Myanmar’s rebels closing in around junta into fifth year of civil war 

Posted on by SeeEA

Bangkok — Myanmar’s rebel groups made historic gains last year, the fourth of a civil war set off by a military coup in February 2021, seizing wide swathes of the country’s west and northeast and overrunning two of the regime’s regional command bases for the first time.

As the war enters its fifth bloody year Saturday, experts tell VOA the rebels are positioned to keep gaining ground in 2025, closing in on more cities and weapons factories vital to the military despite mounting efforts by China, which has billions of dollars invested in the country, to keep the junta afloat.

“The military has lost significant control, and in 2025, based on that trajectory over late 2023 and 2024 … it will still continue to lose control,” said Matthew Arnold, an independent analyst tracking the war.

A BBC World Service study found the junta in full control of only 21% of Myanmar as of mid-November, a patchwork of rebel groups holding 42% and both sides contesting the rest.

With the ground they gained over the past year, Arnold says the rebels have transformed the war by linking up what were mostly pockets of armed resistance into long stretches across the country which the military can no longer penetrate overland.

“The military does not face rebels in this valley or that valley, or this mountaintop or that mountaintop. They say these rebels can now attack us across hundreds and hundreds of miles of contiguous territory where they have absolutely full control,” he said. “It just fundamentally shifted the nature of warfare in the country.”

The rebels’ latest gains have not been even across the country.

In northeast Myanmar’s Shan state, China pressured one of the largest rebel groups in the area, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), into a ceasefire with the military in mid-January after the group had made major advances. Experts tell VOA that China has also started leaning on Myanmar’s largest rebel group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), to cut back on weapons sales to other groups.

Both the MNDAA and UWSA keep close ties with Beijing, and while the latter are not fighting the Myanmar military themselves, they have been a major source of arms and ammunition for rebel groups that are.

Without their help, other groups have been forced to scale back their push toward Myanmar’s second largest city, Mandalay, which remains in junta control, says Min Zaw Oo, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

He said the squeeze on munitions has even helped the junta reverse gains another group, the Karenni National Defense Force, had been making in Kayah state, just south of Shan.

“They had to stop the offensive and they had to abandon, and now they are losing ground. One of the key factors was they … acquired less ammunition and weapons from UWSA,” said Min Zaw Oo.

Elsewhere, though, rebel groups have continued to press ahead, even defying Beijing’s interests.

In Myanmar’s far north, the capture of rare earth mines that supply China by the Kachin Independence Army in November compelled China to resume some of the border trade it had cut off to try and slow down the KIA’s march south, said Min Zaw Oo.

In the west, the Arakan Army (AA) has nearly completed its sweep across Rakhine state and surrounded an oil and gas terminal on the shores of the Bay of Bengal central to China’s energy projects in Myanmar.

Arnold and Min Zaw Oo say the AA is now pushing farther east with other allied groups into Ayeyarwady, Bago and Magwe regions in Myanmar’s center. Magwe, they add, with its many factories churning out weapons for the military, would be an especially big prize for the rebels and a painful loss for the junta if it were to fall next.

The military’s recent losses to the AA also highlight one of the military’s main problems, says Morgan Michaels of the U.K.’s International Institute for Strategic Studies — a lack of manpower.

Under pressure by rebel groups on nearly all sides, he said, the military could muster few reinforcements late last year as the AA bore down on its regional command base for western Myanmar, which it took, dealing the junta another heavy blow.

The junta began enforcing a dormant conscription law in April to bolster troop numbers being worn down by desertions, defections and battlefield losses, and toughened the rules earlier this month to try and cut down on draft dodgers.

“Basically, the military cannot respond to protect or … wage counter attacks at these very sensitive and important strategic areas because of the manpower issue,” said Michaels.

“Opposition forces have their own limitations,” he added. “But if the military can’t respond, then it’s going to bit by bit lose these areas.”

The rebels’ own problems, the experts say, include an ever-short supply of ammunition and limited strategic coordination between the groups — many fighting for territory for any one of the country’s myriad ethnic minorities — across the whole of the country.

Even so, they say they still expect most of the rebel groups in the fight to keep advancing on the junta into the year ahead.

Conflict data crunched by Michaels and his team at the International Institute for Strategic Studies show no letup in the overall level of violence. Estimates of civilians and soldiers killed in the fighting stretch into the tens of thousands. Over 3 million people have been displaced, and half the country now lives in poverty.

Bolstered by a steady stream of weapons and diplomatic cover from China and Russia, the experts also say the junta remains resilient but add that the collapse of a military battle-hardened by decades of counterinsurgency and once seen as all but invincible now looks plausible.

Much will depend on how much longer Beijing in particular believes the junta has a useful role to play in protecting China’s economic and strategic interests in the country, says Arnold.

“China’s very straightforward, they’re very logical in what they see,” he said. “And at some point, if the military doesn’t really stabilize the situation, China will have to make hard decisions about how much is it willing to support a military that is still losing control. And I think that will be the question for 2025.”
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Russian drones injure 4 in Ukraine’s south, Ukrainian officials say

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KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia launched a barrage of drones on Ukraine in an overnight attack on Friday, injuring four people and damaging a hospital and a grain warehouse in the southern Odesa region, officials said.

Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 59 of 102 Russian drones, the air force said. It said that 37 drones were “lost,” referring to the use of electronic warfare to redirect them.

Russian drones caused damage in the northeastern Sumy region, the Odesa region in the south and the central Cherkasy Region.

Oleh Kiper, the Odesa regional governor, said that four civilians, including a doctor, were injured in drone attacks targeting the city of Chornomorsk.

The strikes also partially disrupted electricity supplies in the city and damaged the city’s hospital, an administrative building, a grain warehouse, a residential house, and several trucks, he said on the Telegram app.

Regional officials in the central Cherkasy region said that drone debris damaged an apartment building in the region.

Meanwhile, an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Volgograd region caught fire after an overnight Ukrainian drone attack, but the blaze has now been put out, the regional governor said on Friday.

Andrei Bocharov, the governor, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that Russian air defenses had repelled an attack on his region by eight drones.

“As a result of falling debris from one of the drones, a fire broke out on the territory of an oil refinery, which was promptly extinguished. One injured refinery worker was hospitalized,” he said.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram that the Volgograd oil refinery, which he described as one of Russia’s largest, had been struck.

SHOT, a Russian news outlet with contacts in the security services, said four Ukrainian drones had been destroyed over a second refinery in Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow.

Ukraine has carried out frequent air attacks on Russian refineries, oil depots and industrial sites to cripple key infrastructure underpinning Russia’s war effort.

This week it claimed to have struck and set on fire a Lukoil refinery, Russia’s fourth largest, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow.

Sources at Lukoil denied that the NORSI refinery was hit, and said production was not affected. Petrochemical company Sibur said there had been a drone strike and fire at its nearby plant.

Russia is currently feeding more crude oil through its refineries in the hope of boosting fuel exports after new U.S. sanctions on Russian tankers and traders made exports of unprocessed crude more difficult, sources told Reuters this week.

A Ukrainian drone attack last week forced a refinery in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, to suspend operations. Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday that 49 Ukrainian drones had been downed over the country overnight, including 25 in the southern Rostov region and eight in the Volgograd region.

Drones had also been detected and destroyed in the Kursk, Yaroslavl, Belgorod, Voronezh, and Krasnodar regions, it said. 
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Trump support for denuclearization talks with Russia, China raises hopes 

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white house — Arms control advocates are hoping U.S. President Donald Trump’s fresh words of support for denuclearization will lead to talks with Russia and China on arms reduction.

