An organ transplant surgeon from New York is planning a third trip to Ukraine, where he has been working with doctors to help patients caught up in Russia’s war on Ukraine. The surgeon, Dr. Robert Montgomery, is also working to raise money to buy medical equipment for a hospital in Lviv. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Pavlo Terekhov.
…

The Biden administration announced more than $80 million in funding Thursday in a push to produce more solar panels in the U.S., make solar energy available to more people, and pursue superior alternatives to the ubiquitous sparkly panels made with silicon.

The initiative, spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and known as Community solar, encompasses a variety of arrangements where renters and people who don’t control their rooftops can still get their electricity from solar power. Two weeks ago, Vice President Kamala Harris announced what the administration said was the largest community solar effort ever in the United States.

Now it is set to spend $52 million on 19 solar projects across a dozen states, including $10 million from the infrastructure law, as well as $30 million on technologies that will help integrate solar electricity into the grid.

The DOE also selected 25 teams to participate in a $10 million competition designed to fast-track the efforts of solar developers working on community solar projects.

The Inflation Reduction Act already offers incentives to build large solar generation projects, such as renewable energy tax credits. But Ali Zaidi, White House national climate adviser, said the new money focuses on meeting the nation’s climate goals in a way that benefits more communities.

“It’s lifting up our workers and our communities. And that’s, I think, what really excites us about this work,” Zaidi said. “It’s a chance not just to tackle the climate crisis, but to bring economic opportunity to every zip code of America.”

The investments will help people save on their electricity bills and make the electricity grid more reliable, secure, and resilient in the face of a changing climate, said Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the energy department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.

Jones-Albertus said she’s particularly excited about the support for community solar projects, since half of Americans don’t live in a situation where they can buy their own solar and put in on the roof.

Michael Jung, executive director of the ICF Climate Center agreed. “Community solar can help address equity concerns, as most current rooftop solar panels benefit owners of single-family homes,” he said.

In typical community solar projects, households can invest in or subscribe to part of a larger solar array offsite. “What we’re doing here is trying to unlock the community solar market,” Jones-Albertus said.

The U.S. has 5.3 gigawatts of installed community solar capacity currently, according to the latest estimates. The goal is that by 2025, five million households will have access to it — about three times as many as today — saving $1 billion on their electricity bills, according to Jones-Albertus.

The new funding also highlights investment in a next generation of solar technologies, intended to wring more electricity out of the same amount of solar panels. Currently only about 20% of the sun’s energy is converted to electricity in crystalline silicon solar cells, which is what most solar panels are made of. There has long been hope for higher efficiency, and today’s announcement puts some money towards developing two alternatives: perovskite and cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells. Zaidi said this will allow the U.S. to be “the innovation engine that tackles the climate crisis.”

Joshua Rhodes, a scientist at the University of Texas at Austin said the investment in perovskites is good news. They can be produced more cheaply than silicon and are far more tolerant of defects, he said. They can also be built into textured and curved surfaces, which opens up more applications for their use than traditional rigid panels. Most silicon is produced in China and Russia, Rhodes pointed out.

Cadmium telluride solar can be made quickly and at a low cost, but further research is needed to improve how efficient the material is at converting sunlight to electrons.

Cadmium is also toxic and people shouldn’t be exposed to it. Jones-Albertus said that in cadmium telluride solar technology, the compound is encapsulated in glass and additional protective layers.

The new funds will also help recycle solar panels and reuse rare earth elements and materials. “One of the most important ways we can make sure CdTe remains in a safe compound form is ensuring that all solar panels made in the U.S. can be reused or recycled at the end of their life cycle,” Jones-Albertus explained.

Recycling solar panels also reduces the need for mining, which damages landscapes and uses a lot of energy, in part to operate the heavy machinery. Eight of the projects in Thursday’s announcement focus on improving solar panel recycling, for a total of about $10 million.

Clean energy is a fit for every state in the country, the administration said. One solar project in Shungnak, Alaska, was able to eliminate the need to keep making electricity by burning diesel fuel, a method sometimes used in remote communities that is not healthy for people and contributes to climate change.

“Alaska is not a place that folks often think of when they think about solar, but this energy can be an economic and affordable resource in all parts of the country,” said Jones-Albertus.
…

The United States is setting a record pace for mass killings in 2023, replaying the horror on a loop roughly once a week so far this year.

Eighty-eight people have died in 17 mass killings over 111 days. Each time, the killers wielded firearms. Only 2009 was marked by as many such tragedies in the same period of time.

Children at a Tennessee grade school, gunned down on an ordinary Monday. Farmworkers in Northern California, sprayed with bullets over a workplace grudge. Dancers at a ballroom outside Los Angeles, California, massacred as they celebrated the Lunar New Year.

In just the last week, four partygoers were slain and 32 injured in Dadeville, Alabama, when bullets rained down on a Sweet 16 celebration. And a man just released from prison fatally shot four people, including his parents, in Bowdoin, Maine, before opening fire on motorists traveling a busy interstate highway.

“Nobody should be shocked,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was one of 17 people killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school in 2018. “I visit my daughter in a cemetery. Outrage doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”

The National Rifle Association did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

More than 2,842 killed 

The Parkland victims are among the 2,842 people who have died in mass killings in the U.S. since 2006, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. It counts killings involving four or more fatalities, not including the perpetrator, the same standard as the FBI, and tracks a number of variables for each.

The bloodshed represents a small fraction of the fatal violence that occurs in the U.S. annually. Yet mass killings are happening with staggering frequency this year: an average of once every 6.53 days, according to an analysis of The AP/USA Today data.

