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Republican bill to avoid government shutdown requires proof of citizenship to vote
washington — House Republicans unveiled on Friday their legislation to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the month and fund the government into late March, when a new president and Congress would make the final decision on agency spending and priorities for fiscal 2025.
Republicans also added a hot-button immigration issue to the measure by requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when someone registers to vote. Inclusion of the citizenship requirement is a nonstarter in the Senate, complicating prospects for the spending bill’s passage.
Lawmakers are returning to Washington next week following a traditional August recess spent mostly in their home states and districts. They are not close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that will fund the agencies during the next fiscal year, so they’ll need to approve a stopgap measure to prevent a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins October 1.
“Today, House Republicans are taking a critically important step to keep the federal government funded and to secure our federal election process,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to do both, and we must ensure that only American citizens can decide American elections.”
Bipartisanship urged
But in a joint statement, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray said avoiding a shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party.
“If Speaker Johnson drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands,” Schumer and Murray said.
It is a crime under federal law for a noncitizen to vote, or even register to vote, in a federal election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Johnson’s decision to add the proof of citizenship requirement to the spending measure comes after the House Freedom Caucus called for it in a position statement last month. The group of conservatives, banking on a win by Republican nominee Donald Trump, also urged that the measure fund the government into early next year so Republicans could get more of their priorities in legislation.
Some Republican leaders had wanted to pass the final spending bills by the end of this Congress so that the new president, whether it be Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, could focus more on getting staffed and pursuing their own top priorities rather than dealing with spending disagreements.
Republicans say requiring proof of citizenship would ensure American elections are only for American citizens, improving confidence in the nation’s federal election system. But opponents say the available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in federal elections is incredibly rare and such a requirement would disenfranchise millions of Americans who don’t have the necessary documents readily available when they want to register.
What remains to be seen is what happens if the bill passes the House this week and the Senate declines to take it up or votes it down.
The bill would fund agencies at current levels until March 28, though there’s also money to help cover additional security costs associated with Inauguration Day and $10 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund.
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Rare copy of US Constitution to be sold at auction
ASHEVILLE, north carolina — Seth Kaller, an appraiser and collector of historic documents, spreads a broad sheet of paper across a desk. It’s in good enough condition that he can handle it, carefully, with clean, bare hands. There are just a few creases and tiny discolorations, even though it’s just a few weeks shy of 237 years old and has spent who knows how long inside a filing cabinet in North Carolina.
At the top of the first page are familiar words but in regular type instead of the sweeping Gothic script readers are accustomed to seeing: “WE the People.”
And the people will get a chance to bid for this copy of the U.S. Constitution — the only one of its type thought to be in private hands — at a sale by Brunk Auctions on September 28 in Asheville, North Carolina.
The minimum bid for the auction of $1 million has already been made. There is no minimum price that must be reached.
This copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the proposed framework of the nation’s government in 1787 and sent it to the Congress of the ineffective first American government under the Articles of Confederation, requesting that it be sent to the states to be ratified by the people.
Few copies remain
It’s one of about 100 copies printed by the secretary of that Congress, Charles Thomson. Just eight are known to still exist and the other seven are publicly owned.
Thomson likely signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially certifying them. They were sent to special ratifying conventions, where representatives, all white and male, wrangled for months before accepting the structure of the U.S. government that continues today.
“This is the point of connection between the government and the people. The Preamble — ‘we, the people’ — this is the moment the government is asking the people to empower them,” auctioneer Andrew Brunk said.
What happened to the document up for auction between Thomson’s signature and 2022 isn’t known.
Two years ago, a property was being cleared out in Edenton in eastern North Carolina that was once owned by Samuel Johnston. He was the governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789 and he oversaw the state convention during his last year in office that ratified the Constitution.
The copy was found inside a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a can of stain on top, in a long-neglected room piled high with old chairs and a dusty bookcase, before the old Johnston house was preserved. The document was a broad sheet that could be folded one time like a book.
“I get calls every week from people who think they have a Declaration of Independence or a Gettysburg Address and most of the time it is just a replica, but every so often something important gets found,” said Kaller, who appraises, buys and sells historic documents.
“This is a whole other level of importance,” he added.
Washington letter
Along with the Constitution on the broad sheet printed front and back is a letter from George Washington asking for ratification. He acknowledged there would have to be compromise and that rights the states enjoyed would have to be given up for the nation’s long-term health.
“To secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each and yet provide for the interest and safety for all — individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest,” wrote the man who would become the first U.S. president.
Brunk isn’t sure what the document might go for because there is so little to compare it to. The last time a copy of the Constitution like this sold, it went for $400 – in 1891. In 2021, Sotheby’s of New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for the Continental Congress and delegates to the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record for a book or document.
But that document was meant to be distributed to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The signed copy being sold later this month was one meant to be sent to leaders in every state so people all around the country could review and decide if that’s how they wanted to be governed, connecting the writers of the Constitution to the people in the states who would provide its power and legitimacy.
The auction listing doesn’t identify the seller, saying it’s part of a collection that is in private hands.
Other items up for auction in Asheville include a 1776 first draft of the Articles of Confederation and a 1788 Journal of the Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough, where representatives spent two weeks debating if ratifying the Constitution would put too much power with the nation instead of the states.
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Violence in Central Sahel has not improved, experts say, as some Russian mercenaries depart
Russian mercenaries hired to provide security in Burkina Faso began leaving the country in late August — they say to resist Ukraine’s recent incursion into Russia. Data show the mercenaries have had little impact in the Sahel’s war against Islamic terrorist groups. As Henry Wilkins reports, Burkina Faso saw one of the deadliest militant attacks in recent years the same week the Russians left.
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Dormitory fire in Kenya kills 18 students, 27 injured, dozens missing
NAIROBI, Kenya — A fire in a school dormitory in Kenya has killed 18 students and 27 others have been hospitalized, with 70 children unaccounted for, the country’s deputy president said Friday.
President William Ruto declared three days of mourning during which flags will be flown at half-staff in honor of the children who died.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said only 86 out of more than 150 children had been accounted for, and urged community members who may have sheltered some of them to help account for them.
Gachagua said that one more student had died at the hospital and that 37 pupils had been reunited with their parents so far.
The cause of the fire Thursday night at Hillside Endarasha Primary school in Nyeri County was being investigated, police spokesperson Resila Onyango said. The school serves children up to the age of 14.
Nyeri County Commissioner Pius Murugu and the education ministry reported that the dormitory that caught fire housed more than 150 boys between ages 10 and 14. Since most of the buildings are made from wooden planks, the fire spread quickly.