U.S. negotiations with the Russians and Chinese on denuclearization and eventual agreements are “very possible,” according to Trump, who addressed the World Economic Forum a week ago in Davos, Switzerland.

“Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear [weapons], and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about because you don’t want to hear,” he said. “It’s too depressing.”

Trump noted that in his first term, he discussed the topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along,” according to Trump. “President Putin really liked the idea of cutting back on nuclear [armaments], and I think the rest of the world — we would have gotten them to follow.”

Just months before leaving office, former U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Peru where both agreed that decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons should remain under human control. That consensus was seen as a positive step after the Chinese, four months previously, suspended nuclear arms control talks with Washington to protest American arms sales to Taiwan.

The horror of nuclear attacks first became evident to many in the world through magazines in the West, which printed photographs of the radiation-burned survivors of the U.S. atomic attack on two Japanese cities in 1945 to end World War II. In subsequent years during the Cold War, U.S. government films captured the destructive force of test detonations in the Nevada desert, eventually prompting public demonstrations to “ban the bomb” and diplomacy to reduce or eliminate all nuclear weapons.

A major breakthrough occurred in 1987 with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the United States and the Soviet Union. It entered into full force the following year. By 1991, nearly 2,700 missiles had been dismantled. That was the first time the two nuclear superpowers achieved a reduction of such weapons rather than just limiting their growth.

Over the years, the Americans and the Russians lost their monopoly on nuclear weapons. Nine countries presently have nuclear arsenals, although Israel has never acknowledged possession of such weaponry.

The United States and Russia each have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads — 90% of the world’s total. The combined global force of all countries’ nuclear weapons could destroy the world many times over, according to arms control advocates.

The current New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, set limits on the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, while including on-site inspection and exchanges of data for verification.

The treaty expires in early February 2026, which adds urgency to Trump’s call for talks with Russia and China, according to Xiaodon Liang, senior analyst for nuclear weapons policy and disarmament at the Arms Control Association.

“And because of that, this issue has to be at the top of the agenda, and having a signal that the president is concerned about this issue and thinking about it is very positive,” Liang told VOA.

Since a formal, comprehensive agreement could take years to negotiate — possibly spanning beyond the four years of the second Trump presidency — Liang suggests the U.S. president consider an “executive agreement” with Putin, an informal consensus or a series of unilateral steps to continue adhering to the numbers in New START for an indefinite period.

“That would be a stabilizing factor in this important bilateral relationship,” Liang added.

There are analysts who advocate a more aggressive tactic.

Trump should consider ordering a resumption of nuclear testing to demonstrate to America’s adversaries that the U.S. arsenal of weapons of mass destruction remains viable and as an act of resolve, writes Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank seen as having a dominant influence on Trump administration policies.

Peters also suggests that Trump might want to withdraw from the 1963 Test Ban Treaty made with Moscow and “conduct an above-ground test either at the Nevada National Security Site or in the Pacific Ocean over open water, where nuclear fallout can be minimized” to stave escalatory moves by an adversary to the United States.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to multiple requests from VOA to interview Peters.

Moscow is not known to have conducted any sort of test causing a nuclear chain reaction, known as criticality, since 1990. Two years later, the United States announced it would no longer test nuclear weapons, although subcritical simulations continue. The other nuclear nations have followed suit except North Korea, which last triggered a nuclear test explosion in 2017.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday moved up the hands of its “Doomsday Clock” by one second to 89 seconds to midnight, meant to signify the peril from weapons of mass destruction and other existential threats.

“We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technology,” said Daniel Holz, a physics professor at the University of Chicago, just after the hands of this year’s clock were unveiled at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

While the Doomsday Clock is merely symbolic, Liang at the Arms Control Association sees it as an annual important ritual highlighting the risks to Americans and everyone else posed by the world’s nuclear arsenals.

“It is a good tool for bringing this to more people’s attention, and you can’t blame Americans for having so many other issues on their plate. And having this [clock] as a reminder, I think, is an effective communications tool,” Liang said.

At the Doomsday Clock ceremony, VOA asked former Colombian President and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos what he viewed as the biggest hurdle to Trump, Putin and Xi making progress on denuclearization.

“The biggest challenge, in my view, is for them to understand that they should sit down and talk about how the three of them can take decisions to save their own countries and the whole world,” he said.

Liang compared the situation to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s call to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which led Washington and Moscow to pull back from the brink of nuclear war.

That resolution turned the hands of the Doomsday Clock the following year back to 12 minutes to midnight in recognition of the Americans, Soviets and British banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in space and under water.

It has been several years since the United States engaged in any denuclearization negotiations. Those working-level talks in 2019 in Sweden between the first Trump administration and North Korean officials did not yield any agreement, with Pyongyang’s chief negotiator, Kim Myong Gil, telling reporters that the Americans had raised expectations with promises of flexibility but would not “give up their old viewpoint and attitude.”

The State Department spokesperson at the time, Morgan Ortagus, said in a statement the two countries could not be expected to “overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula in the course of a single Saturday,” but such weighty issues “require a strong commitment by both countries. The United States has that commitment.”
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Rwanda-backed rebels in eastern Congo say they plan to take their fight to the capital

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GOMA, CONGO — Rwanda-backed rebels who captured eastern Congo’s largest city said Thursday they want to take their fight to the far-off capital, Kinshasa, while Congo’s president called for a massive military mobilization to resist the rebellion and his defense minister rejected calls for talks.

In a video message, Congo’s Defense Minister Guy Kabombo Muadiamvita said he has directed plans for any dialogue with the rebels to “be completely burned immediately.”

“We will stay here in Congo and fight. If we do not stay alive here, let’s stay dead here,” said Muadiamvita, a close ally of Congo’s president.

At a briefing where they sought to assert their control over the eastern city of Goma and surrounding territory in the neighboring South Kivu province, the M23 rebels said they would be open to dialogue with the government, also proposed by the east African regional bloc of which Rwanda is a member.

Their motive, however, is to gain political power, Corneille Nangaa, one of the political leaders of M23, said during the briefing. “We want to go to Kinshasa, take power and lead the country,” Nangaa said. He did not indicate how the rebels planned to advance on the capital, more than 1,500 kilometers away.

Rwanda’s leader, Paul Kagame, said he spoke with Angola’s President Joao Lourenco — a mediator in the conflict who also met with Congo’s leader a day earlier — and both leaders committed to working with other African countries to resolve the hostilities.

U.S. President Donald Trump described the conflict as a “very serious problem” when asked about it Thursday but declined to comment further, and a U.N. spokesman said the agency is “disturbed” by reports that neighboring Rwandan forces have crossed the border in the direction where the rebels are said to be advancing.

The M23 rebels are backed by some 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, far more than in 2012 when they first captured Goma. They are one of more than 100 armed groups vying for control in Congo’s mineral-rich east, which holds vast deposits estimated to be worth $24 trillion that are critical to much of the world’s technology.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, meanwhile, called on young people to enlist massively in the military, as a crucial meeting of neighbors asked the Congolese government to talk with the rebels. Rwanda’s leader also threatened to “deal” with any confrontation with South Africa, which has complained that fighting in eastern Congo has left South African peacekeepers dead.

In his first public remarks since the M23 rebels advanced into Goma on Monday, Tshisekedi vowed “a vigorous and coordinated response” from his forces to push back the rebels while reaffirming his commitment to a peaceful resolution.