The 2023 numbers stand out even more when they are compared to the tally for full-year totals since data was collected. The U.S. recorded 30 or fewer mass killings in more than half of the years in the database, so to be at 17 less than a third of the way through is remarkable.

Motives range

From coast to coast, the violence is sparked by a range of motives. Murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas. All have taken the lives of four or more people at once since January 1.

Yet the violence continues and barriers to change remain. The likelihood of Congress reinstating a ban on semi-automatic rifles appears far off, and the U.S. Supreme Court last year set new standards for reviewing the nation’s gun laws, calling into question firearms restrictions across the country.

The pace of mass shootings so far this year doesn’t necessarily foretell a new annual record. In 2009, the bloodshed slowed, and the year finished with a final count of 32 mass killings and 172 fatalities. Those figures just barely exceed the averages of 31.1 mass killings and 162 victims a year, according to an analysis of data dating back to 2006.

Gruesome records have been set within the last decade. The data shows a high of 45 mass killings in 2019 and 230 people slain in such tragedies in 2017. That year, 60 people died when a gunman opened fire over an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. The massacre still accounts for the most fatalities from a mass shooting in modern America.

“Here’s the reality: If somebody is determined to commit mass violence, they’re going to,” said Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium. “And it’s our role as society to try and put up obstacles and barriers to make that more difficult.”

But there’s little indication at either the state or federal level — with a handful of exceptions — that many major policy changes are on the horizon.

Some states have tried to impose more gun control within their own borders. Last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new law mandating criminal background checks to purchase rifles and shotguns, whereas the state previously required them only for people buying pistols. And on Wednesday, a ban on dozens of types of semi-automatic rifles cleared the Washington state Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk.

Other states are experiencing a new round of pressure. In conservative Tennessee, protesters descended on the state Capitol to demand more gun regulation after six people were killed at the Nashville private elementary school last month.

At the federal level, President Joe Biden last year signed a milestone gun violence bill, toughening background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keeping firearms from more domestic violence offenders, and helping states use red flag laws that enable police to ask courts to take guns from people who show signs they could turn violent.

Despite the blaring headlines, mass killings are statistically rare, perpetrated by just a handful of people each year in a country of nearly 335 million. And there’s no way to predict whether this year’s events will continue at this rate.

Sometimes mass killings happen back-to-back — like in January, when deadly events in California occurred just two days apart — while other months pass without bloodshed.

“We shouldn’t necessarily expect that this — one mass killing every less than seven days — will continue,” said Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, who oversees the database. “Hopefully it won’t.”

Still, experts and advocates decry the proliferation of guns in the U.S. in recent years, including record sales during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The mystery of one of the world’s worst international maritime disasters has been solved off the coast of the Philippines. The wreck of the Montevideo Maru – a Japanese transport ship sunk 80 years ago by an American submarine during World War II – has finally been found. 

The Montevideo Maru was carrying 850 prisoners of war and about 200 civilians who had been captured by the Japanese in Papua New Guinea in 1942. Unaware of who was onboard, the ship was torpedoed by the USS Sturgeon, an American submarine.

Its sinking was initially heralded as a success by Allied forces before the identity of most of those onboard was finally revealed.

The vessel’s location has until now been an enduring mystery.

The wreck was found earlier this week in the South China Sea off the Philippines. The mission was a combined effort of the Australian Defense Department, marine archaeologists from Australia’s Silentworld Foundation, and experts from the Dutch deep-sea survey company Fugro.

The search began earlier this month off the coast of the Philippines. Within two weeks, a positive sighting of the Montevideo Maru was made before the identity of the vessel was officially verified. It was the culmination of years of research and preparation by the search team.

Almost 1,000 Australians died in the disaster, the worst in the nation’s maritime history.

Cathy Parry McLennan’s grandfather Arthur Perry was on the Montevideo Maru when it sank.

She told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Saturday that she now has closure.

“I burst into tears, and I have been a bit emotional all day, I’m sorry,” she said. “I think it is growing up as a child with my father who really never knew his dad and talked about him a lot and talked about being in New Guinea and what happened, and, so, it has all come to fruition and I think it is a lovely day because at least we know where grandfather is now and I feel closer to him.”

The wreck was discovered on a mission put together by the Silentworld Foundation, which is dedicated to maritime archaeology and history and Fugro with support from Australia’s Department of Defense.

The tragedy affected more than a dozen countries. There were victims from Denmark, New Zealand and the United States as well as Japan.

No items or human remains will be removed from the Montevideo Maru.
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As China strengthens its relations with Central Asian countries, U.S. influence has fallen behind, according to some observers.

U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia has been shaped by strong Russian influence in the region, but China’s growing presence in Central Asia has caused Washington to refocus its strategy through a lens of competition with Beijing. Experts speaking at a recent webinar sponsored by the Caspian Policy Center said the U.S. should not make competing with China the sole focus of its Central Asia strategy.

China and five Central Asian countries recently agreed to sign additional cooperation agreements at a gathering expected to take place in May called the China+Central Asia Summit, Chinese state media reported.

Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative — which aims to link China to the world through land and sea routes, infrastructure and technology — has exacerbated U.S. concerns about economic dependence and unsustainable infrastructure projects around the world, including in countries like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

“China has a relatively easy task in the region by virtue of its geography, the attraction of its markets, its status as the number one trade partner in the region, and its offering of connectivity,” said Wilson Center analyst Robert Dale.

Benefits from China

China’s CGTV quoted Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao as saying that China’s trade volume with Central Asia grew by 22% in the first two months of this year. Wang added, “The cross-border e-commerce between China and Central Asia increased by 95 percent year-on-year in 2022, and nearly 300 Central Asian enterprises joined China’s e-commerce platforms.”