The mixed, day and boarding private school, which has 824 students, is located 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi, in the country’s central highlands, where wooden structures are common.
Nyeri County Gov. Mutahi Kahiga told journalists that rescue efforts were hampered by muddy roads caused by rain in the area.
Anxious parents who had been unable to find their children among the survivors waited at the school, engulfed with grief.
The parents were overcome by emotions after they were allowed to view the scene of the fire.
John Rukwaro told journalists that his 11-year-old grandson was missing, and he had checked with area hospitals without success.
The education ministry’s permanent secretary, Belio Kipsang, said that the government was working with the school administration to account for all the children in the boarding section.
“We are asking the parents who picked up their children and the community to support us as we consolidate the numbers to ensure that we account for every child who was boarding in this school,” he said.
Ruto called the news “devastating.”
“I instruct relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate this horrific incident. Those responsible will be held to account,” he said in an X post, formerly known as Twitter.
His deputy, Rigathi Gachagua, urged school administrators to ensure that safety guidelines recommended by the education ministry for boarding schools are being followed.
School fires are common in Kenyan boarding schools, often caused by arson fueled by drug abuse and overcrowding, according to a recent education ministry report. Many students board because parents believe it gives them more time to study without long commutes.
Some fires have been started by students during protests over the workload or living conditions. In 2017, 10 high school students died in a school fire in Nairobi started by a student.
Kenya’s deadliest school fire in recent history was in 2001 when 67 students died in a dormitory fire in Machakos county.
The education ministry’s guidelines recommend that dormitories should be spacious enough and have two doors on each end, an emergency door in the middle and that windows aren’t fitted with grills to allow for escape in case of a fire. Fully serviced fire extinguishers and fire alarms are required at easily accessible spots.
It wasn’t immediately clear if these guidelines were followed at Hillside school and the area near the dormitory has remained cordoned off.
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Lviv starts to rebuild in wake of Russia’s missile attack
A Russian missile strike on the historic Ukrainian town of Lviv on September 4 killed at least seven people and damaged parts of the city’s historic downtown. On Thursday, rebuilding began, even as the city mourned the dead. Omelyan Oshchudlyak reports. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych.
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Elections in America could affect US nuclear umbrella over Seoul
washington — A South Korean senior official has rekindled debate over the U.S. commitment to that nation’s defense, bringing up the possibility of the U.S. rolling back its nuclear umbrella if former President Donald Trump is reelected.
Kim Tae-hyo, South Korea’s deputy national security director, said in a Seoul forum Tuesday the reelection of Trump could “weaken a U.S. nuclear umbrella” designed to protect South Korea from North Korean aggression.
“Trump as candidate can be seen as pursuing transactional benefits in terms of the South Korea-U.S. alliance,” Kim said, according to news reports. “It is not unlikely that he would suggest negotiating defense cost-sharing or the deployment of U.S. strategic assets from a cost perspective.”
Skepticism about America’s willingness and capability to protect South Korea from a North Korean nuclear attack has grown among South Koreans as North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs become increasingly sophisticated. A recent poll by South Korea’s Institute of National Unification revealed that 66% of respondents supported the country having its own nuclear weapons.
Concern over commitment
Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, said Kim’s remarks reflect widespread concern among U.S. allies.
There is a concern that “Trump, if reelected, would pursue policies that will weaken U.S. alliances around the world, including in Europe and East Asia,” Samore told VOA Korean Wednesday via email.
“In the case of Korea, Trump might seek to resume summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un and make concessions that weaken the U.S.-ROK alliance, as he did at the Singapore summit in June 2018,” Samore said. ROK stands for Republic of Korea, the official name for South Korea.
According to the joint statement released after the 2018 summit, Trump “committed to provide security guarantees” to North Korea, while the North Korean leader reaffirmed “commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
“However, I think it’s premature to predict exactly what policies President Trump will adopt toward Korea if he is reelected,” Samore added. “There are too many uncertainties, including, for example, who President Trump appoints for his top foreign policy and defense positions.”
Michael O’Hanlon, director of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told VOA Korean Tuesday via email the South Korean official’s assessment of Trump is justifiable.
“I think the official is correct,” O’Hanlon said, adding Trump could take steps to address this concern. “I do not know if he will.”
‘Treat us properly,’ says Trump
Trump has often complained that U.S. allies do not pay the U.S. enough for bases and troops used in their defense. In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump said, “I want South Korea to treat us properly,” suggesting he would demand that South Korea pay more for the American troops stationed there.
But Frederick Fleitz, who served as chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump White House, told VOA Korean by phone Tuesday that Trump’s reelection is not likely to affect the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
Making clear that he was speaking for himself, not for Trump, Fleitz said the former president “was a strong friend of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan when he was in office last time and he’ll be a strong friend again.”
“Why would there be such a big change in a second Trump term when he didn’t do that in the first term?” Fleitz asked. “The second Trump administration, concerning South Korea, will be countering the threat from North Korea and this new axis relationship between China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.”
Fleitz stressed there is no evidence to suggest Trump would link the defense cost-sharing with offering a nuclear umbrella, adding discussions on how much South Korea pays for U.S. troops in South Korea will not be a “deal breaker” for the second Trump administration.
“It is an issue that will be resolved among friends,” he said. “The security threats in the region are so severe — I think that’s what the U.S. will focus on.”
Redeployment of nukes
Robert Peters, a fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean Tuesday via email it is “far more likely” that America’s extended deterrence commitment to South Korea would strengthen during a second Trump term.
Peters said a second Trump administration could consider redeploying U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula, due to the threats coming from North Korea and China.
“I think a second Trump administration would field SLCM-N [nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles] in the near term and potentially reintroduce American nuclear weapons to South Korea as a means to assure the ROK, deter North Korea and strengthen regional stability,” said Peters.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is widely expected to inherit incumbent President Joe Biden’s Asia policies should she win the election.
The Biden administration is not considering the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. In 1991, the U.S. withdrew from South Korea all its nuclear weapons, roughly 100 in number, according to some studies.
“The United States does not assess returning nuclear weapons to the Indo-Pacific as necessary at this time,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement on May 31 in response to a VOA Korean inquiry. “The United States has no plans to forward deploy nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula.”
In April 2023, Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol adopted the Washington Declaration, in which the U.S. declared that its commitment to the defense of South Korea will be backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.
During this week’s high-level security talks between the U.S. and South Korea, the Biden administration reiterated its commitment to defend South Korea with nuclear weapons if necessary to deter attacks from North Korea.
