An explanation of Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS
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Month: October 2024
Zelenskyy says North Korean troops poised to join war, cancels UN chief’s visit
KYIV, Ukraine — North Korean troops are poised to be deployed by Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine as early as this weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed Friday.
Western officials have warned that North Korean units joining the fight would stoke the almost three-year war and bring geopolitical consequences as far away as the Indo-Pacific region.
The possibility has alarmed leaders and deepened diplomatic tensions.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that the top national security advisers for the United States, Japan and South Korea met and “expressed grave concern” about North Korea’s troop deployments for potential use with Russia on the battlefield against Ukraine.
Kirby said that the national security advisers from the three countries “call on Russia and the DPRK to cease these actions that only serve to expand the security implications of Russia’s brutal and illegal war beyond Europe and into the Indo-Pacific.”
“It is possible that there are now more than 3,000 troops from North Korea that have been dispatched to Russia for outfitting and for training,” Kirby said on a call with reporters.
Kirby said the U.S. government did not have firm intelligence assessments on where the troops were going “but we believe it is certainly possible” and “perhaps even likely” that some of the North Korean troops would be deployed to the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine has held some territory since capturing it in August. But he cautioned that he did not know in what capacity and to what purpose the North Korean troops would be deployed.
A senior official in the Ukrainian presidential office told The Associated Press on Friday that Zelenskyy had canceled a planned visit to Kyiv by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said the visit was supposed to come after this week’s summit in the Russian city of Kazan of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, which Guterres attended.
A photograph of Guterres shaking hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit triggered an outcry in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy, in a post on Telegram, said Ukrainian intelligence had determined that “the first North Korean military will be used by Russia in combat zones” between Sunday and Monday.
He said on Telegram that the deployment was “an obvious escalating move by Russia.” He didn’t provide any further details, including where the North Korean soldiers may be sent.
Russia has been conducting a ferocious summer campaign along the eastern front in Ukraine, gradually compelling Kyiv to surrender ground. But Russia has struggled to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk border region following an incursion almost three months ago.
North Korean units were detected on Wednesday in Kursk, according to Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, known by its acronym GUR.
The soldiers had undergone several weeks of training at bases in eastern Russia and had been equipped with clothes for the upcoming winter, GUR said in a statement late Thursday.
It estimated the number of North Korean soldiers sent by Pyongyang to Russia at around 12,000, including some 500 officers and three generals.
GUR provided no evidence for its claims.
Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said Friday on the social platform X that intelligence reports indicated the North Korean soldiers “will probably first be deployed in Kursk.”
The deployment of North Korean forces under a military pact between Moscow and Pyongyang brings a new dimension to the conflict, which is Europe’s biggest war since World War II and has cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides, including many civilians.
The U.S. said Wednesday that 3,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia and are training at several locations, calling the move very serious.
Zelenskyy said a week ago that his government has intelligence information that 10,000 troops from North Korea are being readied to join Russian forces fighting against his country. He said that a third nation wading into the hostilities would turn the conflict into a “world war.”
North Korea had already been supplying ammunition to Russia under a defense pact, but putting boots on the ground could severely complicate a war that has inflamed international politics, with most Western countries supporting Kyiv.
Putin, meanwhile, has looked for support among BRICS countries.
He has neither confirmed nor denied that North Korean troops were in Russia.
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G7 agrees new steps to curb Russian sanctions evasion
New York — Finance ministers of the G7 nations vowed Saturday to step up efforts to prevent Russia from evading sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine.
“We remain committed to taking further initiatives in response to oil price cap violations,” the group said in a statement following a meeting in Washington. Those further steps were not spelled out in detail.
In December 2022, the G7 together with the European Union and Australia agreed to pressure purchasers of Russian oil to not go above a certain price ceiling.
The agreement was intended to limit Russian petroleum sales and revenues without curbing exports so sharply that it would cause global oil prices to soar.
But some countries, notably China, have continued to import Russian crude oil without observing the price ceiling.
The G7 finance ministers also said they would take additional measures aimed at “increasing the costs to Russia of using the shadow fleet to evade sanctions.”
Officials say Russia has used its fleet of shadow tankers, many of them old, unmarked and poorly maintained, to skirt sanctions by transporting oil without properly declaring their cargo or itineraries.
The tankers sometimes load or transfer their cargo at sea to avoid unwanted attention.
The United States and the EU have sanctioned several of these ships and their government owners, notably Russia’s-owned maritime company Sovcomflot.
The G7 ministers said they intended “to intensify our efforts to prevent financial institutions from supporting Russia’s evasion of our sanctions.”
According to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, Russian financial institutions have developed a network of foreign subsidiaries to facilitate the purchase or sale of sanctioned goods.
Joining the G7 ministers in the meeting Saturday were the heads of the seven countries’ central banks, plus top officials of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The G7, which groups seven of the world’s most advanced economies, announced Friday it had reached an agreement to provide a loan of around $50 billion to Ukraine.
The loan will be repaid not by Ukraine but with the interest —roughly $3 billion a year — generated by Russian assets seized and frozen after the war began in February 2022.
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Commonwealth nations adopt their first ocean declaration
APIA, Samoa — Commonwealth countries adopted Saturday their first ocean declaration during their summit held for the first time in the Pacific island nation of Samoa as calls from some of Britain’s former colonies for reparatory justice for the trans-Atlantic slave trade grew louder.
The Apia Ocean Declaration was announced during the closing session of the 27th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, or CHOGM, and calls on all 56 Commonwealth nations to protect the ocean in the face of severe climate, pollution and overexploitation.
More than half the Commonwealth members are small countries like Samoa; many face significant, some even existential, threats from rising seas.
While the environmental threat was foreshadowed as a predominant theme going into the summit, the transatlantic slave trade from Britain’s colonial history dominated the discourse through the opening days.
The Apia Commonwealth Ocean Declaration for One Resilient Common focuses on recognizing maritime boundaries amid sea-level rise, protecting 30% of oceans and restoring degraded marine ecosystems by 2030, and urgently finalizing the Global Plastics Treaty. It also calls for ratifying the high-seas biodiversity treaty, developing coastal climate adaptation plans, and strengthening support for sustainable blue economies.
Samoa Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said in a statement released by her office that it was fitting for “our first ocean declaration” to be adopted “in the Blue Pacific continent given climate change has been recognised as the single greatest threat to the security and well-being of our people.”
The Commonwealth represents a third of the world’s population, and 49 of its 56 countries have a coastline. The organization says 25 of its members are increasingly impacted by climate change, rising sea levels, growing temperatures and increasing ocean acidity – impacting sea life, ecosystems and the communities that depend upon them.
Mata’afa said the declaration must become “a line in the sand” for the world to collectively transform “ocean exploitation into protection and sustainable stewardship.”
Outgoing Commonwealth Secretary-General, Patricia Scotland said in a statement they were “immensely proud of this achievement” which “sets the standard for forthcoming international meetings, generating momentum for ocean protection as we head towards COP29 in Azerbaijan in November, and next year’s UN Ocean Conference”.”
Calls from some of Britain’s former colonies for a reckoning over its role in the transatlantic slave trade was the thorniest issue at the summit and specifically reparatory justice.