According to the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker, Beijing’s 2005-2022 investments totaled $850 million in Kyrgyzstan, $1 billion in Tajikistan, $1.56 billion in Uzbekistan, $1.79 billion in Turkmenistan and $19.86 billion in Kazakhstan.

While China observers have noticed the country’s strategy on BRI is changing and the pace of new investments has been decelerating, many Central Asians still see China and BRI positively, with benefits to the region that include China’s help in human capital development, education, research and technology transfers.

“Also in telecoms, ICT [information and communications technology] is regarded as a major benefit. Diversification by investing not only in mining and traditional resource extraction but also in agriculture, industry and banking, and free trade zones in support of trade and industrial development and service development. All regard that as positive features of BRI,” said Johannes Linn at the Brookings Institution.

There also have been increased Chinese security activities in the region, specifically bilateral and multilateral exercises, said Brianne Todd, professor at the National Defense University in Washington.

“We know that [Chinese uniformed personnel] are present in Tajikistan, meaning that the Tajik government has invited them,” she said. “They’re doing everything from border security to counterterrorism.”

Chinese presence

BRI investments have dropped dramatically in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan. There are no new projects, and envisioned rail transit from China to Europe via Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for now remains on paper.

China is not always effective in Central Asia, Linn said. “They’ve seen Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in conflict, unrest in Kazakhstan. … China was left outside of these events not really understanding what was going on or being able to contribute meaningfully to resolution.”

Some anti-Chinese sentiment does exist, said Elizabeth Wishnick, senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses.

Clashes between local residents and workers, including in Chinese mining operations, have pushed Beijing to rely on private security companies in Kyrgyzstan, for example.

In Kazakhstan, a recent study showed China as the least preferred partner, noted Wishnick. “That doesn’t mean Kazakhstan is not going to engage with China. It will, but unwillingly, leave opportunities for others,” she said.

Some Central Asians worry about being exploited and overrun through Chinese land use. There is also some concern about China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, including Kazaks and Kirgiz in Xinjiang, said Dale.

Other potential downsides to Chinese presence noted by Linn include excessive debt owed, Chinese extraction of natural resources in the region, unfair and nontransparent revenue sharing, little investment in the soft part of infrastructure, concerns about BRI transport infrastructure being directed more toward China than to world markets, data security sovereignty, lack of adequate attention to climate change, agricultural land issue, heavy reliance of Chinese investors on Chinese employees and migration challenges stemming from that problem.

“The lack of transparency in BRI investments and show projects, such as presidential palaces and sports arenas, finance corruption,” said Linn.

US and Central Asia

Amid complex relationships between China and Central Asian countries, analysts at the Caspian Policy Center said that when it comes to influence, U.S. has fallen far behind China.

“Beijing’s emphasis on development, status as a market for energy, interest in agriculture and water projects, all dwarf what the U.S. is actually able to bring to the table even when China underdelivers,” said Dale.

Todd doubts the U.S. will ever be able to compete with China economically and militarily in Central Asia.

“I don’t think that should be the goal, because we know that is not attainable in terms of financial or security interests,” Todd said. “Certainly, we want to have relationships with all the countries in Central Asia, but they should be more broadly based and have everything from economic development to people-to-people exchanges with each of these states.”

For Todd, the key question is how U.S. interests align with those of the region.

Balancing China, Russia

There is also the consideration that Russia is still “very present” in the region despite its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, observers noted.

Wishnick said Russia remains quite active in the region, “despite being viewed as toxic.” Specifically, Kazakhstan is trying “very hard not to inflame relations with one while engaging with the other.”

Central Asia’s geographic location necessitates a balancing act between China and Russia, experts say.

“All of these countries are facing energy transition, suffering potentially from climate change and are stuck dealing with Russia and China because of the fixed pipelines that connect them,” said Wishnick.

Dale said the U.S. government should not demonize everything China and Russia do in the region but has to understand Central Asians’ needs, “because they are still open to other ideas and connections.”

The best long-term strategy should be to give the region more choices, he said.
…

The United States is deploying more troops at its base in Djibouti as it considers whether to evacuate diplomats from Sudan, where a power struggle between two military factions has led to days of violence that has killed more than 330 people.

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, spoke Friday with VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara about the ongoing fighting in Sudan. He also previewed next week’s White House state visit by President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF PATSY WIDAKUSWARA: I’d like to start with Sudan. What’s the latest on the evacuation of American diplomats and the deployment of troops to the base in Djibouti?

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS JOHN KIRBY: There’s been no decision to evacuate our diplomats. We’re still focused right now on pre-positioning appropriate military capabilities nearby in the region, not in Sudan, just in case there is a decision made to evacuate our embassy.

The bottom line is the situation on the ground in Khartoum is not good. The violence continues, the fighting continues despite both sides calling or urging the other to abide by cease-fires. There’s still a lot of violence inside Khartoum, and so it’s a very tenuous, very dangerous situation. And as we’ve said, if you are an American citizen, and you didn’t take our warning to leave Sudan and particularly Khartoum, you need to take care of your own safety and security, shelter in place, find a place to stay where you can stay safe and not be moving around.

VOA: So there’s no evacuation for American citizens at this point?

KIRBY: There is no expectation that there’s going to be a U.S. government evacuation of American citizens. That remains the case right now.

VOA: Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has called the leaders of both warring parties to push for a cease-fire. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. The U.S. has very limited leverage because we have pulled U.S. assistance since the coup in Sudan in 2021. Which countries in the region are you reaching out to, to help push for a cease-fire?