“We reaffirm the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the ROK using the full range of U.S. defense capabilities, and that any DPRK [North Korea] nuclear attack on the United States or its allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime,” Bonnie Jenkins, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told reporters after Wednesday’s talks.
VOA Korean contacted the Trump campaign and asked what Trump’s stance is on the U.S. nuclear umbrella offered to South Korea, but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
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US adversaries step up efforts to influence results of next election
washington — Russia, Iran and China are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races, targeting American voters with an expanding array of sophisticated influence operations.
The latest assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, shared Friday, warns that Russia remains the preeminent threat, with Russian influence campaigns seeking to boost the chances of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.
Russian actors, led by networks created by the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, “are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president,” a senior intelligence official told reporters, briefing on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
“RT has built and used networks of U.S. and other Western personalities to create and disseminate Russia-friendly narratives while trying to mask the content in authentic Americans’ free speech,” the official said.
And RT, the official added, is just part of a growing Kremlin-directed campaign that is looking to impact not just the race for the White House, but smaller elections across the United States, with an added emphasis on swing states.
“Russia’s influence apparatus is very large and it’s worth highlighting that they have other entities that are active,” the official said. “Russia is working up and down ballot races, as well as spreading divisive issues.”
Tracking the Russian influence efforts has become more difficult, with U.S. officials saying that there is a greater degree of sophistication and an increased emphasis on amplifying American voices with pro-Russian views rather than seeding social media with narratives crafted in the Kremlin.
“It’s not just about Russian bots and trolls and fake social media persona, although that’s part of it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told VOA Friday.
“We’re not taking anything for granted,” he added. “There’s no question that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has every intent to try to sow discord here in the United States, to try to pump disinformation and Russian propaganda through to the American people, through what he believes were our credible sources, be they online or on television and we have to take that seriously.”
The intelligence officials declined to share additional specifics about Russia’s network of influence operations. But indictments Wednesday from the U.S. Justice Department have shed some light on the scope of the Kremlin’s recent operations.
In one case, the U.S. charged two employees of RT with using fake personas and shell companies to funnel almost $10 million to Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company producing videos and podcasts for a stable of conservative political influencers.
The aim, prosecutors said, was to produce and disseminate content promoting what Moscow viewed as pro-Russian policies.
In a separate action, the U.S. seized 32 internet domains linked to an operation directed by a key aide to Putin. The aim, U.S. officials said, was to mimic legitimate U.S. news sites to spread Russian-created propaganda.
RT publicly ridiculed the allegations while some of the influencers working with Tenet posted statements on the X social media platform saying they were unaware of the company’s links to Moscow.
As for the latest U.S. intelligence allegations, the Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to VOA’s request for comments, though it has described previous accusations as “Russophobic.”
Requests for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns have also, so far, gone unanswered.
But earlier U.S. intelligence assertions of Russian support for Trump have raised the ire of the Trump campaign, which has pointed to public statements by Russia’s Putin supporting Trump’s opponents.
“When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America’s adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond,” national press secretary for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, told VOA in an email this past July.
U.S. intelligence officials, however, said it would be a mistake to put any faith in Putin’s words, including public comments Thursday expressing support for Harris.
The U.S. intelligence community “does not take Putin’s public statements as representative of Russia’s covert intentions,” the senior official said. “There are many examples over the past several years where Putin’s public statements do not align with Russian actions. For example, his comments that he would not invade Ukraine.”
Experts say Iran, China trying to influence results
U.S. intelligence agencies Friday emphasized Russia is not alone in its effort to shape the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, warning both Tehran and Beijing are sharpening their influence campaigns with just about 60 days until America voters go to the polls.
“Iran is making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year’s elections, even as its tactics and approaches are similar to prior cycles,” the intelligence official said, describing a “multi-pronged approach to stoke internal divisions and undermine voter confidence in the U.S. democratic system.
U.S. intelligence agencies previously assessed that Iran has focused part of its efforts on denigrating the Trump campaign, seeing his election as likely to worsen tensions between Tehran and Washington.
U.S. officials last month also blamed Iran for a hack-and-leak operation targeting the Trump campaign, though they said that Iran-linked actors have also sought to infiltrate the Harris campaign.
As for China, U.S. intelligence officials said it appears Beijing is still content to stay out of the U.S. presidential race, seeing little difference between Trump and Harris.
But there are indications China is accelerating its efforts to impact other political races.
U.S. intelligence “is aware of PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempts to influence U.S. down-ballot races by focusing on candidates it views as particularly threatening to core PRC security interests,” the official said.
“PRC online influence actors have also continued small scale efforts on social media to engage U.S. audiences on divisive political issues, including protests about the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote negative stories about both political parties,” the official added.
‘Malicious speculations against China’
The Chinese Embassy in Washington, Friday, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment.
“China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election, and we hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue of China in the election,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.
Liu added that accusations Beijing is using social media to sway U.S. public opinion “are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes.”
While U.S. intelligence officials have identified Russia, Iran and China, as the most prominent purveyors of disinformation, they are not alone.
Officials have said countries like Cuba are also engaging in influence operations, though at a much smaller scale.
And other countries are edging closer to crossing that line.
“We are seeing a number of countries considering activities that, at a minimum, test the boundaries of election influence,” according to the U.S. assessment. “Such activities include lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event they are elected to office.”
Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.
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Chinese military planes displayed at Egypt airshow, but demand is in question
tel aviv, israel — As the first Egypt International Air Show wrapped up Thursday, industry analysts debated the significance of China’s presence, which included the most complete demonstration of its advanced Y-20 transport aircraft and the first showcase of its J-10 fighter jets in Africa.
Analysts say the high-profile presence of the Chinese air force at the event held at Egypt’s El Alamein International Airport underscores China’s growing technological prowess, military ambitions, and expanding influence in the Middle East and North Africa.
But analysts also question how much demand the region will have for the Chinese military planes.
“China is expanding and targeting the [Middle East] regional market,” Kostas Tigkos, manager of mission systems and intelligence at global military intelligence company Janes, told VOA. “This marks another milestone in China’s military diversification and opens doors to more collaboration in security domains, encourages investment opportunities and opens new channels to developing trade beyond traditional ties.”
Tigkos said the Middle East’s ranking as the region with China’s highest bilateral trade growth rate, and source of half of its imported oil, gives it a strategic interest in fostering economic, security, supply route and energy source development.
Interest in Chinese equipment
Countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are increasingly turning to China for military equipment, such as drones, missiles and anti-drone systems. Egypt has expressed interest in acquiring the J-10 fighter jet to diversify its military suppliers and enhance its capabilities.