‘Painful aspects of our past’
At its height in the 18th century, Britain was the world’s biggest slave-trading nation and transported more than 3 million Africans across the Atlantic. Its legacy is interwoven in some of the country’s richest and most revered institutions — from the Church of England to the insurance giant Lloyd’s of London to the monarchy itself.
King Charles III, who attended his first Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting as sovereign, said in his address on Friday history couldn’t be changed but that he understood “the most painful aspects of our past continue to resonate.”
Although he stopped short of mentioning financial reparations, which some leaders at the event urged, his remarks were seen as an acknowledgment of how strongly many felt about the issue in countries that Britain once colonized.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had entered the summit vowing the U.K. would not offer an apology for slavery or discuss reparations. He left with that promise mostly intact, though the final communique called for discussion of the matter.
‘Truthful, respectful conversation’ encouraged
The 52-point official Leaders Statement on Saturday included a paragraph that urged a “meaningful, truthful, respectful conversation” to build a fair future. The communique also directed the Commonwealth secretary-general to engage governments and stakeholders in reparatory justice consultations, with a special focus on the impact on women and girls.
Earlier in the week, Starmer suggested that opening the door to a conversation about reparations could lead to “very, very long endless discussions.”
“(The communique) agrees that this is the time for conversation,” Starmer said at a press conference in Apia on Saturday. “But I should be really clear here. In the two days we’ve been here, none of the discussions have been about money. Our position is very, very clear in relation to that.”
“Let me first be clear that the slave trade, slave practice, was abhorrent, and it’s very important we start from there. Abhorrent is the right word.”
Earlier Saturday, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the Ghanaian foreign minister, was announced as the incoming secretary-general of the Commonwealth.
Botchwey, who has urged financial reparations for the past enslavement of colonized people, replaces Patricia Scotland of the United Kingdom, who had been in the post since 2016.
Antigua and Barbuda was also announced as the host for the next CHOGM in 2026.
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At least 126 dead, missing after flooding, landslides in Philippines
TALISAY, Philippines — The number of dead and missing in massive flooding and landslides wrought by Tropical Storm Trami in the Philippines has reached nearly 130 and the president said Saturday that many areas remained isolated with people in need of rescue.
Trami blew away from the northwestern Philippines on Friday, leaving at least 85 people dead and 41 others missing in one of the Southeast Asian archipelago’s deadliest and most destructive storms so far this year, the government’s disaster-response agency said. The death toll was expected to rise as reports come in from previously isolated areas.
Dozens of police, firefighters and other emergency personnel, backed by three backhoes and sniffer dogs, dug up one of the last two missing villagers in the lakeside town of Talisay in Batangas province on Saturday.
A father, who was waiting for word on his missing 14-year-old daughter, wept as rescuers placed the remains in a black body bag. Distraught, he followed police officers, who carried the body bag down a mud-strewn village alley to a police van when one weeping resident approaching him to express her sympathies.
The man said he was sure it was his daughter, but authorities needed to do checks to confirm the identity of the villager dug up in the mound.
In a nearby basketball gym at the town center, more than a dozen white coffins were laid side by side, bearing the remains of those found in the heaps of mud, boulders and trees that cascaded Thursday afternoon down the steep slope of a wooded ridge in Talisay’s Sampaloc village.
President Ferdinand Marcos, who inspected another hard-hit region southeast of Manila on Saturday, said the unusually large volume of rainfall dumped by the storm — including in some areas that saw one to two months’ worth of rainfall in just 24 hours — overwhelmed flood controls in provinces lashed by Trami.
“The water was just too much,” Marcos told reporters.
“We’re not done yet with our rescue work,” he said. “Our problem here, there are still many areas that remained flooded and could not be accessed …”
His administration, Marcos said, would plan to start work on a major flood control project that can meet the unprecedented threats posed by climate change.
More than 5 million people were in the path of the storm, including nearly half a million who mostly fled to more than 6,300 emergency shelters in several provinces, the government agency said.
In an emergency Cabinet meeting, Marcos raised concerns over reports by government forecasters that the storm — the 11th to hit the Philippines this year — could make a U-turn next week as it is pushed back by high-pressure winds in the South China Sea.
The storm was forecast to batter Vietnam over the weekend if it would not veer off course.
The Philippine government shut down schools and government offices for the third day on Friday to keep millions of people safe on the main northern island of Luzon. Inter-island ferry services were also suspended, stranding thousands.
Weather has cleared in many areas on Saturday, allowing cleanup work in most areas.
Each year, about 20 storms and typhoons batter the Philippines, a Southeast Asian archipelago which lies between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest recorded tropical cyclones, left more than 7,300 people dead or missing and flattened entire villages.
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War affects more than 600 million women and girls, UN says
united nations — More than 600 million women and girls are now affected by war, a 50% increase from a decade ago, and they fear the world has forgotten them amid an escalating backlash against women’s rights and gender equality, top United Nations officials say.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a new report that amid record levels of armed conflict and violence, progress over the decades for women is vanishing and “generational gains in women’s rights hang in the balance around the world.”
The U.N. chief was assessing the state of a Security Council resolution adopted on Oct. 31, 2000, that demanded equal participation for women in peace negotiations, a goal that remains as distant as gender equality.
Guterres said current data and findings show that “the transformative potential of women’s leadership and inclusion in the pursuit of peace” is being undercut — with power and decision-making on peace and security matters overwhelmingly in the hands of men.
“As long as oppressive patriarchal social structures and gender biases hold back half our societies, peace will remain elusive,” he warned.
The report says the proportion of women killed in armed conflicts doubled in 2023 compared with a year earlier; U.N.-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence were 50% higher; and the number of girls affected by grave violations in conflicts increased by 35%.
At a two-day U.N. Security Council meeting on the topic that ended Friday, Sima Bahous, head of the U.N. agency promoting gender equality known as UN Women, also pointed to a lack of attention to women’s voices in the search for peace.
She cited the fears of millions of women and girls in Afghanistan deprived of an education and a future; of displaced women in Gaza “waiting for death”; of women in Sudan who are victims of sexual violence; and of the vanishing hopes of women in Myanmar, Haiti, Congo, the Sahel region of Africa, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere.
Bahous said the 612 million women and girls affected by war “wonder if the world has already forgotten them, if they have fallen from the agenda of an international community overwhelmed by crises of ever deeper frequency, severity and urgency.”
The world needs to answer their fears with hope, she said, but the reality is grim: “One in two women and girls in conflict-affected settings are facing moderate to severe food insecurity, 61% of all maternal mortality is concentrated in 35 conflict-affected countries.”
As for women’s participation in decision-making and politics in countries in conflict, Bahous said it’s stalled.
“The percentage of women in peace negotiations has not improved over the last decade: under 10% on average in all processes, and under 20% in processes led or supported by the United Nations,” she said.
U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed announced the launch of a “Common Pledge on Women’s Participation in Peace Processes,” and urged governments, regional organizations and others involved in mediation to join the U.N. in taking concrete steps toward that end. The commitments include appointing women as lead mediators and team members, promoting direct and meaningful participation of women in peace processes, consulting women leaders at all stages and embedding women with expertise “to foster gender-responsive peace processes and agreements,” she said.