KIRBY: We’re talking to the African Union, we’re talking to the Arab League. Clearly, we’re talking bilaterally with other nations around Sudan in the region who obviously have a stake in making sure that peace and security, stability has a chance there in Sudan. And yes, we are reaching out directly. You’ve mentioned Secretary Blinken, but there are other lines of communication reaching out directly with the leaders on both sides there, General [Abdel Fattah] Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and General [Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo] “Hemedti” of the RSF and to urge them to put down their arms, actually put in place a sustainable cease-fire so that humanitarian aid and assistance can get to the people that need it.

VOA: Would the U.S. administration consider any kind of punitive measures to push for a cease-fire?

KIRBY: I don’t have any muscle movements to speak to right now. We are focused right now on communicating to both sides they need to put their arms down, they need to stop the fighting. We need to get the ability for people to get access to food and water and medicine and again, to have a discussion about a transition to civilian authority.

VOA: And how concerned are you that this would turn into a proxy war, where outside groups such as the Wagner Group that’s already in the region might take opportunity from the chaos?

KIRBY: Obviously, we don’t want to see this conflict expand or broaden, and we certainly wouldn’t want to see additional firepower brought to bear; that will just continue the violence and continue to escalate the tensions.

VOA: I want to move on to the South Korean president’s visit next week. One of the leaks showed that there is concern from the South Koreans that President [Joe] Biden might push President Yoon [Suk Yeol] to supply military weapons, munitions particularly to Ukraine. Has this leak complicated the visit at all?

KIRBY: We are very excited about having our second state visit be the Republic of Korea. President Biden and President Yoon have a terrific relationship. We as a nation have a great relationship with the Republic of Korea, our South Korean allies. And it is an alliance. We have actual alliance commitments with South Korea. And there’s an awful lot on the agenda and it won’t just be Ukraine.

But there’s an awful lot of other things on the agenda, everything from high technology to climate change to certainly threats inside the Indo-Pacific region. Obviously, North Korea will be on the agenda. There’s a lot to talk about. And this is a terrific relationship.

VOA: President Yoon said he may be open to providing military support to Ukraine under some circumstances. Is this something that President Biden will push President Yoon for?

KIRBY: This isn’t about pushing South Korea at all. It’s about having a meaningful conversation about items of mutual shared concern and interest and certainly the war in Ukraine is something that South Korea shares that concern with. I’ll let President Yoon speak to what he is or isn’t willing to do.

We have said from the very beginning that what a nation decides to do with respect to supporting Ukraine is up to them to decide. It’s a sovereign decision. The whole idea of supporting Ukraine, this whole fight is about sovereignty. It’s about independence. And how ironic and hypocritical would it be for the United States to dictate terms to a sovereign nation about what they should or shouldn’t do.

VOA: Can we expect any kind of announcements in terms of extended deterrence, increasing U.S. strategic assets, any kind of joint operations of nuclear scenarios in the region?

KIRBY: We routinely talk to the South Koreans about the extended deterrence. I’m not going to get ahead of the president or any specific announcements or anything going forward.

VOA: On semiconductors, now that China cannot access U.S. technology but also Japanese and Netherlands technology for semiconductors, they are reaching out to South Korean companies. Is this something that the president will also discuss?

KIRBY: I have no doubt that they’ll talk about high technology and the need to keep improving, preserving, maintaining resilient supply chains when it comes to semiconductors. But I won’t get ahead of the conversation.

VOA: You mentioned today’s meeting in Ramstein, Germany, which marks one year that the Defense Contact Group has been meeting. Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin said this morning that the focus will be on air defense, ammunition and logistics. What does that say in terms of where we are in the war right now and the strategy going forward?

KIRBY: We have evolved the capabilities that we are providing Ukraine … as the war itself has evolved over time. Here we are past a year. And we know that in the spring when the weather improves, and it’s already starting to improve, that we can expect the Russians to want to go on the offensive in some areas, and we don’t know exactly where or how they’ll do that. But we want to make sure that the Ukrainians are able to better defend themselves against that and if they choose offensive operations of their own, that they’ve got the capabilities to conduct those.

And you heard Secretary Austin talk about air defense, talk about armor capabilities because we believe that one of the things and they say they need to be better at is combined arms warfare, which is maneuver warfare in open terrain. That means, that requires armor, that requires artillery, that requires some air defense. But he also talked about logistics because that’s really the lifeblood of any army in the field, is how do you keep it in the field? How do you sustain it? How do you get him spare parts and food and water and fuel, the kinds of things that they need to maintain operations in a continuous way? So that’s got to be front and center as well.

VOA: Last question, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg this week said that Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. At this point, do you see Ukraine to be closer toward becoming a NATO member?

KIRBY: Nothing’s changed about our support for the Open Door Policy of NATO. Nothing’s changed about that. We continue to support an open door for NATO. But we’ve also said that any conversation about coming into the alliance has got to be a conversation between the nation in question and the alliance itself.

VOA: But do you see that Ukraine itself has improved on the criteria that it must meet?

KIRBY: Our focus right now with respect to Ukraine is making sure that they can beat back the Russian aggression. That they can be successful on the battlefield so that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, if and when he’s ready to negotiate, he can be successful at the table. That’s our focus. We’ll let the secretary-general speak for the alliance.
…

Longtime New York Times China reporter Chris Buckley traveled to Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, on the day the city went into lockdown. It was January 2020.

“In retrospect, it sounds crazy,” Buckley said. He went prepared with masks and a healthy sense of caution, but he never predicted that what he saw during those weeks would still grip the world three years later.