In July, Egypt’s air force commander, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Foaad Abdel Jawad, traveled to Beijing at China’s behest for a meeting with China’s air force commander, Star General Chang Dingqiu.
According to an Egyptian military statement, the visit was characterized by Egypt’s “keenness to enhance areas of military cooperation with brotherly and friendly countries.” The statement added that the talks “opened new prospects between the air forces of both countries.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi attended the opening ceremony for this week’s air show and visited the Chinese pavilion.
Images of the Chinese-manufactured Y-20 transporter trailed by six J-10 jets flying over Egypt’s Giza pyramids in formation last week drew global attention, demonstrating distance and performance capabilities in the 10,000-kilometer flight from China to Egypt.
The Y-20 appearance at the airshow is significant, Wendell Minnick, editor of the “China in Arms” Substack newsletter, told VOA.
“This is their attempt to match the U.S. heavy lift, long-range transport or aerial-refueled aircraft,” Minnick said.
Capabilities
China says the Y-20 can lift up to 66 tons and carry several tanks over a distance of 7,800 kilometers. Nicknamed “Chubby Girl” by China’s aviation industry for its broad fuselage girth, the Y-20 has been in development for 17 years.
Dubbed “Vigorous Dragon,” China’s Chengdu J-10C is a combat aircraft armed with air-to-air and surface attack weapons. Primarily an air-to-air combat aircraft that can perform strike missions, the J-10C has been compared to and contrasted with the U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon.
“China needs these to project force beyond the mainland for expeditionary warfare,” Minnick said, “like the U.S. with the C-5 Galaxy and the C-17 Globemaster.”
The C-5M Super Galaxy is the U.S. Air Force’s largest aircraft, strategically designed to transport cargo and personnel. With a cargo load of more than 127 tons, nearly double China’s Y-20, it can carry oversized cargo over oceans and take off and land on relatively short runways.
The C-17 Globemaster III is “the most flexible cargo aircraft to enter the airlift force,” according to a U.S. Air Force press release, with a maximum payload of 74 tons.
Nonetheless, China’s state media touted the Y-20’s performance debut and quoted the People’s Liberation Army Air Force saying it carried out six maneuvers on Tuesday, “including large angle ascension and dive, large slope turning and fast landing, showing the aircraft’s outstanding maneuverability.”
China’s Y-20 and J-10 appeared at last November’s Dubai Air Show, and the Y-20 took part in a joint drill in Russia in July and joint drills with Mozambique and Tanzania in August. But this was the first time the Y-20 had performed aerial maneuvers in a show outside China, and the first time the J-10 had performed in Africa.
“China wants to have an Africa footprint as part of their expansionist plans,” Minnick said.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in March reported, “China, which accounted for 19% of deliveries to sub-Saharan Africa, overtook Russia as the region’s main supplier of major arms.”
US suppliers
Despite China’s military sales in the region, Middle East buyers won’t be cutting ties with U.S. suppliers in favor of China in the near future, according to defense experts, who note that while the Y-20 is cheaper than the U.S. C-17 or C-5, it is less impressive and more vulnerable to missile attacks.
Minnick questions whether there will be any demand from customers in Africa and the Middle East for China’s military aircraft.
The Chinese transporter requires “tremendous training, technical support and additional off-the-shelf parts and components that most Mideast countries can’t handle” on both technical and financial fronts, he said.
“Iran is too poor,” Minnick said. “Saudi prefers Western aircraft, and Jordan is far more focused on internal security.”
Other defense experts like Tigkos say the Y-20 and J-10 present opportunities for long-term business and relationships with training programs, spare parts and maintenance – if they can find buyers.
“When a country is successful in the aviation realm, it marks a significant difference and ‘upgrade,’ if you will, toward helping foster relationships of trust and wider markets for China,” he said.
The first Egypt International Air Show was held Tuesday through Thursday with about 50 aircraft on display and with representatives from 100 countries and 300 companies in attendance, including U.S. industry giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
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Some Zimbabweans worry about nation’s continued reliance on coal
Zimbabwe’s heavy reliance on coal-based energy is hurting the health of people in mining regions who continue to be exposed to dirty air from coal burning. Columbus Mavhunga visited the Hwange thermal power station — about 700 kilometers from Harare — and the surrounding area, where residents have complained about the air pollution.
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Trump assails women who accused him of misconduct
washington — Shortly after appearing in court for an appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, Donald Trump stepped Friday in front of television cameras and brought up a string of past allegations of other acts of sexual misconduct, potentially reminding voters of incidents that were little-known or forgotten.
The former president has made hitting back at opponents and accusers a centerpiece of his political identity, but his performance at his namesake Manhattan office tower was startling even by Trump’s own combative standards. At times he seemed to relish using graphic language and characterizations of the case, which could expose the former president to further legal challenges.
Trump’s remarks came just four days before he will debate Vice President Kamala Harris, with early voting about to begin in some parts of the country and Election Day just two months away.
Trump is staying in the public eye while Harris prepares for the debate in private with her advisers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That’s a reflection of their divergent campaign styles, with Trump frequently engaging with reporters — often in friendly settings — while Harris has done just one interview and no news conferences since taking President Joe Biden’s place atop the Democratic ticket.
Trump on Friday repeatedly brought up Harris’ lack of news conferences. But his own comments — in which he talked about the cases against him for more than half an hour without mentioning any campaign issues — threatened to cause him more legal jeopardy. And after convening reporters for what his campaign said was a news conference, Trump walked off without taking any questions.
Legal team makes arguments
A jury returned a $5 million verdict finding Trump liable of sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. His legal team made its appeal arguments Friday morning.
Juries now have twice now awarded Carroll huge sums for Trump’s claiming she made up a story about him attacking her in a department store dressing room in 1996 to help her sell a memoir.
But that hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to make nearly identical statements to reporters. At his news briefing Friday, he said again that Carroll was telling a “made up, fabricated story.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, warned in March after a jury awarded Carroll another $83 million that she would continue to monitor Trump’s comments and would consider suing again if he kept it up.
Earlier in court, he walked in quietly and passed in front of Carroll without acknowledging or looking at her.
The former president reacted at times during the proceedings, such as shaking his head when Carroll’s attorney said that Trump sexually abused her client. He periodically tilted his head from side to side, but otherwise sat still and mostly alone.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump responsible for sexual abuse. Carroll says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room, but the former president’s legal team says the verdict should be overturned because some evidence that was allowed during the trial should have been excluded while other evidence that should be excluded was allowed. He denies guilt.
In the midst of running for president and facing a series of other legal cases against him, Trump did not attend the Carroll trial and wasn’t there when the charges were read — though he assailed the verdict as “a disgrace” on his social media site.
