Category: Новини

Washington — The husband and two daughters of an American journalist jailed in Russia are in Washington this week to call on the U.S. government to do more to help secure the reporter’s release. 

Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, has been jailed in Russia since October 2023 on charges of failing to register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian army. 

Kurmasheva is a Prague-based editor at the Tatar-Bashkir service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL. The journalist and her employer reject the charges, which carry a combined maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Since Kurmasheva’s jailing, her husband, Pavel Butorin, has consistently called for her immediate release. He and their daughters traveled from Prague to Washington this week as part of the campaign to secure Kurmasheva’s release.  

“I’m here because I think that the U.S. government can and should do more for her release,” Butorin told VOA.  

Butorin is the director of Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.

While in Washington, Butorin met with State Department officials, but he did not specify to VOA what was discussed during those meetings.  

“We are making — I will say, cautiously — some progress toward the designation of Alsu as a wrongfully detained American journalist,” Butorin said. “I appreciate the support and attention that Alsu’s case has been given by the administration.” 

For months, Butorin, RFE/RL and international press freedom groups have called on the State Department to declare Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open up additional resources to help secure her release.  

Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to a VOA email requesting comment.  

Kurmasheva is one of two American journalists jailed in Russia.  

The other — The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich — has been jailed in Russia since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government deny. The 32-year-old is set to mark one year behind bars on March 29.

The State Department has declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained. 

A State Department spokesperson said U.S. officials have pressed the Russian government for access to Kurmasheva, but those requests have not yet been granted.

“We are deeply concerned about Alsu Kurmasheva’s detention,” the spokesperson told VOA in a statement.  

“The Department of State continuously reviews the circumstances surrounding the detentions of U.S. nationals overseas, including those in Russia, for indicators that they are wrongful,” the spokesperson said regarding a potential wrongful detention determination. 

“I’ve been, again, assured that Alsu’s case is a priority. I’ve heard U.S. officials say that they do think that she is a political prisoner, and they’re working hard on her release,” Butorin said.  

Butorin added that the most just resolution would be for Moscow to drop the charges against his wife, who initially traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June, and she was waiting for them to be returned when she was detained in October.  

“The charges are absurd — spurious. She’s not a criminal. We know her as a devoted mother to her daughters,” Butorin said. He added that the situation has taken a toll on their two children. 

“My daughters have had to grow up very quickly over these past nine months. It’s been an incredibly stressful situation for our family,” he said. “They want their mother back.”
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new york — New York prosecutors said Thursday that they were open to delaying the start of Donald Trump’s New York hush money criminal trial by up to a month to give the former president’s lawyers time to review evidence that was only recently turned over. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a court filing that it was not opposed to pushing the start of the trial back for up to 30 days. Jury selection in the trial is scheduled to begin March 25. 

Trump’s lawyers are seeking a 90-day delay or the dismissal of charges against Trump, alleging violations of what’s known as the discovery process, where the sides exchange evidence. The new records came from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which previously investigated the hush money arrangement at the heart of Trump’s New York criminal case. 

The defense has also sought to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claims, which his lawyers say could apply to some of the allegations and evidence in the hush money case. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments April 25. 

The judge in the hush money case, Juan Manuel Merchan, has yet to rule on either request. 

Since March 4, Trump’s lawyers have received at least 84,000 pages of records from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, including a batch of 31,000 pages on Wednesday, according to a court filing. 

The records pertain to a federal investigation that touched on the hush money matter and led to prison time for former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. 

Federal prosecutors in 2018 charged Cohen with campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments, with evading taxes related to his investments in the taxi industry and with lying to Congress. 

Cohen, who blamed Trump for his legal problems, pleaded guilty and served about a year in prison before being released to home confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He is now a key prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s case. Trump and his lawyers have portrayed Cohen as completely untrustworthy.
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Washington — A Voice of America reporter was among more than 200 U.S. citizens sanctioned by the Russian government on Thursday.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday that it was sanctioning Jeff Seldin, who covers national security at VOA. Seldin was among several reporters, including some from The Washington Post and The New York Times, to be included in this latest spate of sanctions against U.S. citizens. 

