The effort to remove oil from the largest crude spill in the United States in nearly a decade will extend into next week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday, making it likely that the Keystone pipeline shutdown will last for several more days. 

TC Energy shut the largest oil pipeline to the United States from Canada on Wednesday after it leaked 14,000 barrels of oil into a Kansas creek. It said on Friday it is still determining when it will be able to return the line to service.  

The outage on the Keystone, which carries 622,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day to various parts of the United States, could affect inventories at the key Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub and cut crude supplies to two oil refining centers, analysts said. Crews in Kansas continued cleanup efforts on Friday, but the cause of the spill remained unknown.  

“We’re beginning to get a better sense of the cleanup efforts that will need to be undertaken in the longer term,” said Kellen Ashford, spokesperson for the EPA Region 7, which includes Kansas. 

TC Energy aims to restart on Saturday a pipeline segment that sends oil to Illinois, and another portion that brings oil to Cushing on December 20, Bloomberg News reported, citing sources. Reuters has not verified those details. 

This is the third spill of several thousand barrels of crude on the pipeline since it first opened in 2010. A previous Keystone spill had caused the pipeline to remain shut for about two weeks.  

The spill is in Washington County, a rural area of about 5,500 people about 320 kilometers northwest of Kansas City. 

The oil spill has not threatened the local water supply or forced residents to evacuate, Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Randy Hubbard told Reuters. Workers quickly set up a containment area to restrict oil that had spilled into a creek from flowing downstream. 

“There is no human consumption drinking water that would come out of this,” Hubbard said. 

Livestock producers in the area have been notified and have taken their own corrective measures to protect their animals, he added. 

The EPA is the main federal agency that oversees inland oil spills. If the EPA finds TC Energy liable for the spill, the company would be responsible for the cost of cleanup and repairing any harm to the environment, as well as potential civil and criminal penalties. 

Pipeline operators are typically held accountable for breaches by the EPA through the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the related Oil Pollution Act, among others, according to Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College Law School.  

Those federal acts restrict the discharge of pollutants such as oil into waterways and hold pipeline operators responsible for the costs associated with containment, cleanup and damages from spills. 

A lengthy shutdown of the pipeline could also lead to Canadian crude getting bottlenecked in Alberta, and drive prices at the Hardisty storage hub lower, although price reaction on Friday was muted. 

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has to approve the restart of the line. Even once the pipeline starts operating again, the affected area will have to flow at reduced rates pending PHMSA approval. 

 
…

The Wall Street Journal reports U.S. smartphone giant Apple Inc. is accelerating plans to move some China-based production lines to other southeastern Asian countries such as India and Vietnam.

That, analysts said, would represent a significant shift in the so-called de-Sinification of global supply chains after manufacturers become aware of risks of concentrating production in China.

China’s zero-COVID policy, which paralyzed some of its supply chains, and its deteriorating business environment would be the major trigger behind the shift, they added.

India: the world’s next factory?

“China’s anti-virus measures have forced many multinationals, including Apple, to hedge against the risk of disrupted supply chains. Though China is set to ease COVID restrictions, uncertainty remains because these multinationals have had experienced much sudden change of policy there – reasons behind Apple’s accelerated relocation of its production lines outward,” Darson Chiu, a research fellow of the economic forecasting center under the Institute of Economic Research (TIER) in Taipei, told VOA over the phone.

He said that many companies, including Apple, have seen the potential in India in competing with China to be “the world’s next factory,” adding that cost of labor and land is “at one-fifth of the level in China.”

“This highlights an evolving trend, where many companies, not just Apple, are concerned about the environment in China, and not just because of COVID. When we look at theft of intellectual property, that’s of technology, cyber-attacks on companies inside China, the onerous restrictions that apply from Chinese government to data flows, there are a number of factors that are making China a much less attractive environment for manufacturers to be,” Stephen Ezell, director of global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) in Washington told VOA by video.

“And I think it’s possible that Apple represents the tip of the spear for a much greater share of global high-tech production moving outside of China,” he added.

A domino effect?

Ezell said more multinationals might follow suit if Apple succeeds in shipping products from India, as it had produced a small percentage of iPhone 14s there.

Citing people involved in the discussion, The Wall Street Journal reported on December 6 that Apple had asked its suppliers to plan more actively for assembling its products elsewhere in Asia, “particularly India and Vietnam,” to reduce dependence on China-based assemblers, led by Taiwan-headquartered Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant. 

Turmoil over anti-virus measures and wage disputes last month among the plant’s 300,000 workers have made Apple uncomfortable having so much business tied up in the plant, which made about 85% of the iPhone’s pro series, according to the report.

It added that Apple’s long-term goal is to ship 40% to 45% of iPhones from India, compared with a current single-digit percentage, citing Ming-chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities in Hong Kong.

When asked by VOA, Foxconn refused to comment. But the company Thursday announced on its WeChat account that it has lifted closed-loop Covid restrictions at its Zhengzhou plant.

Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China, and technology policy lead at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington, told VOA that Apple has already done some manufacturing with Foxconn in India, which plans to add 50,000 workers to total at 70,000 there over the next two years.

He warned, though, that it will be hard for Foxconn to duplicate its highly optimized China supply chain in India, where skilled workers and infrastructure including airports, ports and high-speed rail, as well as an ecosystem of component suppliers at a low cost, are lacking.

Painful transition

“India has some advantages … it does tend to crank out a lot of engineers but you’re talking about a sort of different cultural issues and expectations and labor practices, and all these things. So it’s not as easy as just picking up something and dropping it into another country. You have to learn the local situation. You have to work with local governments. That can be painful,” Triolo told VOA by video.

He added that, even though companies like Foxconn are good at managing production, the cost structures will be different in India.

Hence, he noted that some of Apple’s diversification of supply chains may happen inside China, as Foxconn is reportedly looking to expand at its Taiyuan plant in China’s northern Shanxi province.

The biggest challenge of all lies in India’s ability to strengthen its depth of supplier base for Apple at an optimal cost, Ezell said.

“The production ecosystem, that’s what’s the key driver in decreasing the cost, not just low labor costs. So, the challenge for India is going to be several folds. One, building a localized base of suppliers that can support production at lower cost. And then more broadly, ensuring that India does have the highly skilled trained workforce and individuals that had experience and building what are truly very complex electronics with iPads or phones,” Ezell said.

Negative impact on China’s jobless rate

Arthur Guo, a senior analyst at the market intelligence firm International Data Corp in Beijing, said he would not be surprised to see Apple diversify the production of its iPhone 15 next year after the lockdown at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant has seriously affected the supply of the iPhone 14.

That will hurr China’s economic growth and unemployment rate, Guo said in a written reply to VOA.

“However, this relocating process will last for a period and will not be implemented immediately. In the future, we believe China still will be an important production country for Apple and will find a better solution to this problem,” Guo added.

