Month: June 2024

Trump ally Bannon must report to prison by July 1 to start contempt sentence, judge says

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Washington — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, must report to prison by July 1 to serve his four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the U.S. Capitol insurrection, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington granted prosecutors’ request to make Bannon begin serving his prison term after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court last month upheld his contempt of Congress conviction. But Nichols also made clear in his ruling that Bannon could seek a stay of his order, which could delay his surrender date.

Outside the courthouse, Bannon told reporters: “I’ve got great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.”

Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, a Republican, had initially allowed Bannon to remain free while he fought his conviction. But the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said all of Bannon’s challenges lack merit.

Bannon was convicted in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and the other for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Bannon’s lawyer at trial argued that the charges were politically motivated and that the former adviser didn’t ignore the subpoena but was still engaged in good-faith negotiations with the congressional committee when he was charged.

The defense has said Bannon had been acting on the advice of his attorney at the time, who told him that the subpoena was invalid because the committee would not allow a Trump lawyer in the room and that Bannon could not determine what documents or testimony he could provide because Trump has asserted executive privilege.

Defense lawyer David Schoen told the judge the defense had planned to ask the full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, if necessary, to review the matter. Schoen said it would be unfair to send Bannon to prison now because he would have already completed his sentence before those rulings could be handed down.

“That might serve a political agenda; but it would be a grave injustice,” Schoen wrote in court papers.

A second Trump aide, trade advisor Peter Navarro, was also convicted of contempt of Congress and reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence.

Navarro had maintained that he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. But courts have rejected that argument, finding Navarro couldn’t prove Trump had actually invoked it.

The House Jan. 6 committee’s final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol, concluding an extraordinary 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent insurrection two years ago.
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SpaceX’s mega rocket completes its fourth test flight from Texas without exploding 

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Boca Chica, Texas — SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket completed its first full test flight Thursday, returning to Earth without exploding after blasting off from Texas. 

The previous three test flights ended in explosions of the rocket and the spacecraft. This time, both managed to splash down in a controlled fashion. 

The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — almost 121 meters tall — was empty as it soared above the Gulf of Mexico and headed east on a flight to the Indian Ocean. 

Minutes after Thursday morning’s liftoff, the first-stage booster separated from the spacecraft and splashed into the gulf precisely as planned, after firing its engines. 

An hour later, live views showed parts of the spacecraft breaking away during the intense heat of reentry, but it remained intact enough to transmit data all the way to its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean. 

“And we have splashdown!” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice announced from Mission Control at company headquarters in California. 

It was a critical milestone in the company’s plan to eventually return Starship’s Super Heavy booster to its launch site for reuse. 

SpaceX came close to avoiding explosion in March, but lost contact with the spacecraft as it careened out of space and blew up short of its goal. The booster also ruptured in flight, a quarter-mile above the gulf. 

Last year’s two test flights ended in explosions shortly after blasting off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The first one cratered the pad at Boca Chica Beach and hurled debris for thousands of feet (meters). 

SpaceX upgraded the software and made some rocket-flyback changes to improve the odds. The Federal Aviation Administration signed off Tuesday on this fourth demo, saying all safety requirements had been met. 

Starship is designed to be fully reusable. That’s why SpaceX wants to control the booster’s entry into the gulf and the spacecraft’s descent into the Indian Ocean — it’s intended as practice for planned future landings. Nothing is being recovered from Thursday’s flight. 

NASA has ordered a pair of Starships for two moon-landing missions by astronauts, on tap for later this decade. Each moon crew will rely on NASA’s own rocket and capsule to leave Earth, but meet up with Starship in lunar orbit for the ride down to the surface. 

SpaceX already is selling tourist trips around the moon. The first private lunar customer, a Japanese tycoon, pulled out of the trip with his entourage last week, citing the oft-delayed schedule. 

SpaceX’s founder and CEO has grander plans: Musk envisions fleets of Starships launching people and the infrastructure necessary to build a city on Mars. 
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Teacher using technology to overcome Pacific Islands education gaps

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According to the National Center for Education Statistics, high school students who identify as Pacific Islanders have one of the highest dropout rates in the United States. But an immigrant teacher in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is aiming to change all that. VOA’s Jessica Stone has her story. Camera: Riya Nathrani
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Trade union says UK’s Rwanda deportation policy makes officials break law

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LONDON — Government officials would be acting unlawfully by implementing Britain’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in breach of an order from Europe’s human rights court, a civil servants’ trade union told London’s High Court on Thursday.

The FDA union is taking legal action against the government over guidance issued to civil servants on how to implement decisions to remove people to Rwanda. It says this would mean its members breaking international law.

The guidance tells officials to obey ministers if they decide to ignore temporary injunctions — known as interim measures — issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is based in Strasbourg.

