US withdrawal from UN human rights body draws mixed reactions

Posted on by SeeEA

Washington — Human rights experts in Washington are divided over whether the U.S. withdrawal from a United Nations body on human rights will hurt North Korea’s already poor human rights situation.

Last Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order pulling the U.S. out of the U.N. Human Rights Council, or UNHRC, reintroducing the stance he held during his previous term.

The executive order said that the UNHRC has “protected human rights abusers by allowing them to use the organization to shield themselves from scrutiny,” adding that the council deserves “renewed scrutiny.”

The decision was announced ahead of Trump’s recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited Washington for the first time since Trump’s second inauguration.

Since his first term, President Trump has been disapproving of the activities of the U.N. human rights body. In June 2018, the Trump administration criticized the UNHRC for its “bias against Israel,” stressing the council that year passed resolutions against Israel more than those passed against North Korea, Iran and Syria combined.

Negative impact

Robert King, who served as the U.S. special envoy for North Korea’s human rights under the Obama administration, said that the U.S. decision to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council could negatively undermine international efforts to improve human rights conditions in the North.

“It will have a negative impact. The U.N. Human Rights Council has been a very effective body in terms of calling attention to North Korea’s serious human rights abuses,” King told VOA Korean on the phone last week. “And the fact that the United States will not be an active participant is again a very unfortunate situation.”

Roberta Cohen, former deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights, said leaving the UNHRC is “a short-sighted decision.”

Cohen, who also served as senior adviser to the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly, said it is important that the U.S. be seated at the council with a vote and be active in mobilizing support for any new initiatives.

“If the reforms are needed and they are, the U.S. should be involved heavily,” Cohen told VOA Korean by phone last week. “Walking away cedes the floor to your opponents.”

Cohen highlighted that the council was where the Commission of Inquiry on the Human Rights in North Korea, or COI, was conceived. The COI is widely considered to be the first systematic and thorough documentation of Pyongyang’s violations of human rights.

She added that an update of the COI is to be presented in September for the first time in more than a decade, saying that Washington needs to be part of the process when the report is introduced.

However, others question the role of the Human Rights Council in making a real impact on improving North Korea’s human rights conditions.

“The Human Rights Council has become a very tragic farce. It was supposed to promote and protect human rights around the world but instead it coddles dictatorships and gives them legitimacy by including them as members of the council,” said Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation and a longtime North Korea human rights activist. “We’re not addressing the horrific things that are happening to the North Korean refugees in China that are being shot and executed when they’re returned.”

‘Illegitimate’ members

Human rights experts have long criticized Beijing for failing to afford protection to North Korean refugees and forcefully repatriating them to North Korea.

David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy in Washington, said North Korean human rights issues need to be separated from how Trump wants to deal with the United Nations.

“This is about the Trump administration’s views toward U.N. organizations and how they are being misused by countries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea,” Maxwell told VOA Korean on Monday via email. “When these organizations are coerced by members of the so-called axis of upheaval, they are not able to support the people who are suffering true human rights abuses.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies in Washington, said the U.S. has other tools to address the North Korean human rights issue.

“Pulling out of the UNHRC won’t make much of a difference practically speaking,” Yeo told VOA Korean via email last week. “The U.S. has other means and platforms to raise North Korean human rights objections, including its own State Department human rights reports.”

The U.S. rejoined the UNHRC shortly after the inauguration of Joe Biden as president in 2021, but the Biden administration decided not to seek a second term as a board member of the council when the three-year membership was to expire at the end of 2024.

The move was made amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, which launched a surprise attack on the former a year prior. The State Department explained at the time that the U.S. decided not to pursue a second term at the council “because we are engaged with our allies about the best way to move forward.”

Every March or April, the State Department releases the annual Human Rights Reports, which cover the human rights situations around the world. The document last year said there were credible reports of unlawful killing, enforced disappearances and torture taking place in North Korea.
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EU, Canada vow to stand firm against Trump’s tariffs on metals

Posted on by SeeEU

The 27-nation European Union and Canada quickly vowed Tuesday to stand firm against U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to impose 25% tariffs on their steel and aluminum exports, verbal sparring that could lead to a full-blown trade war between the traditionally allied nations.

“The EU will act to safeguard its economic interests,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “Tariffs are taxes — bad for business, worse for consumers.

“Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered — they will trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures,” she said.

Trump said the steel and aluminum tariffs would take effect on March 12. In response, EU officials said they could target such U.S. products as bourbon, jeans, peanut butter and motorcycles, much of it produced in Republican states that supported Trump in his election victory.

The EU scheduled a first emergency video on Wednesday to shape the bloc’s response.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, which holds the EU presidency, said it was “important that everyone sticks together. Difficult times require such full solidarity.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a conference on artificial intelligence in Paris that Trump’s steel and aluminum levy would be “entirely unjustified,” and that “Canadians will resist strongly and firmly if necessary.”

Von der Leyen is meeting Tuesday with U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Paris, where they are expected to discuss Trump’s tariff orders.

“We will protect our workers, businesses and consumers,” she said in advance of the meeting.

Trump imposed the steel and aluminum tariff to boost the fortunes of U.S. producers.