“It was a big story, and I like to cover big stories. It’s exciting. It’s fulfilling. And I hope it didn’t make me reckless,” Buckley told VOA. “I wanted to be part of what was going to be a big story.”

His visa was about to expire, and the Chinese government had already told him they wouldn’t renew it. That meant the start of the pandemic was among the last big stories Buckley was going to be able to report from inside China before he left that spring.

Beijing has expelled or declined to renew visas for several foreign correspondents in recent years. China in 2020 said it was responding to the previous U.S. administration decision to cap the number of visas for staff at state-run Chinese media and designate their outlets “foreign missions.”

When Buckley got off the train in Wuhan, he didn’t find any more security than normal — which made some parts of the assignment easier than he had expected.

“It was difficult reporting, but it wasn’t constrained by being followed or anything like that. It was constrained by people being worried [about the virus],” he told VOA from Taiwan, where he currently lives.

Buckley, who has covered China for over two decades, is among the correspondents whose stories from the 1940s to today make up a new book — Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in the People’s Republic.

“If we want to understand China, we should care about who is reporting about China,” said Katherine Wilhelm, who reported in China for various outlets between 1987 and 2001 and is also featured in the book. “How do they experience the process of gathering information on a day-to-day basis? It helps to see how the sausage is made.”

Assignment China was written by CNN’s first Beijing bureau chief Mike Chinoy.

“The way in which journalists for the American media have covered China has had a huge impact in the way most Americans understand or misunderstand China,” Chinoy told VOA. “The American media organizations’ coverage of China has had a disproportionate impact in shaping perception of China all around the world.”

Chinoy wanted to help readers better understand what he sees as the “particular challenges of trying to cover a story as challenging and complicated and as hugely important as China is.”

That goal was important to Chinoy in light of tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Chinoy served as CNN’s Beijing bureau chief from 1987 to 1995. It was a period that “went from relatively relaxed to extremely repressive during and after Tiananmen Square, to becoming relatively relaxed again,” Chinoy said.

“On the night of the [Tiananmen Square] crackdown, my live reporting was all done on a telephone line that we kept open on the balcony of the Beijing Hotel because we didn’t have a cellphone,” Chinoy said. Following the 1989 crackdown was a period of intense restrictions that made it harder to report until 1992, he said.

The most promising period for foreign reporters in China, according to Melissa Chan, was in the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Chan began reporting in China in 2006 and worked there as a correspondent for Al Jazeera until 2012, when she was expelled from the country.

She was the first foreign reporter to be told to leave the country in over a decade.

“It was pretty big news at the time,” Chan, now an independent journalist based in Berlin, told VOA. “Today, we’ve lost track of the number of reporters who’ve lost their credentials and have had to leave.”

China’s Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson, however, has previously dismissed claims of a closed media environment, saying, “as long as foreign journalists abide by the law and do reporting in compliance with the law and regulations, there is no need to worry.”

Even before Chan was forced to leave, the relative freedom that foreign journalists briefly enjoyed had begun to decline, she said.

During a 2011 reporting trip to the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of genocide against Uyghurs, Chan was tailed by two cars the entire time.

“It was becoming unbearable, particularly for TV crews,” she said.

Those difficulties strike at the heart of the book, Chinoy said, which is “the never-ending struggle between American journalists seeking to penetrate the veil of secrecy that has enshrouded China for so long, and get a better understanding of Chinese reality.”

For Wilhelm, who now leads the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at New York University’s law school, reporting in China gave a sense, “all day, every day, that you were swimming upstream, or swimming against the tide, trying to find out things in a system that really didn’t want you to find them out.”

Despite the barriers, which have multiplied in recent years, Buckley said that for media to cover the news on China effectively, they need to be inside China.

Reporting from the countryside is one of the things Buckley misses most about being based in China. But that’s become harder to do, he said.

“Ultimately it means people abroad don’t get that more textured sense about what life is like in China,” Buckley said. “And that’s a loss.”

In the short term, the Chinese government may be relieved to have fewer foreign journalists, especially from American outlets, said Buckley. But those potential benefits won’t last forever.

“Longer term, if readers, if audiences are deprived of a fuller understanding of what’s happening in China, that space where information can’t be shared is going to be filled with distortions and rumors and more misunderstandings,” he said.
…

Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Violence erupts in Sudan, UN chief calls for truce

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate halt to fighting in Sudan on Thursday and appealed for a three-day cease-fire to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to enable trapped civilians to seek safety and supplies.

As of Friday, street battles were reportedly continuing. Guterres said a truce for Eid al-Fitr must be the first step to a permeant cease-fire and a return to the transition to civilian rule. Rival generals in a power struggle have unleashed fighting in the capital and across the country, which has killed more than 400 people so far, many of them civilians.

UN Chief Calls for Cease-Fire in Sudan to Mark End of Ramadan

UN complains to US over spying reports

The United Nations lodged a formal complaint Monday with the United States over reports that Washington spied on Secretary-General Guterres and other senior U.N. officials. The revelation came to light as part of a trove of classified military documents allegedly leaked online by a 21-year-old U.S. air national guardsman, who was arrested and charged last week. News outlets reported that the U.S. may have monitored Guterres’ private communications, including with Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. The U.S. government has not commented on the substance of the leaked documents.

