More people than ever are moving to Florida, making it the fastest-growing state in America, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The population in the nation’s third-largest state now tops 22 million people. Florida is known for its hot weather, and once air-conditioning became more common in the 1950s, its population exploded. VOA’s Dora Mekouar [meh-kwar] has more from Orlando, Florida. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
…

Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating says the nation’s agreement to buy and develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in cooperation with Britain and the United States is “the worst deal in all history.” 

Keating attacked the three-nation agreement between Australia, Britain and the United States Wednesday during a speech at the National Press Club in Sydney.   

The multi-decade deal, which could cost Australia as much as $245 billion, was announced Monday by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, British counterpart Rishi Sunak and U.S. President Joe Biden in San Diego under a new trilateral defense partnership known by the acronym AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom and United States). 

The agreement will see American and British nuclear-powered submarines rotating into Australian waters as soon as 2027. By the early 2030s, Australia will buy at least three — and as many as five — U.S.-built nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines designed to hunt and attack other subs. And the three nations will work together to develop a new nuclear attack submarine — a project that could take two decades. 

Keating dismissed the idea that China poses a military threat to Australia, and said it was “rubbish” that a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines could defend the country from a Chinese naval fleet. He said Australia could simply sink the fleet “with planes and missiles.” 

The former prime minister, who served in the post from 1991 to 1996, said the nuclear submarine deal is the worst international decision made by a Labor Party government since World War I, when it failed to impose compulsory military service.   

In addition to the new submarine fleet, the AUKUS partnership  will allow the three countries to share information and expertise more easily in key technological areas such artificial intelligence, cybertechnology, quantum technologies, underwater systems and long-range strike capabilities. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday issued an executive order directing federal agencies to step up enforcement of a bipartisan gun control law he signed nine months ago that expands background checks for gun buyers and strengthens rules allowing the temporary removal of firearms from a potentially dangerous person. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

In his first stop on a two-country visit to Africa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.

The trip is part of an effort to deepen U.S. engagement with the continent. U.S.-Ethiopia relations have been strained in the past two years due to a brutal civil war that left an estimated 500,000 civilians dead due to violence, starvation and lack of medical attention. Thousands more were displaced.

Blinken is scheduled to meet with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday. He is also expected to meet with Tigrayan officials.

His trip will focus on the implementation of a peace deal brokered last November that ended hostilities in the country’s northern Tigray region.

Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said that Abiy is hoping to secure economic aid and a pledge of “normalized relations” from Blinken, although the country is still not at peace.

“There is a cessation of hostilities agreement, which has, in fact, brought some relief to the suffering of the people of Ethiopia. Particularly in the north, in the Tigray region,” Yager told VOA. “Some aid can get through, communications are flowing, fuel prices are down, food prices are down, all of this is very positive.”

In January, Tigrayan forces said they began handing over tanks and heavy weapons as part of the peace deal.

But despite gains made since the peace deal, human rights advocates say there’s more work ahead.

“It is not all sunshine and roses,” Yager added. “There are still abuses happening throughout, not just the Tigray region, but in other parts of the country.”

Kate Hixon, Africa advocacy director at Amnesty International USA, argued that Blinken should center all his engagements with the government of Ethiopia around human rights.

“There still needs to be improved access throughout the country for humanitarian actors and human rights monitors,” Hixon said. “We also still need to see more commitment on justice and accountability and would really like for Secretary Blinken to push that.”

Earlier this year, France and Germany’s foreign ministers visited Ethiopia, touring a warehouse stocked with humanitarian aid and holding talks with leaders. They called for establishing a transitional justice mechanism to punish human rights abuses committed during the conflict, saying there can be no reconciliation without accountability.

“Ethiopia has been backsliding on democracy and freedoms across the country, and abuses are still continuing in some of those same places where the worst suffering has happened. So, we are seeing detentions, killings, sexual violence,” Yager said. “These things are still ongoing and so that’s why we want to see Secretary Blinken deliver some tough messages about accountability when he is there.”

In February, the government of Ethiopia announced that there is a resolution to terminate the mandate of an International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, a body tasked to investigate crimes committed during the war.

Although the government of Ethiopia has made efforts domestically to investigate human rights abuses, Hixon said the government should also allow international efforts.

“All parties to the war have committed unspeakable abuses including mass extrajudicial killings, sexual violence against women and girls,” she told VOA. “There has been an accountability deficit that has really permeated the conflict. And the commission is one way to make sure that there is documentation of some of these abuses and potential for accountability down the road.”

The U.S., Hixon added, should support independent civil society efforts to document atrocities.

“We are asking that Blinken make clear that they have support or that the commission has the U.S. support and that they expect the government of Ethiopia to continue to engage with this commission and give unfettered access in the country,” she told VOA.

Blinken will head to Niger on March 16 and become the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit the country. He plans to meet with President Mohamed Bazoum and Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massaoudou in Niamey and focus on counterterrorism efforts in the region.
…

The Webb Space Telescope has captured the rare and fleeting phase of a star on the cusp of death.