Many U.N. ambassadors who spoke at the council meeting focused on the lack of “political will” to promote women in the peace process.
“We’ve seen how the lack of political will continues to stand in the way of the full implementation of the commitments entered into by member states,” Panama’s U.N. Ambassador Eloy Alfaro de Alba said Friday.
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Vietnamese Americans in California turn to politics to address local, national concerns
The Little Saigon district in California’s Orange County is home to a large concentration of Vietnamese people. In hopes of engaging these voters, candidates for public office are putting up signs and holding events. VOA’s Long Nguyen reports, Elizabeth Cherneff narrates. Camera: Vu Nguyen.
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Experts: Apple’s removal of news apps in Russia sets ‘dangerous precedent’
WASHINGTON — Analysts warn that Apple’s removal of two apps from an independent media site from its Russian App Store sets a “dangerous precedent.”
The affected apps are for Current Time, a Russian-language network produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL, in cooperation with VOA, and a Kyrgyz-language news app.
RFE/RL and VOA are independent media outlets funded by the U.S. Congress.
In a letter to RFE/RL, Apple said the action was in response to content that is deemed illegal in Russia. Apple added that in Russia, RFE/RL is labeled an “undesirable” organization.
RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said he is concerned about Apple’s compliance with Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulatory agency.
“We hope this decision — which is part of a trend to deny people in authoritarian countries access to uncensored information — will be reversed,” Capus said in a statement shared with VOA.
Digital rights experts condemned the move.
“These trends set a dangerous precedent in which tech companies could inadvertently aid state-sponsored information censorship,” Matt Mahmoudi of Amnesty Tech told VOA.
When tech companies comply with foreign government requests, it could be because they “place profit margins over their obligations under international law,” according to Mahmoudi. These bans violate the U.N. right to free expression, he said.
Apple did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, called on Apple to reinstate the apps.
Such bans “restrict access to vital information and embolden authoritarian regimes seeking to silence independent media in countries like Russia,” said CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, Gulnoza Said.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, analysts have documented how Moscow has used internet blocks along with laws around false information about the war and so-called “undesirable” organizations to block independent media.
Access to independent news is limited, with websites, including RFE/RL and VOA, blocked. In February, Russia also designated RFE/RL an “undesirable organization.” The designation means that an entity is seen as a threat to national security. These organizations and their audiences can face penalties as a result.
Separately, Russia experienced a mass YouTube outage in August. The platform is one of the few remaining sites where audiences can access independent information.
The country has long experienced slow playback speeds, making video-watching nearly impossible.
Russia at the time blamed YouTube’s parent company Google. But investigative reporters found Russia’s state regulator responsible. YouTube also rejected claims that it was responsible for the slowdown.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment.
To circumvent censorship, audiences often rely on Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, to access banned apps, according to Anastasia Zhyrmont of the digital civil rights group Access Now.
Last month, Apple was criticized after it banned 98 VPN services from its Russian App Store. The media regulator in July had publicly requested 25 be removed.
“The trend is very concerning,” Zhyrmont told VOA. “VPNs are essential for users in restrictive environments, especially in Russia.”
Some media sites that Russia has banned use technologies embedded in apps to circumvent the firewalls and bans. The news website Meduza, which is blocked inside Russia, uses data obfuscation technology to reach Russian audiences without a VPN, according to a representative from their tech team.
“It is cat-mice game — they’re trying to block our tech, and we’re trying to come up with something new,” the representative, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told VOA in an email.
Zhyrmont wants Apple to offer transparency on its decision to remove the news apps from the Russian market and on what Roskomnadzor’s requests looked like.
Until then, she said, “There’s an agreement between digital rights experts and human rights defenders that all that is happening is an act of censorship.”
Russia scores 20 out of 100 on the Freedom on the Net index, where 0 shows the most restrictive digital environments.
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Major Vatican meeting sidelines talks of women priests, deacons
Rome — A major Vatican meeting gathering clerics and laity across the globe to discuss the future of the Catholic Church closes this weekend, thwarting discussion of women becoming priests or deacons in the world’s largest Christian denomination.
But that didn’t stop a half-dozen Catholic women from “ordination” in a secret ceremony in Rome that was not authorized by the Vatican.
Jesuit Father Allan Deck, a professor at the Los Angeles-based Loyola Marymount University, told VOA that the Catholic Church under Pope Francis’ leadership recognizes the need for adaptability to realize its spiritual mission in the world at this time of significant change.
“Not the first time that the church in its 2,000-year history has experienced very significant shifts,” he said. “The church, in order to accomplish its mission, has to engage people, circumstances and times. And it has to be capable of development, while at the same time remaining faithful to its mission and to the revelation that has been communicated to it. This is hard. This is what’s happening.”
While Catholic women participated over the past month in what many consider the most significant Catholic gathering since the 1960s — called the “synod on synodality” — many of their number were let down by a Vatican decision to sideline talk of the ordination of female priests or deacons, instead referring the matter to a future study group.
Bridget Mary Meehan, an American co-founder of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, told VOA that her organization has performed 270 ordinations of women in 14 countries since its creation in 2002.
“We wanted to share with Pope Francis that it is time to build a bridge between the international women priests’ movement and the Vatican,” she said. “We are on the same page as he is about a synodal church. We believe all are called, all are equal and all are co-responsible for the mission of the church — to be the face of Christ in the world in loving and compassionate service. One of these ways is ordained ministry.”
Advocates say women play a huge role in daily Catholic ministries — also called the diakonia — in education, pastoral care and hospitals worldwide. In some places, women are especially active because there are no priests, such as in the Amazon. But often their leadership is not recognized.
Meehan “ordained” six Catholic women from France, Spain and the United States on a barge on Rome’s Tiber River earlier this month to acknowledge their central role in ministry around the world.
“We did it because we felt that it’s time for us, after 22 years of serving the church in the diakonia ministry, to really share the good news that women are being ordained by Catholic communities who want to call them forward to ministry among them,” Meehan said.
“It’s like a renewal of ministry that is already in the midst of the Catholic Church. It’s already occurring,” she said.
Although Pope Francis has appointed more women to top jobs at the Vatican than any of his predecessors, he has ruled out female priests or deacons ministering in the Catholic Church.
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Kiribati president secures 3rd term as China, US vie for Pacific leverage
TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Kiribati President Taneti Maamau, who has led the Pacific Island nation to build closer ties with China in recent years, secured his third term in office on Saturday. He defeated two other candidates in an election closely monitored by countries around the world.
Maamau won about 55% of the vote, while his nearest challenger, Kaotitaaake Kokoria, won 42% of the vote, New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Kiribati said. Kiribati’s chief justice, Tetiro Semilota, declared Maamau the winner and congratulated him.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon became the first international leader to congratulate Maamau for his victory on Saturday. “We look forward to working with the Government of Kiribati to deliver on our shared priorities,” he wrote in a post on social media platform X.
Kiribati is one of the countries that relies heavily on foreign aid. The cost of living, rising sea level and relations with China were the main issues leading up to Friday’s presidential election.