On Thursday, he met with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Kinshasa, the Congolese presidency said on X, noting that France has provided significant support to Congo in recent U.N. meetings on the issue. “(Congo) expects a little more action in the face of this crisis,” it added.

Dead bodies, looting in Goma

Goma remained largely without electricity and water on Thursday, as the bodies of several alleged government soldiers lay in the streets, horrifying residents, including children.

M23 rebels escorted some 2,000 government soldiers and police officers — who they said surrendered — to an undisclosed location, some of them singing anti-Tshisekedi songs.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Congo said basic services are largely paralyzed in Goma, a humanitarian hub critical for more than 6 million people displaced by the conflict. “After several days of intense clashes, the city is now (faced) with massive humanitarian needs and severely impacted response capacities,” said Bruno Lemarquis, the humanitarian coordinator.

Footage from Goma showed residents carrying food items and goods looted from stores and warehouses in the city. “This is something that is going to exacerbate a dangerous cycle of violence as desperate times call for desperate measures,” the U.N. World Food Program emergency coordinator in eastern Congo, Cynthia Jones, said Thursday.

South Kivu gripped by fear

After capturing much of Goma, the rebels were advancing toward South Kivu’s provincial capital, Bukavu, causing fear and panic among residents, witnesses said Thursday.

Nana Bintou, a civil society leader, said gunshots and explosions were heard in Mukwinja, a captured town 135 kilometers from Bukavu.

The Congolese military has been weakened after hundreds of foreign military contractors withdrew and handed over their arms to the rebels. Residents of Goma described seeing soldiers changing into civilian clothing and dropping their guns as they crossed over the border to Rwanda or took shelter in foreign peacekeeping bases.

“The (Congolese) military bases in Bukavu have been emptied to reinforce those in Nyabibwe, Bushushu, and Nyamukubi” along the way to the capital, one youth leader said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was worried about his safety.

Neighbors urge talks with M23 as tensions grow

A summit of the regional East African bloc called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in eastern Congo and “strongly urged” Tshisekedi’s government to hold talks with the rebels. Tshisekedi was conspicuously absent from the virtual summit attended by Rwanda, also a member.

While African countries as well as the U.N. and U.S. have called for an immediate ceasefire, the risk of a regional war has increased, analysts say, exacerbated by the rebels’ advance into South Kivu and diatribes between Rwandan and South African officials. Congo is a member of the southern Africa regional bloc and also that of east Africa, whose peacekeeping force it expelled last year after deeming it ineffective.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the “Rwanda Defense Force militia” for the fighting that has resulted in the deaths of 13 South African peacekeepers in eastern Congo. He also said his government will ensure the peacekeepers are “sufficiently supported during this critical mission.”

His comment drew an angry response from Kagame, who called the South African peacekeepers a “belligerent force” working alongside armed groups that target Rwanda. “If South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day,” the Rwandan leader said on the social media platform X.

Who are the M23 and what do they want?

The chaotic situation with the M23 has its roots in ethnic conflict, stretching back to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when 800,000 Tutsis and others were killed by Hutus and former militias. M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and others involved in the genocide. Many Hutus fled into Congo after 1994.

Unlike in 2012 when the rebels seized Congo for days, observers say their withdrawal could be more difficult now. The rebels have been emboldened by Rwanda, which feels Congo is ignoring its interests in the region and failed to meet demands of previous peace agreements, according to Murithi Mutiga, program director for Africa at the Crisis Group, a think tank.

“Ultimately, this is a failure of African mediation (because) the warning signs were always there. Kigali was adopting very bellicose rhetoric and the Congolese government was also adopting very, very aggressive rhetoric,” Mutiga said.
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Dick Button, Olympic great and voice of skating, dies at 95

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NEW YORK — Dick Button was more than the most accomplished men’s figure skater in history. He was one of his sport’s greatest innovators and promoters.

Button, winner of two Olympic gold medals and five consecutive world championships, died Thursday, said his son, Edward, who did not provide a cause. He was 95.

As an entrepreneur and broadcaster, Button promoted skating and its athletes, transforming a niche sport into the showpiece of every Winter Olympics.

“Dick was one of the most important figures in our sport,” Scott Hamilton said. “There wasn’t a skater after Dick who wasn’t helped by him in some way.”

Button’s impact began after World War II. He was the first U.S. men’s champion — and his country’s youngest at age 16 — when that competition returned in 1946. Two years later, he took the title at the St. Moritz Olympics, competing outdoors. He performed the first double axel in any competition and became the first American to win the men’s event.

“By the way, that jump had a cheat on it,” Button told the U.S. Olympic Committee website. “But listen, I did it and that was what counted.”

That began his dominance of international skating, and U.S. amateur sports. He was the first figure skater to win the prestigious Sullivan Award in 1949 — no other figure skater won it until Michelle Kwan in 2001.

In 1952, while a Harvard student, he won a second gold at the Oslo Games, making more history with the first triple jump (a loop) in competition. Soon after, he won a fifth world title, then gave up his eligibility as an amateur. All Olympic sports were subject to an amateur/professional division at the time.

“I had achieved everything I could have dreamed of doing as a skater,” said Button, who earned a law degree from Harvard in 1956. “I was able to enjoy the Ice Capades (show) and keep my hand in skating, and that was very important to me.”

With the Emmy Award-winning Button as the TV analyst, viewers got to learn not only the basics but the nuances of a sport foreign to many as he frankly broke down the performances. He became as much a fixture on ABC’s Wide World of Sports as Jim McKay and the hapless ski jumper tumbling down the slope.

“Dick Button is the custodian of the history of figure skating and its quintessential voice,” 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano said in Button’s autobiography. “He made the words ‘lutz’ and ‘salchow’ part of our everyday vocabulary.”

After a 1961 plane crash killed the entire U.S. figure skating team on the way to the world championships, which then were canceled, Button persuaded ABC Sports executive Roone Arledge to televise the 1962 event on Wide World. That’s when he joined the network as a commentator.

Button’s death coincided with another tragedy in the skating world, Wednesday night’s crash of an American Airlines flight that collided with an Army helicopter and plummeted into the Potomac River outside Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board. Two teenage figure skaters, their mothers, and two former world champions who were coaching at the Skating Club of Boston were among the 14 people killed from the skating community.

Button skated for the Boston club and remained close to it for the rest of his life. The trophy room at the club is named in his honor.

He also provided opportunities for skaters to make money after their competitive careers. He ran professional events he created for TV for years, attracting many top names in the sport — Hamilton, Torvill and Dean, Kristi Yamaguchi, Kurt Browning and Katarina Witt.

Button’s Candid Productions, formed 1959, also produced such made-for-TV programs as Battle of the Network Stars. He also dabbled in acting, but the rink was his realm.

“Dick Button created an open and honest space in figure skating broadcasting where no topic or moment was off-limits,” said Johnny Weir, the three-time U.S. champion and current NBC Sports figure skating analyst. “He told it like it was, even when his opinion wasn’t a popular one. His zingers were always in my mind when I would perform for him, and I wanted to make him as happy and proud as I would my coaches.