NASA released the picture Tuesday at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

The observation was among the first made by Webb following its launch in late 2021. Its infrared eyes observed all the gas and dust flung into space by a huge, hot star 15,000 light years away. A light year is about 5.8 trillion miles.

Shimmering in purple like a cherry blossom, the cast-off material once comprised the star’s outer layer. The Hubble Space Telescope snapped a shot of the same transitioning star a few decades ago, but it appeared more like a fireball without the delicate details.

Such a transformation occurs only with some stars and normally is the last step before they explode, going supernova, according to scientists.

“We’ve never seen it like that before. It’s really exciting,” said Macarena Garcia Marin, a European Space Agency scientist who is part of the project.

This star in the constellation Sagittarius, officially known as WR 124, is 30 times as massive as our sun and already has shed enough material to account for 10 suns, according to NASA.
…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Ethiopia and Niger this week as the Biden administration accelerates a push to engage with Africa to counter China’s growing influence on the continent, the State Department said. 

Blinken is visiting Addis Ababa and will travel to Niamey later in the week to discuss the peace deal that ended hostilities in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and counterterrorism efforts aimed at Islamic extremists in Niger and the Sahel more broadly. 

His trip will be the fourth high-profile visit to Africa this year by top members of the Biden administration. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and first lady Jill Biden have already gone there. 

Blinken plans to meet with both Ethiopian and Tigrayan officials in Addis Ababa and will be the first secretary of state ever to visit Niger, which has hosted U.S. military operations targeting Islamic State affiliates in the area. 

In discussions with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigrayan officials, the State Department said Blinken would focus on “implementation of the cessation of hostilities agreement to advance peace and promote transitional justice in northern Ethiopia.” 

The Tigray conflict led the U.S. to suspend some preferential trade agreements with Ethiopia, which the country is eager to have restored. But the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said Friday that a full normalization of relations will depend on more action from Addis Ababa, particularly after the “earth-shattering” Tigray conflict. 

“What we’re looking to do is refashion our engagement with Ethiopia,” said Molly Phee, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “We would like to be able to have a partnership that is commensurate with their size and influence and with our interest and commitment to Africa.” 

“But to put that relationship in a forward trajectory we will continue to need steps by Ethiopia to help break the cycle of ethnic/political violence that has set the country back for so many decades,” she said. 

The conflict in Tigray erupted a year after Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with longtime rival Eritrea. The Ethiopian and Eritrean governments saw the Tigray regional leaders, who had long dominated Ethiopia’s government before Abiy took office, as a common threat. 

An estimated 500,000 civilians were killed in the two-year conflict that ended with a peace agreement signed in South Africa in November. U.S. officials mediated in that deal. 

The conflict cut off the Tigray region of more than 5 million people, with humanitarian aid often blocked and basic services severed while health workers pleaded for the simplest of medical supplies.

In a meeting with the Addis Ababa-based African Union Commission chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat, Blinken will also try to blunt both Chinese and Russian attempts to win support from African nations over Russia’s war with Ukraine; a topic that has raised considerable concerns amongst formerly colonized states. 
…

The U.S. military says a Russian fighter jet collided Tuesday with a U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone operating within international airspace over the Black Sea, causing the drone to crash.
A U.S. military official told VOA the unmanned U.S. MQ-9 has not yet been recovered.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the United States is summoning the Russian ambassador over the incident.

“We are engaging directly with the Russians, again at senior levels, to convey our strong objections to this unsafe, unprofessional intercept, which caused the downing of the unmanned U.S. aircraft.”

He added that U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy “has conveyed a strong message to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed about the incident, according to White House spokesman John Kirby.

“If the message [from Russia] is that they want to deter or dissuade us from flying and operating in international airspace over the Black Sea then that message will fail because that is not going to happen,” Kirby told VOA. 

“We are going to continue to fly and operate in international airspace over international waters. The Black Sea belongs to no one nation and we’re going to continue to do what we need to do for our own national security interests in that part of the world.”

According to U.S. European Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in Europe, two Russian Su-27 aircraft “dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner.”

“One of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. … This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional,” EUCOM added.

U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, said in a press release that the collision had “nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”

EUCOM called on Russian forces to act “professionally and safely,” while warning that these types of acts are “dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation.”

Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
…

Senior Mexican and U.S. officials have spoken ahead of a meeting in April on tackling drugs and weapons trafficking, the two governments said on Tuesday, even as Mexico sought to argue it is not a production hub for synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Officials are set to meet in Washington to discuss the so-called Bicentennial Framework, which will address the production of synthetic drugs, particularly fentanyl, and weapons smuggling.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard had a phone conversation on Monday, the State Department said, with Blinken expressing a U.S. commitment to “protecting [both] communities from criminal networks.”

Mexico’s foreign ministry said on Monday evening security officials had “no record” of fentanyl production in Mexico and that the drug and its ingredients largely came from Asia.

In February, the Mexican Army reported its largest synthetic drug lab bust, nabbing half-a-million fentanyl pills in the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Tensions over security rose this month, following the kidnapping of a group of Americans in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas. Two were killed in an attack officials have suggested was carried out by a drug gang.

Blinken and Ebrard discussed the kidnapping, the State Department said.