Later Friday, he’s traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina, to address the Fraternal Order of Police.
More than 12 women make accusations
Carroll is one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment. She went public in a 2019 memoir. Trump denied it, saying he never encountered Carroll at the store and did not know her. He has called her a “nut job” who invented her story to sell a memoir.
Trump faces unprecedented criminal and civil jeopardy for a major-party nominee.
He has separately been convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York state case related to hush money payments allegedly made to a porn actor. The judge in that case is expected to decide Friday whether to postpone Trump’s sentencing.
Trump has also been ordered to pay steep civil fines for lying about his wealth for years.
And he’s still contending with cases alleging his mishandling of classified documents, his actions after the 2020 election, and his activities during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — though none are likely to go to trial prior to Election Day.
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Teen charged in Georgia school shooting and his father to stay in custody after hearings
Winder, Georgia — The 14-year-old suspect in a shooting that killed four people at a Georgia high school and his father, who was arrested for allowing his son to have a weapon, will stay in custody after their lawyers decided not to seek bail Friday.
Colt Gray, who has been charged with four counts of murder, is accused of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle to kill two fellow students and two teachers Wednesday at Apalachee High School in Winder, outside Atlanta. His father, Colin Gray, faces related charges in the latest attempt by prosecutors to hold parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings.
The two appeared in back-to-back hearings Friday morning with about 50 onlookers in the courtroom, where workers had set out boxes of tissue along the benches, in addition to members of the media and sheriff’s deputies. Some victims’ family members in the front row hugged each other and one woman clutched a stuffed animal.
During his hearing, Colt Gray, wearing khaki pants and a green shirt, was advised of his rights as well as the charges and penalties he faced for the shooting at the school where he was a student.
After the hearing, he was escorted out in shackles at the wrists and ankles. The judge then called the teen back to the courtroom to correct an earlier misstatement that his crimes could be punishable by death. Because he’s a juvenile, the maximum penalty he would face is life without parole. The judge also set another hearing for December 4.
Shortly afterward, Colin Gray was brought into court dressed in a gray-striped jail uniform. Colin Gray, 54, was charged Thursday in connection with the shooting and answered questions in a barely audible croak, giving his age and saying he finished 11th grade, earning a high school equivalency diploma.
Colin Gray has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and second-degree murder related to the shooting, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said.
“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said.
The charges come five months after Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.
The Georgia shootings have also renewed debate about safe storage laws for guns and have parents wondering how to talk to their children about school shootings and trauma.
The Barrow County hearings for the father and son came as police in the Atlanta suburb of Dunwoody said schools there and nationwide have received threats of violence since the Apalachee High School shooting, police said in a statement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also noted that numerous threats have been made to schools across the state this week.
Before Colin Gray’s arrest was reported, the AP knocked on the door of a home listed as his address seeking comment about his son’s arrest.
According to arrest warrants obtained by The Associated Press, Colt Gray is accused of using a “black semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle” to kill the two students and two teachers. Authorities have not offered any motive or explained how he obtained the gun or got it into the school.
He was charged as an adult in the deaths of Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Nine people were also hurt in Wednesday’s attack.
A neighbor remembered Schermerhorn as inquisitive when he was a little boy. Aspinwall and Irimie were both math teachers, and Aspinwall also helped coach the school’s football team. Irimie, who immigrated from Romania, volunteered at a local church, where she taught dance.
Colt Gray denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday. Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.
The attack was the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control but there has been little change to national gun laws.
It was the 30th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as events in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.
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Ukraine reacts to Zelenskyy’s government shakeup
Ukraine has a new foreign minister, one of the latest moves as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embarks on the largest overhaul of his administration since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports on the appointment of nine new ministers in the Cabinet shakeup. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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UN says both Sudan sides committed rights abuses, possibly war crimes
GENEVA — United Nations investigators are accusing both of Sudan’s warring parties and their allied militias Friday of an appalling range of human rights violations that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report, the first by the three-member Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, presents a harrowing account of large-scale violations, including “indiscriminate and direct attacks carried out through airstrikes and shelling against civilians, schools, hospitals, communication networks and vital water and electricity supplies.”
Mona Rishwami, expert member of the fact-finding mission, told journalists in Geneva that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) “conducted hostilities in densely populated areas,” damaging and destroying infrastructure and objects that were “indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.”
“We found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both SAF and RSF and their respective allies have committed the war crimes of violence against life and persons, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture, and committing outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliation and degrading treatment,” she said.
The 19-page report, which will be submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council next week, is based on over 700 submissions from various entities, organizations, individuals and experts.
Sudanese authorities refused to grant investigators access to the country, so they gathered information and evidence of violations through in-depth interviews with 182 victims, their families and other eyewitnesses during visits to Chad, Kenya, and Uganda.
“Since mid-April 2023, the conflict in Sudan has spread to 14 of 18 states impacting the entire country and the region,” Mohamed Chande Othman, chairperson of the fact-finding mission, said.
Over the past 17 months, the conflict has uprooted millions of people from their homes. U.N. officials estimate 10.7 million people are displaced inside Sudan with some 2 million others having fled to neighboring countries as refugees, making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis.
“It is our view that the conflict is protracted and has engulfed the territory, affecting the whole of Sudan,” Othman said, adding that the true scale of the devastation caused by the conflict and the extent of suffering of the population is yet to be known, but the impact from the horrors inflicted upon the Sudanese “will last for decades to come.”
“We have found that the Sudanese warring parties … have committed an appalling range of violations,” he said. “We found reasonable grounds to believe that many of these violations amount to international crimes.”
The report accuses the warring parties of targeting civilians through rape and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, as well as torture and ill-treatment.
Fact-finding mission expert Joy Ngozi Ezeilo observed that women and children are among the main victims.
“Conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan has a long and tragic history and often is used as a weapon of war to terrorize and control communities,” she said.
While both parties to the conflict are guilty of rape and sexual violence, Ezeilo said that members of the RSF in particular have perpetrated the crimes on a large scale in Darfur and the greater Khartoum area.
“Victims recounted being attacked in their homes, beaten, lashed and threatened with death or harm to their relatives or children before being raped by more than one perpetrator,” she said. “They were also subjected to sexual violence while seeking shelter from attack or fleeing.”
The report also found that the RSF and its allied militias “committed the additional war crimes of rape, sexual slavery, and pillage, as well as ordering the displacement of the civilian population and the recruitment of children below 15 in hostilities.”