“I think that is something very special about commentating figure skating. As an athlete, we rarely have an opportunity to speak, and we rely on the TV voices to tell our story for us. Nobody could do it like Mr. Button.” 
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Spain struggles to meet NATO defense target, as Trump demands huge additional spending

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Visiting Spain this week, NATO’s secretary-general called for members to boost military spending in the face of the threat from Russia. Spain spends the least on defense relative to the size of its economy. And as Henry Ridgwell reports, US President Donald Trump has singled out Madrid for failing to meet the NATO target.
Camera: Alfonso Beato
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Nigerian initiative paves way for deaf inclusion in tech

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An estimated nine million Nigerians are deaf or have hearing impairments, and many cope with discrimination that limits their access to education and employment. But one initiative is working to change that — empowering deaf people with tech skills to improve their career prospects. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.
Camera: Timothy Obiezu
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Experts: Trump faces tough task to denuclearize North Korea 

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washington — The White House says President Donald Trump is going to pursue the denuclearization of North Korea, although analysts say that is easier said than done.

White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told VOA Korean via email this week that “President Trump had a good relationship with [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un,” and that Trump’s “mix of toughness and diplomacy led to the first-ever leader-level commitment to complete denuclearization.”

Trump and Kim met three times in 2018-19, in Singapore, Hanoi and over the inter-Korean border at Panmunjom.

Trump, who has recently called North Korea “a nuclear power,” said in an interview with Fox News last week that he would reach out to Kim again, adding, “He liked me, and I got along with him.”

Commitment to denuclearization

Former U.S. government officials say there is no doubt that Trump is serious about resuming talks with Kim.

Susan Thornton, a former senior U.S. diplomat for Asian affairs, told VOA Korean on Wednesday via email it “seems clear that President Trump plans to pick up where he left off with Kim Jong Un in his first administration.” 

 

Thornton, who was acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the first Trump administration, said Trump would “like to hold Kim and North Korea to the 2018 Singapore joint statement that included Kim’s commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”  

 

However, “much has changed since then, and Kim’s hand is stronger, so it won’t be easy,” Thornton said, referring to Pyongyang’s development of more advanced weapons.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported Wednesday that Kim said it was “indispensable” to bolster nuclear forces, as North Korea continues to face “confrontations with the most vicious, hostile countries.”

Last Saturday, the North test-fired what it said were sea-to-surface strategic cruise-guided missiles. Kim, who inspected the test launch, said the country’s war deterrence means are “being perfected more thoroughly,” according to KCNA.

Evans Revere, former acting secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs during the George W. Bush administration, told VOA Korean on the phone Wednesday that Kim would agree to come back to the table if he believed reengaging with Washington “could help him attain any of his own goals with respect to his nuclear and missile programs and relations with the United States.”

Revere is skeptical that any of Kim’s goals would include his regime’s denuclearization.

“The North Koreans might dangle the possibility of a discussion about denuclearization to attract the United States into a dialogue, but it would not be a serious proposal,” he said. “Quite frankly, they are determined to keep their weapons, keep their capabilities, which they regard as essential to their own existence.”

Daunting task

Frank Aum, a senior expert on North Korea at the U.S. Institute of Peace who worked at the Department of Defense from 2010 to 2017, said denuclearization is not a realistic goal to achieve in the near or medium term. 

 

“The best thing Trump can do to increase the odds of North Korea’s engagement is to resolve Russia’s war in Ukraine, which would decrease North Korea’s leverage and signal that a U.S. offer better than the one in Hanoi might be on the table,” Aum said in an email to VOA Korean.

North Korea has sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine. In return, North Korea has received military or financial assistance, according to U.S. and South Korean officials.

The February 2019 talks, in which Trump and Kim met for the second time, collapsed after Kim asked for full lifting of sanctions in exchange for the dismantling of the country’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, about 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang. Trump demanded more should be done on Kim’s end.

Aum said Kim would likely not have budged from his position then. 

 

“Trump may probe to see if he can get Kim to accept partial sanctions relief instead, like he tried at Hanoi, or offer more for Yongbyon,” Aum said. “It seems clear that Kim will not offer any more security concessions than Yongbyon.”

Sydney Seiler, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA Korean via email on Wednesday that “for now, it is unlikely any meeting, if it takes place, will reasonably be related to denuclearization.”

“Trump will likely seek to keep the ultimate goal of denuclearization alive while exploring ways in which to reduce the threat,” Seiler said.

Referring to recent comments by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the failure of sanctions to halt the North Korean nuclear program, Seiler speculated that sanctions relief may be offered for significant steps in the new talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

Seiler added that military exercises and extended deterrence may also be reduced in terms of their frequency, volume and scale, in exchange for a halt or slowing of Kim’s long-range missile launches and nuclear tests.

In June 2018, Trump decided to suspend major military exercises with South Korea in an apparent gesture of good faith, right after his first meeting with Kim in Singapore. It raised some fears among South Koreans that such a move could weaken defense against the North.
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Zelenskyy condemns Russian strike that killed 9 as ‘terrible tragedy’ 

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned an early Thursday morning Russian drone strike that killed at least nine people as a “terrible tragedy.”

The drone, which struck an apartment building in the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, also injured 13 people, according to regional authorities.

“This is a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime. It is very important that the world does not stop putting pressure on Russia for this terror,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

Police said the search-and-rescue operation had concluded after 19 hours.

Three elderly couples were among those killed, and an 8-year-old child was among those wounded. The child’s mother was killed in the attack.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin claims to be ready for negotiations, but this is what he actually does,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media.

Russia launched 81 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian military said Thursday. The attacks damaged businesses and homes around the country, according to the military.

In the southern region of Odesa, the attack damaged a grain warehouse and a hospital, according to the governor.

Meanwhile, James Anderson, a British man who was captured while fighting on the Ukrainian side in Russia’s Kursk region, will face terrorism and mercenary charges, Russian state investigators said Thursday.

Russia announced in November that it had captured Anderson.

Also, the review and 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign aid means Ukrainian aid groups that rely on U.S. funding are being forced to cut services.

Zelenskyy said U.S. military assistance to Ukraine was not affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s freeze on foreign aid, but the Ukrainian president still expressed concern about the funding pause.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Even under Trump, no clear path to peace between Russia and Ukraine

Posted on by SeeUS

Russian forces continue to attack Ukraine even as the Trump administration works to bring both sides to the negotiating table. While Ukraine is ready for peace talks, analysts see little evidence that Moscow is prepared to end the war. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from former Moscow correspondent Ricardo Marquina.
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East African leaders call for ceasefire in DRC; humanitarian crisis worsens

Posted on by SeeAF

NAIROBI, KENYA — East African Community leaders on Wednesday called for an immediate ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where government forces are fighting rebel group M23, while aid agencies say the clashes are deepening the already dire humanitarian crisis there.

Kenyan President William Ruto led an online meeting for seven of eight of the trade bloc’s heads of state. The only member not participating was Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi.

In a statement afterward, the leaders called on the warring parties to cease hostilities in eastern Congo and facilitate humanitarian access to the affected areas.

The summit also asked the DRC government to protect diplomatic missions in the country, following attacks this week by protesters in the capital, Kinshasa, targeting embassies of several countries presumed to be sympathetic to the M23 rebel group.

The Congolese government has accused Rwanda of supporting M23, which this week took control of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. Witnesses reported seeing bodies in the streets, but local officials have not determined a death toll.

The Congolese government said it is fighting to push out the rebels from the city of 2 million.

Edgar Githua, an international relations analyst in Nairobi, said animosity between Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame could derail any ceasefire talks.