Some U.S. Republicans have called for military intervention in Mexico to fight cartels, which Mexico has rejected.

 
…

U.S. consumer prices increased in February amid sticky rental housing costs, but economists are divided on whether rising inflation will be enough to push the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates again next week after the failure of two regional banks.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.4% last month after accelerating 0.5% in January, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. That lowered the year-on-year increase in the CPI to 6.0% in February, the smallest annual gain since September 2021. The CPI rose 6.4% in the 12 months through January.

The annual CPI peaked at 9.1% in June, which was the biggest increase since November 1981.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI increased 0.5% after rising 0.4% in January. In the 12 months through February, the so-called core CPI gained 5.5% after advancing 5.6% in January.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast both the CPI and core CPI climbing 0.4% on a monthly basis. Monthly inflation is rising at double the rate that economists say is needed to bring inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target.

The inflation report was published amid financial market turmoil triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York, which forced regulators to take emergency measures to shore up confidence in the banking system.

It was also released before the Fed’s policy meeting next Tuesday and Wednesday, and followed a report last Friday showing a still-tight labor market, but cooling wage inflation. Economists said Tuesday’s report remained important for policymakers despite the angst in financial markets.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers last week that the U.S. central bank would likely need to raise rates more than expected, leading financial markets to expect that a half-percentage-point rate increase was on the table next week.

But those expectations were dialed back to 25 basis points after the employment report.

While financial markets on Tuesday still expected a quarter-percentage-point hike, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool, fear of contagion from the banking crisis prompted some economists, including those at Goldman Sachs, to expect the Fed next week to pause its fastest monetary policy tightening cycle since the 1980s.

The Fed has increased its benchmark overnight interest rate by 450 basis points since last March from the near-zero level to the current 4.50%-4.75% range.
…

Nevada lawmakers are considering a remarkable shift in allowing the water agency that manages the Colorado River supply for Las Vegas to limit single-family residential use in the desert city and surrounding county.

It’s another potential step in a decades-long effort to ensure one of the driest metropolitan areas in the U.S. has enough water. Already, in Las Vegas ornamental lawns are banned, new swimming pools have a size limit and the water used inside homes is recycled.

While some agencies across the U.S. West tie increased water use to increased cost, Nevada could be the first to give a water agency — the Southern Nevada Water Authority — the power to restrict what comes out of residents’ taps in state statute to about 30,000 gallons above the average use. It’s aimed mostly at the top 10% of water users that use 40% of the water in the residential sector, spokesperson Bronson Mack said.

“It’s a worst case scenario plan,” said the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Howard Watts of Las Vegas, of the residential limit. “It makes sure that we prioritize the must-haves for a home. Your drinking water, your basic health and safety needs.”

The sweeping omnibus bill is one of the most significant to go before lawmakers this year in Nevada, one of seven states that rely on the Colorado River. Deepening drought, climate change and demand have sunk key Colorado River reservoirs that depend on melting snow to their lowest levels on record.

Lawmakers heard testimony for the bill on Monday evening, which also includes converting many homes with unrecyclable septic tanks for wastewater to the county’s recyclable sewage system in the coming decades. It also establishes a program to pay at least 50% of the transition as they look to secure more state and federal funds to help with the transition.

Water agency officials stressed during the two-hour hearing that the residential caps would not be used immediately, but rather if conditions become even more dire. The cap would be at about 160,000 gallons annually – an amount that about 20% of the agency’s customers use – with the average single-family residence using close to 130,000 gallons annually, per the agency.

The authority hasn’t yet decided how it would implement or enforce the proposed limits, Mack said.

The residential use limits received widespread support from water policy experts, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and jurisdictions within the agency’s limits, while opposition came from some southern Nevada residents who testified through video from Las Vegas.

“[For] a single-family home, you need to take into consideration: how many adults, family members are in this home?” said Sarah Patton of Las Vegas. “We have grown children that are currently living with us. That is more water use.”

Las Vegas relies on the Colorado River for 90% of its water supply. Nevada has lost about 8% of that supply already because of mandatory cuts implemented as the river dwindles further. Most residents haven’t felt the effects because Southern Nevada Water Authority recycles a majority of water used indoors and doesn’t use the full allocation.

Nevada lawmakers banned ornamental grass at office parks, in street medians and entrances to housing developments two years ago, a move that other cities later adopted. This past summer, Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, capped the size of new swimming pools at single-family residential homes to about the size of a three-car garage.

By the next legislative session in 2025 drought conditions could be much worse, Watts said, and “we have to decide what usage to prioritize” before then. Yet the longer-term goal is for other Nevada to be a leader in responsible use of the Colorado River’s dwindling supply— even with deeper cuts looming.

“It’s a sign to every other sector across the Colorado River Basin, that we’re not going to wait for others,” Watts told lawmakers of the potential single-family residential caps. “We take the lead and work to reduce our consumptive use of water.”

The main point of opposition for the bill was the conversion of homes with septic systems to the sewage system, a major shift that would lead many homes to reroute their wastewater. Some Clark County residents were dissuaded by the possibility of giving up their septic system or worried about the cost.