Saturday’s outcome is viewed as the Kiribati voters’ endorsement of policies Maamau’s government has implemented over the last four years, including deepening the Pacific Island nation’s ties with China.
During the parliamentary election in August, the ruling Tobwaan Kiribati Party, or TKP, secured 33 out of 44 seats in the new parliament, and Maamau won his seat by winning close to 83% of the votes in his district.
“The TKP has a very healthy majority [in the parliament], and it sort of shows that the people of Kiribati want to see more of what has been happening [over the last few years],” said Henryk Szadziewski, an expert on Pacific-China relations at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Since switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019, Kiribati has deepened its engagement with Beijing. The Maamau administration’s efforts to elevate security ties with the Chinese government have prompted concerns from partners such as Australia and the United States.
In 2021, China helped Kiribati revamp a World War II-era airstrip on the island of Kanton, which is less than 3,000 kilometers from Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where major U.S. military bases are located.
In February, Kiribati’s acting police commissioner, Eeri Aritiera, revealed that Chinese police would help Kiribati’s community policing program and IT department, raising concerns from the U.S. that the cooperation could negatively impact Kiribati’s sovereignty.
Some analysts say since China has ambitions to deepen its economic and security reach in the Pacific region, Australia and the United States are very concerned about any advancement in security relations between Beijing and Pacific Island countries.
“It’s unclear how the policing arrangement with Kiribati will evolve in Maamou’s next term, but it’s unlikely that Chinese engagement will cease or decrease,” said Meg Keen, a senior fellow at Lowy Institute in Australia.
Despite these concerns, Szadziewski said Kiribati’s efforts to build closer ties with China shouldn’t be viewed through a pure zero-sum lens. “The Kiribati economy is heavily reliant on tourism and fishing, and China has stepped up with infrastructure projects in that respect,” he told VOA by phone.
But China’s engagement with Kiribati hasn’t been “all benevolence,” Szadziewski said. “Kiribati has opened up its maritime domain for increased Chinese fishing, so there is something in it for China that’s economic,” he said.
During a reception celebrating the fifth anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between China and Kiribati, the Chinese ambassador to Kiribati, Zhou Limin, said the relationship has further consolidated and vowed to strengthen synergy between the two countries in the future.
Under Maamau’s third term, Keen in Australia said, Kiribati will likely maintain its close relationship with China while also trying to seek assistance from other countries, such as Australia, to help improve the country’s infrastructure and climate resilience.
“There’s no indication that the relationship with China will change under another term for Maamau, and he will be seeking a strong legacy in his final term by working with any development partner that can assist with his ambitious development goals,” Keen told VOA in a written response.
She added that most Pacific leaders don’t view maintaining relations with China or other democratic countries such as Australia as “an either/or choice.”
In response to China’s elevated relations with Kiribati, Australia and the United States have also stepped up efforts to deepen ties with the Pacific Islands nation.
In 2023, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced that Canberra would “rapidly scale up” security and development with Kiribati during her visit to the country. In February, the U.S. Coast Guard conducted joint patrols with Kiribati in the country’s exclusive economic zone.
Despite these efforts, Szadziewski at the University of Hawaii said it’s important for democratic countries to understand the priorities of Pacific Island countries and try to engage with them on “equal footing.”
“Pacific Island states have heightened sensitivity about sovereignty, so they prefer to see exchanges with other states on an equal footing,” he told VOA, adding that democratic countries should ensure the priority of their engagement with Pacific Island countries is not solely about geopolitics.
“If China is your main concern and why you are in the region, that’s not going to be something of interest to the Pacific Island leaders,” Szadziewski said.
In addition to the presidential election in Kiribati, Palau is going to hold a general election on November 5, with the current president, Surangel Whipps Jr., running against former president Tommy Remengesau Jr. in a race that analysts say Beijing will be closely following.
Experts say competition for geopolitical influence between China and the U.S. as well as its allies will intensify as countries try to engage with winners emerging from these important elections in the Pacific region.
“Election periods will always heighten activities, and competition [between these countries] is only going to get more intense over the next couple of years,” Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told VOA by phone.
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Indonesia presses China for more investment in high-speed railways
Jakarta — One year after the opening of Indonesia’s first high-speed railway that connects Jakarta to Bandung, named Whoosh, Indonesia is courting China to invest in an extension of the line eastward to the port city of Surabaya in East Java.
The rail service is one of former President Joko Widodo’s flagship infrastructure projects and part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Whoosh attracted over 4 million passengers in its first year, and the government has added more trips.
Currently, the government is carrying out a feasibility study to extend the Jakarta-Bandung line to Surabaya in hopes of increasing use of the rail service. The extension would cut the journey from Jakarta to the port city from eight hours to only four.
Danang Parikesit, professor of transport policy at Gajah Mada University, said the extension to Surabaya would have a positive economic impact, especially on cities where high-speed rail stations are located. “This will further push the economic integration of Java and maintain the growth momentum for Indonesia in the service and trade sector.”
Indonesia pitched three major railway projects during a rail expo in Shanghai in June. The projects include interconnecting the high-speed train, Whoosh, to urban railway systems in Bandung, an airport line in the future capital city of Nusantara, and an urban railway connecting Nusantara to neighboring cities.
Transportation Ministry and Railways Director General Risal Wasal said these projects were part of the ministry’s strategic plans for 2024-2029.
The Bandung railway is projected to have an investment return rate of 11.9% and the government will support it with a viability gap fund covering 49% of the costs, according to the ministry.
“With such potential, we invite you to participate in the Bandung Urban Railway project through a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme with a concession period of up to 30 years,” Risal said in a statement to potential private investors.
Danang added, “Our transportation infrastructures face a backlog for many years and reduced our competitiveness in goods and services, both domestic and international.
“Indonesia’s long-term development plans will be able to cut logistical costs by half. That’s why we need international partners to invest and improve our highways, railways system, ports and airports as well as other infrastructures like gas pipes and floating storage.”
Chinese investment in Bali and Nusantara
In August, an Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit system, or ART, funded by China, was showcased at Indonesia’s 79th Independence Day celebrations in Nusantara.
Other growing urban cities, such as Bali, are also courting China to build its first Light Rail Transit, or LRT, system. The state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation (CRRC), involved in the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung high speed railway, is set to participate in building Bali’s LRT system.
However, Danang warned that over-dependence on China’s investment will not be sustainable.
“Diversifying and extending partnership with other countries will provide a better base for our future transportation development. So I believe, we need to balance between the urgent need for our transport investment and to diversify our partnership, taking the best of what different countries can offer,” he explained.
China overtaking Japan in Indonesia’s railway sector
China is not only making strides in building new railways but is also playing a growing role in replacing the aging fleet of the Greater Jakarta Commuter Line, according to some experts.
Research done by the University of Malang found that Japan, through official development assistance loans, has helped Indonesia in rail modernization projects in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi (Jabodetabek) areas.
But Fadlan Muzakki, a researcher at the ASEAN-China Research Center of Universitas Indonesia, said China is now surpassing Japan in developing the nation’s railway sector.