Earlier estimates by TF’s Kuo showed that the total shipment of iPhone 14 pro and pro max in the fourth quarter would be 15 million to 20 million units less than expected due to labor protests at the Zhengzhou plant.
…

A Native American tribe in Northern California is racing toward a Friday deadline to conclude its search for human remains and cultural artifacts on what was once a tribal village site but will soon be home to a shared-use path and parking area.

Ancestors of the Wintu Tribe of Northern California were buried near the site, and tribal leaders said they didn’t receive proper notification about construction plans from the Federal Highway Administration, which is in charge of the project.

The construction, which began in July, will create a 3,900-foot (1,190-meter) path, a parking area and restroom facilities near Redding, a small California city about 120 miles (190 kilometers) south of the Oregon border. It will be located off Interstate 5, one of the state’s major north-south roads, with the path running along the Sacramento River. The project is a partnership among the highway administration, Redding and the Bureau of Land Management.

The Federal Highway Administration shared with The Associated Press a copy of the 2019 letter it says it sent to tribal leaders. But officials with the tribe say they never received a copy of it, nor any follow-up, before construction began. Federal law requires tribal consultation, and state law requires a review of whether a project could affect tribal cultural resources before proceeding with the construction of trails, highways, streets and other public areas.

City officials in Redding also sent the tribe a letter in September 2019 outlining the project and asking the tribe to respond within 30 days if it wanted to request consultation. Records provided by the city show Gary Rickard, the tribe’s chairman, signed for the letter’s delivery.

The dispute over whether the tribe was properly consulted comes as the Biden administration has pledged to make sure Native Americans have a stronger voice in decisions made by federal agencies.

“I made a commitment that my administration would prioritize and respect nation-to-nation relationships, and I’m going to make sure that happens,” President Joe Biden said at a recent White House Tribal Nations Summit.

The Wintu Tribe of Northern California was originally made up of nine bands that historically have the Penutian language family in common. Today, the tribe has about 450 citizens, said Secretary Cindy Hogue.

The tribe first became aware of the trail construction through Robert Garcia, a monitor and tribal citizen who was walking near the site one day in August, said his niece Shawna Garcia, a council member-elect for the tribe.

In late October, Art Garcia, the tribe’s cultural resources manager, found a bone fragment in the soil, and the county coroner’s office was notified so an investigator could review whether it was human, the sheriff’s department said in a release. The remains were deemed too small to be identifiable, the department said.

The federal government agreed to grant Art Garcia and other monitors about 1,000 hours to sift through the site for remains and artifacts.

So far, the team has found arrowheads, mortars and pestles, among other items, Shawna Garcia said. There were originally 12 monitors searching for remains and artifacts, and there were nine as of Tuesday, she said.

She said it’s frustrating that the team is “still cleaning up a mess that” was a result of construction, referring to the sifting that remains to be done.

More possible remains have been found, and the coroner’s office has ruled them nonhuman animal remains or indeterminate fragments. Hailey Collord-Stalder, a county deputy coroner investigator, said she last reviewed possible remains in early November.

Rickard, the tribe’s chair, said the lack of early communication between the Federal Highway Administration and the tribe is uncommon compared with other talks between the tribe and governmental agencies, he said. The government should have been able to tell the risk of disturbing remains, Rickard added.

“You don’t have to be an archaeologist to go out there and look and realize, oh, man, yeah, this is a village site,” he said. “And when you have a village, people pass away and they bury them.”

Construction halted in the area where the bone fragment was first found and temporarily at the end of the trail but was ongoing elsewhere, a highway administration spokesperson said.

The Federal Highway Administration’s 2019 letter stated the tribe had 30 days to respond with information about cultural resources within the project site. The agency addressed it to former chair Wade McMasters, who had already left the job.

“Please inform us if your Tribe has a religious or cultural affiliation to resources that have been identified” in the project area, it reads. “Your knowledge of the area is of great value and your feedback is important.”

Before construction began, a federally qualified archaeologist surveyed the location where the project was being proposed, the agency spokesperson said. And in June 2020, the city of Redding signed a document indicating that the agency was exempt from portions of a state law that requires agencies to assess whether projects could threaten resources including those of cultural significance to tribes.

The document says the “project has no potential to have a significant effect on the environment.”

Even though the tribe isn’t federally recognized, agencies are still required by state and federal law to contact them before beginning construction on a project like this, since they are considered a stakeholder, said Mark Hylkema, an archaeologist for the Santa Cruz district of California State Parks.

Agencies should also make multiple attempts to contact tribes if they don’t get a response, including making phone calls, he said.

“It’s good policy, and any agency knows that,” Hylkema said.

The Federal Highway Administration may give the tribe more time to search through the remains, but construction of the trail is expected to wrap later this month, the spokesperson said.

Despite their frustrations, Art Garcia said, his team won’t stop searching with the time they have left.

“We’re not going to give up,” he said.
…

The Biden administration hopes to use a gathering of 50 African delegations in Washington “to uplift and empower African institutions, citizens and nations” through discussions about challenges such as health, democracy, governance, investment, development, climate change and more, senior administration officials said Thursday.

Participants in next week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit will spend three days in Washington discussing the challenges, needs and hopes of one-fifth of the world’s population, spread over a landmass that is larger than China, India, the continental U.S. and most of Europe, combined, and where as many as one-third of the world’s languages are spoken.

This year’s summit, which begins Tuesday, will focus on “deepening and expanding the long term U.S.-Africa partnership and advancing our shared priorities, amplifying African voices to collaboratively meet this era’s defining challenges,” a senior administration official said. Officials briefed reporters Thursday, on condition that their names would not be used, as is common in White House briefings.

Another senior administration official said they will announce “major deliverables and initiatives” over the three-day-summit but declined to give details.

“This is also about defining a global agenda together,” the official said, “where there are opportunities where Africans should – will, must – sit at the table and help us work through some of the most difficult challenges in this consequential decade.”

Who’s in – and out

A spokesperson for the National Security Council told VOA that all 50 invited delegations – from 49 countries plus the African Union – “have confirmed their participation” but did not say at what level of government.

Five countries were not invited, the White House said. Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Sudan were excluded because the African Union has suspended them over unconstitutional changes of government; and the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with the pariah state of Eritrea.

Not all delegations plan to send heads of state, officials told various reporters in VOA’s Africa Division – raising questions about how effective deliberations can be without the direct involvement of leaders who wield considerable power.

South Sudan’s president will send his foreign minister. Ethiopia’s prime minister, whose nation is immersed in an ethnically driven conflict, is likely to be represented by that nation’s ceremonial president, who will be a rare female figure on a stage dominated by men. The president of South Africa, among the most advanced nations on the continent, is staring down challenges from within the ruling African National Congress, which meets next week for a high-stakes leadership conference. And Zimbabwe’s president remains under U.S. visa restrictions while accused of undermining democracy and abusing human rights.