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “This is the beginning of making America rich again.”

Billionaire financier Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, said the tariff on the imports could bring back 120,000 U.S. jobs.

As he watched Trump sign an executive order, Lutnick said, “You are the president who is standing up for the American steelworker, and I am just tremendously impressed and delighted to stand next to you.”

Trump’s proclamations raised the rate on aluminum imports to 25% from the previous 10% that he imposed in 2018 to aid the struggling sector. And he restored a 25% tariff on millions of tons of steel and aluminum imports.

South Korea — the fourth-biggest steel exporter to the United States, following Canada, Brazil and Mexico — also vowed to protect its companies’ interests but did not say how.

South Korean acting President Choi Sang-mok said Seoul would seek to reduce uncertainties “by building a close relationship with the Trump administration and expanding diplomatic options.”

The spokesperson of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said London was “engaging with our U.S. counterparts to work through the detail” of the planned tariffs.

In Monday’s executive order, Trump said “all imports of aluminum articles and derivative aluminum articles from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, EU countries and the UK” would be subject to additional tariffs.

The same countries are named in his executive order on steel, along with Brazil, Japan and South Korea.

“I’m simplifying our tariffs on steel and aluminum,” Trump said. “It’s 25% without exceptions or exemptions.”

Bernd Lange, the chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, warned that previous trade measures against the U.S. were only suspended and could legally be easily revived.

“When he starts again now, then we will, of course, immediately reinstate our countermeasures,” Lange told rbb24 German radio. “Motorcycles, jeans, peanut butter, bourbon, whiskey and a whole range of products that of course also affect American exporters” would be targeted, he said.

In Germany, the EU’s largest economy, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told parliament that “if the U.S. leaves us no other choice, then the European Union will react united.”

But he warned, “Ultimately, trade wars always cost both sides prosperity.”

The European steel industry expressed concerns about the Trump tariffs.

“It will further worsen the situation of the European steel industry, exacerbating an already dire market environment,” said Henrik Adam, president of the European Steel Association.

He said the EU could lose up to 3.7 million tons of steel exports. The United States is the second-largest export market for EU steel producers, representing 16% of the total EU steel exports.

“Losing a significant part of these exports cannot be compensated for by EU exports to other markets,” Adam said.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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Gabon courts stand still as magistrates protest working conditions

Posted on by SeeAF

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Gabon’s courts are effectively closed because the magistrates who run them refuse to work due to what they call poor working conditions and pay. They have rejected pleas by leaders to return to work while waiting for conditions to improve.

Civilians say hundreds of people seeking justice have been turned away from the courts for close to a month now.

Courts in Gabon traditionally handle cases that include land disputes, marriage disputes, divorce, labor disputes, inheritance and criminal offenses. The courts also authenticate documents and establish certificates of nonconviction for civilians who want to get national identity cards or run for public office.

Shopkeeper Narcisse Eboko said he visited the court at the administrative center in Gabon’s capital, Libreville, five times within the past 10 days to apply for a certificate of nonconviction, but no one has attended to him.

Eboko is surprised that the government is allowing courts, which ensure the protection of human rights and freedoms, to be paralyzed for so long, he told VOA via a messaging app from Libreville on Tuesday.

Magistrates in Gabon launched their protests on Jan. 13, saying that they want an immediate application of the general status of their profession, which gives financial and material advantages to guarantee their independence. It is very difficult for magistrates to make fair decisions based on the law without adequate remuneration as stated in Gabon’s laws, the magistrates say.

Gabon’s National Trade Union of Magistrates, or SYNAMAG, said it is surprised there has been no concrete response from the central African state’s government on if there are plans to improve the magistrates’ working conditions.

SYNAMAG President Landry Abaga Essono said the union launched protests because Gabon’s government refused to improve working conditions of magistrates and declined calls for dialogue.

He said the protests will continue until the government improves working conditions.

SYNAMAG also blamed the government for failing to improve the functioning of understaffed courts with dilapidated infrastructure, especially in Libreville, Mouila, Port-Gentil, Makokou and Franceville.

Justice Minister Paul Marie Gondjout defended the government, saying it is not reluctant to solve the problems and is concerned about the plight of the magistrates and other court workers. He cited a new court building in Ntoum as proof.

The country’s financial difficulties make it impossible to raise the $40 million needed to immediately solve the problems presented by the magistrates, Gondjout said on state TV Monday. The government is, however, looking for a way to satisfy some urgent needs of magistrates, he said.

Essono did not agree, saying Gabon does not lack the financial means to improve working conditions in a sector as important and sensitive as justice, especially when the courts will be highly important during presidential elections in two months. The vote is expected to end a military transition that began with a coup on Aug. 30, 2023.

Essono also pointed out that the government had the resources to increase job benefits for government troops only a few months ago.

The magistrates say they have petitioned Gabon’s transitional president, General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, to immediately order his government to improve their living conditions. VOA could not verify whether Nguema had received the request.