“This is too much of a burden for these targeted homeowners,” said Michele Tombari who, like others, said spoke fondly of her septic system and did not want to switch. “If you want us to change what was already approved, what we already paid for, you need to pay 100% to have us change that.”

Snow that has inundated northern Nevada and parts of California serves as only a temporary reprieve from dry conditions. Some states in the Colorado River basin have gridlocked on how to cut water usage.

Water from the Colorado River largely is used for agriculture in other basin states: Arizona, California, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado. Municipal water is a relatively small percentage of overall use.

As populations grow and climate change leaves future supplies uncertain, policymakers are paying close attention to all available options to manage water supplies.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, uses a tiered cost structure where rates rise sharply when residents reach 10,000 gallons during the summer months.

Scottsdale, Arizona, recently told residents in a community outside city limits that it no longer could provide a water source for them. Scottsdale argued action was required under a drought management plan to guarantee enough water for its own residents.

Elsewhere in metro Phoenix, water agencies aren’t currently discussing capping residential use, Sheri Trap of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association said in an email. But cities like Phoenix, Glendale and Tempe have said they will cut down on usage overall.
…

Stock markets in Asia fell Tuesday, with shares of banks hit particularly hard, following a decline in U.S. markets amid the fallout from the collapse of two U.S. banks. 

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index closed down 2.2% with shares of Softbank falling 4.1%, Mizuho Financial Group dropping 7.1% and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group sinking 9.8%.  Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed down 2.4% Tuesday. 

U.S President Joe Biden Monday sought to reassure Americans that the U.S. banking system is secure and that taxpayers would not bail out investors at California-based Silicon Valley Bank and the New York-based Signature Bank.    

“Americans can have confidence the banking system is safe. Your deposits are safe,” Biden said in a five-minute statement delivered at the White House.     

He said customers’ deposits will be covered by funds banks routinely pay into a U.S. government-held account for such emergencies.      

Biden vowed, “We must get a full accounting of what happened” at the two banks.     

Despite the assurances, U.S. banks lost about $90 billion in stock market value on Monday as investors feared additional bank failures. The biggest losses came from midsize banks, of the size of Silicon Valley Bank.     

While shares of the country’s biggest banks — such as JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America — also fell Monday, the selloff was not as sharp. The huge banks have been strictly regulated since the 2008 financial crisis and have been repeatedly stress tested by regulators.    

Biden ignored reporters’ questions Monday about the cause of the U.S. bank failures, but financial experts say both banks were affected by a rise in interest rates, which negatively affected the market values of significant portions of their assets, such as bonds and mortgage-backed securities.       

Banks don’t lose money if they hold such notes until maturity. But if they must sell them to cover depositor withdrawals, as was the case in recent days, the losses can quickly mount.       

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported that industrywide, U.S. banks at the end of last year reported $620 billion in such paper losses caused by rising interest rates.     

The U.S. Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, announced Monday that it would review its oversight of Silicon Valley Bank in the wake of the bank’s failure.    

“We need to have humility and conduct a careful and thorough review of how we supervised and regulated this firm, and what we should learn from this experience,” said Fed vice chair for supervision Michael Barr.      

The FDIC, which insures deposits up to $250,000 and supervises financial institutions, said Monday it transferred all Silicon Valley Bank deposits to a so-called “bridge bank.” The new bank is run by a board appointed by the agency until it can stabilize operations.          

The Bank of England also announced Monday the sale of Silicon Valley Bank’s United Kingdom subsidiary to HSBC to stabilize the bank, “ensuring the continuity of banking services, minimizing disruption to the U.K. technology sector and supporting confidence in the financial system.”      

The actions were prompted by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, which U.S. regulators seized on Friday after concerns about the bank’s financial health led to a large number of depositors withdrawing their money at the same time.          

With about $200 billion in assets, Silicon Valley Bank’s failure was the second largest in U.S. history. The bank was heavily involved in financing for venture capital firms, especially in the tech sector.            

Signature Bank also had a large portion of clients in the tech sector, including cryptocurrency.  Its failure, with more than $100 billion in assets, was the third largest in U.S. history, behind Washington Mutual and Silicon Valley Bank.           

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

Australia will buy three nuclear-powered attack submarines from the United States as part of a three-nation, multi-decade deal with Great Britain that is aimed at strengthening the allies’ presence in the Asia-Pacific region as China grows bolder militarily. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
…

Australia will buy three nuclear-powered attack submarines from the United States as part of a three-nation, multi-decade deal with Great Britain that is aimed at strengthening the allies’ presence in the Asia-Pacific region as China grows bolder militarily.

President Joe Biden says the decision to share sensitive U.S. nuclear technology with Australia is a big deal — and a necessary one. He spoke Monday in San Diego, California.

“As we stand at the inflection point in history where the hard work of enhancing deterrence and promoting stability is going to affect the prospects of peace for decades to come, the United States can ask for no better partners in the Indo-Pacific, where so much of our shared future will be rooted,” Biden said at Naval Base San Diego, flanked by both countries’ leaders. “Forging this new partnership, we’re showing again how democracies can deliver our own security and prosperity, and not just for us, but for the entire world.”

