilson Mbiro, a farmer from Gitikiri Boma in Western Equatoria state, said she fears losing her biggest buyer of maize seeds.

If the WFP leaves, farmers will not be able to sell the products they have already produced and those they were going to produce, she said, adding that the WFP’s presence and support encouraged farmers to produce more. 

Before the WFP started buying their seeds, Mbiro said life was very difficult, and she could only sell one kilogram of maize at 5,000 South Sudanese pounds, which was not helping at all.

But when WFP came, she said farmers could sell all their products at once, and get money in bulk, which was something that never used to happen. Currently, Mbiro said, she can sell 35 bags, and make 1 million South Sudanese pounds.

Albino Akol Atak, South Sudan’s minister of humanitarian assistance and disaster management, said the government is trying to find a way to remove the taxes on the U.N. 

“We are considering that as the contribution of [the] government of South Sudan to what they [the U.N.] are doing is exempt. Their operations including importation of some humanitarian asserts and any other equipment that are to be used to deliver services to the people of South Sudan.”

Akol Atak said the exemption is part of the government’s contribution to humanitarian assistance to its people. 

But the U.N. says its fuel trucks are still being held up at various depots and the border.

Unless the vehicles are released, Haysom said in a statement, the U.N. will stop most of its activities in South Sudan, including the support for vulnerable communities like refugees.

The U.N. currently plays a leading role in ensuring stability in South Sudan as the country gears up for its first-ever general election in December.
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US growth slowed sharply last quarter to 1.6%, reflecting economy pressured by high rates

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WASHINGTON — The nation’s economy slowed sharply last quarter to a 1.6% annual pace in the face of high interest rates, but consumers — the main driver of economic growth — kept spending at a solid pace.

Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department said the gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — decelerated in the January-March quarter from its brisk 3.4% growth rate in the final three months of 2023.

A surge in imports, which are subtracted from GDP, reduced first-quarter growth by nearly 1 percentage point. Growth was also held back by businesses reducing their inventories. Both those categories tend to fluctuate sharply from quarter to quarter.

By contrast, the core components of the economy still appear sturdy. Along with households, businesses helped drive the economy last quarter with a strong pace of investment.

The import and inventory numbers can be volatile, so “there is still a lot of positive underlying momentum,” said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.

The economy, though, is still creating price pressures, a continuing source of concern for the Federal Reserve. A measure of inflation in Friday’s report accelerated to a 3.4% annual rate from January through March, up from 1.8% in the last three months of 2023 and the biggest increase in a year. Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core inflation rose at a 3.7% rate, up from 2% in fourth-quarter 2023.

From January through March, consumer spending rose at a 2.5% annual rate, a solid pace though down from a rate of more than 3% in each of the previous two quarters. Americans’ spending on services — everything from movie tickets and restaurant meals to airline fares and doctors’ visits — rose 4%, the fastest such pace since mid-2021.

But they cut back spending on goods such as appliances and furniture. Spending on that category fell 0.1%, the first such drop since the summer of 2022.

The state of the U.S. economy has seized Americans’ attention as the election season has intensified. Although inflation has slowed sharply from a peak of 9.1% in 2022, prices remain well above their pre-pandemic levels.

Republican critics of President Joe Biden have sought to pin responsibility for high prices on Biden and use it as a cudgel to derail his re-election bid. And polls show that despite the healthy job market, a near-record-high stock market and the sharp pullback in inflation, many Americans blame Biden for high prices.

Last quarter’s GDP snapped a streak of six straight quarters of at least 2% annual growth. The 1.6% rate of expansion was also the slowest since the economy actually shrank in the first and second quarters of 2022.

The economy’s gradual slowdown reflects, in large part, the much higher borrowing rates for home and auto loans, credit cards and many business loans that have resulted from the 11 interest rate hikes the Fed imposed in its drive to tame inflation.