But several continental heavyweights will attend, including African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki and the presidents of African oil giants Angola and Nigeria. The new president of Kenya has signaled that he will be there, as will the leader of Uganda, who has held that role for 36 years.

Military

The summit will also look at how the U.S. can work with African governments on security challenges, which are especially acute in the Sahel region and in Somalia.

Speaking to the Defense Writers Group on Tuesday, Chidi Blyden, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for African Affairs, said that Somalia’s militant Islamist al-Shabab group remains the “No. 1” threat.

Briefing reporters Thursday, a senior defense official said the Pentagon is taking a three-pronged approach – blending defense, development and diplomacy – to address African security challenges.

“Yes, the violent extremist threat is very challenging, but what we also realize is that it is exacerbated by the fact that there are challenges with governance and there are a lack of opportunities, and the development challenges also make for a perfect storm of instability and fragility in some of these countries,” the defense official said. “And that’s not something that you can fix with just a weapons system or more training.”

Pentagon officials also expressed concern over Russia’s shadowy mercenary Wagner Group, which has made landfall in several African nations struggling with insecurity and instability, and where, the official said, “their presence has exacerbated some of those conditions, rather than contributing to improving the security situation.”

Money

On one topic, however, most African nations agree: the world’s richest nation has a large role to play in promoting prosperity and development on the continent.

“More needs to be done by the United States as regards U.S.-Africa trade, as regards U.S. investments in Africa, as regards U.S. lending to Africa and indeed, U.S. aid to Africa,” said Aloysius Uche Ordu, director of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution.

He added that he was “delighted” to note that the U.S. very recently announced an increased, $600 million commitment to the African Development Fund, which works on financing in low-income countries.

“Now we’re hoping that this momentum could be maintained in terms of the push of U.S. support to Africa,” he said.

U.S. officials are aware of this, Blyden said.

“The Africa Leaders Summit will place a lot of emphasis on a business forum that will take the time to bring together a number of private sector investors who can exchange with African partners, exactly what they are able to collaborate on in the different sectors of business that we have here in the United States,” she said.

Morality

And White House officials said they plan to confront thorny issues, like African nations’ reluctance to condemn Russia over its February invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, the U.S. has long been wary of China’s advances on the continent through its ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

“While we do not wish to make our African partners choose sides, the U.S. strives to be the partner of choice by offering relationships based on mutual respect and values,” the defense official said, echoing similar U.S. diplomatic pronouncements. “By providing higher quality products and services and by working together with our partners on issues that are important to them,” the defense official said. “We are confident that our relationship will bring about long-term stability and prosperity.”

And then there is the sticky issue of the leaders themselves. Currently, five African leaders have ruled for more than 30 years each, and a half dozen more have been in power for longer than a decade.

And many face credible, serious allegations: The U.S. State Department, in an annual report, described corruption under Nigeria’s president as being “massive, widespread, and pervasive.”

Uganda’s president, who has ruled since 1986, has been accused of using security forces to commit politically related abuses, secure election victories and silence dissent.

And Kenya’s incoming president faced murder, deportation and persecution charges at the International Criminal Court over his role in 2007 postelection violence that killed about 1,200 people. His case was dismissed, but the court did not acquit him.

Human Rights Watch has urged the White House to make human rights a focus at this summit.

“Hosting these leaders at the White House will further legitimize these regimes, sending a clear message that the U.S. government values security considerations over human rights,” wrote Nicole Widdersheim, deputy Washington director, and Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director.

VOA asked the White House, separately, how President Joe Biden would approach these sensitive topics, and if he was concerned about being seen with leaders with such reputations.

“The president’s foreign policy is rooted in values – values like promoting human rights,” the official responded. “Human rights will always be on the agenda, and the president will not shy away from raising these issues with any foreign leader anywhere in the world.”
…

As the Biden administration celebrates the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian custody, it is under pressure to free other Americans held hostage abroad, including Paul Whelan, detained in Russia since 2018. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara has the report.
…

The Biden administration filed a complaint on Thursday aimed at blocking tech giant Microsoft’s $69 billion bid to buy “Call of Duty” games maker Activision, over concerns the deal would deny rivals access to popular games.

Microsoft, which owns the Xbox, said in January 2022 that it would buy Activision for $68.7 billion in the biggest gaming industry deal in history.

In its complaint, the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces antitrust law, said that Microsoft had a record of buying valuable gaming content and using it to suppress competition from rival consoles.

“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” said Holly Vedova, director of the FTC Bureau of Competition. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”

Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company would fight the FTC. “While we believed in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court,” he said. 

The decision to sue comes as the Biden administration has taken a more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement. The U.S. Department of Justice recently stopped a $2.2 billion merger of Penguin Random House, the world’s largest book publisher, and smaller U.S. rival Simon & Schuster.

Shares in Microsoft and Activision both fell on news of the FTC complaint. Shares in Activision were down 2.3% at $74.19 per share, while Microsoft slipped from earlier highs but was still trading nearly 1% higher for the day at $246.31.

The U.S. software company had said it wanted the deal to help it compete with gaming leaders Tencent and PlayStation owner Sony, which has criticized the deal.

To woo regulators, shortly after the deal was announced Microsoft launched a new set of principles for its app store, including open access to developers who meet privacy and security standards.

And in December, in another move to blunt criticism, Microsoft entered into a 10-year commitment to bring “Call of Duty” to Nintendo platforms, bringing the popular first-person shooter series to the company for the first time. Microsoft made the same offer to Sony.

Chair Lina Khan and the two Democrats on the commission voted to approve the complaint, while Commissioner Christine Wilson voted no. 

 
…

Viktor Bout, the former Russian military officer convicted of illegal arms trafficking in U.S. courts in 2012, and who was serving a 25-year prison sentence, has had his sentence commuted and is being repatriated as part of a prisoner exchange that freed United States basketball star Brittney Griner from prison in Russia.

Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” started an air freight business in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, which prosecutors alleged he used to transport military-grade weapons around the world, often supplying arms to combatants on opposing sides of the same conflicts.

In an indictment of Bout issued in February 2010, the U.S. Justice Department alleged, “Bout, an international weapons trafficker since the 1990s, has carried out a massive weapons-trafficking business by assembling a fleet of cargo airplanes capable of transporting weapons and military equipment to various parts of the world, including Africa, South America, and the Middle East. The arms that Bout has sold or brokered have fueled conflicts and supported regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.”

The Russian government has long claimed that Bout was wrongly convicted and unjustly imprisoned. He had, most recently, been held in a federal prison facility in the city of Marion in the U.S. state of Illinois.

Griner had spent 10 months in prison in Russia after being arrested at a Moscow airport with a small amount of cannabis oil in an electronic cigarette cartridge in her luggage. Sentenced to nine years in prison, she was recently transferred to a prison labor camp.