Investigators condemned what they called the “horrific assaults” carried out by the RSF and its allies against non-Arab communities — specifically the Masalit in and around El Geneina, West Darfur — including “killings, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, destruction of property and pillage.”
The report describes in searing detail the abuse to which children are subjected. Beyond recruitment for battle, children have been “killed, injured, forcibly displaced, detained with adults, tortured, subjected to sexual violence and deprived of healthcare and education.”
“The rare brutality of this war will have a devastating and long-lasting psychological impact on children in Sudan,” Ezeilo said.
Mission chairperson Othman warned that “The gravity of our findings and failure of the warring parties to protect civilians underscores the need for urgent and immediate intervention.
“Our report therefore calls and recommends for the deployment of an independent, impartial force to protect civilians in the country,” adding that both sides to the conflict must comply with their obligations under international law and “immediately and unconditionally cease all attacks on the civilian population.
The people of Sudan, he added, “have suffered greatly and the violations against them must stop.”
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China’s new pledges reflect concern over its competition in Africa
Johannesburg — After pledging $51 billion in financial support for Africa over the next three years and positioning China as a fellow developing country in contrast to the West’s colonialist past, President Xi Jinping told dozens of African leaders gathered in Beijing this week that “the China-Africa relationship is now at its best in history.”
This year’s Forum on Africa-China Cooperation, held every three years, was the first since the pandemic and China’s own economic slowdown. It comes amid growing geopolitical rivalry between Beijing and the West, and Xi was blunt in his assessment of the latter’s influence on the continent.
“Modernization is an inalienable right of all countries,” he said in his opening speech to more than 50 African leaders. “But the Western approach to it has inflicted immense sufferings on developing countries.”
Lucas Engel, an analyst with the Global China Initiative at Boston University, said China is reacting to increased competition in the region.
“Xi’s reminder of the ‘immense suffering’ inflicted on Africa by the West in his keynote speech this year is a sharper rebuke of Africa’s Western partners than we’ve seen in the past,” he told VOA. “It is likely that China is feeling the heat as Western partners ramp up cooperation with Africa.”
The theme of FOCAC 2024 was “joining hands to promote modernization,” and analysts told VOA beforehand they expected China to focus on green technology and the green energy transition, agricultural modernization and trade, and education and training.
The money announced was an increase on the $40 billion pledged at the last FOCAC, in 2021, but still fell short of previous pledges, such as the $60 billion earmarked for Africa in 2018 and 2015.
For some time, China has been seen to be moving away from the massive infrastructure projects of the early years of Xi’s trademark Belt and Road Initiative and toward what it has dubbed “small is beautiful projects.”
Some of the announcements made at FOCAC, however, surprised analysts by bucking that trend.
Xi announced China would be undertaking a $1 billion upgrade of the TAZARA railway, which will link mineral-rich, landlocked Zambia with Tanzania’s coast. He signed an agreement with the presidents of those two countries on Wednesday.
“There was already a sense that infrastructure would be one of those asks that would not be entertained by the Chinese side, so I think that has come as a bit of a surprise,” Paul Nantulya, a research associate with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, told VOA.
“I think African countries were also quite concerned about infrastructure financing. … Now it seems like the Chinese side may have finally backed down,” said Nantulya, who was in Beijing for FOCAC. “That would indicate that China does not want to be locked out of the infrastructure game, given what the U.S. is doing with the Lobito Corridor.”
Nantulya was referring to the G7-backed strategic economic corridor that Washington says is designed to create jobs and enhance export potential for resource-rich Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia. As the first big infrastructure project in Africa the U.S. has undertaken in a generation, Washington recently announced it could extend the railway to Tanzania and on to the Indian Ocean.
“China’s offer to refurbish the TAZARA railway connecting copper-rich Zambia with Tanzania on Africa’s eastern coast appears to be a direct answer to the Western-led Lobito Corridor,” said Engel of Boston University.
Did African leaders get what they wanted?
China was not the only country with an agenda at FOCAC, as African leaders also laid out their priorities for relations with their largest trading partner.
For South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who leads the continent’s most developed economy, the primary aim was to reduce a long-standing trade imbalance and to get China to import more agricultural products. He also wants to see more value-added exports made in South Africa.
Ramaphosa embarked on a state visit to China ahead of FOCAC and made several announcements, including that South Africa would sign up for China’s Beidou satellite navigation system and inviting Chinese electric vehicle company BYD to use South Africa as a manufacturing hub.
Xi said China would in turn expand market access to African agricultural products and exempt 33 countries from import tariffs. He also announced that China would support 60,000 vocational training opportunities for Africans.
Nantulya said there seemed to be a lot of attention to detail regarding this year’s announcements.
“What that tells me is that the Chinese side has been responding to the African side,” he said. “You know, the African delegates are very mindful of the fact that one of the big criticisms of FOCAC is that it’s very high on pledges and very low on actual concrete tasks.”
Yunnan Chen, a researcher at London-based research group ODI, told VOA the pledged areas of cooperation spanned almost every sector.
“I think what’s interesting to note about them is this very striking emphasis on areas of technological cooperation — in industry, in agriculture, in science and technology,” she said.
“There’s a lot of emphasis on training and initiatives that would support knowledge transfer from China to African parties, and I think this is something that’s been very much an African demand for many years,” she added.
“Even though we have seen a decline in Chinese financing in Africa and we know that China is experiencing a lot of domestic financial troubles, there’s still a very clear and very emphatic political commitment,” she said.
Aside from Ramaphosa’s trade demands, other African leaders who held bilateral meetings with Xi had specific areas of concern.
Kenyan President William Ruto had infrastructure at the top of his list, asking that Beijing fund an extension of Kenya’s Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway. It marked a sharp change from Ruto’s campaign rhetoric, in which he criticized his predecessor’s policy of taking Chinese loans.
Ruto made the request even though Kenya is heavily in debt to Western financial institutions such as the IMF and lenders such as China and has been experiencing violent anti-government protests.
Other key areas of cooperation announced at the conclusion of FOCAC included the military and security sectors, with Beijing vowing to allocate some $140 million in military assistance grants alongside training programs for thousands of military personnel from across the continent.
Green energy was also a focus, with Xi announcing China would launch 30 new clean energy projects on the continent.
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In the US, music cassette tapes are making a comeback
Music cassette tapes are making a comeback in the U.S, with more than 430,000 sold in 2023 – about five times the number sold just a decade ago. Cassette tapes are especially popular with younger generations who grew up with digital music. Karina Bafradzhian has the story. Videographer: Sergii Dogotar
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Poland orders arrests over Belarus dissident’s plane diversion
Warsaw — A Polish court on Friday ordered the arrest of three Belarusian officials accused of illegally diverting a Ryanair flight in 2021 in order to seize a dissident journalist on board.
