Human rights in North Korea and gang violence in Haiti. VOA correspondent Margaret Besheer has more on the top stories this week at the United Nations.
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Comic books can be a great way to help people work through emotional trauma. For VOA, Genia Dulot reports on comics that encourage children and adults to share their feelings and address issues of mental health
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Embattled developer China Evergrande Group has filed for bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court as part of one of the world’s biggest debt restructuring exercises, as anxiety grows over China’s worsening property crisis and a weakening economy.

Once China’s top-selling developer, Evergrande has become the poster child of the country’s unprecedented debt crisis in the property sector, which accounts for roughly a quarter of the economy, after facing a liquidity crunch in mid-2021.

The developer has sought protection under Chapter 15 of the U.S. bankruptcy code, which shields non-U.S. companies that are undergoing restructurings from creditors that hope to sue them or tie up assets in the United States.

The filing is procedural in nature, but the world’s most indebted property developer with more than $300 billion in liabilities has to do it as part of a restructuring process under U.S. law, two people familiar with the matter said.

The sources declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Evergrande declined to comment.

Evergrande’s offshore debt restructuring involves a total of $31.7 billion, which include bonds, collaterals and repurchase obligations. It will meet with its creditors later this month on its restructuring proposal.

A string of Chinese property developers have defaulted on their offshore debt obligations since then, leaving unfinished homes, plunging sales and shattering investor confidence in a blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

The property sector crisis has also fanned contagion risk, which could have a destabilizing impact on an economy already weakened by tepid domestic consumption, faltering factory activity, rising unemployment and weak overseas demand.

A major Chinese asset manager missed repayment obligations on some investment products and warned of a liquidity crisis, while Country Garden, the country’s No. 1 private developer, has become the latest to flag a stifling cash crunch.

All of this comes at a time when property investment, home sales and new construction have contracted for more than a year.

Morgan Stanley this week followed some of the major global brokerages to cut China’s growth forecast for this year. It now sees China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growing 4.7% this year, down from an earlier forecast of 5%.

China is targeting 5% annual growth for this year, but an increasing number of economists are warning that it could miss the goal unless Beijing ramps up support measures to arrest the decline.

The China economic and property woes as well as the absence of concrete stimulus steps have sent a chill through global markets. Asian shares were headed for a weekly loss of 2.8%, the third straight week of declines. Chinese blue-chips on the CSI300 dropped 0.5% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slumped another 1.3%.

China is expected to cut lending benchmarks at a monthly fixing on Monday, with many analysts predicting a big reduction to the mortgage reference rate to revive credit demand and shore up the ailing property sector.

Debt restructuring

In response to the deepening property market crisis, the central bank reiterated it would adjust and optimize property policies, according to its second-quarter monetary policy implementation report published this week.

Since the sector’s debt upheaval unfolded in mid-2021, with Evergrande at the center of the turmoil, companies accounting for 40% of Chinese home sales have defaulted, most of them private property developers.

As developers scramble to ease investors’ concerns, Longfor Group, China’s second largest private developer, said on Friday it would speed up its “profit structure” in response to the changes of supply and demand in the real estate market.

Evergrande announced an offshore debt restructuring plan in March, expecting it to facilitate a gradual resumption of operations and generation of cash flow. It is now gathering creditor support to complete the process.

An affiliate of the developer, Tianji Holdings, also sought Chapter 15 protection on Thursday in Manhattan bankruptcy court.

In a filing in the Manhattan bankruptcy court, Evergrande said that it was seeking recognition of restructuring talks underway in Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

The company proposed scheduling a Chapter 15 recognition hearing for Sept. 20.

In June last year, another Chinese developer, Modern Land (China) Co. Ltd., which missed payments on its offshore bonds that were due in October 2021, had filed a petition for recognition under Chapter 15 of the bankruptcy code in New York.

Trading in China Evergrande shares has been suspended since March 2022. Shares of Evergrande Services plunged as much as 20% on Friday, while China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group lost as much as 17%.
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North Korea is increasing its repression of human rights, and people are becoming more desperate and reportedly starving in parts of the country as the economic situation worsens, the U.N. rights chief said Thursday. 

Volker Türk told the first open meeting of the U.N. Security Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that in the past its people have endured periods of severe economic difficulty and repression, but “currently they appear to be suffering both.” 

“According to our information, people are becoming increasingly desperate as informal markets and other coping mechanisms are dismantled, while their fear of state surveillance, arrest, interrogation and detention has increased,” he said. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un closed the borders of his nation to contain COVID-19. But as the pandemic has waned, Türk said, the government’s restrictions have grown even more extensive, with guards authorized to shoot any unauthorized person approaching the border and with almost all foreigners, including U.N. staff, still barred from the country. 