“There’s still a lot of bad blood between DRC and Rwanda on how to approach this issue because DRC believes that these are Rwandese, and Kagame categorically keeps on saying M23 are not Rwandese, these are ethnic Tutsis who are Congolese by citizenship,” Githua said. “It is only that they share a language with Rwanda. So, this issue of identity is what is ailing this conflict and needs to be addressed deeply.”

Meanwhile, aid agencies say these latest clashes have made the dire humanitarian crisis in DRC even worse, as thousands of Goma residents, many of whom were already displaced due to earlier conflict, are forced to flee again.

Maina King’ori, the acting country director for CARE International in DRC, told VOA from Goma, “There’s been no electricity supply for the last several days in most parts of Goma. The water system is not functioning; it has been shut down, though slowly coming back in some places, and there has been no internet connectivity in Goma for the last three days. This makes living really difficult.”

King’ori urged parties to the conflict to adhere to international humanitarian law and protect civilians.

“Civilians cannot be a target,” he said. “Civilians are not party to this conflict, yet they’re having to bear the immense load. … They’re the ones that are having to feel the pain of sleeping outside, of being relocated several times, of losing loved ones.”

Democratic Republic of Congo is grappling with a decadeslong crisis that humanitarian agencies say has left over 6 million people displaced, with recent hostilities exacerbating their plight.

North Kivu, where Goma is located, hosts over 2.7 million internally displaced people, according to CARE International.
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Turkey, Azerbaijan step up efforts to create land corridor through Armenia

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Azerbaijan and Turkey are stepping up efforts to secure a land corridor between their countries through Armenia. Until now, Iran, a key ally of Armenia, has backed Yerevan’s opposition to what is known as the Zangezur corridor. With Iran weakened in the region, Ankara and Baku see an opportunity to secure a key strategic goal. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Trump’s FBI chief pick, Kash Patel, insists he has no ‘enemies list,’ won’t seek retribution

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, insisted to deeply skeptical Democrats on Thursday that he did not have an “enemies list” and that the bureau under his leadership would not seek retribution against the president’s adversaries or launch investigations for political purposes. 

“I have no interest nor desire and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” Patel told a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken by the FBI.” 

The reassurances were aimed at blunting a persistent line of attack from Democrats, who throughout Thursday’s hearing confronted Patel with a vast catalog of his incendiary statements. They said those statements raise alarming questions about his loyalty to the president, such as when he described some of the prosecuted Jan. 6 rioters as “political prisoners” and called for a purge of anti-Trump “conspirators” in the government and news media. 

“There is an unfathomable difference between a seeming facade being constructed around this nominee here today, and what he has actually done and said in real life when left to his own devices,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat. His colleague, Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, later added, “It is his own words. It is not some conspiracy. It is what Mr. Patel actually said himself.” 

Patel defended himself by insisting that Democrats were putting his comments and social media posts in a “grotesque context.” He said the suggestion that he had an “enemies list” — a 2023 book he authored includes a lengthy list of former government officials he says are part of the so-called deep state — was a “total mischaracterization.”

“The only thing that will matter if I’m confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience to the Constitution and a singular standard of justice,” Patel said. 

Patel was picked in November to replace Christopher Wray, who led the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency for more than seven years but was forced out of the job Trump had appointed him to after being seen as insufficiently loyal to him. 

Patel is a former aide to the House Intelligence Committee and an ex-federal prosecutor who served in Trump’s first administration. He has alarmed critics with rhetoric — in dozens of podcasts and books he has authored — in which he has demonstrated fealty to Trump and assailed the decision-making of the agency he’s now been asked to lead. 

But Patel sought on multiple occasions to reassure Democrats that his FBI would be independent from the White House. He would not acknowledge that Trump had lost the 2020 election, conceding only that Joe Biden was sworn in as president. But he did not endorse Trump’s sweeping pardon of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. 

“I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement,” Patel said in response to a question from Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the committee. Durbin made his opposition to Patel clear at the outset. 

Durbin said the FBI is critical in keeping America safe from terrorism, violent crime and other threats, and the nation “needs an FBI director who understands the gravity of this mission and is ready on day one, not someone who is consumed by his own personal political grievances.” 

Patel pledged if confirmed to be transparent and said he would not involve the FBI in prosecutorial decisions, keeping those with Justice Department lawyers instead. 

“First, let good cops be cops,” Patel wrote in outlining his priorities. “Leadership means supporting agents in their mission to apprehend criminals and protect our citizens. If confirmed, I will focus on streamlining operations at headquarters while bolstering the presence of field agents across the nation. Collaboration with local law enforcement is crucial to fulfilling the FBI’s mission.” 

Patel found common cause with Trump over their shared skepticism of government surveillance and the “deep state” — a pejorative catchall used by Trump to refer to government bureaucracy. 

He was part of a small group of supporters during Trump’s recent criminal trial in New York who accompanied him to the courthouse, where he told reporters that Trump was the victim of an “unconstitutional circus.” 

That close bond would depart from the modern-day precedent of FBI directors looking to keep presidents at arm’s length. 

Republican allies of Trump, who share the president’s belief that the FBI has become politicized, have rallied around Patel and pledged to support him, seeing him as someone who can shake up the bureau and provide needed change. 

Senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, sought to blunt attacks on Patel preemptively by focusing on the need to reform an FBI that he said had become weaponized. 

The FBI in recent years has become entangled in numerous politically explosive investigations, including not just the two federal inquiries into Trump that resulted in indictments but also probes of Biden and his son, Hunter. 

“It’s no surprise that public trust has declined in an institution that has been plagued by abuse, a lack of transparency, and the weaponization of law enforcement,” Grassley said. “Nevertheless, the FBI remains an important, even indispensable institution for law and order in our country.” 

He later added: “Mr. Patel, should you be confirmed, you will take charge of an FBI that is in crisis.”
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South African, Rwandan leaders in war of words over DR Congo

Posted on by SeeAF

Johannesburg — Rwandan President Paul Kagame has lashed out at South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, after Ramaphosa accused Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels behind the escalating crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo this week. Kagame has accused Ramaphosa of “lying” and warned of possible “confrontation.”

South Africa has troops deployed in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo as part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission there, as well as in a separate deployment by the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, aimed at backing up Congolese forces fighting rebels.

But Pretoria is under pressure this week after 13 South African soldiers were killed in a recent surge in fighting that resulted in the M23 militia – which Rwanda is widely accused of backing – making a rapid advance and seizing partial control of the key city of Goma in North Kivu province on Sunday night.

Ramaphosa said in a written statement on Wednesday that the M23, and what he called “a Rwandan Defense Force militia,” were responsible for the casualties, while his minister of defense, Angie Motshekga, went one step further.

“It’s just that at that stage, when they were firing above our heads, the president did warn them to say, ‘If you are going to fire, we’ll take it as a declaration of war.’”

The remarks by Ramaphosa and Motshekga have caused a diplomatic spat with Kigali.

Kagame verbally hit back in an angry statement posted to his social media on Wednesday night, saying the Rwandan Defense Force was not a militia and quote, “if South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day.”

He also disputed Ramaphosa’s statement that the dead South African soldiers were “peacekeepers,” saying the SADC force was engaged in “offensive combat operations.”

“I spoke with the president of South Africa, who sought me out to speak with me, on this matter, because of their involvement in eastern Congo, and he’s also there pretending to be playing a peacemaker role. M23 are not Rwandans, please, and South Africa dares even issue threats,” he said.

South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola has directly blamed Rwanda for backing the M23, saying reports by U.N. experts proved Kigali’s involvement. He said on Wednesday that South Africa had taken part in an African Union meeting on the crisis.