Air traffic control officials forced the plane heading from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk after a false bomb alert and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich and his companion Sofia Sapega.
Following investigations, “the Warsaw regional court announced three arrest orders for three people” involved in the diverting of the Polish-registered plane, the tribunal’s spokeswoman, Anna Ptaszek.
Poland’s state prosecution service identified them as a former director of the Belarusian aviation agency, a team leader at Minsk air traffic control, and an official from Belarus’s KGB security service.
The three men are residents outside Poland, but Ptaszek said the court orders “allow prosecutors to seek procedures to pursue them internationally”, Ptaszek said.
The court said the three face possible sentences of 15 years for diverting an aircraft, on aggravated charges categorizing it as a “terrorist” action.
Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza cited audio recordings from the Minsk airport control tower on the day of the flight that were leaked by a controller who later fled to Poland.
In January 2022 a New York federal court charged four Belarusians with “conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.”
The U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization called the diversion “unlawful.”
The bomb threat “was deliberately false” and was ordered by “senior government officials of Belarus,” it said in a statement in July 2022.
Protasevich was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023 but was later pardoned after recording a “confession” video that his allies said was coerced.
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Kremlin accuses US of unacceptable pressure on Russian media
Moscow — The Kremlin on Friday accused the United States of applying unacceptable pressure on Russian media after the U.S. Justice Department charged Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife with schemes to violate U.S. sanctions.
The two indictments were announced just one day after the U.S. took several legal actions against Russia to combat alleged efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential elections, including charging two employees of the Russian state media network RT and sanctioning RT and its top network editor.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has said Russia is not seeking to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, told reporters that Washington was trying to ensure that Moscow’s own perspective on world affairs was not available to people.
“Washington continues to try to put pressure on Russia, on Russian citizens, and even on the Russian media, which is engaged in informing both citizens inside our country and world public opinion about what is happening, from our perspective,” said Peskov.
“Washington does not even accept that there should be options out there for anyone to get news from our perspective.
This is nothing other than blatant pressure. We strongly condemn this stance as unacceptable,” he said.
Moscow still grants accreditation to Western journalists to work in Russia, though many have left since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 and the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges in March 2023.
Gershkovich, who denied the charges, was freed in a prisoner swap last month.
Russia has said it will take retaliatory measures against U.S. media in response to Washington’s moves against RT.
Asked what those measures would be, Peskov said Russia carefully evaluated the editorial policies of various foreign media outlets and would take those factors into account when making any decisions, on what he suggested would be a case-by-case basis.
your ad hereAustralia to boost military cooperation with Japan
Sydney — Australia, Japan, and the United States are expanding defense cooperation. Analysts say the moves are a response to China’s growing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
Senior Australian and Japanese officials Thursday met for the 11th Australia-Japan 2+2 Foreign and Defense Ministerial Consultation in the state of Victoria.
Australia’s deputy prime minister and minister for defense, Richard Marles, told reporters that plans were agreed for Japan to join U.S. Marine rotations in northern Australia, as well as more joint exercises and fighter jet deployments.
“The relationship between our two countries really has gone to a very different level. Today we have agreed to enhance our air engagement with greater people-to-people links, more training, greater exercises between our two air forces,” he said.
Long-standing territorial disputes and differences over Taiwan have unsettled Japan’s relations with China.
China overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010 and analysts have said that greater economic prosperity in China has been accompanied by more aggressive military posturing.
The bilateral talks in Victoria came after two Chinese incursions into Japanese territory.
A Chinese surveillance plane breached Japanese airspace on August 26, while a survey ship entered Japan’s territorial waters a few days later.
Japanese Foreign Minister Kamikawa Yoko told reporters that closer ties with Australia are essential.
“Amidst the increasingly difficult security environment in the Indo-Pacific, we need to raise the Japan-Australia security cooperation to a new height,” said Yoko.
Under the plans, Japanese troops could join up to 2,500 U.S. Marines who train in Australia’s Northern Territory each year. Japan and Australia could also collaborate on their long-range missile systems. There has been no response, so far, from Beijing to these strategic plans.
Japan was an enemy of Australia and the United States in World War II, but Euan Graham a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research organization funded by the Australian and other governments, said on social media the proposals show “at a symbolic level how successfully Australia and Japan have put wartime memories behind them.”
Australia’s formal military ties with Washington date to the early 1950s and are considered by successive governments in Canberra to the cornerstone of Australia’s sense of security in an increasingly fractious region.
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China pushes smaller, smarter loans to Africa to shield from risks
Beijing — China’s years of splashing cash on big-ticket infrastructure projects in Africa may be over, analysts say, with Beijing seeking to shield itself from risky, indebted partners on the continent as it grapples with a slowing economy at home.
Beijing for years dished out billions in loans for trains, roads and bridges in Africa that saddled participating governments with debts they often struggled to pay back.
But experts say it is now opting for smaller loans to fund more modest development projects.
“China has adjusted its lending strategy in Africa to take China’s own domestic economic troubles and Africa’s debt problems into account,” Lucas Engel, a data analyst studying Chinese development finance at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, said.
“This new prudence and risk aversion among Chinese lenders is intended to ensure that China can continue to engage with Africa in a more resilient and sustainable manner,” he told AFP.
“The large infrastructure loans China was known for in the past have become rarer.”
As African leaders gathered this week for Beijing’s biggest summit since the pandemic, President Xi Jinping committed more than $50 billion in financing over the next three years.
More than half of that would be in credit, Xi said, while the rest would come from unspecified “various types of assistance” and $10 billion through encouraging Chinese firms to invest.
Xi gave no details on how those funds would be dished out.
Loans redirected
China has for years pumped vast sums of cash into African nations as it looks to shore up access to crucial resources, while also using its influence as a geopolitical tool amid ongoing tensions with the West.
But while Beijing lauds its largesse towards the continent, data shows China’s funding has dwindled dramatically in recent years.
Chinese lenders supplied a total of $4.6 billion to eight African countries and two regional financial institutions last year, according to Boston University research.
The key shift concerns those on the receiving end: more than half of the total amount went to multilateral or nationally owned banks — compared with just five percent between 2000 and 2022.
And although last year’s loans to Africa were the highest since 2019, they were less than a quarter of what was dished out at the peak of nearly $29 billion eight years ago.
“Redirecting loans to African multilateral borrowers allows Chinese lenders to engage with entities with high credit ratings, not struggling individual sovereign borrowers,” Engel said.