The FDA’s lawyers say this unlawfully involves civil servants in “a clear violation of international law” in breach of their code of conduct.

“The Strasbourg court has made clear beyond any doubt that interim measures are not optional,” the union’s lawyer Tom Hickman said.

The first planned flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda was blocked in 2022 after the ECHR issued a temporary injunction – a situation Britain’s new law to implement the Rwanda policy seeks to pre-empt by stating that it is for ministers to decide whether to abide by such an order.

Government lawyers argue that the guidance simply follows the new law and that civil servants following ministers’ decisions would be complying with domestic law.

Election is key

The legal challenge comes ahead of a July 4 national election in Britain, in which immigration will again be a major political issue as small boats bearing asylum seekers continue to make the perilous journey across the Channel from France.

Sending asylum seekers who have arrived in Britain without permission to Rwanda is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration policy, but legal and parliamentary obstacles have meant it has never got off the ground.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled the plan was unlawful because of the risk that Rwanda would return asylum seekers to their country of origin. Sunak in response signed a new treaty with the east African country and pushed new legislation through parliament to override the Supreme Court ruling.

But implementation of the policy hinges on Sunak’s Conservatives winning the election.

The first flight is due to leave on July 24 if they do. But the opposition Labour Party, leading by about 20 points in opinion polls, has pledged to scrap the plan if elected.
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Divided ANC debates South Africa’s future government 

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Johannesburg, South Africa — South Africa’s ruling ANC party was holding internal talks on Thursday to decide how to form a government, after it failed to win an outright majority in last week’s general election.  

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress won 40 percent of the vote — its lowest score ever — and for the first time since the advent of democracy in 1994 needs the backing of other parties.   

“What are you doing here?” Ramaphosa quipped to reporters, as he arrived at a hotel on the outskirts of Johannesburg where the ANC’s decision-making body was meeting. “Are you that worried?”  

The party of late anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is divided over who to share power with, analysts say.   

It will have only 159 members in the 400-seat National Assembly, down from 230 in 2019.   

On Wednesday, ANC spokeswoman Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the top leadership favored forming a broad coalition for a government of national unity.  

“We want to bring everybody on board because South Africans want us to work together for their sake,” ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula told reporters on Thursday.   

But observers say this might be hard to pull off given radical differences between some groups that should be part of it.    

“I cannot… see how it can really work,” analyst and author Susan Booysen told AFP.   

“There is just so much bad blood and ill feeling between different political parties.”    

Among them are the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA), which won 87 seats with a liberal, free-market agenda, and the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which secured 39 lawmakers and supports land redistribution and the nationalization of key economic sectors.    

Bhengu-Motsiri said the ANC was in discussions also with the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which will hold 17 seats, and the anti-immigration Patriotic Alliance (PA) that will have nine.   

The ANC also “repeatedly” reached out to former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which won 14.6 percent of the vote and 58 seats, but received no response.   

Zuma, a former ANC chief, has long been bitter about the way he was ousted under a cloud of corruption allegations in 2018.   

The MK, which was only established late last year, has rejected the election results and said it would not back an ANC-led government if Ramaphosa remains at the helm.   

But the president’s party plans to keep him.   

‘Outcry’

Analyst Daniel Silke said the ANC was likely floating the idea of a “broad church” government to appease some members before veering towards a narrower coalition if national unity talks failed.   

Many within the party oppose a deal with the DA, which is favored by investors and the business community but has policies at odds with the ANC’s left-wing traditions.   

Reports suggesting the ANC was considering forming a minority government with external backing from the DA caused a “huge outcry”, said Booysen.     

Outside the hotel where the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) was meeting, a handful of protesters held signs reading “Not in our name. #NotwiththeDA.”    

The South African Communist Party, an historic ally of the ANC, also said it was against any arrangement with “the right-wing, DA-led anti-ANC neo-liberal forces.”   

Together the ANC and the DA hold a comfortable majority in parliament.   

Any agreement with the EFF would instead require the support of at least another party.    

The new parliament is to meet in less than two weeks and one of its first tasks will be to elect a president to form a new government. 
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Negotiator discusses the pathways of gaining release of wrongfully detained Americans

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Costs of World War II, Ukraine war fuse as Allies remember D-Day without Russia

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UTAH BEACH, France — As the sun sets on the D-Day generation, it will rise again Thursday over the Normandy beaches where the waves long ago washed away the blood and boot-steps of its soldiers, but where their exploits that helped end Adolf Hitler’s tyranny are being remembered by the next generations, seeing war again in Europe, in Ukraine.

Ever-dwindling numbers of World War II veterans who have pilgrimaged back to France, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that has dashed hopes that lives and cities wouldn’t again be laid to waste in Europe, are making the always poignant anniversaries of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings even more so 80 years on.