In total, 227 American citizens were included in this round of sanctions over what the Russian government said was “anti-Russian activity.” 

“Entry to the Russian Federation is closed to 227 Americans involved in the development, implementation and justification of the Russophobic course of the current U.S. administration,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

The announcement came just one day before the beginning of presidential elections in Russia that President Vladimir Putin is almost certainly guaranteed to win. 

Other journalists who were sanctioned included The Washington Post’s Joseph Marks, Joseph Menn, Ellen Nakashima and Tim Starks. Robert Worth from The New York Times was also on the list.

Seldin directed VOA to the outlet’s public relations team, which did not immediately provide comment. 

Seldin isn’t the first VOA journalist to be sanctioned by Moscow. VOA’s former acting director, Yolanda Lopez, was sanctioned by the Russian government in May 2023. 

Government officials, including U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, were included on the new list. The State Department did not immediately reply to VOA’s request for comment. 

Moscow also sanctioned a slew of professors from various universities including Harvard, Yale and Columbia. 

For Peter Clement, who teaches courses on Russian security policy at Columbia, being included in this round of sanctions didn’t come as a shock. 

“I wasn’t surprised. It’s consistent with past Russian policy to issue what they view as reciprocal sanctions,” Clement told VOA. 

The Kremlin has blocked more than 2,000 Americans from entering Russia in what it says is a response to U.S. sanctions against Russian individuals and companies.

The United States and other Western countries have hit Russia with a massive wave of sanctions in response to its war against Ukraine. 

Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse. 
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Washington — With increasingly frequent and vocal expressions of frustration, U.S. President Joe Biden appears to be distancing himself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed that international pressure will not prevent Israel from achieving “total victory” in its war against Hamas.

The rift is fueling speculation that the U.S. might restrict the supply of American weapons, particularly if Netanyahu moves to “finish the job” against Hamas in Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltered.

Placing conditions on military aid would be Washington’s strongest leverage to affect Israel’s conduct of the war, which has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians according to Gaza’s health ministry.

While U.S. media have quoted anonymous administration sources saying they are considering that option, officially the White House has declined to “entertain hypotheticals.”

“The president has been very clear about our position on Rafah,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during Tuesday’s White House briefing. “A military operation in Rafah that does not protect civilians, that cuts off the main arteries of humanitarian assistance, and that places enormous pressure on the Israel-Egypt border, is not something that he can support.”

Biden himself was ambiguous about whether invading Rafah would cross a red line, saying he would never abandon Israel. At the same time, he rebuked the Netanyahu government for the way it has gone after Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 240 hostage.

“The defense of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line [where] I’m going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them,” he said in a recent interview with MSNBC, even as he underscored that Israel “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”

However, the president is telegraphing his rebukes. Caught on a hot mic while speaking to a Democratic senator last week, Biden said that he has told Netanyahu they are heading for a “come to Jesus” meeting, an expression for having a blunt conversation.

Told by an aide that he could be heard, Biden said, “Good. That’s good.”

Electoral goals

Biden’s increasingly public criticism of Netanyahu comes as he ramps up his campaign for reelection in November. The president faces competing constituencies within his Democratic base.

He cannot afford to give Republicans an opportunity to capture pro-Israel votes. But he also needs to stop progressive Democrats, young voters, Muslim and Arab Americans from abandoning him, as threatened by the significant portion of voters in some Democratic primaries who marked their ballots “uncommitted” to signal their outrage at the president’s support for Israel.

To address his domestic politics and foreign policy goals, Biden is “performing a political amputation of Bibi,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, using a nickname for Netanyahu.

The goal, Blumenfeld told VOA, is to separate what Biden considers Netanyahu’s “toxic war policies” from the state of Israel so that the president can follow his political instincts: to protect Israel from further attacks and facilitate the release of hostages “without sacrificing his moral core.”

Biden’s souring on Netanyahu may not be enough to appease pro-Palestinian Americans, particularly if a cease-fire isn’t secured soon. “Uncommitted” voters say they would abandon the president even when Biden surrogates point out that the Republican presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies, is likely to give Israel freer rein over its war conduct.

“I’ve lived through four years of Trump,” said Samraa Luqman, co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan. Palestinians, she told VOA, “cannot live through another Joe Biden presidency.”