UN Expresses Concern to US Over Spying Reports

Talk of Taliban recognition draws condemnation

Remarks by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed about possible future recognition of the Taliban drew criticism this week from U.S. officials as well as Afghan activists and politicians. Speaking at Princeton University, Mohammed said a meeting is being organized in Qatar in early May of special envoys on Afghanistan from different countries. “And out of that, we hope that we’ll find those baby steps to put us back on the pathway to recognition [of the Taliban], a principled recognition,” Mohammed said. “Is it possible? I don’t know. [But] that discussion has to happen. The Taliban clearly want recognition, and that’s the leverage we have.” The U.N. has rejected as “unlawful” the Taliban’s latest edict banning Afghan women from working for the international organization. It follows other restrictions on their education, work and movements.

Top UN Official Proposes Meeting to Discuss Recognition of Taliban

The U.N. quickly moved to clarify Mohammed’s remarks, saying the recognition issue was “clearly in the hands of the member states” and that she was reaffirming the need for an internationally coordinated approach. Mohammed has been outspoken on upholding the rights of Afghan women and girls and personally met with the Taliban’s supreme leader earlier this year.

US Rules Out Talks on Afghan Taliban Recognition at UN-Hosted Meeting

No consensus on UN Security Council on what to do about DPRK

A senior United Nations official warned Monday that North Korea is hitting “significant milestones” in its five-year military development plan, including its launch last week of a reported solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). U.N. deputy political chief Khaled Khiari added that the lack of Security Council unity is not helping the situation, as North Korea is “unconstrained.” Russia and China have repeatedly blocked action on the council to address numerous ballistic missile launches.

As UN Security Council Dithers, North Korea Progresses on WMD

Decline in vaccination rates jeopardizes children’s health

The U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF, warns that many children are likely to die from vaccine-preventable diseases because of a decline in routine immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also found that 67 million children, nearly half of them on the African continent, have missed out on one or more vaccinations due to disruptions in immunization services in the three years since the pandemic began.

UNICEF Warns Many Children in Danger of Dying from Preventable Diseases

In brief

— Despite a decrease in fighting in Yemen, the country’s health sector remains at risk of collapse, the World Health Organization warned Friday. Nearly half the country’s health facilities are closed or only partially functioning. The WHO says the health crisis is compounded by a rise in outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, dengue, cholera and polio. There are also 540,000 children under the age of five who are suffering severe acute malnutrition with a direct risk of death. The WHO has been supporting Yemen’s health sector but, due to a shortage of funds, has faced reductions affecting millions of people.

— There were three attacks on peacekeepers in Mali in the past week. Two Bangladeshi peacekeepers were injured when an IED targeted their logistics convoy Tuesday in the Mopti region. Days before that, two peacekeepers from Togo were injured when their convoy was also hit by an IED near Douentza. On Wednesday, the U.N. mission in Mali reported an explosion targeting an empty fuel tank belonging to a contractor. No injuries were reported. For the past nine years, MINUSMA has been the U.N.’s deadliest mission for peacekeepers. In 2022, 32 “blue helmets” were killed in deliberate attacks.

— The new special representative of the secretary-general for Haiti, María Isabel Salvador, has arrived in Port-au-Prince, where she met Prime Minister Ariel Henry. She is scheduled to deliver her first briefing to the Security Council on April 26.

Good news

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that the warring sides in Yemen released nearly a thousand detainees over four days. The development comes a month after an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties. Saudi Arabia has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government, while Iran supports the Houthi rebels who seized Yemen’s capital in 2014.

Nearly 1,000 Detainees Released in Yemen

What we are watching next week

As part of its Security Council presidency this month, Russia’s foreign minister will chair two meetings next week. On Monday, Sergey Lavrov will preside over a debate on “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the U.N. Charter” and on Tuesday the regular debate on the Middle East. It will be his second visit to the U.N. since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. His first was during the General Assembly high-level week in September, during which Lavrov said the Kremlin had “no choice” but to launch its “special military operation” in Ukraine. It also comes just weeks before the May 18 deadline Russia has set for the U.N. to meet its conditions to extend a deal that facilitates the exports through the Black Sea of Ukrainian grain and Russian grain and fertilizer. Moscow has complained for months that it is not benefiting from the 9-month-old deal. It will certainly be a focus of discussion between Lavrov and U.N. chief Guterres when they meet next week.
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Montana’s House speaker on Thursday refused to allow a transgender lawmaker to speak about bills on the House floor until she apologizes for saying lawmakers would have “blood on their hands” if they supported a bill to ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, the lawmaker said.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who was deliberately misgendered by a conservative group of lawmakers demanding her censure after Tuesday’s comments, said she will not apologize, creating a standoff between the first-term state lawmaker and Republican legislative leaders.

Speaker Matt Regier refused to acknowledge Zephyr on Thursday when she wanted to comment on a bill seeking to put a binary definition of male and female into state code.

“It is up to me to maintain decorum here on the House floor, to protect the dignity and integrity,” Regier said Thursday. “And any representative that I don’t feel can do that will not be recognized.”

Regier said the decision came after “multiple discussions” with other lawmakers and that previously there have been similar problems.

Democrats objected to Regier’s decision, but the House Rules committee and the House upheld his decision on party-line votes.

“Hate-filled testimony has no place on the House floor,” Republican Rep. Caleb Hinkle, a member of the Montana Freedom Caucus that demanded the censure, said in a statement.

Zephyr said she stands by what she said about the consequences of banning essential medical care for transgender youth.

“When there are bills targeting the LGBTQ community, I stand up to defend my community,” Zephyr said. “And I choose my words with clarity and precision, and I spoke to the real harms that these bills bring.”

Regier also declined to recognize Zephyr on Thursday when she rang in to speak about another bill, which was unrelated to LGBTQ+ issues and seeks to reimburse hotels that provide shelter to victims of human trafficking.