The multi-decade deal will see American and British nuclear-powered submarines rotating into Australian waters as soon as 2027. By the early 2030s, Australia will buy at least three — and as many as five — American nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines designed to hunt and attack other subs. And the three nations will work together to develop a new nuclear attack submarine — a project that could take two decades.

Biden stressed that the deal concerns nuclear propulsion, not arms, and the leaders pledged to adhere to their nuclear non-proliferation agreements.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the deal, which could cost nearly $150 billion (as much as $200 billion Australian dollars) will create jobs and boost innovation and research.

“The AUKUS agreement we confirm here in San Diego represents the biggest single investment in Australia’s defense capability in all of our history, strengthening Australia’s national security and stability in our region,” he said.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also announced that his nation would increase military spending to 2.5% of their GDP, to meet growing threats worldwide.

“The last 18 months, the challenges we face have only grown: Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” he said. “China’s growing assertiveness, the destabilizing behavior of Iran and North Korea. All threaten to create a world defined by danger, disorder and division. Faced with this new reality it is more important than ever that we strengthen the resilience of our own countries.”

Beijing has criticized the partnership and accuses Washington of “provoking rivalry and confrontation.”

“This trilateral cooperation constitutes serious nuclear proliferation risks, undermines the international non-proliferation system, exacerbates arms race and hurts peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry. “It has been widely questioned and opposed by regional countries and the wider international community. We urge the US, the UK and Australia to abandon the Cold War mentality and zero-sum games, honor international obligations in good faith and do more things that are conducive to regional peace and stability.”

But analysts say China’s aggression in the Pacific region prompted this decision.

“This is really more a response to the very aggressive military buildup that China has had, as opposed to anything we’re doing that would be provoking to China,” Mark Kennedy, director of the Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition at the Wilson Center, told VOA.

Because the three countries are democracies and have free-speech protections, there are vocal critics — and analysts expect legislators in all three nations to probe the terms of the deal as it evolves and question its impact on sovereignty issues and government spending.

“There’s criticism, as well there should be, of this deal everywhere because that’s how democracies do policy, right?” Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA. “The ambitions are really, really large, but they’re also very large bets that are being placed.”

And, he said, it’s a sign that Australia’s ties with the U.S. are stronger than ever.

“The real importance here is that nuclear propulsion technology is truly the crown jewel of America’s technological strength,” he said. “We’ve only shared it once in all of American history, and that was almost four decades ago with the British, despite being asked by multiple countries. I think it’s the closeness of the U.S.-Australian relationship, which makes this possible… That can only happen with countries where there is a very deep reservoir of trust.”
…

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged Monday to increase military funding by 5 billion pounds ($6 billion) over the next two years in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the “epoch-defining challenge” posed by China. 

The increase, part of a major update to U.K. foreign and defense policy, is less than military officials wanted. Sunak said the U.K. would increase military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product “in the longer term,” but didn’t set a date. Britain currently spends just over 2% of GDP on defense, and military chiefs want it to rise to 3%. 

The extra money will be used, in part, to replenish Britain’s ammunition stocks, depleted from supplying Ukraine in its defense against Russia. Some will also go toward a U.K.-U.S.-Australia deal to build nuclear-powered submarines. 

“The world has become more volatile, the threats to our security have increased,” Sunak told the BBC during a visit to the U.S. “It’s important that we protect ourselves against those.” 

Sunak met U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in San Diego on Monday to confirm next steps for the military pact, known as AUKUS, struck by the three countries in 2021 amid mounting concern about China’s actions in the Pacific. 

Under the deal, the U.K. and Australia will build new nuclear-powered, conventionally armed subs from a British design, with U.S. technology and support. Most of the U.K. construction will take place in shipyards at Barrow-in-Furness in northwest England, with the first subs completed by the late 2030s. Australia will also buy up to five Virginia-class subs from the U.S. 

The three leaders said the submarine plan “elevates all three nations’ industrial capacity to produce and sustain interoperable nuclear-powered submarines for decades to come, expands our individual and collective undersea presence in the Indo-Pacific, and contributes to global security and stability.” 

Britain last produced a defense, security and foreign policy framework, known as the Integrated Review, in 2021. 

The government ordered an update in response to an increasingly volatile world. The new report, released Monday, said “there is a growing prospect that the international security environment will further deteriorate in the coming years, with state threats increasing and diversifying in Europe and beyond.” 

Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine upended European security order, and the review said Russia poses “the most acute threat to the U.K.’s security.” 

The U.K. is also increasingly concerned about what the government calls “the epoch-defining challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly concerning military, financial and diplomatic activity.” 

The defense review said that “wherever the Chinese Communist Party’s actions and stated intent threaten the U.K.’s interests, we will take swift and robust action to protect them.” 

U.K. intelligence agencies have expressed growing concern about China’s military might, covert activities and economic muscle. Ken McCallum, head of domestic spy agency MI5, said in November that “the activities of the Chinese Communist Party pose the most game-changing strategic challenge to the U.K.” MI5 said in January 2022 that a London-based lawyer had tried to “covertly interfere in U.K. politics” on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party — including by channeling money to an opposition Labour Party lawmaker. 