“As South Africa, we participated in that platform and put our position across, which is that there is a ceasefire, immediate cessation of hostilities… and, also, to request all the forces that are supporting M23, to also cease all support immediately,” he said.

Mineral-rich eastern Congo, which borders Rwanda, has been plagued by conflict for more than three decades. The current fighting stems partly from the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The perpetrators fled across the border to North Kivu, and Rwanda says they now represent a security threat to its territory.

The Congolese government has accused Kigali of being active in eastern Congo, saying Kigali is after the area’s vast mineral wealth.
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Economic hardship affects Lunar New Year celebrations in China

Posted on by SeeEA

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The Lunar New Year, also called the Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival in China, is traditionally celebrated with tables piled with food and red envelopes filled with cash for children.

In past years, smoke from outdoor fire pits filled the air throughout the morning and afternoon, as people burned paper money to ensure that even the ancestors can feel the financial boon that the biggest holiday of the year usually brings to the living.

In recent years, however, China’s economic slowdown has altered the atmosphere of Chinese New Year. Facing increasing financial burdens, young people are reexamining long-held traditions as they welcome the Year of the Snake, opting for more frugal alternatives during this year’s eight-day-long national holiday.

A 30-year-old legal worker from Shanghai, who did not want to use his name for fear of reprisal, told VOA that stores selling trinkets and supplies for the holiday appeared unusually deserted.

He said people appear to be forgoing large purchases, which manifests mostly in the custom of giving money-filled red envelopes — the color symbolizes good luck and prosperity in the new year.

“As with goods purchased for the new year, red envelopes have become more simple and less thick,” the Shanghai resident said.

He told VOA he usually gives his niece an envelope with around $140 inside, but this year, he plans to give her $90.

Talk on social media

Frustration with the economy is being expressed on social media — young people are saturating online threads with images and comments describing the pressure and criticism they will encounter during the holiday.

An account on RedNote called “I don’t give a damn about the banana” posted a series of funny images detailing the levels of anxiety young, unmarried and unemployed people will face during the holiday.

“You haven’t earned any money but you still have to give the younger kids a red envelope,” the user wrote, over a picture of a woman giving a small bill to a cat.

Many others offer advice to ease fears of being scrutinized by the family.

“Unique-me” wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo: “Now the economy is not good, it’s good to just have an income. If you are in a difficult situation, you can admit that you don’t make much. There is no need to be generous. Just show your appreciation. Those who have opinions about you because of the size of your red envelope, let them have opinions.”

Faced with economic woes, some local governments are advocating frugality. Baise City, Guangxi, suggested that the amount of money in a red envelope should not exceed $3.

The initiative also encourages the younger generation to give their elders “blessing gifts” with commemorative significance or emotional value instead of red envelopes.

This move has attracted widespread attention, with many social media users expressing their support for the program’s positive impact on financial and mental health. Some suggested that blessing gifting be promoted nationwide.

Workplace anxiety

The size of red envelopes exchanged in the workplace and increasing leniency on new year vacation day allowances have stoked fears of job insecurity among employees.

“The economic downturn is not only reflected in my meager salary, but also in the red envelopes given by the boss every year,” “Life with Greed” said on Weibo.

A user called “Let’s try to be happy” commented on Weibo: “My company is in a slump. New Year gifts have not been issued. In previous years, the maximum New Year holiday was 20 days, but this year it was more than a month. I don’t know what it will be like next year. It feels like it is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

A 39-year-old government worker in Dalian, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because of security fears, said despite having a family and a stable job, she will limit her holiday spending.

“We have to reduce some unnecessary expenses, such as buying less candy and snacks, and we try to buy simple things outside when worshiping,” the wife and mother said.

The changes in Chinese Spring Festival customs are affected by many factors, but the economy is most critical, said Sun Guoxiang, a professor in the international affairs and business department at Nanhua University in Taiwan.

“The economic downturn has led to a decline in consumption capacity. Young people pay more attention to rational consumption and actual needs, which reduces the relatively high-cost parts of traditional Spring Festival customs,” Sun said, adding that pressure from family about issues that include work, marriage and education cannot be ignored as drivers of this trend.

He said the future of Chinese New Year and how it will be celebrated will depend heavily on China’s development and whether the country can overcome its current economic decline.
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Russia weds biolab, organ harvesting conspiracies to discredit US, Ukraine

Posted on by SeeEU

Russian disinformation narratives about illicit organ harvesting and biological experiments in Ukraine have no basis in fact. Russia intentionally distorts Ukrainian law intended to support vital medical procedures.
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Economists mixed on possible impacts of Trump’s tariff proposals

Posted on by SeeUS

President Donald Trump is widely expected to impose tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada as early as February 1 as part of a plan he says will boost the U.S. economy. But with much about the specifics still unknown, economists, business owners and everyday consumers are still trying to understand how it could impact them. Johny Fernandez reports from New York City. (Produced by: Bakhtiyar Zamanov)
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Philippine president offers deal to China: Stop sea aggression and I’ll return missiles to US

Posted on by SeeEA

MANILA — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. offered on Thursday to remove a U.S. missile system from the Philippines if China halts what he called its “aggressive and coercive behavior” in the disputed South China Sea. 

The U.S. Army installed the Typhon mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines in April last year to support what the longtime treaty allies described as training for joint combat readiness. 

China has repeatedly demanded that the Philippines remove the missile system, saying it was “inciting geopolitical confrontation and an arms race.” 

Asked by reporters about China’s criticism of the missile system, Marcos said he did not understand the Chinese position because the Philippines does not comment on China’s missile systems which “are a thousand times more powerful than what we have.” 

“Let’s make a deal with China: Stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen and let them have a living, stop ramming our boats, stop water cannoning our people, stop firing lasers at us and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior, and we’ll return the typhoon missiles,” Marcos told reporters in central Cebu province. 

“Let them stop everything they’re doing and I’ll return all of those,” he said. 

Chinese officials did not immediately comment on the Philippine leader’s remarks. 

The U.S. Army’s mobile Typhon missile system, which consists of a launcher and at least 16 Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, was repositioned about two weeks ago from the northern Philippines to a strategic area nearer the capital, Manila, in consultation with Philippine defense officials, a senior Philippine official told The Associated Press. 

The Philippine official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to discuss the sensitive issue in public, said the U.S. missile system is now nearer an area where Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy forces have been involved in increasingly tense faceoffs in the South China Sea. 

Tomahawk missiles can travel over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), which puts parts of mainland China within their range. The missile system will remain in the Philippines indefinitely, the Philippine official said. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said last week that the Philippines is “creating tensions and antagonism in the region and inciting geopolitical confrontation and an arms race” by allowing the U.S. missile system to be positioned in its territory. 

“This is a highly dangerous move and an extremely irresponsible choice,” Mao said. 

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro has rejected China’s demand that the missile system be removed as interference in Philippine internal affairs. 

The U.S. and the Philippines have repeatedly condemned China’s increasingly assertive actions to press its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where hostilities have flared over the past two years with repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine coast guard forces and accompanying vessels. 

Aside from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the busy waterway, a key shipping route which is also believed to be sitting atop large undersea deposits of gas and oil.
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Rwanda’s Kagame slams criticism of east Congo offensive as rebels push south

Posted on by SeeAF

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — President Paul Kagame said Rwanda was ready for “confrontation” as he rejected criticism over his backing for M23 rebels who were pushing south on Thursday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after capturing the major city of Goma. 