As examples of the increasing repression of human rights, he said, anyone found viewing “reactionary ideology and culture” — which means information from abroad, especially from South Korea — may now face five to 15 years in prison. And those who distribute such material face life imprisonment or even the death penalty, he said. 

Markets closed

On the economic front, Türk said, the government has largely shut down markets and other private means of generating income and has increasingly criminalized such activity. 

“This sharply constrains people’s ability to provide for themselves and their families,” he said. “Given the limits of state-run economic institutions, many people appear to be facing extreme hunger as well as acute shortages of medication.” 

Türk said many human rights violations stem directly from, or support, the militarization of the country. 

“For example, the widespread use of forced labor — including labor in political prison camps, forced use of schoolchildren to collect harvests, the requirement for families to undertake labor and provide a quota of goods to the government, and confiscation of wages from overseas workers — all support the military apparatus of the state and its ability to build weapons,” the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said. 

Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N. special investigator on human rights in North Korea, echoed Türk: “Some people are starving. Others have died due to a combination of malnutrition, diseases and lack of access to health care.” 

The United States and North Korea, which fought during the 1950-53 Korean War, are still technically at war since that conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Salmon said the frozen conflict is being used to justify the continued militarization. 

North Korea’s “Military First” policy reduces resources for the people, Salmon said, and the country’s leaders demand that they tighten their belts so the money can be used for the nuclear and missile programs. 

‘Acts of cruelty and repression’

The Security Council took no action, but afterward U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who chaired the meeting, read a statement on behalf of 52 countries while flanked by many of their ambassadors. 

The statement said the North Korean government commits “acts of cruelty and repression” at home and abroad that are “inextricably linked with the DPRK’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile advancements in violation of Security Council resolutions.” The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name. 

The countries called on all 193 U.N. member nations to raise awareness of the links between the human rights situation in North Korea and international peace and security, “and to hold the DPRK government accountable.” 

North Korea on Tuesday denounced U.S. plans for the council meeting as “despicable,” saying it was only aimed at achieving Washington’s geopolitical ambitions. 

Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong called the United States a “declining” power and said if the council dealt with any country’s human rights, the U.S. should be the first, “as it is the anti-people empire of evils, totally depraved due to all sorts of social evils.” 

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, told the council the meeting was “propaganda” and “a cynical and hypocritical effort to step up pressure on Pyongyang.” Russia is an ally of North Korea. 

Human rights should not be discussed in the council, he said, and attempts to link the rights situation to peace and security are “absolutely artificial.”
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The evacuation center at the South Maui Community Park & Gymnasium is now Anne Landon’s safe space. She has a cot and access to food, water, showers, books and even puzzles that bring people together to pass the evening hours. 

But all it took was a strong wind gust for her to be immediately transported back to the terrifying moment a deadly fire overtook her senior apartment complex in Lahaina last week. 

“It’s a trigger,” she said. “The wind was so horrible during that fire.” 

Helping survivors cope

Mental health experts are working in Maui to help people who survived the deadliest fire in the United States in more than a century make sense of what they endured. While many are still in a state of shock, others are starting to feel overcome with anxiety and post-traumatic stress that experts say could be long-lasting. 

Landon, 70, has twice sought help in recent days to help her cope with anxiety. One psychologist she spoke with at an evacuation shelter taught her special breathing techniques to bring her heart rate down. On another occasion, a nurse providing 24/7 crisis support at her current shelter was there to comfort her while she cried. 

“I personally could hardly talk to people,” Landon said. “Even when I got internet connection and people reached out, I had trouble calling them back.” 

The person sleeping on the cot next to her, 65-year-old Candee Olafson, said a nurse helped her while she was having a nervous breakdown. Like Landon, Olafson fled for her life from Lahaina as the wind-whipped flames bore down on the historic town and smoke choked the streets. The trauma of the escape, on top of previous experience with depression, became too much to bear. 

“Everything culminated — I finally just lost it,” she said. 

Olafson said a nurse came over and told her, “Just look at me,” until she calmed down. Looking into the nurse’s eyes, she came back down to earth. 

“These people pulled me out faster than I’ve ever been pulled out from the abyss,” she said. 

What they witnessed as they fled will remain with them a long time — trauma that comes with no easy fix, something impossible to simply get over. 

“I know some of the people died in the water when I was in the water,” said John Vea, who fled into the ocean to avoid the flames. “I have never seen anything like this before. I’m never going to forget it.” 

Counselor offers compassion

Dana Lucio, a licensed mental health counselor with the Oahu-based group Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies coalition, is among the experts working on Maui to help support survivors. She’s been going to different donation hubs around Lahaina on the western side of the island, and sometimes even door to door, to be present for people and give them a shoulder to cry on. 