Concern about Beijing’s activities has sparked a government-wide catch-up campaign on China, including Mandarin-language training for British officials and a push to secure new sources of critical minerals that are essential to technology. 

The review doesn’t brand China itself a threat to the U.K., and Sunak has stressed the need for economic ties with China, to the annoyance of more hawkish members of the governing Conservative Party. 

“We are sliding towards a new Cold War,” said Conservative lawmaker Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House of Commons Defense Committee. “Threats are increasing, but here we are staying on a peacetime budget.”

Speaking as he traveled to the U.S., Sunak said China’s Communist government “is increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad — and has a desire to reshape the world order.”

But, he added, “you can’t ignore China” given the size of its economy.

“It’s right to engage with China, on the issues that we can find common ground and make a difference on, for example climate change, global health, macroeconomic stability,” he said.

“That’s the right approach whilst being very robust in defending our values and our interests.” 
…

Sayfullo Saipov, the man convicted of killing eight people in an attack on a Manhattan bike path in 2017, was spared the death penalty after a federal jury deadlocked on how he should be punished. 

The deadlock means Saipov will be sentenced to life in prison without parole, because a unanimous decision is required to impose the death penalty. He will spend his sentence at Colorado’s Supermax facility, the most secure U.S. federal prison. 

Saipov, a 35-year-old Uzbek national, was convicted in January by a federal jury of committing murder with a goal of joining Islamic State, or ISIS, a group the United States has designated a “terrorist” organization. The same jury has been reconvened to consider Saipov’s punishment. 

Saipov’s case is the first federal death penalty trial since President Joe Biden, a Democrat, took office in 2021 after pledging to abolish capital punishment during his campaign. 

In its verdict form, read aloud by U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in federal court in Manhattan, the jury indicated that it did not unanimously agree that Saipov was likely to commit criminal acts of violence in prison in the future. 

The 12 jurors agreed on a number of other aggravating factors weighing in favor of the death penalty, including that Saipov planned the attack in advance and that he carried it out in support of Islamic State. 

But they also agreed on several mitigating factors, including that many of Saipov’s family members still love him despite what he had done and that a sentence of life imprisonment provides hope that he would one day realize that what he did was wrong. 

During the penalty phase of the trial, jurors heard from survivors of the attack who testified about their ongoing suffering, and jail officers who described Saipov’s outbursts and threats since his arrest. 

“The defendant is still committed to jihad and ISIS and violence,” prosecutor Amanda Houle said in her closing argument on March 7. 

Saipov’s defense lawyer, David Patton, said in his closing argument that the death penalty was “not necessary to do justice.” He said Saipov would spend 22 or 23 hours a day alone in a cell with a concrete bed if sentenced to life in prison. 
…

Fourteen children of injured or fallen Ukrainian war heroes got a chance to spend two weeks of vacation in Denver, Colorado, thanks to local volunteers from this U.S. state. Svitlana Prystynska has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Volodymyr Petryniv
…

Boeing structural analysis engineer George Ndayizeye, who grew up in Burundi, has won a 2023 Black Engineer of the Year Legacy Award. He spoke with VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya outside Seattle.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden assured Americans on Monday that the U.S. banking system is secure and that taxpayers would not bail out investors at two banks that collapsed.

“Americans can have confidence the banking system is safe. Your deposits are safe,” Biden said in a five-minute statement delivered at the White House as businesses opened for the work week.

He said that all customers at the California-based Silicon Valley Bank and the New York-based Signature Bank would have immediate access to their deposits as federal financial officials take control of their operations.

“No losses will be borne by taxpayers,” Biden declared. “Managers of these banks will be fired. Investors in these banks will not be protected.”

He said customers’ deposits will be covered by funds banks routinely pay into a U.S. government-held account for such emergencies.

But he vowed, “We must get a full accounting of what happened” at the two banks.

He ignored reporters’ questions about the cause of the failures, but financial experts say both banks were affected by a rise in interest rates, which negatively affected the market values of significant portions of their assets, such as bonds and mortgage-backed securities.

Banks don’t lose money if they hold such notes until maturity. But if they must sell them to cover depositor withdrawals, as was the case in recent days, the losses can quickly mount.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported that industrywide, U.S. banks at the end of last year reported $620 billion in such paper losses caused by rising interest rates.

In a statement late Sunday, Biden said, “I am firmly committed to holding those responsible for this mess fully accountable and to continuing our efforts to strengthen oversight and regulation of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.”

The statement followed a meeting of officials from top financial regulators, and said the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, was also giving other banks access to an emergency lending program to provide additional stability to the wider banking system.

The FDIC, which insures deposits up to $250,000 and supervises financial institutions, said Monday it transferred all Silicon Valley Bank deposits to a so-called “bridge bank.” The new bank is run by a board appointed by the agency until it can stabilize operations.

The Bank of England also announced Monday the sale of Silicon Valley Bank’s United Kingdom subsidiary to HSBC to stabilize the bank, “ensuring the continuity of banking services, minimizing disruption to the U.K. technology sector and supporting confidence in the financial system.”