As now-centenarian veterans revisit old memories and fallen comrades buried in Normandy graves, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presence at D-Day commemorations with world leaders — including U.S. President Joe Biden — who are supporting his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion will inevitably fuse together World War II’s awful past with the fraught present on Thursday.

The break of dawn almost eight decades exactly after Allied troops waded ashore under hails of gunfire on five code-named beaches — Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword — will kick off a day of remembrance by Allied nations now standing together again behind Ukraine — and with World War II ally Russia not invited by host France. It cited Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine that has intensified in recent weeks” for the snub.

With the dead and wounded on both sides in Ukraine estimated in the hundreds of thousands, commemorations for the more than 4,400 Allied dead on D-Day and many tens of thousands more, including French civilians, killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy are tinged with concerns that World War II lessons are being lost.

“There are things worth fighting for,” said World War II veteran Walter Stitt, who fought in tanks and turns 100 in July, as he visited Omaha Beach this week. “Although I wish there was another way to do it than to try to kill each other.”

“We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be around for that,” he said.

Conscious of the inevitability that major D-Day anniversaries will soon take place without World War II veterans, huge throngs of aficionados in uniforms and riding vehicles of the time, and tourists soaking up the spectacle, have flooded Normandy for the 80th anniversary.

The fair-like atmosphere fueled by World War II-era jeeps and trucks tearing down hedge-rowed lanes so deadly for Allied troops who fought dug-in German defenders, and of reenactors playing at war on sands where D-Day soldiers fell, leave open the question of what meaning anniversaries will have once the veterans are gone.

But at the 80th, they’re the VIPs of commemorations across the Normandy coast where the largest-ever land, sea and air armada punctured Hitler’s defenses in Western Europe and helped precipitate his downfall 11 months later.

Those who traveled to Normandy include women who were among the millions who built bombers, tanks and other weaponry and played other vital World War II roles that were long overshadowed by the combat exploits of men.

“We weren’t doing it for honors and awards. We were doing it to save our country. And we ended up helping save the world,” said 98-year-old Anna Mae Krier, who worked as a riveter building B-17 and B-29 bombers.

Feted wherever they go in wheelchairs and walking with canes, veterans are using their voices to repeat their message they hope will live eternal: Never forget.

“To know the amount of people who were killed here, just amazing,” 98-year-old Allan Chatwin, who served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, said as he visited Omaha, the deadliest of the Allied beaches on D-Day.

He quickly added: “I don’t know that amazing is the word.”
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Novo Nordisk braces for generic challenge to Ozempic, Wegovy in China

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SHANGHAI, China — Novo Nordisk is facing the prospect of intensifying competition in the promising Chinese market, where drugmakers are developing at least 15 generic versions of its diabetes drug Ozempic and weight loss treatment Wegovy, clinical trial records showed.

The Danish drugmaker has high hopes that demand for its blockbuster drugs will surge in China, which is estimated to have the world’s highest number of people who are overweight or obese.

Ozempic won approval from China in 2021, and Novo Nordisk saw sales of the drug in the greater China region double to $698 million last year. It is expecting Wegovy to be approved this year.

But the patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in China in 2026. Novo is also in the midst of a legal fight in the country over the patent.

An adverse court ruling could make it lose its semaglutide exclusivity even sooner and turn China into the first major market where Novo is stripped of patent protection for the drugs.

Those circumstances have drawn several Chinese drugmakers to the fray. At least 11 semaglutide drug candidates from Chinese firms are in the final stages of clinical trials, according to records in a clinical trial database reviewed by Reuters.

“Ozempic has witnessed unprecedented success in mainland China … and with patent expiry so close, Chinese drugmakers are looking to capitalize (on) this segment as soon as possible,” said Karan Verma, a health care research and data analyst at information services provider Clarivate.

Front-runner Hangzhou Jiuyuan Gene Engineering has already developed one treatment that it says has “similar clinical efficacy and safety” as Ozempic and applied for approval for sale in April. The company has not published efficacy data and did not respond to a request for information.

The company said in January that it expected approval in the second half of 2025, but it cautioned that it would not be able to commercialize the drug before Novo’s patent expires in 2026, unless a Chinese court makes a final ruling that the patent is invalid.

The Danish company’s semaglutide patent is expiring in China far ahead of its expiry in key markets such as Japan, Europe and the U.S. Analysts attribute variations in patent expiry timelines to term extensions Novo has won in specific regions.

Even more pressing for Novo is the China patent office’s 2022 ruling that the patent is invalid for reasons related to experimental data availability, which the company has challenged.

China’s top court said it was not able to say when verdicts are likely ready.

A Novo spokesperson said it “welcomes healthy competition” and was awaiting a court decision on its patent case. The spokesperson did not answer follow-up queries on the matter.

Other Chinese drugmakers who are running the final stages of clinical trials for Ozempic generics include United Laboratories, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, Huadong Medicine and a subsidiary of Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group.