“The speaker is refusing to allow me to participate in debate until I retract or apologize for my statements made during floor debate,” Zephyr said.

The issue came to a head Tuesday when Zephyr, the first transgender woman to hold a position in the Montana legislature, referenced the floor session’s opening prayer when she told lawmakers if they supported the bill, “I hope the next time there’s an invocation when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

She had made a similar comment when the bill was debated in the House for the first time.

House Majority Leader Sue Vinton rebuked Zephyr on Tuesday, calling her comments inappropriate, disrespectful and uncalled for.

Later, the Montana Freedom Caucus issued its censure demand in a letter that called for a “commitment to civil discourse” in the same sentence in which it deliberately misgendered Zephyr. The caucus also misgendered Zephyr in a Tweet while posting the letter online.

“It is disheartening that the Montana Freedom Caucus would stoop so low as to misgender me in their letter, further demonstrating their disregard for the dignity and humanity of transgender individuals,” Zephyr said in a statement Wednesday.

Zephyr also spoke emotionally and directly to transgender Montanans in February in opposing a bill to ban minors from attending drag shows.

“I have one request for you: Please stay alive,” Zephyr said then, assuring them she and others would keep fighting and challenge the bills in court.

The legislature has also passed a bill stating a student misgendering or deadnaming a fellow student is not illegal discrimination, unless it rises to the level of bullying.

At the end of Thursday’s House session, Democratic Rep. Marilyn Marler asked that the House majority allow Zephyr to speak on the floor going forward.

“This body is denying the representative … the chance to do her job,” Marler said.

Majority Leader Vinton, before moving for adjournment, said: “I will let the body know that the representative … has every opportunity to rectify the situation.”

The House meets again Friday afternoon.
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U.S.-made M1A1 Abrams tanks will arrive in Germany in May, and Ukrainians will start training on them soon after, according to senior military officials.

Thirty-one Abrams tanks will arrive at a base in Grafenwöhr, Germany next month so that Ukrainians can start a 10-week course on how to operate the tanks. Additional force-on-force training and maintenance courses will be held at either Grafenwöhr or another base in Hohenfels, Germany, the officials said.

The U.S.-led training will involve about 250 Ukrainians, and officials say 31 Abrams tanks will be delivered to Ukraine by the end of this year.

The news comes as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is hosting another meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Friday, where military leaders from more than 50 nations are focusing on the Ukrainian military’s armor, air defense and ammunition needs.

Austin is expected to announce that the Abrams will arrive in Germany in the coming weeks during a Friday press conference.

Speaking at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he first convened the group last April, Austin said the groups’ members had provided more than $55 billion in security assistance for Ukraine.

“More than a year later, Ukraine is still standing strong. Our support has not wavered, and I’m proud of the progress that we have made together,” he said.

In the past few months, members of the group have provided enough equipment and training to support nine additional armored brigades, according to Austin.

Abrams tanks, in particular, have been a long-awaited addition to the fight. The tank’s thick armor and 1,500-horsepower turbine engine make it much more advanced than the Soviet-era tanks Ukraine has been using since the war’s beginning.

The Biden administration announced in January that it would send a newer version of the Abrams tanks, known as M1A2, to Ukraine after they were procured and built, a process that could potentially take years.

In March, the administration pivoted to provide M1A1 Abrams tanks instead, in order to get the tanks “into the hands of the Ukrainians sooner rather than later,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said at the time.

The U.K. was the first to promise Western-style tanks for Ukraine, sending its Challenger 2 tanks to aid in the fight. After the U.S. Abrams announcement in January, Germany announced it would provide Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow other allies with German tanks, such as Poland, to do the same.

Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov spoke to members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group Friday in order to update leaders on the state of the battlefield and Ukraine’s most urgent military needs. Moscow began a renewed offensive in Ukraine earlier this year that has stalled, and Kyiv is preparing for a massive counteroffensive that is expected to begin in the coming days or weeks.

The U.S. has now provided more than $35 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, which Austin called “an unprovoked and indefensible war of aggression.”

Some countries, including Estonia and Latvia, have donated more than 1% of their GDP to Ukraine’s defense.

Ahead of the meeting, Austin addressed the massive Pentagon leak of classified documents detailing sensitive intelligence on the war in Ukraine, Russian intelligence and intelligence gleaned from spying on allies.

Austin said he took the issue very seriously and would continue to work with “our deeply valued allies and partners.”

“I’ve been struck by your solidarity and your commitment to reject efforts to divide us. And we will not let anything fracture our unity,” he said.

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group has worked better than predicted in terms of maintaining supplies for Ukraine, showing Western resolve to face down Russian aggression and having “Ukraine’s back even without having forces on the battlefield,” according to Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The U.S. and allies have vowed to support Ukraine in defending its sovereign territory for “as long as it takes,” which O’Hanlon says may extend through all of 2024.

“I’m afraid that’s a distinct possibility,” he said.
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President Joe Biden announced plans Thursday to increase U.S. funding to help developing countries fight climate change and curb deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

During a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, Biden urged his counterparts to be ambitious in setting goals to reduce emissions and meet a target of limiting overall global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“We’re at a moment of great peril but also great possibilities, serious possibilities. With the right commitment and follow-through from every nation … on this call, the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees can stay within reach,” Biden said.

The countries that take part in the forum account for about 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and global gross domestic product, according to the White House. Thursday’s meeting was the group’s fourth under Biden’s presidency.

Biden announced a U.S. contribution of $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund, which finances projects on clean energy and climate change resilience in developing countries, doubling the overall U.S. contribution.

“The impacts of climate change will be felt the most by those who have contributed the least to the problem, including developing nations,” Biden said. “As large economies and large emitters, we must step up and support these economies.”