“Indonesia chose China because China offered to transfer technical knowledge to Indonesia without any condition or complicated requirements and they were persistent in their lobby efforts,” he said.
Fadlan’s research indicates that Japan was willing to fully transfer knowledge of its train technology if Indonesia had paid 25% to 30% of its debt. That means Indonesia would have needed to wait at least five to 10 years before the technology transfer was completely provided.
As a result, in February, PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia, a subsidiary of PT Kereta Api Indonesia, signed an agreement with China’s CRRC to purchase three complete trains for $49.15 billion. Five months later, it decided to procure another eight trains.
Fadlan warned that Indonesia should not become overly reliant on Chinese investment in the transportation sector. He suggested that Indonesia diversify its investment sources, allow for public fundraising, and implement strong risk assessment and negotiation strategies when dealing with Chinese investors.
According to Mark Green, president of the Wilson Center, 10 years into the Belt and Road Initiative, 80% of China’s government loans to developing countries have gone to nations in debt distress, further exacerbating economic problems such as inflation, currency depreciation and rising poverty levels.
Djoko Setijowarno, a transportation analyst, agreed that Indonesia should further develop the state-owned train manufacturing company, PT Industri Kereta Api (INKA), to meet Indonesia’s growing demand for trains rather than merely importing trains from China. INKA has exported trains worth $72.39 million to Bangladesh and worth over $26 million to the Philippines.
Danang pointed out that Indonesia has set its next 20-year development plan with hopes to become a high-income country in 2045. He said that increased transport investment that will boost the country’s competitiveness in the global market and reduce economic disparities among regions and social classes will be instrumental to achieve this target.
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Russian attacks on central Ukraine, Kyiv kill 5
Russian missile strikes killed three people including a child in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro while a teenager and another person died in attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding region, officials said Saturday.
Overnight strikes on Dnipro wounded 19 others and damaged multiple buildings, said Sergiy Lysak, the governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region.
A two-story residential building was destroyed, he said.
Images shared by Lysak showed rescuers working in a pile of rubble, while another showed what appeared to be a hospital room with its windows blown out.
“Three people were killed in Dnipro, including a child. Nineteen were injured, four of them children. Eight are hospitalized,” Lysak said.
Separate night attacks on the capital Kyiv and surrounding region left two people dead, including a teenage girl who was killed in a drone strike, according to regional authorities.
Ukrainian cities including Kyiv have been subjected to deadly drone and missile attacks throughout Russia’s invasion.
Kyiv has been asking for more air defenses from its allies ahead of what is likely to be its toughest winter yet, as Moscow ramps up strikes on energy infrastructure.
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US Navy will apologize for 1882 obliteration of Tlingit village in Alaska
Shells fell on the Alaska Native village as winter approached, and then sailors landed and burned what was left of homes, food caches and canoes. Conditions grew so dire in the following months that elders sacrificed their own lives to spare food for surviving children.
It was Oct. 26, 1882, in Angoon, a Tlingit village of about 420 people in the southeastern Alaska panhandle. Now, 142 years later, the perpetrator of the bombardment — the U.S. Navy — is set to say it is sorry.
Rear Adm. Mark Sucato, the commander of the Navy’s northwest region, will issue the apology during a ceremony on Saturday, the anniversary of the atrocity. While the rebuilt Angoon received $90,000 in a settlement with the Department of Interior in 1973, village leaders have for decades sought an apology as well, beginning each yearly remembrance by asking three times, “Is there anyone here from the Navy to apologize?”
“You can imagine the generations of people that have died since 1882 that have wondered what had happened, why it happened, and wanted an apology of some sort, because in our minds, we didn’t do anything wrong,” said Daniel Johnson Jr., a tribal head in Angoon.
The attack was one of a series of conflicts between the American military and Alaska Natives in the years after the U.S. bought the territory from Russia in 1867. The U.S. Navy issued an apology last month for destroying the nearby village of Kake in 1869, and the Army has indicated that it plans to apologize for shelling Wrangell, also in southeast Alaska, that year, though no date has been set.
The Navy acknowledges the actions it undertook or ordered in Angoon and Kake caused deaths, a loss of resources and multigenerational trauma, Navy civilian spokesperson Julianne Leinenveber said in an email.
“An apology is not only warranted, but long overdue,” she said.
Today, Angoon remains a quaint village of about 420 people, with colorful old homes and totem poles clustered on the west side of Admiralty Island, accessible by ferry or float plane, in the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest. The residents are vastly outnumbered by brown bears, and the village in recent years has strived to foster its ecotourism industry. Bald eagles and humpback whales abound, and the salmon and halibut fishing is excellent.
Accounts vary as to what prompted its destruction, but they generally begin with the accidental death of a Tlingit shaman, Tith Klane. Klane was killed when a harpoon gun exploded on a whaling ship owned by his employer, the North West Trading Co.
The Navy’s version says tribal members forced the vessel to shore, possibly took hostages and, in accordance with their customs, demanded 200 blankets in compensation.
The company declined to provide the blankets and ordered the Tlingits to return to work. Instead, in sorrow, they painted their faces with coal tar and tallow — something the company’s employees took as a precursor to an insurrection. The company’s superintendent then sought help from Naval Cmdr. E.C. Merriman, the top U.S. official in Alaska, saying a Tlingit uprising threatened the lives and property of white residents.
The Tlingit version contends the boat’s crew, which included Tlingit members, likely remained with the vessel out of respect, planning to attend the funeral, and that no hostages were taken. Johnson said the tribe never would have demanded compensation so soon after the death.
Merriman arrived on Oct. 25 and insisted the tribe provide 400 blankets by noon the next day as punishment for disobedience. When the Tlingits turned over just 81, Merriman attacked, destroying 12 clan houses, smaller homes, canoes and the village’s food stores.
Six children died in the attack, and “there’s untold numbers of elderly and infants who died that winter of both cold, exposure and hunger,” Johnson said.
Billy Jones, Tith Klane’s nephew, was 13 when Angoon was destroyed. Around 1950, he recorded two interviews, and his account was later included in a booklet prepared for the 100th anniversary of the bombing in 1982.
“They left us homeless on the beach,” Jones said.
Rosita Worl, the president of Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, described how some elders that winter “walked into the forest” — meaning they died, sacrificing themselves so the younger people would have more food.
Even though the Navy’s written history conflicts with the Tlingit oral tradition, the Navy defers to the tribe’s account “out of respect for the long-lasting impacts these tragic incidents had on the affected clans,” said Leinenveber, the Navy spokesperson.
Tlingit leaders were so stunned when Navy officials told them, during a Zoom call in May, that the apology would finally be forthcoming that no one spoke for five minutes, Johnson said.
Eunice James, of Juneau, a descendant of Tith Klane, said she hopes the apology helps her family and the entire community heal. She expects his presence at the ceremony.
“Not only his spirit will be there, but the spirit of many of our ancestors, because we’ve lost so many,” she said.
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In suburban Miami, Kmart’s last ‘Blue Light Specials’ flicker
MIAMI, FLORIDA — The last Kmart on the U.S. mainland sits at the west end of a busy suburban Miami shopping center, quiet and largely ignored.