Lucio, who used to be in the Marine Corps and was deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan, said she’s able to understand some of their emotions because she has experienced post-traumatic stress herself. 

“I can connect with them in a way that most people can’t,” she said of those affected by the fire. “The trauma therapy that I do, I’ve learned within myself.” 

Global medical aid organization Direct Relief has been working with groups like Lucio’s to distribute medication to people who fled without their antidepressants and antipsychotic prescriptions, said Alycia Clark, the organization’s director of pharmacy and clinical affairs. 

People often leave their medication behind during sudden evacuations due to natural disasters. Downed cellphone towers and power outages can prevent them from contacting their doctors, and damage to health care clinics and a lack of transportation can all combine to complicate medical access, she said. 

It can take weeks to find the right dose for a mental health patient, and stopping medication suddenly can cause withdrawal symptoms, Clark said. For this reason, she said, Direct Relief includes mental health medication in most of its emergency and disaster response kits for those who are missing their prescriptions. 

Lucio, the mental health counselor, said she hopes people think about treatment as something that’s long term, as the initial shock wears off and the awful reality sets in. 

“This is not something their brains were prepared to understand,” she said. “There is going to be a need for ongoing therapy.” 
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The U.N. human rights chief said Thursday that many of the severe and widespread rights violations in North Korea are directly linked to the regime’s pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile technology.

“Many of the violations I have referred to stem directly from, or support, the increasing militarization of the DPRK,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told a special meeting of the Security Council on human rights in North Korea.

“For example, the widespread use of forced labor – including labor in political prison camps; forced use of schoolchildren to collect harvests; the requirement for families to undertake labor and provide a quota of goods to the government; and confiscation of wages from overseas workers – all support the military apparatus of the state and its ability to build weapons,” he said.

Türk noted the notoriously repressive nation has become even more so since the borders were shut early in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Asia. The high commissioner said measures, including strict controls on travel within North Korea, the closure of markets and domestic forced labor, have all contributed to a worsening situation for economic and social rights in the country.

“Militarization also promotes the systematic exploitation of the population,” added Elizabeth Salmon, U.N. special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in North Korea. “The leadership in the DPRK continues to demand its citizens to tighten their belts so that the available resources could be used to fund the nuclear and missiles program.”

DPRK is the abbreviation for the North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The United States holds the 15-nation Security Council’s rotating presidency this month and called for Thursday’s meeting along with Albania and Japan. It is the first time since 2017 that the council is holding a public session on the rights issue in North Korea and its link to international peace and security.

“Colleagues, we cannot have peace without human rights,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told council members. “And the DPRK is a case in point.”

Defector’s story

North Korean defector Ilhyeok Kim told council members he was forced to do unpaid farm labor from an early age instead of going to school. His family risked their lives and fled to South Korea in 2011 when he was a teenager.

“The North Korean government has no policy to help us; the government turns our blood and sweat into a luxurious life for the leadership and missiles that blast our hard work into the sky,” he said. “We used to think that the money spent on just one missile could feed us for three months, but the government doesn’t care, and is only concerned with maintaining their power, developing nuclear weapons and creating propaganda to justify their actions.”

China and Russia both regularly object to the discussion of North Korea’s human rights in the Security Council, saying there are other U.N. forums for such conversations. China’s envoy said the meeting was “irresponsible, unconstructive and an abuse of the council’s power,” while Moscow’s deputy ambassador said it was a “cynical and hypocritical” attempt by the U.S. and its allies to pressure Pyongyang.

North Korea’s ambassador did not attend the session, but its foreign ministry put out a statement two days ahead of the council meeting criticizing it.

“The DPRK resolutely denounces and rejects the despicable ‘human rights’ racket of the U.S. as a wanton infringement and a grave challenge to the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK,” said the statement from Kim Son Gyong, vice minister for international organizations.

Following the meeting, the U.S. envoy was joined by delegates from more than 50 nations and the European Union in a joint statement calling on countries to hold Pyongyang accountable for its rights abuses and urging full implementation of existing council resolutions on North Korea’s illicit weapons programs.

Pyongyang has launched scores of ballistic missiles and several intercontinental ballistic missiles this year. It regularly blames the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula on joint military exercises that the United States and South Korea carry out and says its missile program is meant to deter and “strike fear” into its enemies.

In 2014, the U.N. Commission of Inquiry found that North Korea’s rights violations had risen to the level of crimes against humanity. The panel’s report found the regime had used “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
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U.S. women’s national team coach Vlatko Andonovski has resigned, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The move comes less than two weeks after the Americans were knocked out of the Women’s World Cup earlier than ever before.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the move had not been officially announced. An announcement was expected Thursday.