SYNAMAG said it is calling on citizens to be patient, saying that the protest is necessary to improve the delivery of justice.
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Amid USAID debate, Britain offers model for merging aid, diplomacy

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The Trump administration last month paused funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development amid reports that it may be put under State Department control as the president seeks to align it with his “America First” policy. Britain’s recent similar move to restructure its foreign aid could offer lessons for Washington. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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US, UK and Australia target Russian cybercrime network with sanctions

Posted on by SeeEA

WASHINGTON — The U.S., U.K. and Australia on Tuesday sanctioned a Russian web-hosting services provider and two Russian men who administer the service in support of Russian ransomware syndicate LockBit.  

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and its U.K. and Australian counterparts sanctioned Zservers, a Russia-based bulletproof hosting services provider — which is a web-hosting service that ignores or evades law enforcement requests — and two Russian nationals serving as Zservers operators.  

Treasury alleges that Zservers provided LockBit access to specialized servers designed to resist law enforcement actions. LockBit ransomware attacks have extracted more than $120 million from thousands of victims around the world.  

LockBit has operated since 2019, and is the most deployed ransomware variant across the world and continues to be prolific, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  

The Treasury Department’s Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Bradley T. Smith, said Tuesday’s action “underscores our collective resolve to disrupt all aspects of this criminal ecosystem, wherever located, to protect our national security.” 

LockBit has been linked to attacks on airplane manufacturer Boeing, the November 2023 attack against the Industrial Commercial Bank of China, the U.K.’s Royal Mail, Britain’s National Health Service, and international law firm Allen and Overy.  

Ransomware is the costliest and most disruptive form of cybercrime, crippling local governments, court systems, hospitals and schools as well as businesses. It is difficult to combat as most gangs are based in former Soviet states and out of reach of Western justice.  

Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, said Tuesday’s sanctions “underscore the United States’ commitment, along with our international partners, to combating cybercrime and degrading the networks that enable cyber criminals to target our citizens.” 
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Scores dead as Islamic State attacks military base in Somalia

Posted on by SeeAF

Nearly 100 people were killed and up to 60 others wounded when members of the Islamic State terror group launched a deadly attack on a military base belonging to security forces from Somalia’s Puntland region, officials said Tuesday.

At least 27 Puntland soldiers and more than 70 militants were slain in the fierce fighting around the Togga Jacel area of the Cal Miskaad mountains in Puntland’s Bari region, Puntland security officials told VOA.

In an interview Tuesday with VOA’s Somali Service, a spokesperson for Puntland security operations, Brigadier General Mohamud Mohamed Ahmed — known as  Fadhigo — said the militants waged suicide attacks on the military base late Monday.

“We have confirmed that at least 27 Puntland soldiers and 70 Islamic State militants, were killed during the attack and subsequent gun battle,” Ahmed said.

Ahmed said it was the deadliest attack since Puntland launched an offensive last month against Islamic State groups that have hideouts in the mountains.

He said the death toll from the attack could be substantially higher than official figures.

“The death toll, especially that of the militants, could be significantly higher than the number we have provided because they were killed in caves. They were hiding, and we are still assessing,” Ahmed said.

According to Puntland security officials, the militants using car bombs and suicide motorbikes launched attacks on the Puntland security base before a fierce gunbattle ensued.

“We knew they were coming as we had prior intelligence tip. They attacked us with car bombs and explosives-laden motorbikes, and then dozens of them engaged in a fierce gunbattle with our soldiers,” Ahmed said.

A statement from the Puntland forces said their troops repulsed the attack aimed at taking control of the base.

“Puntland security forces have successfully repelled the enemy attack, and they still remain in their base in Togga Jecel, dealing a significant blow to the extremist group,” the statement said.

On Wednesday last week, nearly 70 people were killed, and up to 50 others were wounded, during 24 hours of fighting between the two sides.

This latest attack is the deadliest the Islamic State militants have waged on Puntland soldiers.

Earlier this month, U.S. warplanes targeted the Islamic State affiliate in Somalia, hitting what officials described as high-ranking operatives in the terror group’s mountainous stronghold.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the airstrike on social media, describing the main target as a “Senior ISIS Attack Planner and other terrorists he recruited and led.”

Puntland began a major offensive against Islamic State in December and claims to have since killed nearly 200 Islamic State fighters, dozens of them foreign fighters, and captured villages and bases in the mountainous area controlled by IS.

This story originated in VOA’s Somali Service. Fadumo Yasin Jama contributed to the report.
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Vance tells Europeans that heavy regulation could kill AI 

Posted on by SeeUS

Paris — U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Europeans on Tuesday their “massive” regulations on artificial intelligence could strangle the technology, and rejected content moderation as “authoritarian censorship.”

The mood on AI has shifted as the technology takes root, from one of concerns around safety to geopolitical competition, as countries jockey to nurture the next big AI giant.

Vance, setting out the Trump administration’s America First agenda, said the United States intended to remain the dominant force in AI and strongly opposed the European Union’s far tougher regulatory approach.

“We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry,” Vance told an AI summit of CEOs and heads of state in Paris.

“We feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship,” he added.

Vance criticized the “massive regulations” created by the EU’s Digital Services Act, as well as Europe’s online privacy rules, known by the acronym GDPR, which he said meant endless legal compliance costs for smaller firms.

“Of course, we want to ensure the internet is a safe place, but it is one thing to prevent a predator from preying on a child on the internet, and it is something quite different to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation,” he said.