All around it are thriving chain stores attracting steady streams of customers in sectors where the former box-store chain was once a major player: Marshalls, Hobby Lobby, PetSmart and Dollar Tree.
But at this all-but-last outpost of a company once famed for its “Blue Light Specials,” only an occasional shopper pops in, mostly out of curiosity or nostalgia, then leaves after buying little or nothing.
“I hadn’t seen Kmart in so long,” said Juan de la Madriz, who came to the shopping center on a recent weekday to buy dog food at PetSmart. The architect spotted the Kmart and wondered if he could find a gift for his newborn grandson. He exited 10 minutes later having spent $23 on a stuffed dog and a wooden toy workbench.
“It will be sad if it closes,” he said about the store, “but everything now is on computers.”
The last full-size Kmart in the 50 states closed Sunday in Long Island, New York, making the Miami store — now a fraction of its former size — the last operating in the continental United States. At its peak 30 years ago, Kmart operated about 2,500 locations. Today, four others remain: three in the U.S. Virgin Islands and one in Guam. There is also a website.
Transformco, the Illinois-based holding company that owns Kmart and what’s left of another former retail behemoth, Sears, did not respond to email requests for comment or allow the store manager to speak. The company’s plans for the Miami location are unknown — but there is no indication it will close soon.
The last outpost
If the Miami Kmart were a brand-new mom-and-pop retailer, a shopper might think it could eventually thrive with advertising and a little luck. Kmart long had a reputation for clutter and mess, but this store is immaculate, and the merchandise is precisely stacked and displayed.
The size of a CVS or Walgreens drug store, the branch occupies what was its garden section during its big-box days. A couple years ago, an At Home department store took over the rest of the space.
“Get it all! Must Haves. Wish Fors. Friendly Faces,” the sign next to the door reads.
Halloween and Christmas decorations line the entryway, next to the 30 shopping carts that no one is using. A robotic voice says “Welcome,” as does a cheery employee, one of three spotted in the store. A lone customer checks out the Halloween candy.
Straight ahead are a few dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines and dryers: the appliance department. In the store’s main room, there is a large section of toiletries and diapers, a few hardware essentials and some cleaning and pet supplies. The toy department comprises a couple rows of dolls, action figures, games and squirt guns. Sun dresses, summer tops and sweatshirts make up the small clothing section. Oh, and there are snacks.
Also still present: a recorded voice intoning a once-familiar message over a loudspeaker.
“Attention Kmart shoppers,” it says, announcing that almost all items are on sale.
If there were only customers to hear it, like there used to be.
A fast rise and a slow death
Kmart was founded by the retailer S.S. Kresge Company in Michigan in 1962 and grew quickly, reaching 2,000 stores in 20 years. The company sold almost everything, from clothing to jewelry, TVs to dog food, appliances to toys to sporting goods. By the mid-1980s, it was the nation’s second-largest retailer behind Sears, and there were stores in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The roots of Kmart’s decline were laid during that decade when management bought Waldenbooks, Borders Books, Builders Square, Sports Authority and a stake in OfficeMax, thinking the company needed diversification. They were wrong. By the late 1990s, the company had sold those retailers yet still needed $5 billion in refinancing — the equivalent of $9 billion today.
In 2002, Kmart declared bankruptcy as Walmart and Target devoured its market share. Its website never took off, allowing Amazon to beat it in the e-commerce space. There were executive pay scandals, a purchase by a hedge fund manager who stripped it bare and a disastrous 2005 acquisition of Sears.
Mark Cohen, a former Sears Canada CEO and former director of retail studies at Columbia University’s graduate school of business, said Kmart would have thrived if not for the top executives who ran it into the ground. It could have been Walmart.
“It sold in its heyday things that people continue to buy in large quantities today,” Cohen said. “Kmart went down the drain because it was led by incompetent managers.”
Transformco bought Kmart and Sears out of another bankruptcy in 2019 for $5 billion — its critics say mostly for the stores’ real estate. There were 202 Kmarts remaining.
Over the past five years, the firm has kept closing Kmarts until all that’s left in the states is Miami Store #3074.
Nostalgia does not translate into sales
On the day that de la Madriz dropped in to buy his grandson’s gift, only a few customers trickled in and out of the store every hour.
College students Joey Fernandez and Wilfredo Huayhua spent five minutes inside before leaving empty-handed. They knew about the chain’s near-demise, spotted the store while in the shopping center and went in to reminisce. It seemed small, they said, compared to the Kmarts they remembered.
“We were bummed out — I spent a lot of my childhood at Kmart,” said Fernandez, 18. Still, he might be back — the store has good prices on the facial cleanser he uses.
Teacher Oliver Sequin had been entering Marshalls when he spotted the Kmart. That, too, triggered nostalgia but also reminded him he needed Band-Aids for his 5-year-old son. That was all he purchased.
“I remember when Kmarts were bigger,” Sequin said. “But, to be honest, I like this one better. It is clean and organized, not like they were.”
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US missile agency scales back Guam defense plans
A proposed multibillion-dollar missile defense system for Guam has been reduced to 16 sites on the island from the original 22, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said in a draft environmental impact statement on Friday.
The project is designed to create “360 degree” protection for the U.S. Pacific territory from missile and air attacks of all kinds, the agency said. Plans include integrating Raytheon’s SM-6, SM-3 Block IIA, Lockheed Martin’s THAAD, and the Patriot PAC-3, which uses components from both companies, over about 10 years.
The environmental impact study, which began last year and included a public comment period this year, proposes “deploying and operating and maintaining a combination of integrated components for air and missile defense positioned on 16 sites” on the island. The report does not say why the number of sites was reduced.
All of the remaining 16 sites are on U.S. military property.
The project is crucial to the U.S. and its Indo-Pacific allies because it provides a logistical hub far from U.S. shores – Guam is closer to China than it is to Hawaii.
China’s massive conventional ballistic missile inventory includes the DF-26, with an estimated range of about 4,000 km (2,500 miles), which can also carry anti-ship and nuclear warheads. Newer weapons in development, such as the hypersonic glide vehicle DF-27, are drawing increased attention from U.S. military planners.
“It’s a forward operating base for long-range bombers, and a port for ships, so that navy ships can sally forth from there,” said Peter Layton, a defense and aviation expert at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia. “Certainly places in Japan and the Philippines are a lot closer (to China)… but a lot more exposed.”
There will be public meetings in Guam next month to discuss Friday’s report, the agency statement said.
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US approves $2 billion arms sale to Taiwan including Ukraine tested missile system
The United States has approved a potential $2 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, the Pentagon said on Friday, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defense missile system battle tested in Ukraine.
The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, to the constant anger of Beijing.
China has been stepping up military pressure against Taiwan, including holding a new round of war games around the island last week, the second time it has done so since Lai Ching-te took office as Taiwan’s president in May.
The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the new sale consisted of $1.16 billion in missile systems and radar systems worth an estimated $828 million. The principal contractor for the missile system will be RTX Corp, the Pentagon said.
“This proposed sale serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” it said in a statement.
“The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region.”
The missile system sale is for three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) medium-range air defense solutions that includes the advanced AMRAAM Extended Range surface to air missiles, it added.