The four-time champion struggled through the World Cup. A victory over Vietnam to kick off the group stage was followed by draws against Netherlands and Portugal — barely enough to get the team into the knockout stage.

The Americans played well in the round of 16 against Sweden but ultimately fell on penalties after a scoreless tie. The U.S. scored just four goals over the course of the tournament.

The United States had never finished worse than third at previous World Cups.

The 46-year-old Andonovski was named coach of the United States in October 2019, taking over for Jill Ellis, who led the United States to back-to-back World Cup titles. He finished 51-5-9 during his time with the team, and was 3-2-5 in major tournaments.

Following the match against Sweden, Andonovski said he wasn’t thinking about his future with the team — only his young players. Fourteen players on the roster were appearing in their first World Cup, and 12 of them had never played in a major tournament.

“We spent four years together. They got their first caps with me, they got their first national team call-ups with me,” Andonovski said. “We spent tough times, good times. I don’t want to see them like that. That’s all I think about.”

The United States also finished with a disappointing bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Afterward, Andonovski turned his attention on developing young players ahead of the World Cup. Some of the players who emerged were Sophia Smith, last year’s U.S. Soccer player of the year, and Trinity Rodman.

The United States was bitten by injuries in the run-up to the tournament, losing key players. Mallory Swanson injured her knee during a friendly in April, and captain Becky Sauerbrunn couldn’t recover from a foot injury in time.

Promising young forward Catarina Macario tore her ACL playing for her club team Lyon last year and also wasn’t ready to play in the World Cup.

The World Cup was challenging for many elite teams because of the ever-growing parity in the women’s game. Germany, Brazil and Canada, the winners in Tokyo, also got knocked out early. Sunday’s final between England and Spain in Sydney will give the tournament a first-time winner.

Andonovski was head coach of Seattle’s OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League when he was hired. During his seven years in the NWSL, he led the now-defunct FC Kansas City from the league’s inception in 2013 until the club folded in 2017, winning two league titles.

Andonovski, a native of Skopje, Macedonia, played for several teams in Europe before embarking on a professional indoor soccer career in the United States.

His predecessor on the U.S. team, Ellis, led the Americans to World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019. Over the course of her five-year tenure, they lost just seven matches.

“What I would hope in this (hiring) process (is) that it’s robust, it’s diverse. It has to be,” Ellis said Thursday in Sydney. “This is a critical hire. And I think it has be the right person.”

The timeline to find a replacement is relatively short. The United States has already qualified for the 2024 Olympics in France. Before that, the team has a pair of exhibition matches against South Africa on Sept. 21 in Cincinnati and Sept. 24 in Chicago.
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The United States, South Korea and Japan are expected to establish an enduring tripartite security regime in defense of the Indo-Pacific region — a move China opposes as antagonistic — at their first trilateral summit, said experts.  

The gathering of the three countries planned for Friday at Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland, will be an occasion for the U.S. to fuse its two treaty alliances into a tighter security network and expand their roles in the region, experts said. 

At the end of the summit, U.S. President Joe Biden, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are expected to announce plans to hold regular meetings and take measures to bolster security cooperation beyond deterring North Korean threats. 

Evans Revere, who served as the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration, said a joint statement by the three leaders is likely to reflect these plans. 

“The statement will make clear that North Korea is not the only concern that has brought them together for this unprecedented trilateral gathering at Camp David,” Revere said. 

“While Pyongyang may be the most urgent threat, the PRC is undoubtedly the biggest strategic challenge facing Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul over the long term,” he said.  

China’s official name is the People’s Republic of China.  

“The agreements reached at this historic summit will move the three countries closer to a permanent partnership that focuses on intelligence and information sharing, missile defense, joint military exercises, cybersecurity, early warning cooperation, and enhanced nuclear deterrence,” said Revere.

Building a partnership

Merging the efforts by South Korea and Japan into an ongoing partnership has long been a goal for the U.S. It is possible now because the leaders of the two countries mended frayed ties in March. Antagonisms rooted in the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45 had hampered close cooperation between the two East Asian nations, especially on military matters.  

The U.S., South Korea and Japan conducted joint ballistic missile drills in October, February, April and July in response to North Korea’s missile launches.  

Traditionally, South Korea has focused on deterring North Korean threats while Japan has been involved in defending against China’s claim to the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, referred to as the Diaoyu in Chinese.  

Now, Seoul and Tokyo are expected to consolidate their efforts against threats from their two autocratic neighbors.  