Even so, the United States has continued to outpace the rest of the world’s advanced economies. The International Monetary Fund has projected that the world’s largest economy will grow 2.7% for all of 2024, up from 2.5% last year and more than double the growth the IMF expects this year for Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Businesses have been pouring money into factories, warehouses and other buildings, encouraged by federal incentives to manufacture computer chips and green technology in the United States. On the other hand, their spending on equipment has been weak. And as imports outpace exports, international trade is also thought to have been a drag on the economy’s first-quarter growth.

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, cautioned last week that the “flipside″ of strong U.S. economic growth was that it was “taking longer than expected” for inflation to reach the Fed’s 2% target, although price pressures have sharply slowed from their mid-2022 peak.

Inflation flared up in the spring of 2021 as the economy rebounded with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, causing severe supply shortages. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made things significantly worse by inflating prices for the energy and grains the world depends on.

The Fed responded by aggressively raising its benchmark rate between March 2022 and July 2023. Despite widespread predictions of a recession, the economy has proved unexpectedly durable. Hiring so far this year is even stronger than it was in 2023. And unemployment has remained below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s.

Inflation, the main source of Americans’ discontent about the economy, has slowed from 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.5%. But progress has stalled lately.

Though the Fed’s policymakers signaled last month that they expect to cut rates three times this year, they have lately signaled that they’re in no hurry to reduce rates in the face of continued inflationary pressure. Now, a majority of Wall Street traders don’t expect them to start until the Fed’s September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
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New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial

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NEW YORK — New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with “egregious” improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.

“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the court’s 4-3 decision said. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”

The state Court of Appeals ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. His accusers could again be forced to relive their traumas on the witness stand.

The court’s majority said “it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them.”

In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote.

Weinstein, 72, has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison following his conviction on charges of criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013.

He will remain imprisoned because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles on charges involving one of the women who testified in New York.

Weinstein’s lawyers argued Judge James Burke’s rulings in favor of the prosecution turned the trial into “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”

The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major #MeToo setback in the last two years, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court decision to throw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.

Weinstein’s conviction stood for more than four years, heralded by activists and advocates as a milestone achievement, but dissected just as quickly by his lawyers and, later, the Court of Appeals when it heard arguments on the matter in February.

Allegations against Weinstein, the once powerful and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” ushered in the #MeToo movement. Dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein, including famous actresses such as Ashley Judd and Uma Thurman. His New York trial drew intense publicity, with protesters chanting “rapist” outside the courthouse.

Weinstein is incarcerated in New York at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany.

He maintains his innocence. He contends any sexual activity was consensual.

Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala argued before the appeals court in February that Burke swayed the trial by allowing three women to testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case and by giving prosecutors permission to confront Weinstein, if he had testified, about his long history of brutish behavior.

Aidala argued the extra testimony went beyond the normally allowable details about motive, opportunity, intent or a common scheme or plan, and essentially put Weinstein on trial for crimes he wasn’t charged with.

Weinstein wanted to testify, but opted not to because Burke’s ruling would’ve meant answering questions about more than two-dozen alleged acts of misbehavior dating back four decades, Aidala said. They included fighting with his movie producer brother, flipping over a table in anger and snapping at waiters and yelling at his assistants.

“We had a defendant who was begging to tell his side of the story. It’s a he said, she said case, and he’s saying ‘that’s not how it happened. Let me tell you how I did it,'” Aidala argued. Instead, the jurors heard evidence of Weinstein’s prior bad behavior that “had nothing to do with truth and veracity. It was all ‘he’s a bad guy.'”

Aidala also took issue with Burke’s refusal to remove a juror who had written a novel involving predatory older men, a topic the defense lawyer argued too closely resembled the issues in Weinstein’s case.

A lawyer for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, argued that the judge’s rulings were proper and that the extra evidence and testimony he allowed was important to provide jurors context about Weinstein’s behavior and the way he interacted with women.

“Defendant’s argument was that they had a consensual and loving relationship both before and after the charged incidents,” Appellate Chief Steven Wu argued, referring to one of the women Weinstein was charged with assaulting. The additional testimony “just rebutted that characterization completely.”