European lawmakers last year approved the bloc’s AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive set of rules governing the technology.

Vance is leading the American delegation at the Paris summit.

Vance also appeared to take aim at China at a delicate moment for the U.S. technology sector.

Last month, Chinese startup DeepSeek freely distributed a powerful AI reasoning model that some said challenged U.S. technology leadership. It sent shares of American chip designer Nvidia down 17%.

“From CCTV to 5G equipment, we’re all familiar with cheap tech in the marketplace that’s been heavily subsidized and exported by authoritarian regimes,” Vance said.

But he said that “partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure. Should a deal seem too good to be true? Just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley: if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”

Vance did not mention DeepSeek by name. There has been no evidence of information being able to surreptitiously flow through the startup’s technology to China’s government, and the underlying code is freely available to use and view. However, some government organizations have reportedly banned DeepSeek’s use.

Speaking after Vance, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he was fully in favor of trimming red tape, but he stressed that regulation was still needed to ensure trust in AI, or people would end up rejecting it. “We need a trustworthy AI,” he said.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen also said the EU would cut red tape and invest more in AI.

In a bilateral meeting, Vance and von der Leyen were also likely to discuss Trump’s substantial increase of tariffs on steel.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was expected to address the summit on Tuesday. A consortium led by Musk said on Monday it had offered $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit controlling OpenAI.

Altman promptly posted on X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

The technology world has closely watched whether the Trump administration will ease recent antitrust enforcement that had seen the U.S. sue or investigate the industry’s biggest players.

Vance said the U.S. would champion American AI — which big players develop — he also said: “Our laws will keep Big Tech, little tech, and all other developers on a level playing field.”
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EU’s AI push to get $50 billion boost, EU’s von der Leyen says

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PARIS — Europe will invest an additional $51.5 billion to bolster the bloc’s artificial intelligence ambition, European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

It will come on top of the European AI Champions Initiative, that has already pledged 150 billion euros from providers, investors and industry, von der Leyen told the Paris AI Summit.

“Thereby we aim to mobilize a total of 200 billion euros for AI investments in Europe,” she said.

Von der Leyen said investments will focus on industrial and mission-critical technologies.

Companies which have signed up to the European AI Champions initiative, spearheaded by investment company General Catalyst, include Airbus, ASML, Siemens, Infineon, Philips, Mistral and Volkswagen.
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Virginia governor declares storm emergency as snow and ice bear down on mid-Atlantic states

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A wintry mess was bearing down on mid-Atlantic states Tuesday with forecasts of significant snow and ice accumulations prompting warnings of potential power outages.

The National Weather Service said travel would become treacherous Tuesday through early Wednesday in much of Virginia and West Virginia.

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Monday declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm, allowing state agencies to assist local governments. Schools and government offices throughout Virginia were set to be closed Tuesday.

The heaviest snow, up to 25.4 centimeters, was forecast in portions of northern and central Virginia and eastern West Virginia. Ice accumulations could range from a glaze in Kentucky and West Virginia to 1.3 centimeters in the Roanoke Valley of southwest Virginia, the weather service said. Power outages and tree damage were likely in places with heavy ice buildups.

“Did you think winter was over? Think again!” the weather service’s office in Blacksburg, Virginia, said in a post on the social media platform X.

Appalachian Power, which serves 1 million customers in West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, said it has requested 700 additional workers from neighboring utilities to assist with problems by Tuesday morning.

In northern Virginia, the National Park Service closed a portion of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a narrow highway that winds its way through woods along the Potomac River. The parkway connects multiple small national park sites and has historically been a trouble spot during winter storms for abandoned cars that created a slalom course for snowplows and other vehicles.

Winter storm warnings extended from Kentucky to southern New Jersey, and a flood watch was posted for a wide swath of Kentucky, Tennessee, southwest Virginia and northern Georgia. The snow-and-ice mix was expected to become all rain as temperatures climb by Wednesday afternoon.

A separate storm system is set to bring heavy snow from Kansas and Missouri to the Great Lakes on Wednesday, the weather service said.

Dangerous cold was forecast Tuesday from an Arctic air mass stretching from Portland, Oregon, to the Great Lakes.

The temperature was expected to bottom out Tuesday morning at minus 36 degrees Celsius in Butte, Montana, where over the past two winters at least five people died due to cold exposure, said Brayton Erickson, executive director of the Butte Rescue Mission. Advocates for the homeless in the city of about 35,000 planned to be out on the streets distributing sleeping bags, jackets, mittens and other cold weather gear to anyone who needs them, Erickson said.

“When it gets this cold, we kind of pull out all the stops,” he said. “Having all those resources available literally can save their life or keep them from frostbite.”

 
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Singapore detains student accused of embracing far-right extremism

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SINGAPORE — An 18-year-old Singapore student who was radicalized by violent far-right extremism online and who idolized the gunman behind deadly attacks on two mosques in New Zealand has been detained under the Internal Security Act, the government said.

Nick Lee Xing Qiu, identified as an “East Asian supremacist,” envisioned starting a “race war” between Chinese and Malays in Singapore, the Internal Security Department (ISD) said in statement issued on Monday.

