BEIJING — Chinese rescuers searched for some 30 people after a landslide Saturday in southwestern Sichuan province buried 10 houses and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate. 

The Ministry of Emergency Management deployed hundreds of rescuers including firefighters following the landslide in a village in Junlian county. Two people were pulled out alive and about 200 others were relocated, state broadcaster CCTV said. 

A villager told Beijing News that rocks were frequently seen rolling down the mountain since the second half of 2024, in some cases making sounds similar to firecrackers. The villager said geologists had inspected the area late last year, the state-run newspaper reported. 

President Xi Jinping expressed his concern and urged authorities to make every effort to search for the missing people and minimize casualties, the official Xinhua news agency reported. 

Chinese Premier Li Qiang asked for an investigation and inspection of potential geological hazard risks in nearby areas. Li also said residents who were under threat should be evacuated to prevent another disaster, according to Xinhua. 

The National Development and Reform Commission has allocated $6.9 million from the central budget to support the emergency restoration of infrastructure and public service facilities. 
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BANGKOK — The head of a Thai parliamentary committee that oversees border affairs and refugee camp officials told VOA the suspension by the United States of refugee admissions has halted a resettlement deal the U.S. struck with Thailand last year to take in thousands of Myanmar families.

About 90,000 refugees from Myanmar are in Thailand in a string of nine sealed-off camps along the countries’ shared border. Some have lived in the camps since the mid-1980s, fleeing decades of fighting between Myanmar’s military and ethnic-minority rebel groups vying for autonomy. Most are ethnic minority Karen.

After more than a year of talks and planning, the United States agreed to start taking in some of the refugees last year, although the U.S. State Department would not say how many of them might resettle. However, Thai lawmaker Rangsiman Rome, and an aid worker previously told VOA that local United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees staff told them in 2023 that it could be up to 10,000 per year, a claim the U.N. would not confirm or deny.

The first groups of 25 families left the camps for the United States in July.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that during the previous four years — the term of former President Joe Biden — “the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program,” and he suspended the program by executive order Jan. 20, effective a week later.

The administration is allowing only case-by-case exceptions, “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok declined to comment to VOA on the order’s impact on the resettlement deal the United States and Thailand struck last year.

Asked about the deal’s fate, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told VOA it was “coordinating with implementing partners to suspend refugee arrivals to the United States” and refused further comment.

Rangsiman, who chairs the Thai House of Representatives National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy and National Reform Committee, which monitors the refugee camps, confirmed Friday that Trump’s order has put a stop to the deal, at least for the time being.

“We are aware that the deal is on hold but still waiting for updates from related departments if this deal can be renegotiated,” he told VOA.

Officials and spokespersons for the Thai government and ministries involved in managing the deal either refused to speak with VOA or did not reply to requests for comment.

Camp administrators told VOA that all work vetting and preparing the refugees in the camps for resettlement to the U.S., including interviews and medical checks, has stopped since the White House order.

“After the 20th, after the announcement, everything stopped,” said Nido, who goes by one name, the vice chairman of the committee managing day-to-day operations at the Umpiem camp in Tak province.

“On the 27th, many people from the camp had to go for their second vaccination. The doctors and nurses were there already preparing to vaccinate. But when the people arrived, they said there were some changes, so they had to stop the vaccination process. They told the people they will have to stop this process for a while, but they could not say for how long,” he said. “The interviews, the vaccinations — they had to stop it.”

Bweh Say, secretary of the Karen Refugee Committee that oversees the individual camp committees, said he was told by UNHCR staff that resettlement work was on hold across all the camps.

“Some of their staff, when we sit together, we talk together … they said [it has] stopped,” he said.

The UNHCR has been helping Thailand and the United States run the resettlement program, but it refused to comment to VOA on the impact of the suspension of the U.S. refugee admissions program, USRAP.

Camp officials and refugee advocates say the deal between Thailand and the U.S. was the only foreseeable chance in the near term for thousands of families to have a future other than as permanent refugees.

The Myanmar military’s overthrow of a democratically elected government in 2021 amplified violence in the country, setting off a civil war that has killed thousands of civilians.

Thailand itself will not allow the refugees to settle outside the camps and mostly denies them the chance to work or study outside the camps legally. Aid and advocacy groups that work with the refugees have described rising despair, drug abuse and violence.