Wu said Weinstein’s acquittal on the most serious charges — two counts of predatory sexual assault and a first-degree rape charge involving actor Annabella Sciorra’s allegations of a mid-1990s rape — showed jurors were paying attention and they were not confused or overwhelmed by the additional testimony.

The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named; Sciorra has spoken publicly about her allegations.

The Court of Appeals agreed last year to take Weinstein’s case after an intermediate appeals court upheld his conviction. Prior to their ruling, judges on the lower appellate court had raised doubts about Burke’s conduct during oral arguments. One observed that Burke had let prosecutors pile on with “incredibly prejudicial testimony” from additional witnesses.

Burke’s term expired at the end of 2022. He was not reappointed and is no longer a judge.

In appealing, Weinstein’s lawyers sought a new trial, but only for the criminal sexual act charge. They argued the rape charge could not be retried because it involves alleged conduct outside the statute of limitations.
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Solomon Islands elections watched closely for international impact

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In the Solomon Islands – officials are counting ballots in key national elections that were held on April 17. It’s the first poll since the strategic Pacific country signed a security pact with China. And who wins may well dictate whether the Solomons continues to draw closer to Beijing or Washington. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. Charley Piringi and Bakhtiyar Zamanov contributed.
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Biden administration aims to clean up power sector with revamped rules

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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday announced it has finalized rules targeting carbon, air and water pollution from power plants that

it says could cut over 1 billion metric tons from carbon emissions by 2047 even as demand for electricity grows.

The Environmental Protection Agency tightened a proposal to slash carbon emissions from existing coal and new gas plants, and updated and finalized long-standing rules to reduce mercury and toxic air pollutants and clean up wastewater and coal ash discharge.

“EPA is cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

Regan had said in 2022 he intended to take on several regulations together to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, and help states, utilities and plant operators make better investment and plant retirement decisions.

The new rules come as electric utilities brace for a spike in demand from data centers powering technology like generative AI, as well as from the growth of electric vehicles.

The United States is projected this year to add more electric generation capacity than it has done in two decades, with 96% being clean energy, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters.

Among the changes the EPA made to the carbon rule is dropping hydrogen as a “best system of emission reduction” for gas plants to achieve new standards.

Now it is just carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) that could be used for the longest-running existing coal units and new gas turbines that run more than 40% of the time. The EPA initially proposed that the standards apply to plants that run more than 50% of the time.

The agency also said coal plants that plan to run past 2039 will be required to install CCS technology starting in 2032 in the final rule. It had initially proposed requiring CCS for plants that will be running past 2040.

The Edison Electric Institute, an investor-owned utility trade group, said it appreciated EPA’s approach of bundling the different pollution rules to ease compliance, but was disappointed the agency didn’t heed its concerns around CCS viability.

“CCS is not yet ready for full-scale, economy-wide deployment, nor is there sufficient time to permit, finance, and build the CCS infrastructure needed for compliance by 2032,” EEI President Dan Brouillette said.

Regan told reporters the agency was confident in the technology, which has been bolstered by Inflation Reduction Act tax incentives, and support from “multiple power companies.”

The agency also said it has launched a process to get feedback on how to reduce carbon emissions from existing gas plants. The EPA removed coverage of existing gas plants from the initial proposal last month and gave no new timeline for developing a rule to cover the current fleet.

The EPA also reduced mercury emissions limits for lignite coal plants by 70% and emissions limits associated with toxic metals by 67%, the first update of that rule since 2012, while also finalizing measures that would eliminate 660 million pounds of pollution per year being discharged into U.S. waterways and protect communities from coal ash contamination.

Environmental groups praised the rules for helping to drive down power sector emissions alongside the IRA, putting the administration closer to its goal of net-zero emissions in the sector by 2035.

“The age of unbridled climate pollution from power plants is over,” said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito, top Republican on the Senate environment committee, said she plans to introduce a resolution aiming to overturn the rules.

“President Biden has inexplicably doubled down on his plans to shut down the backbone of America’s electric grid through unachievable regulatory mandates,” she said.
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