Trump has avoided stating an explicit position on the war other than saying in a Fox News interview that Israel must “finish the problem” and that the “horrible invasion” by Hamas “would have never happened” if he were president.

Netanyahu hits back

In response to Biden’s criticism that Netanyahu is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” the prime minister hit back, saying in an interview with Politico that he has the support of the Israeli people.

If Biden meant “that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said.

Only 15% of Israelis want Netanyahu to stay in office after the war ends, according to a poll by Israel Democracy Institute. But 56% believe that continuing the military offensive is the best way to recover the hostages.

In general, Israelis are focused on toppling Hamas, said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. To them, protecting civilians and providing humanitarian aid are “details,” he told VOA. “They don’t understand the significance in America.”

Distrust in Netanyahu

Earlier this week, an annual threat assessment released by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) cited deepening “distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule” since the war broke. The prime minister’s “viability as leader” may be in jeopardy, the report said.

“It’s clear that the U.S. administration is going after Netanyahu,” said Nimrod Goren, senior fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute.

As the process toward a political transition in Israel begins, Goren told VOA, the U.S. “is an actor in it.”

The ODNI report noted that “a different, more moderate government is a possibility,” drawing ire from Israeli officials who felt snubbed earlier this month when Israeli war Cabinet member Benny Gantz was received by Vice President Kamala Harris, Sullivan and Democratic congressional leaders.

Many see Gantz’s invitation to Washington as a sign of the administration’s support, should the popular centrist politician become Israel’s next prime minister.

Asked by VOA if Gantz’s visit is a signal that the administration is looking forward to an Israeli government without Netanyahu, national security communications adviser John Kirby flatly said, “No.”
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BEIJING — China on Thursday said the U.S. House of Representatives’ approval of a bill that would force TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent company or be banned in the United States follows “entirely the logic of a bandit.”

The short-video app has soared in popularity worldwide but its ownership by Chinese technology giant ByteDance — and alleged subservience to Beijing’s ruling Communist Party — has fueled concern in Western capitals.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill that would force TikTok to divest from its parent company or face a nationwide ban.

The bill is yet to pass the Senate, where it is expected to face a tougher test to become law.

“The bill passed by the United States House of Representatives puts the United States on the opposite side of the principles of fair competition and international economic and trade rules,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular press conference.

“If so-called reasons of national security can be used to arbitrarily suppress excellent companies from other countries, then there is no fairness and justice at all,” he said.

“When someone sees a good thing another person has and tries to take it for themself, this is entirely the logic of a bandit.

“The United States’ handling of the TikTok incident will allow the world to see more clearly whether the United States’ so-called rules and order are beneficial to the world, or whether they only serve the United States itself.”

 

 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden plans to express concern over Nippon Steel’s proposed $14.9 billion purchase of U.S. Steel, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, pushing the U.S. company’s stock nearly 13% lower on bets the deal could face greater political opposition.

The issue has the potential to overshadow an April 10 summit between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida aimed at boosting the long-standing security alliance between their countries in the face of growing Chinese strength.

In December, Nippon Steel clinched a deal to buy the 122-year-old iconic U.S. steelmaker for a hefty premium, betting that U.S. Steel would benefit from the spending and tax incentives in Biden’s infrastructure bill.

However, several Democratic and Republican U.S. senators have criticized the deal, citing national security concerns or raising questions about why the two companies did not consult U.S. Steel’s main union ahead of the announcement.

Donald Trump, Biden’s rival in the November U.S. presidential election, has said he would block the acquisition of U.S. Steel if elected. The White House said in December the deal needed to be carefully scrutinized given U.S. Steel’s core role in producing a material that is critical to national security. 

The White House declined to comment on Wednesday, but a person familiar with the matter said Biden would issue a statement about the planned acquisition before Kishida arrives for his state visit.

U.S. officials and lawyers have drafted the statement, and the White House has privately informed the Japanese government of Biden’s decision, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the news.

Japan’s top government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment on the report. “The Japan-U.S. alliance is stronger than ever, and the two countries will continue to work together … in the field of economic security,” Hayashi, chief cabinet secretary, told reporters on Thursday, echoing recent remarks by Japanese officials.