Early life

Little is known for certain about Bout’s early life, other than that he grew up in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and was conscripted into the Russian military at age 18. He is believed to be multilingual, and is thought to have studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. The institute has close ties to Russian intelligence services.

Bout appears to have left military service around the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union, and moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he purchased four Soviet-era Antonov-8 cargo planes and established an air freight firm called Air Cess.

Bout’s fleet of planes eventually numbered around 60, and much of his business was legitimate. According to Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of the book Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible, Bout’s contracts included some with the U.S. government for ferrying reconstruction supplies into Afghanistan and some with the United Nations for delivering humanitarian aid.

Active in Africa

It was arms dealing, however, that made Bout both internationally famous and extremely wealthy. In the years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, vast quantities of military weapons appeared on the black market, and prosecutors and journalists have produced evidence that Bout transported weapons to conflict zones around the globe, often to parties that were subject to international arms embargoes.

Bout was especially active in Africa, and in the 1990s is believed to have supplied arms to both the government of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) who were fighting against it.

Similarly, Bout is believed to have supplied arms to both sides of the civil war in what was then Zaire, and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to have sold arms used in conflicts in Rwanda, Sudan, and Somalia.

Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who was convicted of war crimes for his role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, is also believed to have been one of Bout’s clients.

‘Truly a monster’

David M. Crane, the founding chief prosecutor of the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone, saw the results of Bout’s arms dealing in West Africa up close.

“He was truly a monster in his own right,” Crane told VOA. “This is someone who spread his arms and ammunition around the world, in very dark corners of the world, causing pain and suffering wherever he went.”

Crane, who went on to found the non-profit Global Accountability Network, which seeks justice for the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, said that the destruction wrought in Sierra Leone by the forces Bout armed was extensive.

“He was the main supplier of arms and ammunition…to that terrible conflict in West Africa, which saw the murder, rape, maiming and mutilation of over 1.2 million human beings,” Chase said.

While Africa may have been Bout’s primary focus, he was also active in other parts of the world. For example, he is believed to have sold weapons and equipment to both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance that opposed it in the late 1990s.

Captured

By the late 2000s, Bout was subject to multiple arrest warrants around the world, and rarely left Russia, where the government of Vladimir Putin refused to extradite him.

In 2008, however, he was lured to Bangkok, Thailand, for a meeting with people he believed to be representatives of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, the rebel group that for decades sought to overthrow the Colombian government before a 2016 peace accord. FARC was, at the time, designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

In fact, Bout was actually meeting with informants for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who recorded him offering to sell them hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weaponry. In the conversation, Bout acknowledged that the missiles, in particular, were to be used to bring down U.S. planes flying drug interdiction missions.

Bout was arrested on the spot by Thai law enforcement, and two years later he was extradited to the U.S., where he was charged with several crimes, including breaking weapons embargoes, conspiring to kill U.S. officials, and various money laundering and wire fraud charges.

In 2012, Bout was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Long process

In a statement on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry characterized the negotiations that led to Bout’s release as long, with the U.S. resisting demands that he be made part of the deal.

“Washington was categorically refusing to engage in dialogue on putting the Russian national on the exchange scheme,” the foreign ministry told the news outlet TASS. “Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work towards the release of our fellow countryman.”

In remarks announcing Griner’s release Thursday morning, U.S. President Joe Biden did not mention Bout, but criticized Russia for holding the basketball star. He said that Griner “lost months of her life [and] experienced a needless trauma.”

Biden also referred to another high-profile American detainee in Russia, former Marine Paul Whelan, who has been held there for four years.

“We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years,” Biden said. “This was not a choice of which American to bring home….Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”
…

The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on prominent Turkish businessman Sitki Ayan and his network of companies, accusing him of acting as a facilitator for oil sales and money laundering on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Ayan’s companies have established international sales contracts for Iranian oil, arranged shipments and helped launder the proceeds and obscured the origin of the Iranian oil on behalf of Iran’s Quds Force, an arm of the IRGC, the Treasury said in a statement first reported by Reuters.

“Ayan has established business contracts to sell Iranian oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars to buyers” in China, the United Arab Emirates and Europe, the statement says, adding that he then funneled the proceeds back to the Quds Force.

Ayan’s son Bahaddin Ayan, his associate Kasim Oztas and two other Turkish citizens involved in his business network are also designated, along with 26 companies including his ASB Group of Companies, a Gibraltar-based holding company and a vessel.

Ayan, the son Bahaddin and Oztas were not immediately available for comment. Ayan’s ASB Group and Turkey’s Directorate of Communications did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Treasury action freezes any U.S. assets of those designated and generally bars Americans from dealing with them. Those that engage in certain transactions with those designated also risk sanctions.

The U.S. measures come at a time when ties between the United States and Turkey are strained over a host of issues, including disagreement over Syria policy and Ankara’s purchase of Russian air defense systems.

Most recently, Washington has warned Turkey to refrain from carrying out a military incursion into northern Syria after Ankara said it was preparing a possible ground invasion against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia that it views as terrorists but who make up the bulk of U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Washington maintains sweeping sanctions on Iran and has looked for ways to increase pressure as efforts to resurrect a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran have stalled.

U.S. President Joe Biden had sought to negotiate the return of Iran to the nuclear deal after former President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement in 2018.

The 2015 agreement limited Iran’s uranium enrichment activity to make it harder for Tehran to develop nuclear arms in return for lifting international sanctions. Iran denies wanting to acquire nuclear weapons.
…

China wants stabilized relations with the United States in the short term as it faces domestic economic challenges and pushback in Asia to its assertive diplomacy, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Thursday.

Frustrations over China’s strict COVID-19 protocols boiled over into widespread protests last month, the biggest show of public discontent since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. The rules had contributed to a slowing economy, but the recent easing of restrictions has also created fresh concern that the virus could soon run wild.

Campbell said those issues, coupled with the fact that China had antagonized many of its neighbors, meant it was interested in more predictable ties with Washington in the “short term.”

“They’ve taken on and challenged many countries simultaneously,” Campbell told an Aspen Security Forum event in Washington, mentioning Chinese territorial disputes with Japan and India. “I think they recognize that that has, in many respects, backfired.”

“All of that suggests to me that the last thing the Chinese need right now is an openly hostile relationship with the United States. They want a degree of predictability and stability, and we seek that as well,” Campbell said.

In the next several months, Campbell said, the world would see “a resumption of some of the more practical, predictable elements of great-power diplomacy” between Washington and Beijing.

“I think we’re going to see some developments that I believe will be reassuring to the region as a whole,” he said without elaborating.

Campbell’s remarks came after a first face-to-face meeting as leaders between Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden last month and two days after Washington announced plans to step up its rotational military presence in key region ally Australia amid shared concerns about China.