Biden also announced plans to request $500 million over five years to contribute to the Amazon Fund, which works to combat deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, and related activities. A senior administration official said Biden’s team would have to work with Congress to secure that funding.

“Together, we have to make it clear that forests are more valuable conserved than cleared,” Biden said.

Brazil welcomed the pledge.

“It is obviously a great achievement, both for what it means to have the United States contributing to a fund like the Amazon Fund and for the volume of resources to be contributed,” Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva said at a news conference.

Biden’s announcement comes during a week of tension between the U.S. and Brazil after the latter’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for Western powers to stop supplying arms to Ukraine and said Washington was encouraging the fighting between Ukraine and Russia. He later toned down his comments and condemned Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Biden, who has made fighting climate change one of his top policy priorities, has set a goal of reducing U.S. emissions 50%-52% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.

This month, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed sweeping emission cuts for new cars and trucks through 2032 in an effort to boost electric vehicles. Biden encouraged leaders from the group to join a collective effort to spur zero-emission vehicles and to reduce emissions from the shipping and power industries.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a new European Union-led initiative to develop new global targets for energy efficiency and renewable energy alongside the International Energy Agency, in time for a global summit on climate change in November.

“These targets would complement other goals, such as the phaseout of unabated fossil fuels and the ambitious goals for zero-emission vehicles and ships,” she said at the meeting.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on rich countries to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, a decade before the goal set in the Paris climate agreement, and developing countries to hit that milestone by 2050.

He also called for OECD countries to phase out coal by 2030 and 2040 in all other countries and end all licensing or funding — public and private — of new fossil fuel projects.

Developing countries have resisted setting specific timelines for these reductions.

The countries and entities that make up the Major Economies Forum: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, the European Commission, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and Vietnam.
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The United States has renewed calls for countries to take back their nationals who have been held in detention camps and prisons in northeastern Syria.

Since the military defeat of the Islamic State terror group in 2019, thousands of foreign fighters and their families have been detained in several camps and prisons in areas under the control of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.

While many countries have been taking back women and children affiliated with IS who are held in two detention centers in northeastern Syria, U.S. officials have urged them to repatriate more than 10,000 IS fighters, who are also held there.

“This is the largest concentration of detained terrorists anywhere in the world,” said Ian Moss, deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the U.S. State Department.

He said IS continues to look for new opportunities to replenish its ranks by trying to free those detained fighters.

“If they escape, they will pose a threat, not only to northeast Syria, but they’ll also pose a threat to the region and to our homelands,” Moss said Wednesday during an event at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The best way to prevent this is to repatriate these individuals so they can be rehabilitated, reintegrated, and, where appropriate, prosecuted.”

More than 50,000 people, mostly women and children, from nearly 54 countries are currently held at al-Hol and Roj, two camps run by the Kurdish-led SDF. The 10,000 IS fighters are being held in more than a dozen prisons across northeastern Syria.

Syrian Kurdish officials say they cannot bear the responsibility of dealing with IS captives alone and that other countries should step in by taking back their citizens. They have also been calling for the establishment of a special tribunal inside Syria for those IS foreign fighters who have committed crimes in Syria.

Asked by VOA whether the U.S. would support such a tribunal in northeast Syria, Moss said the U.S. government believes that for those prisoners from third countries, their home nations have judicial systems that should be used to prosecute them.

“We’re also looking at all options to include the possible prosecution of individuals in northeast Syria. But again, the institutions most capable of effectively prosecuting those cases are found elsewhere,” he added.

According to U.S. officials, more than 3,000 individuals, mostly women and children, were repatriated last year to countries that include Albania, Barbados, Canada, France, Iraq, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sudan, Spain and Slovakia. So far this year, at least 1,300 others have been repatriated to their home countries.

Moss said the U.S. anticipates that at least 25 countries this year will conduct around one repatriation operation from northeastern Syria.

Despite such efforts, experts say most countries have been reluctant to take back their citizens from Syria for domestic political and security reasons.

“But even in the best-case scenario, this is a time-consuming process because backgrounds need to be investigated and family members need to be tracked down and agree to act as guarantors,” said Calvin Wilder, an analyst at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington.

Wilder said the focus should be more on improving living conditions in al-Hol camp, which has witnessed a growing number of security incidents that have resulted in the deaths of many civilians.

“Repatriating citizens is a hard challenge with many different stakeholders, but increasing camp standards of living is far simpler for the United States to do unilaterally,” he told VOA.

But Moss said the U.S. military, in partnership with the SDF, has been conducting operations against suspected IS operatives inside al-Hol “to reduce threats inside the camp, to give individuals inside the camp some space and to also give space for the provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Americans repatriated

While it is not clear how many U.S. citizens are held in northeastern Syria, State Department official Moss said 39 individuals have been repatriated from there.

“That is certainly a priority for me and for my team and colleagues across the [State] Department,” he said.

“We do everything we can to bring folks home, whether that’s women and children, or other individuals who are in detention, whether they’re known foreign terrorist fighters. We work with our interagency colleagues, as appropriate as they work to develop cases and potentially prosecute those individuals for whom they can bring charges against,” Moss added.

The U.S. has prosecuted several IS members, but the most prominent prosecution involved El Shafee Elsheikh, a former British citizen, who – along with others in an IS cell known as “the Beatles” – was responsible for a hostage-taking that resulted in the deaths of four U.S. citizens, James Foley, Kayla Mueller, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig, as well as British and Japanese nationals in Syria. Elsheikh was sentenced to life imprisonment in August 2022.

This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service.
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