A Bank of England statement said all depositor money was safe and that Silicon Valley Bank U.K. would continue operating as normal.

The actions were prompted by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, which U.S. regulators seized on Friday after concerns about the bank’s financial health led to a large number of depositors withdrawing their money at the same time.

With about $200 billion in assets, Silicon Valley Bank’s failure was the second largest in U.S. history. The bank was heavily involved in financing for venture capital firms, especially in the tech sector.

Signature Bank also had a large portion of clients in the tech sector, including cryptocurrency. Its failure, with more than $100 billion in assets, was the third largest in U.S. history, behind Washington Mutual and Silicon Valley Bank.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration will approve a major and controversial oil drilling project in Alaska on Monday, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

The decision to move ahead with the project by authorizing three drill sites in northwestern Alaska would come a day after Biden announced sweeping curbs on oil and gas leasing to protect up to 6.5 million hectares of water and land in the region. 

The Willow project, led by energy giant ConocoPhillips, would be located inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a 9.3 million-hectare area on the state’s North Slope that is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the United States. 

Earlier on Sunday, the U.S. Interior Department unveiled actions to make nearly 1.2 million hectares of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean “indefinitely off limits” for oil and gas leasing, building on an Obama-era ban and effectively closing off U.S. Arctic waters to oil exploration. 

In addition to the drilling ban, the government will put forward new protections for more than 5.2 million hectares of “ecologically sensitive” Special Areas within Alaska’s petroleum reserve, the administration said in a statement on Sunday. 

The area includes the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon and Peard Bay Special Areas. 

The developments unfolded as Biden tries to balance his goals of decarbonizing the U.S. economy with calls to increase domestic fuel supply to keep prices low. 

Willow has support from the oil and gas industry and state officials eager for jobs, but it is fiercely opposed by environmental groups who want to move rapidly away from fossil fuels to combat climate change. 

An environmental group said the new protections announced on Sunday did not go far enough, and the government should stop oil and gas developments to help fight climate change. 

“Protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn’t make sense, and it won’t help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project,” said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. 
…

Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is poised to testify Monday before a Manhattan grand jury investigating hush-money payments he arranged and made on the former president’s behalf. 

Cohen’s impending grand jury appearance was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about grand jury proceedings and did so on condition of anonymity. 

Cohen’s closed-door testimony is coming at a critical time as the Manhattan district attorney’s office closes in on a decision on whether to seek charges against Trump. 

A Trump loyalist turned adversary, Cohen is likely to provide critical details about whatever involvement the Republican presidential candidate may have had in the payments, made in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, to two women who alleged affairs with him. 

Cohen has given prosecutors evidence, including voice recordings of conversations he had with a lawyer for one of the women, as well as emails and text messages. He also has recordings of a conversation in which he and Trump spoke about an arrangement to pay the other woman through the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer. 

Prosecutors appear to be looking at whether Trump committed crimes in how the payments were made or how they were accounted for internally at Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. 

One possible charge would be falsifying business records, a misdemeanor unless prosecutors could prove it was done to conceal another crime. No former U.S. president has ever been charged with a crime. 

Trump has denied the affairs and has said he did nothing wrong. Prosecutors have invited him to testify before the grand jury, and he has the right to testify under New York law. However, legal experts say he is unlikely to do so because it wouldn’t benefit his defense and he’d have to give up a cloak of immunity that’s automatically granted to grand jury witnesses under state law. 

Cohen served prison time after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations, for arranging the payouts to porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal to keep them from going public. He has also been disbarred. 

Trump’s lawyers could point to those factors in an attempt to undermine Cohen’s credibility, if the former president is charged and Cohen ends up testifying at trial. 

Cohen has been meeting regularly with Manhattan prosecutors in recent weeks, including a daylong session Friday to prepare for his grand jury appearance. 

The panel has been hearing evidence since January in what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has called the “next chapter” of his office’s yearslong Trump investigation. But the hush-money payments — perhaps the most salacious of the avenues of inquiry into Trump — are well-trodden ground. 

Federal prosecutors and Bragg’s predecessor in the D.A.’s office, Cyrus Vance Jr., each scrutinized the payments but didn’t charge Trump.  

Cohen declined to comment to reporters as he left the meeting, saying he’d be “taking a little bit of time now to stay silent and allow the D.A. build their case.” 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office also declined to comment. 

Trump continued to lash out at the probe on social media Friday, calling the case a “Scam, Injustice, Mockery, and Complete and Total Weaponization of Law Enforcement in order to affect a Presidential Election!” 

Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 through his own company and was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as “legal expenses.” 

McDougal’s $150,000 payment was made through the publisher of the National Enquirer, which squelched her story in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.” 

According to federal prosecutors who charged Cohen, the Trump Organization then “grossed up” Cohen’s reimbursement for the Daniels payment for “tax purposes,” giving him $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus, for a total of $420,000. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden is due to speak Monday about the banking system after the government acted to try to contain a potential crisis from the failure of two major banks. 