Campbell said Russia’s war in Ukraine had led to more behind-the-scenes discussions in the Indo-Pacific about maintaining peace and stability over Taiwan, the democratically governed island China claims as its territory.

“If there were a challenge, it would have terrible consequences, strategically, commercially, and that is in no one’s interests. And so I think every country understands the delicacy here,” he said.

Separately on Thursday, Ely Ratner, the top Pentagon official for the Indo-Pacific, said 2023 would likely be the most transformative year for U.S. force posture in the region in a generation.

“We are going to be making good on a strategic commitment that people have been looking for for a long time,” Ratner told the American Enterprise Institute, highlighting cooperation with regional allies the Philippines and Australia.

Campbell noted currently limited U.S. diplomatic, intelligence and military capacity in the region and added: “Building that is no small feat. It’s going to take a substantial period of time.”

Australia’s U.S. Ambassador Arthur Sinodinos told another Aspen panel that Japan would also be more involved in future military force posture initiatives in northern Australia.

Australia, Britain and the United States reached a security agreement last year known as AUKUS, which will provide Australia with the technology to deploy nuclear-powered submarines, a deal their defense ministers discussed in Washington this week.

Britain’s Washington envoy Karen Pierce told the Aspen forum there was a risk of miscalculation and misunderstanding with China “because we don’t have quite as many mechanisms as I think we need to be able to deal with whatever might come out of Chinese activity.

“And if you compare that to what we had with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, I think you can see there’s a deficit there,” she said.
…

Russia has freed U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in a high-level prisoner exchange, according to a U.S. official.

News reports say the U.S. released notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Bout as part of the deal.

President Joe Biden tweeted that he spoke to Griner and that “She is safe. She is on a plane. She is on her way home.”

“After months of being unjustly detained in Russia, held under a tolerable circumstances. Brittany will soon be back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along,” Biden said later at the White House.

Griner, the twice Olympic gold medalist was arrested February 17 at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia. She was sentenced August 4 to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs.
…

Taiwanese chip giant TSMC is building a second U.S. facility in the southwest state of Arizona, highlighting the Biden Administration’s push to bring more of the semiconductor supply chain to the United States. But are there enough trained workers there to meet the demand? Michelle Quinn has our story from Arizona, where they are ramping up training for workers and students at all levels. Videographer: Levi Stallings 
…

After more than half a century, the last Boeing 747 rolled out of a Washington state factory on Tuesday.

The 747 jumbo jet has taken on numerous roles — a cargo plane, a commercial aircraft capable of carrying nearly 500 passengers, and the Air Force One presidential aircraft — since it debuted in 1969. It was the largest commercial aircraft in the world and the first with two aisles, and it still towers over most other planes.

The plane’s design included a second deck extending from the cockpit back over the first third of the plane, giving it a distinctive hump that made the plane instantly recognizable and inspired a nickname, the Whale. More elegantly, the 747 became known as the Queen of the Skies.

It took more than 50,000 Boeing employees less than 16 months to churn out the first 747. The company has completed 1,573 more since then.

But over the past 15 years or so, Boeing and its European rival Airbus released new wide-body planes with two engines instead of the 747’s four. They were more fuel-efficient and profitable.

Delta was the last U.S. airline to use the 747 for passenger flights, which ended in 2017, although some other international carriers continue to fly it, including the German airline Lufthansa.

The final customer is the cargo carrier Atlas Air, which ordered four 747-8 freighters early this year. The last was scheduled to roll out of Boeing’s massive factory in Everett, Washington, on Tuesday night.

Boeing’s roots are in the Seattle area, and it has assembly plants in Washington state and South Carolina. The company announced in May that it would move its headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia.

The move to the Washington, D.C., area puts its executives closer to key federal government officials and the Federal Aviation Administration, which certifies Boeing passenger and cargo planes.

Boeing’s relationship with the FAA has been strained since the deadly crashes of its best-selling plane, the 737 Max, in 2018 and 2019. The FAA took nearly two years — far longer than Boeing expected — to approve design changes and allow the plane back in the air.
…

The U.S. government’s first-ever sale of offshore wind development rights off the coast of California drew $757.1 million in high bids, mainly from European companies seeking a foothold in the U.S. wind-power industry’s expansion to the Pacific Ocean. 

The auction began on Tuesday and ended Wednesday, the offshore wind industry’s first chance to snag leases in waters off the U.S. West Coast. It was a milestone in the global expansion of floating wind, a fledgling technology necessary in deep waters like those off the coast of California. 

“Today’s lease sale is further proof that industry momentum — including for floating offshore wind development — is undeniable,” U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. 

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) auctioned five lease areas equal to a combined 373,267 acres (151,056 hectares) off California’s north and central coasts. Previous federal offshore wind auctions have all been for leases in shallower waters of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Winners of the five leases were mainly divisions of European energy companies already developing projects in the U.S. offshore wind market. 

They included Norway’s Equinor; Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners; Germany’s RWE, Ocean Winds — a joint venture between France’s Engie and Portugal’s EDP Renewables; and U.S. developer Invenergy LLC.  

The $2,028 per acre the leases fetched was well below the nearly $9,000 an acre some of the same companies paid earlier this year for leases in shallower waters off the coasts of New York and New Jersey. It was also lower than the $2,861 per acre leases off the coast of North Carolina commanded at a May auction. 

The lower prices were due in part to risks developers must take on deploying an emerging technology and less regulatory support for offshore wind in California than in East Coast states, which have state mandates for offshore wind procurement. 

Another damper may have been a slowing global economy and higher interest rates tied to rising inflation. Just seven bidders participated out of an original list of 43 that were approved. 

“The macroeconomic environment has hardened significantly over the last six to 12 months,” said Alon Carmel, a partner at consultancy PA Consulting who advises offshore wind companies. “Anything that increases the cost of capital, the cost of finance, has a big negative impact on the economics of the project,” Carmel said.  

About 100 megawatts of floating wind capacity is currently installed in the world compared with 50 gigawatts (GW) for conventional offshore wind. 

Earlier this year, the administration said it aimed to have 15 GW of floating wind capacity along its coastlines by 2035, enough to power about 5 million homes.  

That goal is aligned with the government’s other target for permitting 30 GW of total offshore wind by 2030 — a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda to fight climate change and create jobs. 
…

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump found at least two items marked as classified during a recent search of a storage unit in West Palm Beach, Florida, and have provided them to the FBI, according to a published report Wednesday.

The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported that the items were discovered by an outside team brought in by Trump’s representatives to search his other properties for any additional classified materials. The nature of the classified materials was not immediately clear, but the storage unit in which they were found had been used to hold items from an office in northern Virginia used by Trump staffers after he left office, the newspaper said.

The New York Times described the storage unit as being run by the General Services Administration, a federal agency.