M23 rebels, with support from Rwandan troops, marched into Goma this week and are now advancing toward Bukavu, capital of neighboring South Kivu province, in the biggest escalation since 2012 of a decades-old conflict. 

Rwanda is facing an international backlash over its actions in eastern Congo, where it has repeatedly intervened either directly or through allied militias over the past 30 years in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. 

But the chorus of condemnation, which has included Germany canceling aid talks with Rwanda and Britain threatening to withhold $40 million of annual bilateral assistance, was having no apparent effect on the ground. 

After seizing Goma, a lakeside city of nearly 2 million and a major hub for displaced people and aid groups, M23 fighters were advancing south from the town of Minova, along the western side of Lake Kivu.  

They tried to take the town of Nyabibwe, about 50 km north of Bukavu, on Wednesday but were pushed back by Congolese forces, a local resident told Reuters by phone. 

A civil society source in Bukavu, who has contacts around the region, said clashes were ongoing on Thursday morning in a location known as Kahalala, about 20 km away from Nyabibwe. 

“The Congolese army seems to be putting up fierce resistance there,” the source said. 

In the latest diplomatic initiative, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot arrived on Thursday in Congo’s capital Kinshasa, more than 1,600 km west of Goma. He was due to meet President Felix Tshisekedi, the Congolese presidency said. 

Barrot’s visit comes two days after Congolese protesters in Kinshasa attacked the French embassy and several other foreign missions over their perceived support for Rwanda. 

Any successful push south by M23 would see them control territory previous rebellions have not taken since the end of two major wars that ran from 1996 to 2003, and magnify the risk of an all-out conflict that draws in regional countries.  

Troops from neighboring Burundi, which has had hostile relations with Rwanda, support Congolese troops in South Kivu. A spokesperson for Burundi’s military declined to comment on the current situation in Congo.  

In Goma itself, where M23 say they plan to administer the city and appear to be settling in for a lengthy period of control, the border with Rwanda, which is close to the city center, was re-opened under M23 control, its spokesperson said. 

Kagame accuses South Africa

Kagame responded angrily on X to a post by President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, 13 of whose soldiers have been killed in eastern Congo since last week. Ramaphosa attributed the fighting to an escalation by the M23 and the Rwandan army.  

Kagame accused South African forces of working alongside a militia in Congo with ties to perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and “threatening to take the war to Rwanda itself.”  

“If South Africa wants to contribute to peaceful solutions, that is well and good, but South Africa is in no position to take on the role of a peacemaker or mediator,” Kagame wrote.  

“And if South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day.” 

Since the fall of Goma, Rwanda has also reacted angrily to calls for restraint from Western nations, accusing its critics of “victim-blaming” and turning a blind eye to what it says is Congo’s complicity in the slaughter of Tutsis. 

Congo rejects Rwanda’s accusations, saying Kigali’s true motive for involvement in its eastern provinces is to use its proxy militias to control lucrative mineral mines. U.N. experts have documented the export of large quantities of looted Congolese minerals via Rwanda. 

M23 is the latest ethnic Tutsi-led insurgency backed by Rwanda to fight in Congo since the 1994 genocide, when extremist Hutus killed about a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, and were then toppled by Tutsi forces led by Kagame, who has been Rwanda’s president ever since.  

About a million Hutus, some refugees and some genocide perpetrators, fled into eastern Congo in the aftermath of the genocide, and Rwanda accuses Congo of harboring Hutu-led militias bent on killing Tutsis and threatening Rwanda itself. 

The eight-member East African Community, to which Rwanda and Congo both belong, held a virtual summit late on Wednesday to discuss the crisis. The final communique largely embraced Rwanda’s position.  

It called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict through direct talks between Congo and armed groups. Congo rejects direct negotiations with the M23, which it considers a terrorist group. 

The EAC also recommended a joint summit to discuss the crisis with the Southern African Development Community. 

SADC member Angola, which has led the most recent efforts to broker a peace deal but is also a firm ally of Congo, called on Rwanda to withdraw its forces shortly after hosting Tshisekedi for talks in Luanda on Wednesday. 
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NATO, EU on high alert as undersea cable attacks escalate in Baltic

Posted on by SeeEU

As authorities investigate the fourth Baltic Sea cable-cutting incident in recent months, European leaders have expressed concern about the frequency of attacks involving civilian vessels and critical civilian infrastructure.

The Vezhen, a Bulgarian-owned vessel, was detained this week in the Baltic Sea, suspected of dragging its anchor across the seafloor, severing a data cable between Sweden and Latvia.

Aleksander Kalchev, the CEO of the company that owns the Vezhen, denied that the damage was intentional.

Nevertheless, Swedish security services have boarded the vessel for further investigation.

Latvian Minister of Defense Andris Spruds, in a written response to VOA on Wednesday, confirmed that Latvia is working closely with Sweden and NATO to address the incident.

“Latvia’s Naval Forces’ diving team has conducted an inspection at the damage site and collected evidence in cooperation with Swedish Coast Guard vessels,” Spruds told VOA.

He emphasized that Latvia would deploy new technologies and continue working closely with NATO allies to enhance the protection of critical sea infrastructure. “These sabotage actions will not be tolerated, and we will continue to enforce bold actions within the rule of law,” Spruds said.

Growing pattern of attacks

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, whose country launched a sabotage investigation into damage to the Estlink 2 undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia on Dec. 25, has emphasized the urgency of the situation.

“This cannot continue,” he told Finnish Lannen Media this week. He called for stronger coordination within the European Union to prevent further attacks. “We must be on a common front in sanctions against Russia. That applies to every EU country,” he told a Finnish journalist.

The government in Poland, another Baltic Sea country with more than 1,000 kilometers of coastline, has called for enhanced security measures.

In an interview with VOA, Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said recent attacks on undersea cables — such as those between Latvia and Sweden, as well as Estonia and Finland — align with broader patterns of sabotage seen in the region. While investigations are ongoing, Poland views these incidents as deliberate actions, he said.

“Even if there is no direct evidence today, sabotage and provocations are part of Russia’s standard arsenal. … We are at a point where we have to assume that this is a conscious, deliberate action,” he told VOA on Tuesday.

Polish officials also emphasize the need for more coordinated maritime security measures.

“We want such policing missions to start taking place in the Baltic Sea. There is a lot of traffic when it comes to ships and vessels … and security is an absolutely fundamental issue here,” he told VOA.

Given its strategic importance and the increasing presence of Russian naval activity, he said, NATO must prioritize the Baltic Sea as a critical security zone.

“The Baltic Sea has become an arena where all tricks are allowed,” Siemoniak said.

Political and strategic motives

While evidence is still being gathered, the geopolitical implications of these attacks are becoming clearer. Analysts believe the sabotage is not just an attempt to disrupt communication networks but also a calculated effort to test NATO’s response capabilities and sow discord among member states.

Lawmakers in Finland, the newest member of NATO, have voiced concerns that these incidents may be part of a broader conflict that many Western governments are hesitant to acknowledge.

“If we don’t know whether we’re at war, it’s always best to assume that we are,” Jussi Halla-aho, the speaker of the Finnish Parliament, said in an interview earlier this month in the Turku daily Turun Sanomat.

Countering hybrid warfare

A significant challenge for NATO and its allies is how to respond effectively to these incidents. Unlike conventional military aggression, these acts of sabotage involve civilian vessels and infrastructure, making direct retaliation difficult.