Yoon emphasized in his National Liberation Day speech delivered on Tuesday that Japan’s role is critical in defending against a North Korean attack. He said seven rear Japanese bases will provide land, sea and air capabilities for the U.S.-led U.N. Command stationed in South Korea if fighting breaks out on the peninsula.  

Yoon added that the summit will set “a new milestone in trilateral cooperation” and that boosting cooperation with NATO is also important as security in the Indo-Pacific is closely connected to the security of Europe. 

Tightening trilateral ties

South Korea’s defense against North Korea has been supported by the U.S.-led U.N. Command, composed of multilateral forces stationed in the country. Japan’s defense against China has been propped up by its membership in the QUAD security dialogue, whose other members are the U.S., Australia and India.  

“The three countries’ national security and defense strategies are already closely aligned,” said Daniel Russel, who served as the assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs in the Obama administration. “All three leaders are deeply concerned by the risks posed by increasingly assertive Chinese military behavior and are sure to discuss practical ways to bolster deterrence and reduce the risk of an incident.” 

At a press conference on Tuesday after a virtual meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the trilateral collaboration will be expanded and “further institutionalized” through regular meetings at senior levels.  

Terence Roehrig, a professor of national security and Korea expert at the U.S. Naval War College, said institutionalizing trilateral dialogue is an important goal of this summit so that the ties “can withstand any further turmoil in relations between Japan and South Korea.”  

China considers summit antagonistic

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a press briefing on Tuesday that the summit is not meant to be “provocative” or “to incite tensions” with China. Nevertheless, Beijing views it as antagonistic.  

Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA’s Korean Service via email on Tuesday that “China has noticed that exclusionary groupings are being assembled for the so-called ‘regional security,’ only to intensify antagonism and undermine the strategic security of other countries.”  

He continued, “China firmly opposes such practices.” 

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu agreed on closer military cooperation when they met at the Moscow Conference on International Security on Tuesday.

Li has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018.  

Moscow has leaned on Pyongyang for arms support to fight in its war against Ukraine. The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday sanctioned entities involved in arms deals between Russia and North Korea.  

Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair in Korea Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the Washington-Seoul-Tokyo ties “along with other initiatives like the QUAD or AUKUS, should clearly signal” to the China-North Korea-Russian partnership “that their decision to undermine international norms and rules will only strengthen partnership among U.S. allies.” 
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Gotion, the U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese EV battery maker, planned to build a factory in Michigan, a state that has welcomed Chinese investment for decades. But that was before tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated and now the project’s local opponents say their fight to stop the enterprise is not over despite local and state go-aheads.

At stake are 2,350 jobs generated by a $2.34 billion investment that many see as a way to secure the economic future of Green Charter Township, a rural enclave just over a three-hour drive southeast from Detroit, the auto industry hub.

Fueling the local passions are objections to a U.S. company with Chinese affiliations setting up shop some 100 miles from a National Guard base, a distrust that mirrors the current state of U.S.-China relations, and suspicions that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will have an office in the plant, a rumor that a top Gotion executive denied at an April meeting at a local high school.

“Has the Communist Party penetrated this company? No,” said Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s vice president of North American operations, according to a report on the meeting from MLive, a local news outlet. “There is no [such] communist plot within Gotion.”

Thelen also attempted to ease environmental concerns over the 715,000 gallons of water a day the plant will use in manufacturing produce cathodes and anodes for EV batteries.

“The water that we use never even comes in contact with the materials we process. If you get these materials wet, you destroy the material,” Thelen said, according to the news report. “So, no, we will not be pumping materials, minerals or chemicals into the water.”

These concerns and others appear to be overshadowing Michigan and China’s three-decade auto-based relationship. An estimated $460 billion has flowed between them over those 30 years, according to the Rhodium Group’s China investment monitor, which gathers data by each state in the U.S. Between 1990 and 2020, China invested about $175 billion in Michigan.

When asked for comment by VOA Mandarin, Gotion, which has its U.S. headquarters in Silicon Valley, declined.

Lori Brock is one of the residents fighting Gotion, citing environmental concerns.

Recently, she and the others blocked the company’s purchase of agricultural land adjacent to its previously purchased holdings of 270 acres. She told “Fox & Friends First” on Monday, “We’re going to still continue to fight them every step of the way. We don’t want them here.”

In April, Michigan awarded the project a $715 million incentive package, including a 30-year tax break valued at $540 million and two grants totaling $175 million, according to MLive. Gotion’s tax breaks came from locating in a so-called Renaissance Zone, a state-designated area that is “virtually tax free for any business or resident presently in or moving to a zone.”

All this was to support a project billed as creating jobs with average wages of what local residents said recently would be $24.50 per hour. The Associated Press reported in April that Gotion planned to pay $29.42 per hour.