CSPC said in May it expected approval for its semaglutide diabetes drug in 2026.

Brokerage Jefferies estimated in an October report that semaglutide drugs from United Laboratories will be launched for diabetes in 2025 and obesity in 2027. United Laboratories did not respond to a request for comment.

Impact on prices

The number of adults who are overweight or obese in China is projected to reach 540 million and 150 million, respectively, in 2030, up 2.8 and 7.5 times from 2000 levels, according to a 2020 study by Chinese public health researchers.

If shown to be as safe and effective as Novo’s, Chinese drugmakers’ products will increase competition and bring down prices, analysts say.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in an August report that generics could lead to a price reduction of around 25% for semaglutide in China. The weekly Ozempic injection costs around $100 for each 3mL dose through China’s public hospital network, Clarivate’s Verma said.

Novo acknowledges the intensifying competition.

“In 2026 and 2027 we might see a few more players showing up due to the clinical trials” in progress, Maziar Mike Doustdar, a Novo executive vice president, told investors in March, referring to the China market.

But he also questioned the capability of some of the players to provide meaningful volumes, adding, “We will watch it as we get closer.”

Novo also faces competition from internationally well-known firms, including Eli Lilly, whose diabetes drug Mounjaro received approval from China in May. HSBC analysts expect China’s approval this year or in the first half of 2025 for Lilly’s weight loss drug with the same active ingredient.

Eli Lilly did not reply to a request for a comment on Chinese approval of the drug, which in the U.S. is called Zepbound.

Supplies of both Wegovy and Zepbound remain constrained, but the companies have been increasing production.

Zuo Ya-Jun, general manager of weight loss drugmaker Shanghai Benemae Pharmaceutical, said a product being competitive would depend on distinguishing features such as efficacy, durability of the treatment and a company’s sales abilities.

“It will be a market with fierce competition, but who will be [the leader] is hard to say,” she said.
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US House Republicans issue criminal referrals against Biden’s son, brother

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washington — U.S. House Republicans issued criminal referrals Wednesday against President Joe Biden’s son and brother, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the Republicans’ yearlong impeachment inquiry. 

The Republican leaders of the House Oversight and Accountability, Judiciary and Ways and Means committees sent a letter to the Justice Department recommending the prosecution of Hunter Biden and James Biden and accusing them of making a “conscious effort” to undermine the House’s investigation. 

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said in a statement that the referrals are “nothing more than a desperate attempt by Republicans to twist Hunter’s testimony so they can distract from their failed impeachment inquiry and interfere with his trial.” 

James Biden ‘s lawyer, Paul Fishman, echoed that sentiment, calling it a “baseless partisan action,” and reiterated that his client has “always maintained that Joe Biden never had any involvement in his business dealings.” 

Accused of lying to gun dealer

The referrals to Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel David Weiss add to the legal challenges facing Hunter Biden, who is now on trial in a federal court in Delaware for three felony charges stemming from the purchase of a gun in October 2018. The 54-year-old has been accused by prosecutors of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days. 

On Capitol Hill, the Republicans pursued their wide-ranging investigation into Hunter Biden, separate from that federal case, are trying to tie the Democratic president to his son’s business dealings. Both Hunter and James Biden sat for hourslong interviews with lawmakers even as they failed to uncover evidence directly implicating Joe Biden in any wrongdoing. 

Representative Jason Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said testimony from IRS whistleblowers shows that Hunter Biden lied to Congress at least three times in his February 28 deposition. 

“I think the Justice Department needs to look at that and act accordingly. When you lie to Congress, that is a serious violation of the law. It’s a felony,” said Smith. “The president’s son should not be treated any differently than any other American.” 

The Justice Department, which will ultimately decide whether to take up the criminal referrals, declined to comment. 

Inquiry becomes political liability

The focus on the Biden family resulting from Hunter Biden’s federal trial and the impeachment inquiry has proved to be a political and personal liability for the president. The proceedings are unfolding as the 2024 White House election looms, and allies of Joe Biden worry about the toll it will take on him. He is deeply concerned about the health and sustained sobriety of his only living son. 

Since former President Donald Trump’s conviction on charges in New York, Republican leaders have assailed the Justice Department for what they claim is a “two-tiered” system of justice that targets conservatives. They play down the department’s current prosecution of Hunter Biden and the fact that other prominent Democrats have faced federal investigation during Joe Biden’s presidency. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that if Garland “wishes to demonstrate he is not running a two-tiered system of justice and targeting the president’s political opponents, he will open criminal investigations into James and Hunter Biden,” under the false statements and perjury statutes. 

The false statements in question, according to the House committee chairmen, include references Hunter Biden made about what position he held at a corporate entity that received millions of dollars from foreign clients. The president’s son also “relayed an entirely fictitious account” about text messages between him and his Chinese business partner in which Hunter Biden allegedly invoked his father’s presence with him as part of a negotiation tactic, according to the Republican investigation. 