“At the point of his arrest, Lee’s attack ideations were aspirational and he had no timeline to carry them out,” the ISD said, adding investigations into his online contacts had not revealed any imminent threats to Singapore.

Lee has been detained since December under the ISA, which allows suspects to be held for up to two years without trial.

The ISD said Lee found Islamophobic and far-right extremist content on social media in 2023, and then began actively searching for such content. It said he idolized the gunman who killed 51 people in two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, role-playing as him in an online simulation.

“Lee aspired to carry out attacks against Muslims in Singapore with like-minded, far-right individuals that he conversed with online,” the ISD said.

Lee is the third Singaporean youth with far-right extremist ideologies to be dealt with under the ISA, the department said, noting far-right extremism was a growing concern globally.

“Youths may be more susceptible to such ideologies and may gravitate toward the sense of belonging and identity that far-right movements appear to provide,” the ISD said.
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Trump imposes 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum imports

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday announced a 25% tariff on aluminum and steel tariffs that could hit Canada and Mexico, the top two exporters to the U.S., the hardest. Trump’s ongoing trade offensive also provoked chiding from the U.S.’ top competitor, China. VOA correspondent Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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US senior advisers to talk with Zelenskyy on Munich sidelines

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Senior advisers in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump are preparing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, according to an Associated Press interview with retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.

Kellogg, a special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, said planning continues for talks with Zelenskyy at the annual conference. 

Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kellogg are among those who could participate in the sideline conversations with Ukraine’s president, AP reported. 

Trump has been critical about how much the war is costing the U.S. and has said European countries should repay the U.S. for helping Ukraine. 

During his campaign, Trump said if he were elected president, he would bring a swift end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, but he did not specify how he would accomplish that. 

Recently, he has said that he wants to make a deal with Ukraine to continue U.S. support in exchange for access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.  

On Monday, AP reported the president said there are people currently working on a money-for-minerals-deal with Ukraine.  

“We have people over there today who are making a deal that, as we give money, we get minerals and we get oil and we get all sorts of things,” Trump said. 

Kellogg told AP that “the economics of that would allow for further support to the Ukrainians.”

Meanwhile, Russian drone attacks caused a fire in Kyiv, injured a woman in Sumy and damaged several homes, according to Ukrainian officials. 

The Russian military reported downing 15 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven in the Krasnodar region.

Nobody was hurt as a result of the fire in Kyiv, which was sparked in a non-residential building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Five houses were damaged and a woman was reportedly injured in the northeastern city of Sumy, regional governor Ihor Kalchenko said on Telegram.

 

Material from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.
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Saipan: A birth tourism destination for Chinese mothers

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So-called birth tourism is not only happening on the U.S. mainland. Pregnant Chinese mothers have been heading to a U.S. territory much closer to home to have their babies and obtain for them coveted U.S. citizenship. VOA Mandarin’s Yu Yao and Jiu Dao have the details from Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. Elizabeth Lee narrates.
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Arizona adds endangered bat to list of night-flying creatures that frequent the state

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FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA — Scientists have long suspected that Mexican long-nosed bats migrate through southeastern Arizona, but without capturing and measuring the night-flying creatures, proof has been elusive. 

Researchers say they now have a way to tell the endangered species apart from other bats by analyzing saliva the nocturnal mammals leave behind when sipping nectar from plants and residential hummingbird feeders. 

Bat Conservation International, a nonprofit group working to end the extinction of bat species worldwide, teamed up with residents from southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and west Texas for the saliva-swabbing campaign. 

The samples of saliva left along potential migration routes were sent to a lab at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where researchers looked for environmental DNA — or eDNA — to confirm that the bats cycle through Arizona and consider the region their part-time home. 

The Mexican long-nosed bat has been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 1988, and is the only one in Arizona with that federal protection. It is an important species for pollinating cactus, agave and other desert plants. 

Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department announced the discovery in late January. While expanding Arizona’s list of bat species to 29 is exciting, wildlife managers say the use of this novel, noninvasive method to nail it down also deserves to be celebrated. 

“If we were trying to identify the species in the absence of eDNA, biologists could spend hours and hours trying to catch one of these bats, and even then, you’re not guaranteed to be successful,” said Angie McIntire, a bat specialist for the Arizona’s Game and Fish Department. “By sampling the environment, eDNA gives us an additional tool for our toolkit.” 

Every spring, Mexican long-nosed bats traverse a lengthy migratory path north from Mexico into the southwestern U.S., following the sweet nectar of their favorite blooming plants like breadcrumbs. They return along the same route in the fall. 

The bat conservation group recruited ordinary citizens for the mission, giving them kits to swab samples from bird feeders throughout the summer and fall. 

Inside the university lab, microbiology major Anna Riley extracted the DNA from hundreds of samples and ran them through machines that ultimately could detect the presence of bats. Part of the work involved a steady hand, with Riley using a syringe of sorts to transfer diluted DNA into tiny vials before popping them into a centrifuge. 

Sample after sample, vial after vial, the meticulous work took months. 

“There’s a big database that has DNA sequences of not every animal but most species, and so we could compare our DNA sequences we got from these samples to what’s in the database,” Riley said. “A little bit like a Google search — you’ve got your question, you’re asking Google, you plug it into the database, and it turns up you’ve got a bat, and you have this kind of bat.” 