In June, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews foreign investments for national security risks, concluded that Gotion’s purchase of land for an EV battery plant wasn’t a security issue.

On August 1, Gotion, the U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese battery company Gotion High Tech Co. Ltd., received authorization from Green Charter Township to set up a plant.

Leaders of Green Charter Township, which is a self-governing entity of 3,000 people within the Michigan city of Big Rapids, hope that Gotion’s investment will drive economic development. The median household income for the township is $53,882, according to 2020 U.S. Census data, which is lower than Michigan’s median income of $64,392 and the U.S. national median of $76,521.

Jim Chapman is the township’s supervisor, an office roughly equivalent to mayor. He’s optimistic about the local returns on Gotion’s investment but understands change, such as putting a factory among the fields, “is hard for a lot of people.”

The fifth-generation Green Charter Township resident told VOA Mandarin in a filmed interview that Gotion’s arrival will be “an opportunity of multiple generations.”

“I hope my grandchildren will have the opportunity to stay here, to spend more time with their children, to have supper with their family,” Chapman said.

He added, “The investment will have the multiplier effect. It’s good for local business. They will hire more people. Ferris State University will see more students.”

The Gotion site is adjacent to an airport in Big Rapids and about 100 miles south of Camp Grayling. According to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed sources, the U.S. National Guard base is used for training military personnel from Taiwan, a self-governing island China considers its own territory. Taiwan is a focal point of Beijing-Washington tensions.

After incidents such as the Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the continental U.S. for a week before being shot down on February 5, some residents told VOA Mandarin they are wary of China’s intentions given the nearby military base and the CCP’s threat to U.S. national security in general.

Corri Riebow owns a small business and lives in Green Charter Township. Prior to an August 9 evening meeting, she told VOA Mandarin: “I’m concerned about the Chinese ties, not because of the Chinese people, but because of the Chinese government, the things I researched about them.”

The meeting was a candidate forum attended by five people interested in running for office in the township. All oppose the Gotion plant.

Riebow also had another objection: “Even if they were an American company, I don’t want to live three miles away from a factory.”

Brock’s 150-acre farm in Green Charter Township is less than a mile from Gotion’s approved site. Her biggest concern is the plant’s possible environmental impact.

“Let them set up a plant in a heavy industrial area like Detroit,” she said. “This is rural America, it’s all farmland.” 

Chapman said the Gotion investment is “money spent here. And [if] we turn it down, it’ll be another 20 years before we see anybody wanting to even think about coming to our community. Why would they? Why would they spend all that money, all that effort, all that time to come here, when the last people that went through that were turned down? They won’t. They’ll walk away.” 

Chapman said the state will conduct an environmental safety review of Gotion in August and September. If the environmental review is approved, Gotion could begin construction of the plant next year and start production in two years, he said.

The problem, he believes, is that “they [the protesters] don’t know the procedure of doing things. You have to approve the plan first, then start the environmental investigation.” 

Chapman said although Gotion’s Chinese background makes residents skeptical, the company “is registered in the U.S.A. It’s not led by the Chinese Communist Party. … I didn’t see anything about Gotion’s connection with the CCP that worries me.

“I’m not happy with the CCP either. What they do scares me,” he said. “But should we transfer what we feel about the CCP to the Gotion project? I don’t think so.” 
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Sitting on the carpet in a small, third-floor apartment of a crowded building on the edge of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, six Afghan men sip traditional green tea as they scroll through messages and videos on their phones. All of them are anxiously awaiting the same thing – an email that will tell them where they stand in their journey to resettlement in the United States.

The men were pilots and engineers in Afghanistan’s military when the Taliban seized control of the country in August 2021. Fearing retaliation from those they had fought for years, these pilots, like hundreds of their colleagues, fled the country.

Almost 18 months since their arrival in Pakistan, the men voice frustration as their applications slowly make their way through the complicated U.S. refugee resettlement process. 

“Some of my friends got to Europe with help from human traffickers. If I had taken the money that I have spent here, from my savings, for the last 18 months, if I had spent that money on [trafficking] my life would have been better,” said a pilot who asked that we identify him as Hafeezullah, instead of with his real name as he feared for his safety.

“I would have gotten refuge in a European country by now,” the 27-year-old said. 

In the first few months of the Taliban’s return to power, the U.S. welcomed nearly 90,000 Afghans who feared for their well-being under the new regime. In early 2022, Washington moved to a second phase in which the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program provides the most straightforward path to Afghans seeking refugee resettlement in the United States.