There is also a focus on statements James Biden made about whether the president, while a private citizen, met with a former Biden family business partner. 

House Democrats said Republicans are resorting to criminal referrals because their impeachment push has effectively flamed out despite 17 months of investigating the Biden family. 

“This agonizingly protracted and completely fruitless investigation has proven only that President Biden was not part of, did not profit from, and took no official actions to benefit his family members’ business ventures,” Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement Wednesday. 
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Biden congratulates India’s Modi as US looks forward to more Indo-Pacific cooperation

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Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday congratulated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his election victory, and Washington said it looked forward to further cooperation with New Delhi to ensure a free Indo-Pacific region.

“The friendship between our nations is only growing as we unlock a shared future of unlimited potential,” Biden said in a posting on social media platform X.

Modi, whose National Democratic Alliance retained power with a surprisingly slim majority in voting results announced on Tuesday, said he had received a call from Biden.

“[I] Conveyed that India-U.S. comprehensive global partnership is poised to witness many new landmarks in the years to come. Our partnership will continue to be a force for global good for the benefit of humanity,” Modi said on X.

The United States and India have deepened ties in recent years given shared concerns about China’s growing power, even though New Delhi has maintained its long-standing relationship with Russia despite the war in Ukraine, and human rights issues.

In a statement issued shortly after Biden’s congratulatory message, the U.S. State Department said Washington looked forward “to continuing to further our partnership with the Indian government to promote prosperity and innovation, address the climate crisis, and ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on Tuesday called the U.S.-Indian relationship “a great partnership,” although the U.S. had concerns about human rights, which it would continue to raise openly with New Delhi.

Ties have been tested by the discovery of assassination plots against Sikh nationalists in Canada and the United States. In November, U.S. authorities said an Indian government official had directed the plot in the attempted murder of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a Sikh separatist and dual citizen of the United States and Canada.

Last month, the U.S. ambassador to India said Washington was satisfied so far with India’s moves to ensure accountability in the alleged plots, but many steps were still needed and there must be consequences for what was a “red line for America.”

Political analysts say Washington has been restrained in public criticism of Modi because it hopes India will act as a counterweight to an expansionist China.
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Turkish arms industry gains greater role in supporting Ukraine

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Turkey is supplying weapons to Ukraine as Kyiv works to resolve its ammunition shortage. A Turkish weapons manufacturer is teaming with the U.S. to open a munitions factory, while another Turkish firm is set to open a drone factory in Ukraine. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones reports.
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Republican lawmakers criticize Biden’s limits on asylum seekers

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U.S. lawmakers are divided on President Joe Biden’s executive order imposing new limits on asylum seekers at U.S. borders. As VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, the debate over border security remains a tough issue ahead of general elections in November.
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US, allies warn China aggressively ‘headhunting’ Western fighter pilots

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Washington — China’s military appears to be intensifying its efforts to recruit current and former Western fighter pilots, employing new and more intricate tactics to snare Western expertise. 

The United States and some of its closest intelligence partners issued a new warning Wednesday, cautioning the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is using private companies, including corporate headhunters, so that Western pilots are unaware of links to the Chinese military until it is too late. 

The end goal, according to the U.S. and its allies, is for China to better train its own fighter pilots while gaining insights into how Western air forces operate, something that could erode Western advantages or even give Chinese fighter jets a boost in case of a conflict. 

The bulletin issued by the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – known as Five Eyes – says the PLA is using private companies based in South Africa and China to target Western pilots for job offers with lucrative salaries. 

Other recruitment efforts include leveraging personal acquaintances, professional networking sites and online job platforms, according to the bulletin, which warns any links to the Chinese government or military are often hidden. 

“We’re issuing this joint bulletin today because this is a persistent threat that continues to evolve in response to Western countermeasures,” an official with the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) told VOA. 

“Like any illicit enterprise that seeks to conceal its activities, there have been efforts to incorporate entities [companies] in different locations under different names,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the rationale behind Wednesday’s bulletin.  

“There have also been variations in recruitment pitches and approaches,” the official added. “It’s critical that we keep our current and former service members informed about this threat, which is directly targeting them.” 

The Five Eyes bulletin said the Chinese recruitment efforts appear to be targeting current and former military pilots from Five Eyes countries as well as those from France, Germany and other Western nations. 

VOA has contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington for comment.  

Concerns about Beijing’s pursuit of Western pilots and aviation expertise are not new. 

British defense officials were sounding alarms about Chinese efforts to recruit retired members of the British Royal Air Force through companies in South Africa as far back as October 2022.

Australian defense officials raised similar concerns a month later, warning that retired Australian military personnel had an “enduring obligation” to protect state secrets and “to reveal any of those secrets is a crime.”