No other country besides the United States has taken up Thailand’s call to resettle the refugees in large numbers.

“This [deal] is very important for the refugees. Some of us have been staying in the camps for decades — two or almost three. Children have been born here,” said Nido, a refugee himself who fled Myanmar nearly 20 years ago.

“The situation in Myanmar now is very terrible,” he said. “A lot of conflict and fighting. It’s not possible to go back. It’s also not possible to be recognized as a Thai national or to get Thai ID, and when you’re stateless, it is very hard to move around or find work.”

Inside the camps, jobs are hard to come by except for running a small shop or working with an aid group for a modest stipend. Schools are barred from teaching the Thai curriculum or language, leaving little chance for a higher education. Monthly food allowances, funded by international donors, barely keep pace with inflation.

Since Trump took office, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development also has compelled the clinics it was funding across the camps to close, forcing the refugees onto Thailand’s own public health care system. The Thai government has vowed to plug the gap, but media reports say it is struggling.

Some critics say the USAID programs are wasteful and promote an agenda that fosters dependence without addressing the root of the problem. A Justice Department official, Brett Shumate, said Friday, “The president has decided there is corruption and fraud at USAID,” although he did not detail the alleged mismanagement.

“If they could return [to Myanmar], if the situation [were] safe, of course everyone would want to return to their homes. But since it is impossible, then resettlement is one of their first options,” said Wahkushee Tenner, a former refugee from the camps who now runs the Karen Peace Support Network, a nongovernment group based in Thailand that advocates for the Karen.

“Resettlement is not the best option,” she said, “but there is no best … option.”
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NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist party won the most seats in the high-stakes state legislature election in the country’s federal territory, including New Delhi, for the first time in over a quarter-century, according to official data Saturday.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won 47 seats in the 70-member assembly that includes India’s capital of 20 million people, ousting the Aam Aadmi Party, or AAP, that ruled New Delhi since 2015. The AAP won 22 seats. The outcome of the race in one remaining seat had yet to be declared, according to the Election Commission of India.

India’s main opposition Congress party lost on all seats for the third consecutive term.

In a major upset, the AAP founder and leader Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy, Manish Sisodia, lost their seats despite their party having built widespread support with its welfare policies and anticorruption movement.

“We accept the mandate of the people with great humility,” Kejriwal said in a video statement while congratulating the BJP on its victory. He said he hoped that the BJP would fulfil its election promises.

“We have done a lot of work in the field of health, education and infrastructure in the last 10 years,” Kejriwal said. “We will not only play the role of a constructive opposition but will also remain among the people and continue to serve them.”

Waving party flags and posters of Modi, supporters of the BJP chanted slogans and danced outside its headquarters in the capital as vote results began trickling with most exit polls predicting the party’s win.

Pledges on schools and health services

The BJP’s Amit Shah, who is India’s powerful home minister, said his party’s victory signified that “people can’t be misled with lies every time.” He said under the leadership of Modi, the BJP would make New Delhi “the world’s No. 1 capital by fulfilling all promises.”

“Our victory is a sign of the people’s faith in Prime Minister Modi’s vision of progress,” he said in a statement.

Saturday’s victory is seen as a big boost for the BJP after it failed to secure a majority on its own in last year’s national election but formed the government with coalition partners. It gained some lost ground by winning two state elections in northern Haryana and western Maharashtra states last year.

Ahead of the election, Modi’s party slashed income taxes on the salaried middle class, one of its key voting blocs, in the federal budget.

During the electioneering, Modi and Kejriwal offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity, along with a monthly stipend of over 2,000 rupees ($25) to poor women.

Federal investigations

Kejriwal was arrested last year along with two key party leaders on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. They have denied the accusations, saying they are part of a political conspiracy.

The Supreme Court allowed the release of Kejriwal and other ministers on bail. Kejriwal later relinquished the chief minister’s post to his most senior party leader, Atishi, who won her seat Saturday.

Opposition parties widely condemned Kejriwal’s arrest, accusing Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken political opponents. They pointed to several raids, arrests and corruption investigations of key opposition figures before the national election.

Kejriwal formed the AAP in 2012 after tapping into public anger over corruption scandals. His pro-poor policies have focused on fixing state-run schools and providing cheap electricity, free health care and bus transport for women.

In 2020, the AAP won 62 out of 70 seats in a landslide victory in the last state legislature election, leaving the BJP with eight and the Congress party with none.