Kristen Lear, of the conservation group, said the collection of eDNA has been used successfully for determining the presence of other kinds of wildlife in various environments, so the group proposed trying it with bats. 

“They do apparently leave behind a lot of spit on these plants and hummingbird feeders,” Lear said.
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On sidelines of AI Summit in Paris, unions denounce its harmful effects

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PARIS — In front of political and tech leaders gathered at a summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a strategy on Monday to make up for the delay in France and Europe in investing in artificial intelligence (AI) but was faced with a “counter-summit” that pointed out the risks of the technology. 

The use of chatbots at work and school is destroying jobs, professions and threatening the acquisition of knowledge, said union representatives gathered at the Theatre de la Concorde located in the Champs-Elysees gardens, less than a kilometer from the venue of the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence. 

Habib El Kettani, from Solidaires Informatique, a union representing IT workers, described an “automation already underway for about ten years,” which has been reinforced with the arrival of the flagship tool ChatGPT at the end of 2022. 

“I have been fighting for ten years to ensure that my job does not become an endangered species,” said Sandrine Larizza, from the CGT union at France Travail, a public service dedicated to the unemployed. 

She deplored “a disappearance of social rights that goes hand in hand with the automation of public services,” where the development of AI has served, according to her “to make people work faster to respond less and less to the needs of users, by reducing staff numbers.” 

Loss of meaning 

“With generative AI, it is no longer the agent who responds by email to the unemployed person but the generative AI that gives the answers with a multitude of discounted job offers in subcontracting,” said Larizza. 

This is accompanied by “a destruction of our human capacities to play a social role, a division into micro-tasks on the assembly line and an industrialization of our professions with a loss of meaning,” she said, a few days after the announcement of a partnership between France Travail and the French startup Mistral. 

“Around 40 projects” are also being tested “with postal workers,” said Marie Vairon, general secretary of the Sud PTT union of the La Poste and La Banque Postale group. 

AI is used “to manage schedules and simplify tasks with a tool tested since 2020 and generalized since 2023,” she said, noting that the results are “not conclusive.” 

After the implementation at the postal bank, La Banque Postale, of “Lucy,” a conversational robot handling some “300,000 calls every month,” Vairon is concerned about a “generative AI serving as a coach for bank advisers.” 

‘Students are using it’ 

On the education side, “whether we like it or not, students are using it,” said Stephanie de Vanssay, national educational and digital adviser of the National Union of Autonomous Unions (UNSA) for primary and secondary school. 

“We have indifferent teachers, worried teachers who are afraid of losing control and quality of learning, skeptics, and those who are angry about all the other priorities,” she said. 

Developing the critical thinking of some 12 million students is becoming, in any case, “an even more serious concern and it is urgent to explain how to use these tools and why,” de Vanssay said. 

The Minister of National Education Elisabeth Borne announced on Thursday the launch of a call for tenders for an AI for teachers, as well as a charter of use and training for teachers. 

“No critical thinking without interactions and without helping each other to think and progress in one’s thinking, which requires intermediation,” said Beatrice Laurent, national secretary of UNSA education. “A baby with a tablet and nursery rhymes will not learn to speak.”
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ICC opens inquiry into Italy over release of Libyan warlord

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THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS — Judges at the International Criminal Court have officially asked Italy on Monday to explain why the country released a Libyan man suspected of torture, murder and rape rather than sending him to The Hague.

Italian police arrested Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, last month but rather than extraditing him to the Netherlands, where the ICC is based, sent him back to Libya aboard an Italian military aircraft.

“The matter of state’s non-compliance with a request of cooperation for arrest and surrender by the court is before the competent chamber,” the court’s spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah said in a statement.

Addressing parliament last week, Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio defended the decision to send al-Masri home, claiming the ICC had issued a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant. The court, he said, “realized that an immense mess was made,” he told lawmakers.

Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19, the day after he arrived in the country from Germany to watch a soccer match. The Italian government has said Rome’s court of appeals ordered him released on Jan. 21 because of a technical problem in the way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.

The ICC said it does not comment on national judicial proceedings.

Al-Masri’s arrest had posed a dilemma for Italy because it has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli as well as energy interests in the country.

According to the arrest warrant, al-Masri heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force, which acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.

Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Additionally, any trial in The Hague of al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.

In October, the court unsealed arrest warrants for six men allegedly linked to a brutal Libyan militia blamed for multiple killings and other crimes in a strategically important western town where mass graves were discovered in 2020.
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Musk looks to make rapid changes at several US government agencies

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President Donald Trump’s point person for making rapid changes at U.S. governmental agencies is Elon Musk, the chief executive of carmaker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX. Congressional Democrats say that the Trump-backed multibillionaire’s attempt to reduce federal government spending is wrong. Michelle Quinn looks at what Musk has been doing in Washington.
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Space telescope spots rare ‘Einstein ring’ of light

Posted on by SeeEU

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — Europe’s Euclid space telescope has detected a rare halo of bright light around a nearby galaxy, astronomers reported Monday. The halo, known as an Einstein ring, encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away, considered close by cosmic standards.  