To qualify, refugees must, on their own, first reach a third country where they can contact the State Department to begin the resettlement process. The pilots chose Pakistan as it provides an easy land route out of Afghanistan, and has diplomatic relations with the U.S., unlike Iran. 

The pilots with whom VOA met were recommended for refugee resettlement by some of the American soldiers who trained them during the U.S.-led Afghan war.  

After waiting for months, the pilots received their Afghan Referral Record, or ARR, numbers from the Resettlement Support Center in Pakistan. But there is still a long road ahead.  

“Case processing can be lengthy (potentially 12-18 months),” says the State Department’s website.  

The pilots will go through a pre-screening process at the Resettlement Support Center. This will be followed by an interview conducted by a U.S. immigration officer, multiple security checks, and a medical examination to determine their eligibility for resettlement in the United States. 

The time-consuming process is also suffering delays because it is understaffed, partly due to a 2017 Trump administration decision to drastically cut down refugee admissions. 

“So, it had to really be recreated from scratch,” said Bill Frelick, the refugee and migrant rights director at Human Rights Watch. “In addition to that, the entire infrastructure which is largely run by non-governmental locations was decimated,” he said.  

Despite the Biden administration increasing staffing, nearly a quarter of the positions are still unfilled in the international and refugee affairs division of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. That’s according to a recent report by the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, an autonomous U.S. government auditor. 

As cases drag on, patience and money dwindle

During case processing, prospective refugees must be able to support themselves in the third country. For Afghan pilots living in Pakistan on expired visas, finding work is hard. Most of them are jobless and rely on their families back home to borrow money to send them. 

An Afghan pilot, who wished to be called Ahmed to protect his identity, told VOA he had run out of the money he gathered by selling his household goods before leaving Afghanistan.  

“Now I have started selling my wife’s jewelry”, said the 30-year-old Black Hawk pilot. 

Another pilot who requested to be called Tawheed for security reasons said the stress of not knowing what the future held for his two little girls was causing him health problems. 

“We [I] have high blood pressure, we [I] have a sugar [diabetes], we [I] have a mentally [mental health] problem, we [I] have depression,” the 32-year-old said.  

Despite the uncertainty, the pilots say they cannot go back to Afghanistan as they worry the Taliban will accuse them of spreading “propaganda” against them in Pakistan. Others like Ahmed say the Taliban are looking for them. 

“They came and searched my house many times. They took many of my books, because I had many English books. They took some of my [training] awards,” said Ahmed as he pulled up a video on his phone shot by a relative showing armed Taliban guards visiting his home.  

Roughly 40 Afghan pilots are in Pakistan, waiting to be moved to the U.S. Seeing little progress in their refugee resettlement cases, the pilots VOA met said they felt abandoned. 

“We are unhappy with our American friends who advised us to come here,” said Hafeezullah.   

But the Americans who referred the pilots cannot do much. VOA reached out to a few but did not get a response.

VOA reached out to the State Department as well but did not get a response as of publication.   

Away from loved ones, with little in their pockets, and not much information on when the next step in their resettlement will come, the pilots are losing patience. Hafeezullah, who said he had joined the air force to serve his country, says he now feels purposeless.

“When I wake up, I have a mind without goals. I see a devastated life with no future,” he said. 

Others are trying not to give up hope of making it to the U.S one day. 

“We just want from Allah, from God, there should be something good, some hope for the future, for my family, for my daughters,” Tawheed said. “If I see the situation, there is no hope, but Allah, I know will change everything.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are planning to visit Maui next Monday to get a firsthand look at the devastation left in the aftermath of last week’s wildfires that killed at least 106 people on the Hawaiian island, the White House announced Wednesday.

The Bidens plan to meet with survivors of the most devastating U.S. wildfires in more than 100 years, the White House said, as well as first responders and federal, state and local officials.

“I want to go and make sure we got everything they need,” Biden said Tuesday, while at the same time not impeding efforts to recover the remains of more victims. 

Many of the bodies found in the devastation on the Pacific Ocean island have been unrecognizable. Fingerprints have rarely been found, although 41 people with missing family members have given authorities DNA samples in case the bodies of relatives are discovered.

The wildfires, which at one point spread more than a kilometer every minute, all but destroyed the town of Lahaina, a popular beachside tourist destination.

Some Maui residents have complained that the national government has been slow to assist in the recovery effort, but the White House said Biden “continues to marshal a whole-of-government response to the deadly Maui fires.”

The White House said Hawaii Governor Josh Green advised that the recovery effort is expected to be sufficiently far along by early next week to allow for a presidential visit.
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A mobile morgue unit arrived Tuesday to help Hawaii officials working painstakingly to identify remains, as Maui County released the first names of people killed in the wildfire that all but incinerated the historic town of Lahaina a week ago and raised the death toll to 106.