The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 by the Congress party, which ran the government for 15 years.
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US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met at the White House on Friday, declaring a “new golden age” for US-Japan ties. The visit came amid Trump’s early foreign policy moves that have rattled allies and adversaries alike. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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pentagon — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles to the Pentagon on Friday, after Australia made its first $500 million payment to the United States under the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal involving Washington, Canberra and London.

“The check did clear,” Hegseth joked to Marles and reporters ahead of the defense ministers’ meeting.

Marles said the “strength of American leadership” in the Indo-Pacific region is “critically important” to Australia. He added that the AUKUS submarine deal also represented an increase in Australian defense spending.

“We really understand the importance of building our capability, but in paying our way,” Marles told Hegseth.

Marles was the first foreign defense counterpart that Hegseth had hosted since his confirmation.

U.S. and Australian officials confirmed that Australia transferred the $500 million after a call between Marles and Hegseth late last month.

AUKUS is a trilateral partnership that Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. announced in September 2021 to support a “free and open Indo-Pacific” amid increased Chinese aggression.

The first initiative under AUKUS was aimed at strengthening the U.S. submarine industrial base so that Australia can acquire nuclear-powered attack submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. It also provides for the rotational basing of American and British nuclear submarines in Australia.
…

While Russia is still controlling Central Asian countries politically and economically, those states are also looking for new partners, especially with China, to help ensure their own development. And according to the regional experts, even if the U.S. starts a tough policy against Beijing, it will not have a serious impact on Central Asia, and they will not stop their economic relations with China. 

Click here for the full story in Uzbek. 
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WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House on Friday, in a visit that Tokyo hopes will reaffirm the U.S.-Japan alliance amid Trump’s early foreign policy moves that have rattled allies and adversaries.

Trump and Ishiba are expected to discuss increasing joint military exercises and cooperation on defense equipment and technology, ramping up Japanese investments to the United States, and American energy exports to Japan, a senior Trump administration official said in a briefing to reporters Friday.

The official said they also will talk about improving cybersecurity capabilities, bolstering space cooperation and promoting joint business opportunities to develop critical technologies, including AI and semiconductors.

Ishiba’s visit comes amid anxiety in Tokyo as Trump has put pressure on some U.S. allies and partners, saying he wants to absorb Canada as a U.S. state, acquire Greenland from Denmark and take control of the Panama Canal.

“We would like to first establish a higher relationship of trust and cooperation between two countries, especially the two leaders,” a senior Japanese government official told reporters during a briefing Thursday.

The U.S. president has imposed fresh 10% tariffs on China and 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico — although the latter two have been at least temporarily delayed. He has warned of possible tariffs against other countries, especially those with whom the U.S. holds a trade deficit, such as Japan.

“We all know that President Trump pays a lot of attention to the deficit as an indication of the economic strength of the relationship. So, I’m sure discussions will happen about that,” the Trump administration official said.

Other strains on the U.S.-Japan relationship include former President Joe Biden’s blocking of a $15 billion acquisition bid by Japan’s largest steel producer, Nippon Steel, for Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel.

Biden blocked the deal during the final weeks of his term, citing national security concerns. Trump has said he also opposes the deal.

The White House has not responded to VOA’s query on Trump’s current position on Nippon Steel. The Japanese prime minister’s office did not respond to VOA’s query on whether the issue will be raised today.

Continuity on security front

Under then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan became a key player in what the Biden administration called a “lattice-like strategic architecture” to bolster deterrence against the two main U.S. adversaries in the Pacific: China and North Korea.

Biden’s approach connected Tokyo with other allies in trilateral formats and other groupings, including with South Korea, Australia and the Philippines, to deter regional threats in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and Korean Peninsula.

Japan is anxious to maintain ties forged in recent years, during which time Tokyo has increased defense spending and intensified joint military exercises with the U.S. and other regional allies.

Japan needs a “multilayered network of security” to defend itself, the senior Japanese official said.

The Trump administration will continue to support trilateral efforts and some of the working groups that have come out from under those over the last few years, the Trump official said. “There may be some adjustments to where the focus is on trilateral cooperation, but I think largely you will see continuity.”

Under his first term, Trump and then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed on the “free and open Indo-Pacific” framework to promote peace and prosperity in the region. The two countries also agreed to elevate what’s known as the Quad grouping with India and Australia.