During an August 8 search of Trump’s Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, the FBI recovered roughly 100 documents marked as classified. That’s on top of 37 documents bearing classification markings that Trump lawyers retrieved from the home during a June visit, as well as 15 boxes containing about 184 classified documents recovered in January by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The possibility that the Justice Department had not yet recovered all classified materials has existed for months.

The FBI’s August search of Mar-a-Lago came after investigators developed evidence indicating that additional sensitive documents remained there, even though Trump representatives had certified that all classified documents requested in a Justice Department subpoena had been located and returned.

After a federal judge pressed the Trump team to demonstrate its full compliance with the subpoena, the newspaper said, it hired an outside firm to search properties including Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, as well as Trump Tower in New York.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

A spokesman for Trump, responding to reports about an outside firm’s search for classified materials, said in a statement that “President Trump and his counsel continue to be cooperative and transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal, and unwarranted attack against President Trump and his family by the weaponized Department of Justice.”

Spokesman Steven Cheung did not respond to a follow-up phone call about subsequent reporting indicating that a search of the storage unit had turned up two items with classification markings.
…

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday that Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock’s runoff election win was an important boost for Democrats.

“The practical effects of the 51-seat majority — it’s big. It’s significant,” he said. “We can breathe a sigh of relief.” 

The Senate had stood for the past two years at a 50-50 tie with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. But with Warnock winning re-election to his first full six-year term in office, Democrats have now gained a seat and secured a clear majority for the rest of President Joe Biden’s first term in office.

“After a hard-fought campaign, or should I say campaigns? It is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken,” Warnock told supporters at a victory party late Tuesday.

In the November election, both Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker failed to secure a 50% majority of the vote required in Georgia to win, leading to the runoff. As of midday Wednesday, Warnock led Walker by a little under three percentage points with 95% of votes counted.

In a concession speech in front of his supporters Tuesday, Walker said, “I don’t want any of you to stop dreaming. I don’t want any of you to stop believing in America. I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials. Most of all, continue to pray for them.”

Walker was one of multiple Senate candidates nationwide who were endorsed by former President Donald Trump but who lost their elections. During the campaign, Walker faced allegations he had paid for abortions and engaged in domestic abuse. His campaign accused Warnock of unfairly evicting tenants from properties he owns. Warnock ultimately won out in the runoff that saw record voter turnout.

Schumer told reporters that voters sent a clear message about Republican priorities, particularly in the wake of the June U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade, the court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion.

“The public began to realize how far right these MAGA Republicans had gone. The Dobbs decision was the crystallization of that. Of course, when people said, ‘Wow, these MAGA Republicans are serious about turning the dial all the way back,” he said.

Dobbs vs. Jackson was the case that led to the Supreme Court ruling.

Schumer would not discuss priorities for the new Congress but did acknowledge the clear majority gives Democrats a significant advantage in bringing their legislation and nominees up for votes.

“It’s important to the committee structure — that was a shared committee responsibility,” Amy Dacey, executive director of the Stein Institute of Policy and Politics at American University, told VOA. “Now you’ll have clear chairs who drive the calendar, drive what issues will come up in front of the Senate.”

The U.S. Congress, however, will be divided when lawmakers are sworn in for a new session in January, with Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives.

Some information provided by Reuters.
…

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is hosting Jewish leaders at the White House Wednesday to address efforts to combat hate crimes following a series of antisemitic tropes by American public figures.

Emhoff, the spouse of Vice President Kamala Harris, is the first Jewish person to be married to the number two official in the executive branch and has been outspoken about attacks on people of the Jewish faith, which he describes as an “epidemic of hate.”

“Let me be clear: words matter. People are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud, they are screaming them,” Emhoff is expected to say in his remarks, according to excerpts released by the White House.

The roundtable discussion led by Emhoff follows a surge of anti-Jewish sentiments, including from NBA star Kyrie Irving who posted a link to a film based on antisemitic disinformation on his social media, and American rapper Ye formerly known as Kanye West who in a recent interview praised Adolf Hitler and said he “loved Nazis.”

Ye recently attended a dinner hosted by Donald Trump at the former president’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, that included Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white supremacist.

According to researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Anti-Defamation League and other groups, antisemitic and racist slurs have also skyrocketed on Twitter in the weeks since Elon Musk acquired the social media platform and granted “amnesty” to suspended accounts, including those that have been banned for spouting hate speech.

“We cannot normalize this,” Emhoff will say, according to White House excerpts. “We all have an obligation to condemn these vile acts. We must not stay silent. There is no either/or. There are no two sides. Everyone must be against this.”

The meeting, scheduled for 11 a.m. ET, will include participants from Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jewish organizations and will be attended by Ambassador Susan Rice, White House domestic policy adviser; Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; and Keisha Lance Bottoms, senior adviser to the president for public engagement.
…

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. said Tuesday it will be “forced to consider” removing news content from its platform if Congress passes legislation requiring tech companies to pay news outlets for their material.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, if passed, would allow news companies to collectively negotiate with social platforms over the terms on which their material appears on their sites.

Meta said it would rather pull news from its platforms than “submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard the value we provide to news outlets.” The value, Meta said in a statement tweeted by spokesman Andy Stone, includes “increased traffic and subscriptions.”

Meta, which is based in Menlo Park, California, has taken similar stands in the past. Last year, it briefly blocked news from its platform in Australia after the country passed legislation that would compel tech companies to pay publishers for using their news stories. It later struck deals with Australian publishers.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota and the bill’s sponsor, said the legislation simply allows news organizations to band together to negotiate better prices for their news content with “the biggest companies the world has ever known.”

“In one quarter Google made $66 billion in ad revenue while newspapers and little radio stations folded left and right,” she said. “We’re just simply trying to get a fair price for content.”
…

Australia and the United States have agreed to enhance military cooperation with Japan to try to counter China’s influence in the Pacific.

Australia and the United States want to integrate Japan into their combined military activities to push back on China’s ambitions in the Pacific.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met Tuesday with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong in Washington for Australia-US Ministerial — or AUSMIN — talks.

Austin said the United States would increase the presence of its air, land, and sea forces in Australia, including bombers and fighter jets.

He accused China of “dangerous and coercive actions throughout the Indo-Pacific” region.

Marles told reporters Tuesday in Washington that the plan also includes an invitation for Japan to participate in more joint defense exercises.

“It is really important that we are doing this from the point of view of providing balance within our region and involving other countries within our region and we look forward to being able to have more engagement with Japan in terms of that force posture cooperation,” said Marles.

Marles and Wong will head to Tokyo for talks with Japan’s leaders.

Tom Corbin is a research fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Wednesday that Australia could invite Japan to take part in more joint military exercises.

“This could look like greater Japanese participation in a wider range of exercises that Australia and the U.S. hold in Australia, but it could also mean more regular rotations of Japanese troops on longer term postings,” said Corbin.