Britain, Australia and the other Five Eyes members have also taken action to curtail Beijing’s efforts. 

The U.S. last year, for example, placed restrictions on 43 entities tied to Chinese efforts to recruit and hire Western fighter pilots. 

The targeted companies included a flight school in South Africa, a security and an aviation company founded by a former U.S. Navy SEAL with operations in the United Arab Emirates, Kenya and Laos.

While such work may have diminished Beijing’s efforts, the U.S. and its intelligence partners warn China has responded aggressively, rolling out new recruitment efforts aimed not only at hiring former Western fighter pilots but hiring engineers and flight operation center personnel who also could give the PLA insights into the operations and tactics of Western air forces. 

Wednesday’s bulletin advises current and former U.S. military personnel approached with suspicious recruitment pitches to contact their individual military services or the FBI. 

Military personnel from other countries are encouraged to contact the appropriate defense agencies. 

“PLA recruitment efforts continue to evolve,” U.S. NCSC Director Michael Casey said in a statement Wednesday.  

The new warning “seeks to highlight this persistent threat and deter any current or former Western service members from actions that put their military colleagues at risk and erode our national security,” he added.
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Johannesburg: The Evolving Face of Chinatown and South African Chinese

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South Africa has seen several waves of immigration from China, with early generations of migrants fleeing extreme poverty at home and newer arrivals seeking business opportunities. Kate Bartlett has the story about Chinese South Africans who have established businesses Johannesburg’s old and new Chinatowns.
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Chad, Sahel states receive Russia’s foreign and defense ministers

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Yaounde, Cameroon — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is expected in Chad’s capital N’djamena Wednesday, continuing an African tour that has taken him to Guinea and Congo. Russian Defense Minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov has also been on the move in Africa, visiting Libya and Niger. The visits are seen by civil society and analysts as Russia’s attempt to establish its troops in the Sahel region after military leaders seized power, sparking ideological differences over the presence of American and French troops in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger and Chad.

Several hundred people gathered at the N’djamena International airport Wednesday to welcome Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Chad’s government says it mobilized civilians to receive Lavrov because he is the first top foreign official to visit after the inauguration of Mahamat Idriss Deby as Chad’s President and the formation of a new government to end a three-year transition in the central African state.

Among those awaiting the Russian envoy is 38-year-old merchant Immaculate Djeida.

Djeida said she expects Russia, one of the leading producers and exporters of wheat, to transfer technology and know-how to Chad, where civilians have enough land to produce wheat, rice, maize and beef but do not have enough food to eat. She said she expects Russia to assist Chad in developing a viable electricity network that can bring electrical power to 90 percent of Chad’s citizens.

Djeida spoke to VOA via a messaging app from N’djamena Wednesday.

In a statement released Wednesday, Chad’s government said Lavrov will discuss efficient methods to combat terrorism, and enhance military, diplomatic, economic and trade ties between Chad and Russia.

The government said Lavrov will also discuss the security situation in the countries of the Sahel as well as the war in Sudan, which has displaced close to a million people across Sudan’s border to Chad and Libya.

Chad says Russia will support it in dealing with the humanitarian crisis caused by the war against Boko Haram terrorists that has killed more than 36,000 people and displaced 3 million according to the United Nations.

Chad is fighting Boko Haram alongside troops from neighbors Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Lavrov is visiting Chad at a time when Russia is expanding its military presence in Sahel countries including Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Sudan and Chad. At the same time, Sahel countries are asking troops of their former colonial ruler, France to leave.

Niger’s military rulers said in May of this year, high-level talks were held with U.S. military officials in Niamey to coordinate plans to also withdraw more than 900 American military forces before the end of 2024.

Chad says most U.S. troops left its territory before the central African states’ May 6 presidential elections. Mahamat Idriss Deby, the declared winner, told Chad state TV during his inauguration that cooperation with U.S. troops is under review, but gave no further details.

U.S. troops have been stationed in Chad and Niger to help local militaries combat Islamist terrorists in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Sudan and Chad.

Yamingue Betinbaye is a political analyst at Chad’s Anthropology and Human Sciences Research Center. He spoke on Chads State TV Wednesday.

Betinbaye said Russia has been successfully reinforcing its military presence in countries of the Sahel region since 2021, when the Mali army, led by Colonel Assimi Goïta, seized power from President Bah Ndaw. He said Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali that have military rulers are suspending military cooperation with France because Paris never succeeded in pushing back jihadist threats even with the one-time presence of 5,500 stationed French troops in the region.

Betinbaye said anti-French sentiments increased in the Sahel when France supported Niger’s ousted President Mohamed Bazoum who was toppled by a popular military led by General Abdourahamane Tiani.

He said the presence of France, a former colonial power in Central and West Africa and the Sahel, is largely seen as an exploitative and overbearing political influence. France has always said it is present in Africa to promote democracy, human rights, economic growth and fight increasing insecurity.