The fact that the Trump administration sees those formats as a critical part of its strategy in the Pacific is important, said Jeffrey Hornung, the Japan Lead for the RAND National Security Research Division.

A key indicator to watch is whether the leaders will come out with a joint statement on a free and open Indo-Pacific. While it may sound like a diplomatic cliché, it would deliver a strong message to Beijing to not be provocative toward Taiwan, Hornung told VOA.

In dealing with the threats from Pyongyang, the Trump official underscored the U.S. is “committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea.”

Making deals with Japan

While maintaining the security alliance, analysts say Trump may use the visit as an opportunity to broker deals that would further his “America First” agenda, using what he sees as Tokyo’s interests as leverage.

“Part of President Trump’s negotiating stance for almost all issues is that we don’t really know where he wants to land in the end,” said Kenji Kushida, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“If the promise to allow Nippon Steel to acquire U.S. Steel can be used as bargaining leverage, he may use this to get Japan to pay much more than they’re already committed, to help contribute to U.S. military bases and other defense costs,” he told VOA.

Ahead of Ishiba’s visit, Nippon Steel said its proposed acquisition is aligned with Trump’s goals of a stronger United States.

“From Japan’s perspective, they want to position themselves as the staunch ally of U.S. interests in Asia, and so fitting into that set of interests is Nippon Steel’s strategy here,” Kushida said.

Tokyo is aware of what Trump wants — investments in key industries such as AI and semiconductors, increasing Tokyo’s defense spending and American energy purchase.

“Those are all areas that Japan does have shared interests. They have technology. They have the money to invest in some of these areas, and so they’re able to use their leverage in a very strategic manner,” Hornung said. “At the same time, trying to promote with Trump the things that they’re interested in: making sure that U.S. forces remain in Japan, making sure that the U.S. remains committed to the Indo-Pacific.”

The best-case scenario for Ishiba is that Trump doesn’t ask beyond what Tokyo already expected, said Kushida.

“Perhaps an increase in the defense sharing burden, mainly buying U.S. military equipment, expansion of U.S. bases, perhaps, and then perhaps some other financial commitments, but nothing that would upset the sort of geopolitical status in East Asia to Japan’s disadvantage,” Kushida said. “Nothing very extreme, or to get mixed in with some of the issues In the Middle East in ways that Japan has been trying to keep out.”

The leaders are expected to hold a press conference later Friday.

Calla Yu and Kim Lewis contributed to this report.
…

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights announced that it has canceled plans to observe Tajikistan’s upcoming parliamentary elections. Local observers do not believe that the next elections, held under the rule of Emomali Rahmon, who has ruled Tajikistan for almost 30 years, will be any different from the previous ones, nor do they believe that any democratic forces will emerge in parliament.

Click here for the full story in Uzbek.
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Thousands of North Korean troops helped Russia regain some of its territory in the Kursk region following Ukraine’s counterattack, but the Russian army is now using them less on the front line and have pulled some back. VOA Russian spoke to experts who noted that despite initial successes, the losses in manpower among North Korean recruits became overwhelming as they were unprepared and not trained for the current war in Ukraine. 

Click here for the full story in Russian.
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MANILA, PHILIPPINES — One U.S. service member and three defense contractors were killed Thursday when a plane contracted by the U.S. military crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippines, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said.

The aircraft was conducting a routine mission “providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies,” the command said in a statement. It said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines also confirmed the crash of a light plane in Maguindanao del Sur province. It did not immediately provide other details.

The bodies of the four people were retrieved from the wreckage in Ampatuan town, said Ameer Jehad Tim Ambolodto, a safety officer of Maguindanao del Sur. Indo-Pacific Command said the names of the crew were being withheld pending family notifications.

Windy Beaty, a provincial disaster-mitigation officer, told The Associated Press that she received reports that residents saw smoke coming from the plane and heard an explosion before the aircraft plummeted to the ground less than a kilometer from a cluster of farmhouses.

Nobody was reported injured on or near the crash site, which was cordoned off by troops, Beaty said.

U.S. forces have been deployed in a Philippine military camp in the country’s south for decades to help provide advice and training to Filipino forces battling Muslim militants. The region is the homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
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Islamabad — Pakistan has assured China it will ensure the safety of Chinese personnel working on infrastructure and development projects in the South Asian country while seeking greater security and economic cooperation during President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Beijing.