Australia’s relations with China, its biggest trading partner, have been strained in recent years over various political and trade disputes.

But Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been eager to see relations improve since coming to power in May.

He met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in October. But the Australian government is also keen to enhance its traditional military alliance with the United States, which dates back to the 1950s.

Albanese is preparing to unveil a sweeping review of Australia’s defense forces early next year.
…

President Joe Biden’s visit Tuesday to a massive construction project in north Phoenix highlighted Arizona’s role in a major U.S. policy shift on semiconductor manufacturing.

The Biden administration is pushing to boost domestic chips manufacturing with more than $50 billion in subsidies in the new CHIPs and Science Act.

The president’s visit to the new fabrication facility being built by Taiwanese chips giant TSMC came as the firm announced it would build a second fabrication facility and triple its investment in Phoenix to $40 billion.

Biden says it is good news for TSMC’s biggest customer, Apple.

“These are the most advanced semiconductor chips on the planet. Chips will power iPhones and MacBooks,” Biden said. “Apple had to buy all the advanced chips from overseas. Now, they are going to bring more of their supply chain here at home. It can be a game changer.”

U.S. technology firms have long outsourced semiconductor manufacturing overseas, particularly with TSMC, the world’s largest foundry.

Calls to change that increased when the U.S. found itself scrambling for chips in the supply chain breakdowns prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent tensions with China added to the sense of urgency. China sees Taiwan as a part of its territory, and U.S. policymakers were worried about the long-term ability to source high-end chips, essential for computers, smartphones, cars, fighter planes and data centers.

The Biden administration has been pushing to make the most cutting-edge chips in the U.S.

Ahead of Biden’s visit Tuesday, TSMC announced it would ratchet up the kind of technology it makes in Arizona beyond the 4-nanometer technology slated to begin production in 2024. In addition, TSMC said it would begin producing 3-nanometer technology in its second fabrication facility by 2026. Those advanced chips deliver faster processing and use less power.

“This state-of-the-art manufacturing facility behind us is a testimony that TSMC is also taking a giant step forward to help build a vibrant semiconductor ecosystem in the United States,” said Mark Liu, TSMC’s chairman.

The president toured the construction site and was part of the TSMC plant’s “first tool-in” ceremony, the moment when a building is ready for manufacturing equipment to move in.

The company, which had said it would hire 2,000 workers, now says it will employ 4,500.

Arizona is among the states trying to attract federal funding.

A 3,700-square-meter cleanroom at nearby Arizona State University in Tempe is helping to meet the workforce demands of Arizona’s burgeoning semiconductor sector. There, students, companies and startups work on hardware innovations.

With 30,000 engineering students, Arizona State is home to the country’s largest college of engineering and is a driver in meeting the next-generation demand.

“Chips and Science Act is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is the moment. This is the moment to build out capabilities, infrastructure, expertise,” Kyle Squires, dean of the schools of engineering at Arizona State University, told VOA recently. “We’re bringing this capability back into the U.S. You’ve got to have a workforce ready to engage it.”
…

U.S. President Joe Biden was in Arizona Tuesday promoting investments in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. He was joined by officials from the Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC, which says it is tripling its Arizona investment. VOA correspondent Michelle Quinn has our story.
…

The U.S. Congress is considering the White House’s request for $38 billion in additional support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia aggression. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Senator Jim Risch say they believe the aid will be approved in the coming weeks.

The two senators have been strong supporters of aid to Ukraine, part of bipartisan congressional support that, if the latest appropriation bill passes, will deliver more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine this year.

The senators sat down with VOA Georgian Service’s managing editor Ia Meurmishvili on November 30 to discuss U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia, and the likelihood that Congress will continue backing Ukraine in 2023.

Shaheen said the lessons from World War II are still relevant in the context of Ukraine, and the West must stop Russia before it invades other countries in Europe. On providing arms to Ukraine, Risch said the U.S. should not engage in self-deterrence out of concern that Russia might escalate the war. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin should instead be thinking about how to avoid U.S. escalation.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: NATO reaffirmed its 2008 commitment that Ukraine will one day become a member. Do you think that reaffirmation is advancing Ukraine’s NATO membership? And when do you think Ukraine can join NATO?

Shaheen: Well sadly, Ukraine right now is engaged in a brutal war from Russia’s unprovoked invasion. But I think the aspiration that Ukraine should be able to join NATO is very important. And for the EU, for NATO, for the Western alliance to support them as they are fighting this war against Russia is absolutely critical. Because we can’t allow dictators like Vladimir Putin to think they can upend the international, rules-based order and just take over any country because they might like to. And then, to commit war crimes and atrocities, to bomb civilians, to bomb hospitals and schools. … It’s unthinkable in a civilized society. So, we need to do everything we can to support the Ukrainians.

Risch: I agree with that. I would add that NATO is as strong as I have ever seen NATO, and I think it is getting stronger every day. There is no deterioration. NATO is committed to do what NATO was formed to do. Article 5 means just what it says — an attack on one is an attack on all. We have said clearly to the Russians that we will not give up one inch of NATO ground, whether it’s in the Baltics, in London, or in Los Angeles. We will not give up one inch of NATO ground, and we will all come shoulder to shoulder to defend it.

When it comes to Ukraine joining NATO, Ukraine or any other country is welcome to join NATO so long as they meet the requirements. We feel strongly about that. If Ukraine meets the requirements, and Ukraine wants to join NATO, then Ukraine should be let in. Neither Russia nor any other country should be able to stand up and say, ‘No, you can’t go where you want to go.’ Every country is sovereign and should have that right to enter any kind of alliance they want to for their defense.

See related video:

VOA: The Biden administration has requested an additional $38 billion for assistance to Ukraine. Do you think it will be approved before recess?

Shaheen: I do. I think there’s still strong bipartisan and bicameral support for Ukraine. We understand that Ukraine is fighting for democracies around the world, and the role of democracies is on the line here in this war.

Risch: Putin has already lost this war. He set out to occupy that country. It is obvious to the world he will never occupy that country. If you talk with Ukrainians, they will fight in the street with broomsticks if they have to, but the Russians will never occupy that country. So, what’s his exit ramp? I don’t know, but he better find one.

VOA: Do you support the idea of providing Ukraine with the Patriot missiles and the other long-range artillery they have been asking for, which the administration has been hesitant to provide?

Risch: I’ve wanted to ratchet up for some time. The Ukrainians are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. They’ve got a country adjacent to them that has invaded them and is committing all of these atrocities. On top of that, over the recent weeks, [the Russians] have done everything they can to totally eliminate [Ukraine’s] infrastructure for heat and electricity and everything else. We can’t stand by and watch that happen.