Russia started deploying military equipment and trainers to Sahel countries when military leaders who seized power began forcing out French troops.

Russia says the visits of the two officials will end with the signing of joint security agreements with Chad, Guinea, Congo, Libya and Niger.

In January, Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby met with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Deby said among issues he discussed with Putin were the military, diplomatic and trade ties Chad needs to fasten its development and bring lasting peace to the country where armed gangs and jihadist are in running battles with government troops.
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Refugees, migrants risk lives on dangerous routes from Africa to Europe

Posted on by SeeEU

GENEVA — Every year, many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa seeking asylum or jobs in Europe are “at great risk of harm and death” because few protection services are available to help them on their perilous journey, according to a report issued by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Tuesday.

“The absence of critical services is placing refugees and migrants at great risk of harm and death and is also triggering dangerous secondary onward movements,” Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR special envoy for the central Mediterranean situation told journalists at a briefing Tuesday in Geneva.

“Some refugees and migrants underestimate the risks, while many fall victim to the narratives of smugglers and traffickers,” he said.

The report highlights the horrors faced by refugees and migrants who risk their lives moving on dangerous routes stretching from the East and Horn of Africa and West Africa towards North Africa’s Atlantic coast, and across the Central Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

The UNHCR reports refugees and migrants from about 20 different African countries “die while crossing the desert or near borders.” As well as Sub-Saharan Africans, it says an increasing number of people from countries in Asia and the Middle East, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria are arriving in North Africa.

The report says most of the refugees and migrants “suffer serious human rights violations en route” including ‘’sexual and gender-based violence, kidnappings for ransom, torture, and physical abuse.”

“Protection services along the routes that can help mitigate the risks these people face — such as immediate humanitarian assistance, shelter for people who have been exposed to violence, and access to justice — are often not available,” Cochetel said.

“In many countries, the services that were there in 2022-2023 are no longer there. This is the case, in particular, in Morocco, in Mauritania, in Sudan because of the conflict, in the northern part of Niger, in the southern part of Algeria. So, basically these are in key hubs, key crossing routes that are used by migrants and refugees,” he said.

Aside from the conflict in Sudan, several other crises emerged in 2023 that forced people to flee their homes.

“Regrettably, more emergencies cannot be ruled out in 2024,” authors of the report warn. “Neither can the human need of people to flee or abandon their homes to find safety and or better… basic life conditions for themselves and their families.”

Cochetel observed that the lack of sustained funding threatens the limited services that currently are available, including search and rescue missions.

“In the past, la gendarmerie nationale [the national military police] in Agadez, Niger, would pick up people who had been stranded or abandoned by smugglers and traffickers in the desert. But such rescue missions,” he said, “no longer occur along that route.”

“The only country on the African continent where I know that this concept is implemented is in Djibouti,” Cochetel said.

He said Djiboutian authorities are patrolling the land side of their coast “to see people that have been abandoned by smugglers in the desertic areas or people who have returned with the same smugglers from Yemen and who are dropped in the middle of nowhere,” adding that such search and rescue projects needed to be developed in partnership with local authorities in Nigeria, southern Morocco, Mauritania, and other desert regions.

“We would need that to save more lives and bring back to safety people stranded or abandoned there,” Cochetel said.

Since the publication of the previous report in July 2022, the UNHCR says an estimated 3,045 individuals have been reported dead or missing along the combined Central and Western Mediterranean and Northwest Africa Maritime routes.

“However, the real figures could be significantly higher, as many incidents likely go undetected and remain unrecorded,” it said.

While the report is meant to make governments aware of the shortcomings in support services, UNHCR’s Cochetel said it also is intended to provide useful information on the availability of services for refugees and migrants who are “lost, stranded, and abused along the routes.”

For example, he said the report contains GPS coordinates and WhatsApp numbers that refugees and migrants can use to locate essential, possibly life-saving protective services.
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Biden, with France visit, looks to past and future of global conflicts

Posted on by SeeUS

US President Joe Biden is in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landing and to underscore the need for a strong transatlantic alliance in the face of Russian aggression. He’ll also take part in a formal state visit hosted by France’s president, and will meet face-to-face with Ukraine’s president, who has been invited to (somber ceremonies marking this decisive battle that led to the end of the World War II. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Paris. Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report
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Biden, with France visit, looks to past and future of global conflicts 

Posted on by SeeUS

The White House; Paris — U.S. President Joe Biden landed Wednesday in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy invasion — and plans to use the occasion to underscore the need for a strong transatlantic alliance in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Biden will meet Ukraine’s president, and with surviving American veterans of the 1944 beach invasion, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Biden will use the events, Sullivan said, to “talk about, against the backdrop of war in Europe today, the sacrifices that those heroes and those veterans made 80 years ago and how it’s our obligation to continue their mission to fight for freedom.”