Matthew Goodman, a trade and economics expert at Washington’s Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said the issue could overshadow the summit and be damaging for Kishida, who is already struggling politically at home.

“A prime minister of Japan has to demonstrate that he has the U.S. relationship not only under control, but that he’s enhancing it,” Goodman said. “So, to the extent this runs counter to that narrative politically at home, it’s problematic.”

Goodman said he thought the case of the acquisition being a risk to U.S. national security was “dubious” and questioning investments from a supposedly trusted security partner could be very damaging to the relationship.

“It’s much more to do with politics in an election year when both nominees are appealing to support from steel workers and unions,” he said of Biden and Trump.

In a joint statement, Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel said they welcomed the Biden administration’s scrutiny of the transaction, as “an objective and comprehensive review of this transaction will demonstrate that it strengthens U.S. jobs, competition, and economic and national security.”

Goodman said there have been long-standing concerns in the United States about Japanese labor practices and “non-support for unionization of workers in Japanese-owned factories in the U.S. well beyond steel.”

The companies said they have had “active, dedicated discussions with the United Steelworkers, which are ongoing.” 

 U.S. Steel, founded in 1901 by some of the biggest U.S. magnates, including Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Charles Schwab, became intertwined with the industrial recovery following the Great Depression and World War II.

Last year, the Pittsburgh-based company launched a formal review of its strategic options after rebuffing a takeover offer from steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs.

Its shares had come under pressure following several quarters of falling revenue and profit, making it an attractive takeover target for rivals looking to add a maker of steel used by the automobile industry.

U.S. Steel shares closed 12.8% lower at $40.86 on Wednesday, well below Nippon’s offer of $55 per share.
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BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX’s Starship, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, was poised for a third uncrewed test launch Thursday that Elon Musk’s company hopes will carry it farther than before, even if it ends up exploding once again in flight.

The spacecraft, mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, was due for liftoff as early as 8 a.m. EDT from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site on the Gulf of Mexico near Boca Chica, Texas.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration just granted a license for the test flight on Wednesday afternoon.

Unlike the first two test flights last year, aimed mainly at demonstrating that the spacecraft’s two stages can separate after launch, the third test flight will involve an attempt to open Starship’s payload door and reignite one of its engines in space.

Each of the previous flights were routed toward a planned crash landing near the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific, while the latest flight is targeting a splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean.

Even if it achieves more of its test objectives than before, SpaceX acknowledges a high probability that Starship’s latest flight will end up like the first two, with the vehicle blowing itself to bits before its intended trajectory is complete.

Regardless of how well it performs on Thursday, all indications are that Starship remains a considerable distance from becoming fully operational.

Musk, SpaceX’s billionaire founder and CEO, has said the rocket should fly hundreds of uncrewed missions before carrying its first humans. And several other ambitious milestones overseen by NASA are needed before the craft can execute a moon landing with American astronauts.

Still, Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade, and ultimately flying to Mars.

Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in company’s commercial launch business that already lofts most of the world’s satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.

For Thursday, SpaceX is aiming to at least exceed Starship’s performance with its Super Heavy booster during their inaugural test launch together last April, when the spacecraft exploded over the Gulf less than four minutes into a planned 90-minute flight.

That flight went awry from the start. Some of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned on ascent, and the lower-stage rocket failed to separate as designed from the upper-stage Starship, leading to termination of the flight.

The second test flight in November made it farther than the first, and managed to properly achieve stage separation, but the spacecraft exploded about eight minutes after launch.

SpaceX’s engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry’s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.

NASA, SpaceX’s biggest customer, has a lot riding in the success of Starship, which the U.S. space agency is giving a central role in its Artemis program, successor to the Apollo missions that put astronauts on the moon for the first time more than 50 years ago.

While NASA Administrator chief Bill Nelson has embraced Musk’s frequent flight-testing approach, agency officials in recent months have made clear their desire to see greater progress with Starship’s development as the U.S. races with China to the lunar surface.
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Milwaukee, Wisconsin — U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday visited Wisconsin, a key swing state that he narrowly won in 2020, meeting with community members at a once shuttered but now thriving children’s community center to sell them on how he believes his economic policies are making their lives better.