“These loans reach private borrowers in ailing African countries in which African multilateral banks operate.”
Modest approach
China coordinates much of its overseas lending under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the massive infrastructure project that is a central pillar of Xi’s bid to expand his country’s clout overseas.
The BRI made headlines for backing big-ticket projects in Africa with opaque funding and questionable impacts.
But China has been shifting its approach in the past few years, analysts said.
It has increasingly funneled money into smaller projects, from a modestly sized solar farm in Burkina Faso to a hydropower project in Madagascar and broadband infrastructure in Angola, according to Boston University’s researchers.
“The increased volume of loans signals Africa’s continued importance to China, but the type of loans being deployed are intended to let Africans know that China is taking African concerns into account,” Engel told AFP.
This does not mean that Beijing is “permanently retrenching its investments and provision of development finance to the continent,” Zainab Usman, director of the Africa Program at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said.
“Development finance flows, especially lending, (are) now starting to rebound,” she said.
No ‘debt traps’
African leaders have this week secured deals with China on a range of sectors including infrastructure, agriculture, mining and energy.
Western critics accuse China of using the BRI to enmesh developing nations in unsustainable debt to exert diplomatic leverage over them or even seize their assets.
A chorus of African leaders — as well as research by leading global think tanks like London’s Chatham House — have rebuked the “debt trap” theory.
“I don’t necessarily buy in the notion that when China invests, it is with an intention of… ensuring that those countries end up in a debt trap,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Beijing on Thursday.
One analyst agreed, saying that for many Africans, China has “become synonymous” with life-changing roads, bridges and ports and the debt-trap argument ignores the “positive impact” Beijing has had on infrastructure development on the continent.
“The reality is some [African] countries have had a tough time fulfilling their debt repayment commitments due to a multiplicity of factors,” Ovigwe Eguegu, a policy analyst at consultancy Development Reimagined, said.
Engel, of the Boston University research center, said the argument mistakenly assumes that “China solely has short-term objectives in Africa.”
That, he said, “vastly underestimates [its] long-term vision… to shape a system of global governance that will be favorable to its rise.”
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Belarus’ Lukashenko pardons 30 political prisoners
Amy Kellogg — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced Wednesday that he is pardoning another 30 political prisoners, the third such prisoner release in the past three months.
The names of those released were not published, but the country’s most famous prisoner of conscience, prominent opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, is not expected to be included. She was part of the troika of women including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo who ran a united campaign for change against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election.
Even so, Kalesnikava’s sister Tanya Khomich is hoping the recent pardons are a signal to the world that Lukashenko may be ready to bargain for the freedom of other political prisoners in exchange for some sort of concessions.
Khomich also hopes that Luksashenko, who has held power in Belarus for the last 30 years, may be thinking of his own future, and could be open to appeals from Western countries to release the prisoners.
“Luksashenko doesn’t want to be forgotten once peace happens with Ukraine,” Komich told VOA. “He doesn’t want Belarus to be swallowed altogether by Russia either.”
There is mounting urgency in Kalesnikava’s case, because she and Belarus’ highest-profile prisoners have been held incommunicado for nearly 600 days. People close to them say there is a terrifying total blackout on any official details about their conditions.
Kalesnikava, along with Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and others, have been denied letters, lawyer visits and phone calls, according to supporters and families.
But whispers always manage to escape prison walls, and the latest to reach Khomich is that the1.7 meter tall Kalesnikava now weighs under 45 kilograms and is unsure she will make it out of detention alive.
“Just imagine,” Khomich said. “It is the 21st century, we are in the center of Europe and someone is starving. Maria is kept incommunicado. Please don’t let her die of hunger.”
Kalesnikava, who became critically ill in prison from a perforated ulcer, needs a special diet that is not provided for her, according to her sister.
Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to government-in-exile chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, feels equal urgency about freeing political prisoners.
He said the 30 names on the list were serving short terms and were in for more minor “offenses,” such as commenting or liking anti-regime posts on social media. And while he says he is happy about anyone getting out of prison, he suggested the pardons are not a sign that Lukashenko is softening his stance, but simply attempting to clean up his image.
“State propaganda advertises this as a big humanitarian gesture by the regime,” Viacorka said. “It’s Lukashenko’s act before so-called elections next year to show how human he is and that he cares about people, because even his supporters are not happy about the cruel repressions that are taking place.”
Viacorka also said international diplomatic pressure was involved in Lukashenko’s move to pardon the 30 political prisoners, but that domestic public opinion also played a role. He noted that those pardoned will not be entirely “free,” but released from prison and monitored via secret services, with some possibly blocked from leaving the country.
“Most of them were forced to write a pardon letter to Lukashenko and confess to crimes they never committed,” he said. “This is also a form of humiliation for the people, but it also shows Lukashenko very well. He wants people to recognize his power. To humiliate them and make them recognize his power.”
Despite the pardons, Viacorka says the human rights situation in Belarus has deteriorated lately, with jail terms increasing from a few to 10 or 15 years. Political prisoners are forced to wear yellow badges so that other detainees know not to talk to them in the event of a chance encounter.
“They want to break them emotionally,” Tanya Khomich said, noting that her imprisoned sister alternates between an “isolation cell” and a “punishment cell,” describing each as small fetid rooms with hole-in-the-floor toilets. A major difference, Khomich said, is that in the isolation cell, Maria Kalesnikava can have her toothbrush and soap, while in the punishment cell, she is not allowed any personal items.
With repression this intense and the Belarusian KGB vigorously and effectively monitoring electronic communications, Viacorka said, opposition activity is now happening “offline.”
“People meet in private apartments, they distribute samizdat,” he said, describing clandestinely self-published material. “There are plenty of cyber partisans too. Belarus has good hackers.”
According to Viacorka, many of these “cyber partisans” are state employees that secretly help the opposition, which provides Western countries information about what and whom in Belarus to sanction. There are also groups trying to assist Ukrainians and to keep Belarus officially out of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Still, Viacorka said the opposition in exile is actively discouraging people inside Belarus from engaging in any open political activity at this moment of chaos, with war ongoing in Ukraine.
“We shouldn’t sacrifice people lightly while we don’t have clarity,” he said. “Lukashenko makes mistakes. We want to be ready when the moment is right. Right now, we are at the peak of terror.”
And while Lukashenko’s regime has silenced Maria Kalesnikava and other opposition activists by jailing them, the Belarusian people have not forgotten these prisoners, Viacorka said.
Noting the prominent role that women play in the opposition, he added: “I see what they say about woman power. The toxic masculinity of Lukashenko versus the female empathy of our leaders is what makes our movement so sustainable.”
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