“If we openly accuse Russia or China of these attacks, the next logical question is: What are we going to do about it?” Matti Posio, a Finnish foreign policy expert and chief editor at Lannen Media Oy, told VOA in an interview. “The reality is that options are limited, and that’s exactly what the perpetrators are counting on.”

With tensions rising, NATO is considering additional measures to secure the Baltic Sea, officials and observers told VOA. One option includes increasing naval patrols and surveillance of key maritime routes. However, “more drastic proposals — such as closing parts of the Gulf of Finland to Russian-linked vessels — remain politically sensitive and legally complex,” Posio said.

Dilemma for NATO and EU

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, who visited Latvia this week, issued a a statement with her Latvian counterpart.

“We are aware that Russia is a long-term threat to world peace and international order; therefore, NATO’s deterrence and defense measures must be further strengthened, while coordinating the Allied response to the intensifying threat posed by Russia,” their statement said.

As tensions rise, NATO has launched Baltic Sentry 2025 to enhance security and resilience. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has emphasized the need for greater coordination in protecting critical infrastructure from sabotage.

EU interior ministers will meet in Warsaw on Thursday. Among other topics, they will address growing concerns over sabotage targeting critical infrastructure in Europe.

The ministers are expected to discuss potential countermeasures and coordination efforts to strengthen security and deterrence against future disruptions.
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Microsoft, Meta CEOs defend hefty AI spending after DeepSeek stuns tech world

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Days after Chinese upstart DeepSeek revealed a breakthrough in cheap AI computing that shook the U.S. technology industry, the chief executives of Microsoft and Meta defended massive spending that they said was key to staying competitive in the new field.

DeepSeek’s quick progress has stirred doubts about the lead America has in AI with models that it claims can match or even outperform Western rivals at a fraction of the cost, but the U.S. executives said on Wednesday that building huge computer networks was necessary to serve growing corporate needs.

“Investing ‘very heavily’ in capital expenditure and infrastructure is going to be a strategic advantage over time,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a post-earnings call.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said the spending was needed to overcome the capacity constraints that have hampered the technology giant’s ability to capitalize on AI.

“As AI becomes more efficient and accessible, we will see exponentially more demand,” he said on a call with analysts.

Microsoft has earmarked $80 billion for AI in its current fiscal year, while Meta has pledged as much as $65 billion towards the technology.

That is a far cry from the roughly $6 million DeepSeek said it has spent to develop its AI model. U.S. tech executives and Wall Street analysts say that reflects the amount spent on computing power, rather than all development costs.

Still, some investors seem to be losing patience with the hefty spending and lack of big payoffs.

Shares of Microsoft — widely seen as a front runner in the AI race because of its tie to industry leader OpenAI – were down 5% in extended trading after the company said that growth in its Azure cloud business in the current quarter would fall short of estimates.

“We really want to start to see a clear road map to what that monetization model looks like for all of the capital that’s been invested,” said Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, which holds shares in Microsoft.

Meta, meanwhile, sent mixed signals about how its bets on AI-powered tools were paying off, with a strong fourth quarter but a lackluster sales forecast for the current period.

“With these huge expenses, they need to turn the spigot on in terms of revenue generated, but I think this week was a wake-up call for the U.S.” said Futurum Group analyst Daniel Newman.

“For AI right now, there’s too much capital expenditure, not enough consumption.”

There are some signs though that executives are moving to change that.

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the company’s capital spending in the current quarter and the next would remain around the $22.6 billion level seen in the second quarter.

“In fiscal 2026, we expect to continue to invest against strong demand signals. However, the growth rate will be lower than fiscal 2025 (which ends in June),” she said. 
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Chinese app shakes up AI race

Posted on by SeeEA

A small Chinese company sent shockwaves around the tech world this week with news that it has created a high-performing artificial intelligence system with less computing power and at a lower cost than ones made by U.S. tech giants. Michelle Quinn reports.
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State Department says Trump froze foreign aid to ‘root out waste’

Posted on by SeeAF

WASHINGTON — The State Department on Wednesday sought to clarify President Donald Trump’s order to freeze and review foreign development aid after the top U.S. diplomat blunted some of the chaos that ensued with an emergency order that could shield the world’s largest HIV program from the 90-day funding freeze.   

At the White House, Trump said his pauses to foreign and domestic funding are part of his administration’s effort to root out “tremendous waste and fraud and abuse.” 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s late-Tuesday waiver exempts humanitarian aid, which he classifies as “life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance.”  

 

The United Nations’ AIDS program welcomed the news, emphasizing the value of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which serves 20 million people in 55 countries.  

“UNAIDS welcomes this waiver from the U.S. government, which ensures that millions of people living with HIV can continue to receive life-saving HIV medication during the assessment of U.S. foreign development assistance,” said Executive Director Winnie Byanyima. “This urgent decision recognizes PEPFAR’s critical role in the AIDS response and restores hope to people living with HIV.” 

‘Blocking woke programs’

In a Wednesday memo sent to journalists, the State Department explained its rationale for the freeze during the review and lauded early cost cuts, saying that “even at this early stage, over $1,000,000,000 in spending not aligned with an America First agenda has been prevented.”  

The U.S. spent about $70 billion in foreign aid in fiscal year 2023, the most recent data available. 

“We are rooting out waste,” the memo said. “We are blocking woke programs. And we are exposing activities that run contrary to our national interests. None of this would be possible if these programs remained on autopilot.”  

The president, who said Wednesday at the White House that he “could stand here all day” and give examples of wasted fraud and abuse in the U.S. government, highlighted a few. 

“We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas,” he said. “Fifty million. And you know what’s happened to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?”   

The State Department echoed this, saying in a statement, “Without the pause, U.S. taxpayers would have provided condoms [and other contraceptive services] in Gaza, climate justice marketing services in Gabon, clean energy programs for women in Fiji, gender development programs in D.C., family planning throughout Latin America, sex education and pro-abortion programs for young girls globally, and much more. These types of programs do not make America stronger, safer or more prosperous.” 

 

A day earlier, the State Department sent a memo citing examples of unworthy projects, including $102 million to fund humanitarian aid nonprofit International Medical Corps’ work in war-battered Gaza.  

A USAID report says the agency delivered about $7 million worth of male condoms and about $1 million in female condoms in the 2023 fiscal year. In total, the agency said it disbursed nearly 138 million male condoms and 1.7 million female condoms worldwide. 

Under USAID, the main administrator for U.S. foreign development funds, the bulk of contraceptive items were delivered to African countries, according to the report. Jordan was the only country in the Middle East to receive a shipment, which consisted of injectable and oral contraceptives valued at $45,680.  

‘Dramatic overreach’

At the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers not only affirmed the need for accountability but also emphasized that Congress, not the White House, decides how U.S. taxpayer money is spent.  

 

“I think it’s appropriate to have a review,” said Senator Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican.  

 

“It would be my hope, however, that the aid can be reinstated and flow to Ukraine,” Cramer said. “And then we’ll see in the next appropriation cycle whether or not Congress still has the will to continue that aid.” 

 

“This is dramatic overreach by the White House, by the president,” said Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a Democrat. “It’s unprecedented, uncalled for. This is money that we have appropriated in our role as members of the Senate and the House.” 
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Trump’s ‘make peace or die’ message to Putin is deepfake. Yet it fooled Russians

Posted on by SeeUS

The Russian lawmaker attributed to Trump a quote from a deepfake video created by Ukrainian bloggers and shared on the Telegram messaging platform.
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