The county named two victims, Lahaina residents Robert Dyckman, 74, and Buddy Jantoc, 79, adding in a statement that a further three victims have been identified.

Those names will be released once the county has identified their next of kin.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deployed a team of coroners, pathologists and technicians along with exam tables, X-ray units and other equipment to identify victims and process remains, said Jonathan Greene, the agency’s deputy assistant secretary for response.

“It’s going to be a very, very difficult mission,” Greene said. “And patience will be incredibly important because of the number of victims.”

Request for patience

A week after a blaze tore through historic Lahaina, many survivors started moving into hundreds of hotel rooms set aside for displaced locals, while donations of food, ice, water and other essentials poured in.

Crews using cadaver dogs have scoured about 32% of the area, the County of Maui said in a statement Tuesday. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green asked for patience as authorities became overwhelmed with requests to visit the burn area.

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier renewed an appeal for families with missing relatives to provide DNA samples. So far 41 samples have been submitted, the county statement said, and 13 DNA profiles have been obtained from remains.

The governor warned that scores more bodies could be found. The wildfires, some of which have not yet been fully contained, are already the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century. Their cause was under investigation.

When asked by Hawaii News Now if children are among the missing, Green said Tuesday: “Tragically, yes. … When the bodies are smaller, we know it’s a child.”

He described some of the sites being searched as “too much to share or see from just a human perspective.”

Another complicating factor, Green said, is that storms with rain and high winds were forecast for the weekend. Officials are mulling whether to “preemptively power down or not for a short period of time, because right now all of the infrastructure is weaker.”

Hardships for survivors

A week after the fires started, some residents remained with intermittent power, unreliable cellphone service and uncertainty over where to get assistance. Some people walked periodically to a seawall, where phone connections were strongest, to make calls. Flying low off the coast, a single-prop airplane used a loudspeaker to blare information about where to get water and supplies.

Victoria Martocci, who lost her scuba business and a boat, planned to travel to her storage unit in Kahalui from her Kahana home Wednesday to stash documents and keepsakes given to her by a friend whose house burned. “These are things she grabbed, the only things she could grab, and I want to keep them safe for her,” Martocci said.

The local power utility has already faced criticism for not shutting off power as strong winds buffeted a parched area under high risk for fire. It’s not clear whether the utility’s equipment played any role in igniting the flames.

Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. President and CEO Shelee Kimura said many factors go into a decision to cut power, including the impact on people who rely on specialized medical equipment and concerns that a shutoff in the fire area would have knocked out water pumps.

Green has said the flames raced as fast as 1.6 kilometers every minute in one area, fueled by dry grass and propelled by strong winds from a passing hurricane.

Fires still burning

The blaze that swept into centuries-old Lahaina last week destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000. That fire has been 85% contained, according to the county. Another blaze known as the Upcountry fire was 60% contained.

The Lahaina fire caused about $3.2 billion in insured property losses, according to calculations by Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling company. That doesn’t count damage to uninsured property. The firm said more than 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed by flames, with about 3,000 damaged by fire or smoke or both.

Even where the flames have retreated, authorities have warned that toxic byproducts may remain, including in drinking water, after the flames spewed poisonous fumes. That has left many unable to return home.

The Red Cross said 575 evacuees were spread across five shelters as of Monday. Green said thousands of people will need housing for at least 36 weeks. He said Tuesday that some 450 hotel rooms and 1,000 Airbnb rentals were being made available.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he and first lady Jill Biden would visit Hawaii “as soon as we can” but he doesn’t want his presence to interrupt recovery and cleanup efforts. During a stop in Milwaukee to highlight his economic agenda, Biden pledged that “every asset they need will be there for them.”

Emergency assistance

More than 3,000 people have registered for federal assistance, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and that number was expected to grow.

FEMA was providing $700 to displaced residents to cover the cost of food, water, first aid and medical supplies, in addition to qualifying coverage for the loss of homes and personal property.

The Biden administration was seeking $12 billion more for the government’s disaster relief fund as part of its supplemental funding request to Congress.

Green said “leaders all across the board” have helped by donating over 450,000 kilograms of food as well as ice, water, diapers and baby formula. U.S. Marines, the Hawaii National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard have all joined the aid and recovery efforts.

Lahaina resident Kekoa Lansford helped rescue people as the flames swept through town. Now he is collecting stories from survivors, hoping to create a timeline of what happened. He has 170 emails so far.

The scene was haunting. “Horrible, horrible,” Lansford said Tuesday. “You ever seen hell in the movies? That is what it looked like. Fire everywhere. Dead people.”
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