You know, some people in the administration — not all of them — say, ‘Oh, you know, we don’t want to escalate.’ That’s nonsense. I want Putin to wake up in the morning worried about what he’s going to do that might cause us to escalate. We have to escalate, or you lose the war. So, I’m all in. I think the Patriots are fine. If it was up to me — even from the beginning — I said we should give them planes. When we fought in Korea, when we fought in Vietnam, the Russians supplied the enemy with jet aircraft and trained the pilots. It’s time to return the favor, as far as I’m concerned.

Shaheen: I think that’s the intent of the U.S. We’re working closely with our allies and with the Ukrainians on what they need and supplying them as soon as we can with the weapons that they need. I think we need to continue to do that.

VOA: The world, especially the West, is beginning to talk about how Ukraine will emerge from this war — that it will be a united, democratic, sovereign country in Europe that will only get stronger from this point on. We don’t know much about how Russia will emerge from it. How do you see Russia after this war?

Shaheen: We had a hearing today in the Foreign Relations Committee with the nominee to be the ambassador to Russia. One of the things we talked about in that hearing is the difficult balance that the new ambassador is going to have in trying to keep an open channel of communication to the leadership in Russia, and at the same time expressing our strong opposition to what Russia is doing in the war in Ukraine, to express the concerns that we have about Russia walking away from the new START nuclear negotiations, about their human rights record, and the American detainees that they have in their prisons. So, it’s going to be a challenge.

I had a chance to speak with Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is an amazing, very courageous human rights activist, as he was planning to go back to Russia. One of the things he said to me when I said, you know, ‘You’re going to be in prison. Why are you doing this?’ He said, ‘Because the Russian people are better than the government of Russia, and we need to make the world see that.’ So, it’s my hope that at some point, the Russian people will have that opportunity for self-governance and to determine their own future.

Risch: First of all, I’ve said all along — when this is over, it’s not over. Russia is going to suffer from this for a long, long time. The world made a mistake when the Iron Curtain came down and Russia was welcomed to the international stage, and everyone started doing business with them. The Europeans really relied on them for energy and that sort of thing. Nobody even conceived that they would start a medieval war in the 21st century. Seven hundred companies from America have pulled out. They’re not going back there. We talk to the Europeans all the time. They’ve had it with Russia. Even if Putin disappeared tomorrow and you brought in a moderate — if there is such a thing in Russia — I still think it would take decades before the Russians can get back any kind of credibility that this isn’t going to happen again.

VOA: Thus far, Congress has been united on the issues of support toward Ukraine, toward the region, NATO and such. There are some concerns that with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, that [unity] may change.

Risch: Look, there’s 535 members of Congress —100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. We are as diverse a group as you could possibly find. We are a true representation of America top to bottom. As a result of that, there is about every view you could possibly want there. No matter what issue you have, with very few exceptions, you’re always going to have dissent. We were born in dissent. We dissent all the time. Having said that, when things are appropriate, we come together.

On Ukraine, there is strong, strong support in both houses and both parties. Are there a handful of people who are dissidents? Yes. But the media here focuses on those that do dissent. That’s the American way, and that’s the way it should be. People have the right to express an opinion on either side, and then you vote and get behind the vote. I think the media has asked me this question a number of times, and I’ve said over and over again that the dissent on this is de minimis, and it’s way overreported.

Shaheen: We had a bipartisan, bicameral delegation in Halifax [Nova Scotia] a couple of weeks ago, nine of us from the House and Senate. We were all virtually aligned on support for Ukraine and the need to continue that support. And that included prominent members of the House, as well as prominent members of the Senate. So I think Senator Risch is absolutely right.
…

U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen and U.S. Senator Jim Risch discuss war aid, weapons and what’s at stake for democracies worldwide
…

The U.S. military said Tuesday that an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy boat came within 150 yards of American warships in the Strait of Hormuz, but the situation was de-escalated with the help of audible warnings and non-lethal use of lasers.

In a statement, the U.S. military said the incident took place on December 5 during a routine transit in international waters.

“The IRGCN’s actions violated international standards of professional and safe maritime behavior, increasing the risk of miscalculation and collision,” the statement said.
…

Donald Trump’s company was convicted of tax fraud on Tuesday in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, a significant repudiation of the financial practices at the former president’s business.

The guilty verdict came on the second day of deliberations following a trial in which the Trump Organization was accused of being complicit in a scheme by top executives to avoid paying personal income taxes on job perks such as rent-free apartments and luxury cars.

The conviction is a validation for New York prosecutors, who have spent three years investigating the former president and his businesses.

As punishment, the Trump Organization could be fined up to $1.6 million — a relatively small amount for a company of its size, though the conviction might make some of its future deals more complicated.

Trump, who recently announced he was running for president again, has said the case against his company was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” waged against him by vindictive Democrats.

Trump himself was not on trial, but prosecutors alleged he “knew exactly what was going on,” though he and the company’s lawyers have denied that.

The case against the company was built largely around testimony from the Trump Organization’s former finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, who previously pleaded guilty to charges that he manipulated the company’s books and his own compensation package to illegally reduce his taxes.

Weisselberg testified in exchange for a promised five-month jail sentence.

To convict the Trump Organization, prosecutors had to convince jurors that Weisselberg or his subordinate, Senior Vice President and Controller Jeffrey McConney, were “high managerial” agents acting on the company’s behalf and that the company also benefited from his scheme.

Throughout the monthlong trial, Trump Organization lawyers repeatedly said “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg.” They contended the executive had gone rogue and betrayed the company’s trust. No one in the Trump family or the company was to blame, they argued.

Though he testified as a prosecution witness, Weisselberg also attempted to take responsibility on the witness stand, saying nobody in the Trump family knew what he was doing.

“It was my own personal greed that led to this,” an emotional Weisselberg testified.

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to dodging taxes on $1.7 million in fringe benefits, testified that he and McConney conspired to hide that extra compensation from his income by deducting their cost from his pre-tax salary and issuing falsified W-2 forms.

During his closing argument, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass attempted to refute the claim that Trump knew nothing about the scheme. He showed jurors a lease that Trump signed for Weisselberg’s company-paid apartment and a memo Trump initialed authorizing a pay cut for another executive who got perks.

“Mr. Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” Steinglass argued.

The verdict doesn’t end Trump’s dealings with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who took office in January.

Bragg has said that a related investigation of Trump, which began under his predecessor, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., is “active and ongoing.”

In that inquiry, investigators have examined whether Trump misled banks and others about the value of his real estate holdings, golf courses and other assets — allegations at the heart of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ pending lawsuit against the former president and his company.

The district attorney’s office has also investigated whether any state laws were broken when Trump’s allies made payments to two women who claimed to have had sexual affairs with the Republican years ago.

Near the end of his tenure last year, Vance directed deputies to present evidence to a grand jury for a possible indictment of Trump. After taking office, though, Bragg let that grand jury disband so he could give the case a fresh look.

On Monday, he confirmed that a new lead prosecutor had been brought on to handle that investigation, signaling again that it was still active.
…