Biden’s approval ratings in the Badger State have recently slumped, and on Wednesday afternoon, as Biden chatted privately with campaign volunteers at his new campaign headquarters in Milwaukee, less than a block away, several dozen protesters took aim at one reason why.

“Free, free, free Palestine!” the group members yelled as they waved Palestinian flags.

“Hey, Joe, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today,” they also shouted.

Inside the White House’s carefully managed events on Wednesday, the scene was different. Biden announced $3.3 billion in initiatives aimed at fixing transportation and infrastructure. He did not, during his public remarks, mention Gaza or any foreign policy issues.

“Everything we’re doing is connecting people with opportunity, not disconnecting people from opportunity,” Biden said, speaking at a community sports center that was shuttered during the pandemic but has since reopened.

“These projects will increase access to health care, schools, jobs, and will strengthen communities by covering highways with public spaces, creating new transit routes, adding sidewalks, bridges, bike lanes and more,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters aboard Air Force One.

The White House referred questions to the campaign when asked if Biden would meet with any Arab Americans in Wisconsin or Michigan, where he heads Thursday.

VOA asked Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, whether Biden had met — or would meet — with any concerned parties about the situation in Gaza.

“President Biden believes that every person’s life is profoundly valuable,” he replied. “From Palestine, Israel and around the world. He’s working to move forward towards a just and peaceful enduring solution, as he said in the State of the Union address. And that is the thing that will make the biggest difference for the profound feelings that people have about this crisis.”

The two main political contenders are taking a very different approach in this Midwestern state.

Biden said success in a closely contested state like Wisconsin “comes down to knocking on doors.”

On Wednesday, he lingered inside his new Wisconsin campaign headquarters — in the largest city, Milwaukee — where he met with Democratic volunteers behind closed doors for more than an hour.

Meanwhile, supporters of Biden rival Donald Trump this week submitted petitions in Wisconsin to force a recall election against the state’s top Republican, who refused calls to decertify Biden’s legitimate, narrow win in 2020.

When asked if the Biden campaign had faith in the state’s election process, Wikler was emphatic.

“Wisconsin has consistently been rated as among the best states in the country when it comes to administering elections,” he said. “That system allows us to have elections up and down the ballot where voters can trust the outcome.”
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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would force short-video app TikTok, used by about 170 million Americans, to separate from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson says the Senate may not approve the bill.
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Washington — A polio survivor known as the “man in the iron lung” has died aged 78, according to his family and a fundraising website.

Paul Alexander of Dallas, Texas contracted polio at the age of six, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down and reliant on a mechanical respirator to breathe for much of the time.

Though often confined to his submarine-like cylinder, he excelled in his studies, earned a law degree, worked in the legal field and wrote a book.

“With a heavy heart I need to say my brother passed last night,” Philip Alexander posted on Facebook early Wednesday. “It was an honor to be part of someone’s life who was as admired as he was.”

Christopher Ulmer, a disability advocate running a fundraiser for Alexander, also confirmed his death in a GoFundMe update posted on Tuesday.

“His story traveled wide and far, positively influencing people around the world. Paul was an incredible role model that will continue to be remembered,” said Ulmer.

A prior update on Alexander’s official TikTok account said he had been rushed to the emergency room after contracting Covid-19.

Iron lungs are sealed chambers fitted with pumps. Raising and lowering the pressure inside the chamber expands and contracts the patient’s lungs.

Invented in the 1920s, their use fell away after the invention of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, which became widely available in 1955 and helped consign the devastating paralytic illness to history.

Alexander held the official Guinness World Record for time spent in a lung.

According to his Guinness page, he was able to leave the device for periods of time after he learned to “frog breathe” with the help of a physical therapist.

This involved “using his throat muscles to force air into his lungs, gulping down air one mouthful at a time.” Eventually, he only returned to his iron lung at night to sleep.

As a practicing lawyer, he was able to represent clients in court in a special wheelchair that held his paralyzed body upright.

Seventy-five-year-old Martha Lillard of Shawnee, Oklahoma is reportedly the last surviving person in an iron lung. 
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