“The American people and American businesses can have confidence that their bank deposits will be there when they need them,” Biden said in a statement late Sunday. “I am firmly committed to holding those responsible for this mess fully accountable and to continuing our efforts to strengthen oversight and regulation of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.” 

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement Sunday that depositors at the California-based Silicon Valley Bank and the New York-based Signature Bank will have access to all of their money on Monday. 

The regulators also said no losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be borne by the taxpayer. 

The statement followed a meeting of officials from top financial regulators, and said the Federal Reserve was also giving other banks access to an emergency lending program to provide additional stability to the wider banking system. 

The actions were prompted by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, which regulators seized on Friday after concerns about the bank’s financial health led to a large number of depositors withdrawing their money at the same time. 

With about $200 billion in assets, Silicon Valley Bank’s failure was the second-largest in U.S. history.  The bank was heavily involved in financing for venture capital firms, especially in the tech sector. 

Signature Bank also had a large portion of clients in the tech sector, including cryptocurrency. Its failure, with more than $100 billion in assets, was the third-largest in the country’s history. 

Both banks were affected by a rise in interest rates, which negatively affected the market values of significant portions of their assets such as bonds and mortgage-backed securities. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

…

The U.S. government took extraordinary steps Sunday to stop a potential banking crisis after the historic failure of Silicon Valley Bank, assuring depositors at the failed financial institution that they would be able to access all of their money quickly.

The announcement came amid fears that the factors that caused the Santa Clara, California-based bank to fail could spread, and only hours before trading began in Asia. Regulators had worked all weekend to try and come up with a buyer for the bank, which was the second largest bank failure in history. Those efforts appeared to have failed as of Sunday.

In a sign of quickly the financial bleeding was occurring, regulators announced that New York-based Signature Bank had failed and was being seized on Sunday. At more than $110 billion in assets, Signature Bank is the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and FDIC said Sunday that all Silicon Valley Bank clients will be protected and have access to their funds and announced steps designed to protect the bank’s customers and prevent more bank runs.

“This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth,” the agencies said in a joint statement.

Regulators had to rush to close Silicon Valley Bank, a financial institution with more than $200 billion in assets, on Friday when it experienced a traditional run on the bank where depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. It is the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only the 2008 failure of Washington Mutual.

Some prominent Silicon Valley executives feared that if Washington didn’t rescue the failed bank, customers would make runs on other financial institutions in the coming days. Stock prices plunged over the last few days at other banks that cater to technology companies, including First Republic Bank and PacWest Bank.

Among the bank’s customers are a range of companies from California’s wine industry, where many wineries rely on Silicon Valley Bank for loans, and technology startups devoted to combating climate change.

Sunrun, which sells and leases solar energy systems, had less than $80 million of cash deposits with Silicon Valley Bank as of Friday and expects to have more information on expected recovery in the coming week, the company said in a statement.

Stitchfix, the popular clothing retail website, disclosed in a recent quarterly report that it had a credit line of up to $100 million with Silicon Valley Bank and other lenders.

Silicon Valley Bank began its slide into insolvency when its customers, largely technology companies that needed cash as they struggled to get financing, started withdrawing their deposits. The bank had to sell bonds at a loss to cover the withdrawals, leading to the largest failure of a U.S. financial institution since the height of the financial crisis.

Yellen described rising interest rates, which have been increased by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation, as the core problem for Silicon Valley Bank. Many of its assets, such as bonds or mortgage-backed securities, lost market value as rates climbed.

Sheila Bair, who was chairwoman of the FDIC chair during the 2008 financial crisis, recalled that with almost all the bank failures during that time, “we sold a failed bank to a healthy bank. And usually, the healthy acquirer would also cover the uninsured because they wanted the franchise value of those large depositors so optimally, that’s the best outcome.”

But with Silicon Valley Bank, she told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “this was a liquidity failure, it was a bank run, so they didn’t have time to prepare to market the bank. So they’re having to do that now and playing catch-up.”
…

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will invite U.S. President Joe Biden to Northern Ireland in April to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which largely brought an end to three decades of political violence.

Sunak said Sunday that he would issue a formal invite to the celebrations, which are due to take place in the middle of April.

“I’ll be keen to invite him to come,” he told reporters on his plane as he flew to the United States for meetings with Biden and Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia. “It’s not confirmed yet. But it will be something that obviously I’ll be talking to him about.

“We’ve got this very important milestone to commemorate and celebrate — the 25th anniversary.”

The Good Friday Agreement was a peace deal that largely ended the “Troubles,” three decades of violence that had convulsed Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was signed April 10, 1998, and partially brokered by the U.S. government of then President Bill Clinton.

The anniversary had been overshadowed in recent months after Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party boycotted the power-sharing assembly that made up part of the peace deal, in protest at post-Brexit trade rules that treated the province differently to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Sunak has recently struck a new deal with the European Union to ease the checks and paperwork needed to move goods from Britain to Northern Ireland, but the Democratic Unionist Party is yet to say whether they will support the plan.

“What I’m concentrating on now is talking to everyone in Northern Ireland so we can find a positive way to move forward and get power-sharing up and running — that’s my priority,” Sunak said.
…