A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. Astronomers have known about this galaxy for more than a century and so were surprised when Euclid revealed the bright glowing ring, reported in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.  

An Einstein ring is light from a much more distant galaxy that bends in such a way as to perfectly encircle a closer object, in this case a well-known galaxy in the constellation Draco.  

The faraway galaxy creating the ring is more than 4 billion light-years away. Gravity distorted the light from this more distant galaxy, thus the name honoring Albert Einstein. The process is known as gravitational lensing.

“All strong lenses are special, because they’re so rare, and they’re incredibly useful scientifically. This one is particularly special, because it’s so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful,” lead author Conor O’Riordan of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics said in a statement.

Euclid rocketed from Florida in 2023. NASA is taking part in its mission to detect dark energy and dark matter in the universe.
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Romanian President Iohannis announces resignation after pressure by populists

Posted on by SeeEU

Bucharest, Romania — Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced his resignation on Monday following mounting pressure from populist opposition groups, two months after a top court annulled a presidential election in the European Union country.

“To spare Romania from this crisis, I am resigning as president of Romania,” he said in an emotional address, adding that he will leave office on Feb. 12.

Iohannis, 65, held the presidential role since 2014 and served the maximum of two five-year terms. But his presidency was extended in December after the Constitutional Court canceled the presidential race two days before a Dec. 8 runoff.

That came after the far-right populist Calin Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round, after which allegations emerged of Russian interference and electoral violations.

Several opposition parties, including the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), the nationalist SOS party and the Party of Young People — but also some members of the reformist Save Romania Union party — sought Iohannis’ ouster through a motion filed to Parliament. Some lawmakers from the governing coalition were also expected to vote in favor.

“This is a useless endeavor because, in any case, I will leave office in a few months after the election of the new president,” Iohannis said. “It is an unfounded move because I have never — I repeat, never — violated the constitution. And it is a harmful endeavor because … everyone loses, and no one gains.”

He added that the consequences of his ouster would be “long-lasting and highly negative” for Romania, an EU member since 2007, and a NATO member since 2004. “None of our partners will understand why Romania is dismissing its president when the process for electing a new president has already begun,” he said.

New dates have been set to rerun the presidential vote with the first round scheduled for May 4. If no candidate obtains more than 50% of the ballot, a runoff would be held two weeks later, on May 18. It is not yet clear whether Georgescu will be able to participate in the new election.

After his resignation announcement, clashes broke out between Georgescu supporters and police in front of the government building in the capital, Bucharest.
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China hopes the aging Dalai Lama can ‘return to right path’

Posted on by SeeEA

BEIJING/NEW DELHI — China hopes the Dalai Lama can “return to the right path,” and is open to discussions about his future as long as certain conditions are met, Beijing said on Monday, a proposal rejected by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile in India. 

The exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who turns 90 in July, fled Tibet in 1959 for India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule but has expressed a desire to return before he dies. 

China is open to talks about the future of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate as long as he abandons his position of splitting the “motherland,” a foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, told a regular press conference. 

Guo was responding to a request for comment on the death of the spiritual leader’s elder brother Gyalo Thondup, who had previously acted as his unofficial envoy in talks with Chinese officials. 

Gyalo Thondup died on Saturday, aged 97, in his home in the Indian town of Kalimpong. 

The Dalai Lama needs to openly recognize that Tibet and Taiwan are inalienable parts of China, whose sole legal government is that of the People’s Republic of China, Guo said, using the country’s official name. 

But the deputy speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, Dolma Tsering Teykhang, rejected the preconditions. 

“It is not feasible for His Holiness to tell lies, that’s not going to happen,” she said from the Indian Himalayan town of Dharamshala, where the Dalai Lama also lives. 

“If they dictate that His Holiness should speak about Tibet being an inalienable part, that is a distortion of history. By distorting history, you cannot have a peaceful and amicable solution.” 

The Dalai Lama stepped down in 2011 as the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which Beijing does not recognize. Official talks with his representatives have stalled since, but Teykhang said back-channel discussions were ongoing, declining to give details. 

As the Dalai Lama ages, the question of his successor has also become increasingly urgent. China insists it will choose his successor. 

But the Dalai Lama says he will clarify questions about the succession, such as if and where he will be reincarnated, in line with Tibetan Buddhist belief, around the time of his 90th birthday in July. 

In a short meeting with Reuters in December, he said that he could live 110 years. 

Teykhang, who was born in Tibet, said she was hopeful the Dalai Lama would be able to return home, led by efforts from people within China. 

“I’m very hopeful that His Holiness will visit Tibet, and he will go to his Potala Palace,” she said. “Very hopeful.” 
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Russia drone attacks spark fire, damage homes

Posted on by SeeEU

Russian drone attacks caused a fire in Kyiv, injured a woman in Sumy and damaged several homes, according to Ukrainian officials.

Meanwhile, the Russian military reported downing 15 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven in the Krasnodar region.

Nobody was hurt as a result of the fire in Kyiv, which was sparked in a non-residential building, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Five houses were damaged and a woman was reportedly injured in the northeastern city of Sumy, regional governor Ihor Kalchenko said on Telegram.