The NASAMS system has been battle tested in Ukraine and represents a significant increase in air defense capabilities that the United States is exporting to Taiwan as demand for the system surges.
A U.S. government source told Reuters on condition of anonymity that NASAMS was a new weapon for Taiwan, with Australia and Indonesia the only others in the region currently operating it.
Taiwan’s defense ministry welcomed the announcement, noting the “proven” use of NASAMS in Ukraine and saying it would help Taiwan’s air defense capabilities in the face of China’s frequent military maneuvers.
Taiwan’s military is bolstering its armaments to be able to better face any attack from China, including building its own submarines to defend vital maritime supply lines.
China detests Lai as a “separatist” and has rebuffed his repeated calls for talks. Lai rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
China’s government on Saturday kept up its attacks on Lai, denouncing comments he made on Friday on a sensitive frontline island about how no “external force” can change Taiwan’s future.
“There can be no future for ‘Taiwan independence’. The future of Taiwan lies in the complete reunification of the motherland,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.
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Georgia votes in an election that could take it toward the EU or into Russia’s orbit
Georgians headed to the polls Saturday in a ballot many citizens see as a make-or-break vote on the opportunity to join the European Union.
The pre-election campaign in the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million people has been dominated by foreign policy and marked by a bitter fight for votes and allegations of a smear campaign. Some Georgians complained of intimidation and being pressured to vote for the ruling party, Georgian Dream, while the opposition accused the party of carrying out a “hybrid war” against its citizens.
Ahead of the parliamentary election, Bidzina Ivanishvili — a shadowy billionaire who set up Georgian Dream and made his fortune in Russia — vowed again to ban opposition parties should his party win.
Georgian Dream will hold opposition parties “fully accountable under the full force of the law” for “war crimes” committed against the people of Georgia, Ivanishvili said at a pro-government rally in the capital Tbilisi Wednesday. He did not explain what crimes he believes the opposition has committed.
Georgians will elect 150 lawmakers from 18 parties. If no party wins the 76 seats required to form a government for a four-year term, the president will invite the largest party to form a coalition.
Many believe the election may be the most crucial vote of their lifetimes; it will determine whether Georgia gets back on track to EU membership or embraces authoritarianism and falls into Russia’s orbit.
“It’s an existential election,” Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said.
Georgians want “European integration, want to move forward and want policies which will bring us a better, more stable, future,” Qristine Tordia, 29, told The Associated Press shortly after voting in the capital, Tbilisi.
Around 80% of Georgians favor joining the EU according to polls and the country’s constitution obliges its leaders to pursue membership in that bloc and NATO.
But Brussels put Georgia’s bid for entry to the EU on hold indefinitely after the ruling party passed a “Russian law” cracking down on freedom of speech in June. Many Georgians fear the party is dragging the country towards authoritarianism and killing off hopes it could join the EU.
The opposition parties have ignored Zourabichvili’s request to unite into a single party but have signed up to her “charter” to carry out the reforms required by the EU to join.
Zourabichvili told the AP on Thursday she believed most Georgians would mobilize to vote “despite some instances of intimidation, despite the use of state resources … and the use of financial resources” by the government.
Georgian Dream took out billboards across the country contrasting black-and-white images of destruction in Ukraine with colorful images of life in Georgia alongside the slogan, “Say no to war — choose peace.”
The governing and opposition parties told voters they would pursue EU membership even though laws passed by Georgian Dream have put that hope on hold.
“The EU decided to stop Georgia’s integration process unilaterally,” said Vakhtang Asanidze, who spoke to AP at a pro-government rally in Tbilisi. He said he saw no reason why Georgia could not join the EU in spite of the laws.
At the EU summit last week, EU leaders said they have “serious concerns regarding the course of action taken by the Georgian government.”
While Georgian Dream has adopted laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on its critics, voters at the pro-government rally said they did not view the election as a choice between Russia or Europe.
“We remember everything about Russia, including Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” said Latavra Dashniani at the rally, referring to Russia’s occupation of 20% of Georgian territory after the two countries fought a short war in 2008.
Voting for the ruling party, she said, would ensure Georgia enters Europe “with dignity,” alluding to its conservative values, including opposition to rights for LGBTQ+ people.
Polls opened in the parliamentary election at 8 a.m. local time and will close 12 hours later.
Georgian Dream stands against three coalitions: the Unity National Movement, the Coalition for Changes Lelo, and Strong Georgia.
The Gakharia for Georgia party, set up by former prime minister Giorgi Gakharia, said it will not go into an alliance with anyone but will support the opposition to form a government.
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US election key to Latin American economies, says credit rating agency
Mexico city — The fate of Latin American economies, deeply reliant on remittances from the United States, hangs in the balance with the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, Fitch Ratings said on Friday.
Why it’s important
The potential disparity in immigration policies between the Republican and Democratic administrations could significantly affect Central American nations, which are heavily dependent on remittances from the U.S.
Key comment
“Central America is highly vulnerable to U.S. immigration policies, as remittances fund a large component of their economic activity,” said Fitch, a U.S.-based credit rating agency.
In countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua, remittances currently account for more than 30% of their gross domestic product, the ratings agency said, adding that Mexico is also one of the largest recipients of remittances globally, where inflows have steadily increased over the past decade to close to 3.5% of GDP, from 2%.
By the numbers
Remittances to Nicaragua have tripled in the past five years, while those to other countries, specifically El Salvador and Jamaica, have considerably slowed.
A study based on data from the U.S. Current Population Survey showed that a 1% increase in the country’s household earnings results in a 0.2% to 0.3% increase in remittances sent abroad.
Context
The U.S. elections could usher in changes in immigration policies, with Donald Trump’s campaign showing a willingness to restrict border crossings and increase deportations, while the potential Kamala Harris administration would aim to pass a bipartisan law to reform the asylum process and limit immigration parole.
Policy changes could significantly affect migrants and the Central American economies that are heavily dependent on the money they send back home from the United States.
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NASA astronaut hospitalized upon return from extended stay in space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A NASA astronaut was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue after returning from a nearly eight-month space station stay extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton, the space agency said Friday.
A SpaceX capsule carrying three Americans and one Russian parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station at midweek. The capsule was hoisted onto the recovery ship where the four astronauts had routine medical checks.
Soon after splashdown, a NASA astronaut had a “medical issue” and the crew was flown to a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, for additional evaluation “out of an abundance of caution,” the space agency said in a statement.
The astronaut, who was not identified, was in stable condition and remained at the hospital as a “precautionary measure,” NASA said.
The space agency said it would not share details about the astronaut’s condition, citing patient privacy.
The other three astronauts were discharged and returned to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
It can take days or even weeks for astronauts to readjust to gravity after living in weightlessness for several months.
The astronauts should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.
SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us … and helped us to roll with all those punches.”
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
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New Americans expected make impact in 2024 election
Nearly 3.5 million voting-age adults have become U.S. citizens since the 2020 election, according to the National Partnership for New Americans. Some experts say this growing group could prove pivotal in shaping the election results. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros reports. Camera and contributor: Jeff Swicord.