Sullivan, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Paris, said Biden will also deliver a speech on Friday at Normandy that will cover “the existential fight between dictatorship and freedom” — all while overlooking a 30-meter tall cliff that Army Rangers had to scale under enemy gunfire to win the battle that eventually led to France’s liberation and the demise of Nazi Germany.

“And he’ll talk about the dangers of isolationism and how, if we bow to dictators, fail to stand up to them, they keep going and ultimately America and the world pays a greater price,” he said.

Biden will also attend a state visit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, in addition to face-to-face talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been invited to the somber ceremonies marking this decisive battle that led to the end of World War II.

American presidents have regularly made the journey for this critical anniversary, and Biden is no exception.

“The president is very much looking forward to going to Normandy over the course of the next two days of this week to commemorate the service and the sacrifice, the bravery of the soldiers, Allied and American alike, who fought in D-Day in that invasion, conducted Operation Overlord and really spelled through that operation, the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany, and the beginning of something even more impactful, and that’s this rules-based international order that we all still continue to enjoy today,” John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told VOA at the White House.

Here, analysts say, history offers lessons.

“The D-Day landings were the Western Allies’ military statement that authoritarian regimes could not change boundaries by force,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. ”That countries could not just be invaded, and that authoritarian regimes of the type that Nazi Germany constituted — particularly with its terrible oppression of subjugated peoples, particularly the Jews — were not acceptable and not just not acceptable, but would be destroyed.”

Analysts say Biden’s Ukraine goals will be overshadowed by his increasingly unpopular support of another conflict.

“Even though obviously Ukraine is the top priority for the Europeans, they are seeing how the Biden administration’s policy on Gaza is undermining European security in two different ways,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.

“First of all, it is really destroying Western credibility in the broader international community and in the Global South — any talk about the rules-based international order at this point, will get laughed at, given what the Biden administration has done.”

This trip to France, a close ally, comes at the start of six weeks of high-level U.S. involvement in high-stakes summits — including a peace summit on Ukraine, a summit of leaders of the Group of Seven, or G7, leading industrialized countries, and a summit of NATO members.

VOA asked Sullivan what this set of diplomatic events could mean for peace in Europe, and beyond.

“I think we need to send a clear message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that he cannot outlast us, and that he cannot divide us,” he replied. “And we have been very good at holding the line on those two messages, and this is going to be a great opportunity over the coming weeks to not just put a period at the end of that sentence, but an exclamation point.”

Patsy Widakuswara contributed from the White House.
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Hundreds mark funeral of Myanmar general turned Suu Kyi ally

Posted on by SeeEA

Yangon — Hundreds of mourners turned out Wednesday to pay their respects to a former Myanmar general turned democracy activist and confidant of Aung San Suu Kyi, in a rare sanctioned public gathering in the junta-controlled commercial capital.

Foreign ambassadors and senior figures in Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party were among those who attended the funeral in Yangon for Tin Oo, who died on Saturday aged 97.

Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year prison sentence imposed by a junta court.   

Tin Oo served as commander of the army under former strongman Ne Win, before being forced out for allegedly withholding information over a failed coup plot.

He co-founded the NLD with Suu Kyi in the aftermath of mass protests against a former junta in 1988, and went on to become one of her closest confidants.

The ambassadors of India and Singapore joined hundreds of other people paying their respects to Tin Oo, whose body was displayed in a glass-topped coffin draped with the NLD’s peacock flag.

A cortege of cars, one decked with wreaths and bearing Tin Oo’s portrait, carried the coffin slowly through the rain-washed streets to the Yay Way cemetery, where hundreds more mourners were waiting and soldiers kept watch.

While Suu Kyi was not allowed to attend, there was a bouquet of white roses at Tin Oo’s house with a card that said “from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.”

The cemetery is also home to the remains of Sein Lwin, a former home minister accused of leading a bloody crackdown on the 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations.

Tin Oo was detained by the military in that crackdown, before being released.

He was arrested again along with Suu Kyi in 2003 after a pro-junta mob attacked their motorcade, killing dozens of people.

In 2017, the NLD stalwart suffered a stroke and in recent years receded from the political arena due to old age and poor health.

He avoided arrest in the sweeping crackdown that accompanied the 2021 coup, likely due to his advanced age, analysts say.

The NLD has been targeted in the junta’s bloody crackdown on dissent following its coup, with one former lawmaker executed in Myanmar’s first use of capital punishment in decades.

The junta dissolved the NLD in 2023 for failing to re-register under a tough new military-drafted electoral law, removing the party from polls it has indicated it may hold in 2025.

Suu Kyi’s closed-door trial in the military-built capital Naypyidaw was condemned by rights groups as a sham to shut her out of politics.

The Nobel laureate, 78, has largely been hidden from view since the coup and has reportedly suffered health problems. 
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