While fighting continued, a group of U.S. officials from President Donald Trump’s administration were set to travel to Europe this week for discussions that would include the war in Ukraine.

Vice President JD Vance was scheduled to attend an artificial intelligence summit in France before attending the Munich Security Conference with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The Munich event, billed as “the world’s leading forum for debating international security policy,” is expected to focus on prospects for peace in Ukraine as well as discussions of other global conflicts.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will visit the headquarters of two military commands, then meet with NATO defense ministers. He’ll also attend a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, where he “will reiterate President Trump’s commitment for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible,” according to the Pentagon.

Material from Reuters and Agence France-Presse was used in this report.

 
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Indonesia launches $183 million free health screening to prevent early deaths

Posted on by SeeEA

JAKARTA — Indonesia launched an annual free health screening on Monday, a $183 million initiative to prevent early deaths that the country’s health ministry said was its biggest ever undertaking.

Under the program, all Indonesians will eventually be entitled to a free screening on their birthday, the ministry said. The screening, which is not mandatory, includes blood pressure, tests to determine the risk of heart problems or stroke, and eye tests, the ministry said.

The program is initially targeting children under 6 and adults aged 18 and over, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin told Reuters last week.

The leading causes of death in the world’s fourth most populous nation include stroke, heart disease, and tuberculosis, data from the World Health Organization shows.

Budi said the $184 million allocation for the program was about $62 million less than originally planned after President Prabowo Subianto ordered budget cuts to help fund election promises, including giving free meals to school children.

At a health center in Jakarta on Monday, about 30 people had signed up for the screening on the first day.

Teacher Ramika Dewi Saragih said she underwent checks on her breasts, cervix, eyes, and more and was not apprehensive. “I was really looking forward to this,” the 33-year-old said, adding that more people should take up the opportunity.

A health ministry spokesperson said the target for the checks this year was 100 million people.

Budi said the program was intended to promote preventive care as Indonesians tended to check for illnesses only when they already had them.

“Our culture is checking when we’re already sick … that cuts closest to the grave,” he said.

He said the program was the biggest the ministry had ever undertaken, surpassing COVID-19 vaccinations.

Budi added the screening, which is to be rolled out at more than 20,000 health centers and clinics, also includes mental health tests to determine signs of depression or anxiety.

Researchers at the University of Indonesia’s Economic and Social Research Institute warned the program could risk burdening the country’s already-strained local health centers, citing uneven distribution of drugs or doctors.
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Court grants request to block detained Venezuelan immigrants from being sent to Guantanamo

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A federal court on Sunday blocked the Trump administration from sending three Venezuelan immigrants held in New Mexico to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba as part of the president’s immigration crackdown.

In a legal filing earlier in the day, lawyers for the men said the detainees “fit the profile of those the administration has prioritized for detention in Guantanamo, i.e. Venezuelan men detained in the El Paso area with (false) charges of connections with the Tren de Aragua gang.”

It asked a U.S. District Court in New Mexico for a temporary restraining order blocking their transfer, adding that “the mere uncertainty the government has created surrounding the availability of legal process and counsel access is sufficient to authorize the modest injunction.”

During a brief hearing, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales granted the temporary order, which was opposed by the government, said Jessica Vosburgh, an attorney for the three men.

“It’s short term. This will get revisited and further fleshed out in the weeks to come,” Vosburgh told The Associated Press.

A message seeking comment was left for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.

The filing came as part of a lawsuit on behalf of the three men filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and Las Americas Immigrant Advisory Center.

The Tren de Aragua gang originated in a lawless prison in the central Venezuelan state of Aragua more than a decade ago and has expanded in recent years as millions of desperate Venezuelans fled President President Nicolás Maduro ‘s rule and migrated to other parts of Latin America or the U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said last week that flights of detainees had landed at Guantanamo. Immigrant rights groups sent a letter Friday demanding access to people who have been sent there, saying the base should not be used as a “legal black hole.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that more than 8,000 people have been arrested in immigration enforcement actions since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Trump has vowed to deport millions of the estimated 11.7 million people in the U.S. illegally.
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Philadelphia defeats Kansas City in Super Bowl

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The Philadelphia Eagles dominated the Kansas City Chief in this year’s Super Bowl, defeating the reigning champions by a score of 40-22.

The Chiefs had been slightly favored to win the game, going into the American football showdown with hopes of winning their third consecutive National Football League title.

But the Eagles held the Chiefs scoreless until late in the third quarter. By that time, the Philadelphia team already had 34 points on the board at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts was named the game’s MVP.

President Donald Trump attended the matchup, the first sitting U.S. president to do so. Before the game, the president issued a press release stating that “football is America’s most popular sport—for good reason—it fosters a sense of national unity, bringing families, friends, and fans together and strengthening communities.”

“This annual tradition transcends our differences and personifies our shared patriotic values of family, faith, and freedom heroically defended by our military service members, law enforcement officers, and first responders,” he noted.

The Super Bowl was estimated to attract more than 120 million viewers, with 30-second advertisements costing a record $8 million. 

Before the kickoff, a ceremony honored those killed and wounded in a truck-ramming New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans on Bourbon Street, as well as first responders.
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