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Kurdish attack in Ankara could derail prospects for peace talks, analysts say
A Kurdish militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack on a major state-run defense company in Turkey’s capital, an action that analysts say could complicate prospects for renewed peace talks between the Turkish government and the country’s Kurdish minority.
Two assailants set off explosives and opened fire Wednesday at the aerospace and defense company TUSAS in Ankara, killing five people and wounding 22, Turkey’s interior ministry said.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, said in a statement Friday that the attack on the defense firm was for its role in producing weapons used in attacks against Kurdish civilians.
The PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The Kurdish militant group has engaged in a four-decade armed conflict with the Turkish government for greater Kurdish rights in Turkey.
Unmanned aerial vehicles, designed and assembled by TUSAS, have been instrumental in Turkey’s fight against Kurdish militants.
Wednesday’s attack came a day after Devlet Bahceli, leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggested the possibility of granting parole to PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, if the Kurdish group laid down its arms.
A peace process between the two sides that started in 2013 collapsed in 2015.
Yerevan Saeed, director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace at American University in Washington, said the attack in Ankara represented a significant strategic blunder for the PKK.
“This incident highlights a concerning lack of strategic vision at this important time,” he told VOA. “While the Turkish government’s initiative to restart peace talks could be seen as a tactical maneuver, the Kurdish armed group must avoid providing the state with any justification to abandon the dialogue, which could in turn diminish international sympathy for the Kurdish cause.”
Shortly after the Ankara attack, Turkey’s military struck Kurdish militant targets in Iraq and Syria that Turkish officials said belonged to offshoots of the PKK. The Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency said Friday that 120 targets had been struck in Iraq and Syria since Wednesday.
Erdogan, on a flight back from the BRICS summit in Russia, told reporters Friday that the perpetrators of the Ankara attack had infiltrated from Syria, and he vowed to continue efforts to combat terrorism.
In Kurdish-controlled Syria, some of the strikes hit power grids and water pump stations, causing outages of water and electricity in several cities in northeast Syria. Reporters for VOA Kurdish in the region visited several sites that had been damaged in the strikes.
Sinan Ciddi, a Turkey expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Turkish citizens would demand “a strong military response” from the government for the Ankara bombing.
He told VOA that “the terror attack also reduces the chances for renewed negotiations between Erdogan and the PKK for a peace process.”
‘No military solution’
Amy Austin Holmes, a professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, said in every peace process there are spoilers who want to sabotage it.
“There is no military solution to what is an inherently political and social issue of equal citizenship. President Erdogan and the Kurdish movement both recognize this,” she told VOA. “In order for the dialogue process not to be derailed by the PKK’s attack in Ankara, and Turkey’s bombardment of northern Syria and Iraq, cooler heads need to prevail.”
Henri Barkey, professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, said the PKK-claimed attack made no sense.
“The only thing I can think of is that operations such as this one take months to prepare, so these guys had orders and it was never called off because they may have been under a blanket-of-communication order,” he said.
“This is bad for the PKK given that a process is supposed to start and that they could not prevent it from happening,” he added. “The other half of the explanation is that there may be divisions in the organization and the group in charge of this chose not to stop it.”
But other analysts, like Brussels-based Kurdish affairs researcher Hosheng Ose, believe that regardless of the attack in Ankara and the strikes on Iraq and Syria, there seems to be a decision within the Turkish political establishment to reach a settlement with the country’s Kurds.
“There are elements within both the Turkish state and the PKK that oppose any prospects for peace, but I don’t believe that will have any effect on what the Turkish government wants to achieve,” he told VOA.
“Turkey is really concerned with the recent developments across the Middle East, and it wants to ensure that no Kurdish group would play a role that could threaten Turkey’s long-term objectives,” said Ose.
This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.
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Chinese hackers breach parts of US telecom system, target Trump, Harris campaigns
washington — Hackers linked to the Chinese government have broken into parts of the U.S. telecommunications system in a breach that might be connected to an attempt to access data from the presidential campaigns of Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency late Friday said they were investigating “unauthorized access” to commercial telecommunications infrastructure, attributing the attack to Chinese-affiliated actors.
The agencies said they immediately notified affected companies once the breach was detected and had offered assistance, though there might be additional victims.
“The investigation is ongoing, and we encourage any organization that believes it might be a victim to engage its local FBI field office or CISA,” the statement said.
“Agencies across the U.S. government are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses across the commercial communications sector,” it added.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington dismissed the U.S. hacking allegations as disinformation, calling the U.S. “the origin and the biggest perpetrator of cyberattacks.”
“For some time, the U.S. has compiled and spread all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats,” said embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu in an email to VOA.
“China’s position is consistent and clear,” he said. “China firmly opposes and combats cyberattacks and cyber theft in all forms.”
Word of the breach linked to China followed a report by The New York Times on Friday that Chinese hackers are thought to have broken into telecommunications networks to target the Trump campaign.
People familiar with the investigation told the Times that the Chinese hackers specifically looked to access data from phones used by Trump and his running mate, Republican Senator JD Vance.
Separately, a person familiar with the investigation told VOA that people affiliated with the campaign of Vice President Harris were also targeted.
Investigators are still trying to determine what data the hackers were able to get, if any, and whether the hackers could listen in on conversations in real time.
The FBI declined to comment on the Trump and Harris campaign breaches.
In a statement shared with VOA, the Trump campaign acknowledged the breach and blamed Harris for letting it happen.
“This is the continuation of election interference by Kamala Harris and Democrats who will stop at nothing, including emboldening China and Iran attacking critical American infrastructure, to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign communications director.
“Their dangerous and violent rhetoric has given permission to those who wish to harm President Trump,” Cheung added.
The Trump campaign did not respond to questions asking for more details on how Harris or her campaign enabled the Chinese hack.
The Harris campaign has yet to respond to VOA’s request for comment.
U.S. intelligence agencies have warned for months that foreign adversaries have been using a combination of cyberattacks and influence operations to meddle with the November 5 U.S. presidential election.
According to a declassified intelligence assessment issued this week, “foreign actors — particularly Russia, Iran and China — remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests.”
It further warned that Russia and Iran were formulating plans to spark election-related violence.
In addition, reports issued this week by private cybersecurity firms likewise indicated a significant uptick in activity by actors linked to Russia, China and Iran.
All three nations have repeatedly denied accusations of election meddling.
And while U.S. intelligence officials assess there is little agreement among the three countries on the desired outcomes of the presidential election — Russia is said to want a Trump win, Iran is said to be rooting for Harris, and China sees both as equally bad — the Trump campaign has become a frequent target of attacks.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department charged three Iranian hackers tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with a hack-and-leak operation seeking to undermine Trump’s reelection bid.
U.S. intelligence officials have also accused Iran of trying to ensnare the campaign of current U.S. President Joe Biden before he stepped down in favor of Harris.
But U.S. security officials have been even more leery of China.
U.S. agencies, led by CISA and the FBI, have been warning that China-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. computer systems and networks, in some case hiding for years.
The China-linked group, known as Volt Typhoon, has been “positioning itself to launch destructive cyberattacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans,” according to an advisory issued in February.
“What we’ve found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg,” CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement at the time.
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