Zardari is in China on a five-day visit from February 4 to 8 along with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, and other senior officials.

Pakistani leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. Zardari also held delegation level talks with the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China, Zhao Leji.

The Pakistani leadership “reaffirmed that ensuring the safety and security of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions in Pakistan is the foremost responsibility of Pakistani government as China’s All-weather Strategic Cooperative partner and the host country,” according to a joint communique issued Thursday.

Thousands of Chinese nationals are in Pakistan, working primarily on projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. At least 21 Chinese citizens, however, have been killed in targeted attacks since 2017. This has put pressure on bilateral ties and hurt the progress of the massive infrastructure and development project that has seen more than $25 billion in Chinese investment come to Pakistan.

An October 2024 attack in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi killed two Chinese citizens. The incident came a few months after a March attack on a convoy killed five Chinese nationals in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

While calling for increased cooperation on counterterrorism, the statement said Pakistan will bring to justice those responsible for attacking Chinese personnel.  

Pakistan also committed to “further increase input into security, and take targeted and enhanced measures to effectively ensure the safety and security of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions in Pakistan, and create a safe environment for cooperation between the two countries,” according to the communique.

In the latest high-level meetings, Chinese officials offered counterterrorism cooperation to Pakistan.

“The Chinese side…expressed its willingness to provide necessary support for Pakistan’s counter terrorism capacity building,” the lengthy 24-point communique read.

Official statements issued by the Pakistani side earlier show security remained a central part of discussions.

In his opening statement Wednesday at the start of talks with Xi, Zardari said the friendship between the two countries had “gone through ups and downs” but would not be broken down by militant attacks that have killed Chinese citizens.

“No matter how many terrors, how many issues crop up in the world, I will stand, Pakistani people will stand, with the people of China,” the Pakistan head of state said.

Both sides discussed enhancing intelligence sharing, border security, and the transfer of technology to strengthen the Pakistani police’s capability to secure Chinese interests.

“Mohsin Naqvi said that Pakistan will purchase modern technology and equipment for the police from China,” a statement from the Pakistani interior minister’s office said after a meeting with Qi Yanjun, one of China’s top security officials.

Naqvi also informed Xi about efforts to beef up security of the Chinese and boost counter terrorism operations in Pakistan.

Pakistan is grappling with a deadly wave of militant attacks primarily targeting Pakistani security personnel since late 2021.

On Saturday, militants allegedly affiliated with the Baloch Liberation Army killed 18 soldiers in the southwestern Balochistan province, home to the China-funded Gwadar deep sea port and the country’s largest airport.

In January, the country saw 74 militant attacks resulting in 91 deaths, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. Thirty-five of those killed were security personnel while 36 militants died in the incidents.  

In 2024, close to 1,200 people including almost 1000 civilians and security personnel were killed in militant attacks – a 40% increase in militant attacks compared to 2023. 

Much of the violence is concentrated in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has a strong foothold while the banned Baloch Liberation Army is behind much of the violence in Balochistan.

Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of taking insufficient measures to reign in anti-Pakistan militants present on Afghan soil, a charge the de facto rulers in Kabul reject.

In Thursday’s joint communique, Pakistan and China again pressed Afghan authorities to take stronger counter-terrorism action.

“They called on the Interim Afghan Government to take visible and verifiable actions to dismantle and eliminate all terrorist groups based in Afghanistan which continue to pose a serious threat to regional and global security, and to prevent the use of Afghan territory against other countries,” the statement said.

Despite Pakistan’s poor security situation that Beijing has publicly complained about, the joint statement said China would encourage its businesses to invest in Pakistan. Both sides signed more than a dozen Memoranda of Understanding to enhance cooperation in agriculture, technology, and trade, etc.  

After his first stop in Beijing, Zardari heads to the northeastern city of Harbin to attend the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games, taking place from Feb. 7-14.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday. Japanese officials say they want to reaffirm the US-Japan alliance and build strong personal ties between Ishiba and Trump. VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul, South Korea.
Camera: Bill Gallo
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HONG KONG — China and Pakistan will upgrade and reconstruct Pakistan’s railway network and further develop its Gwadar port, while Chinese companies can invest in the South Asian nation’s offshore oil and gas developments, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

The comments came as Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari visits China from Feb. 4-8, where he also will attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Winter Games.

Chinese investment and financial support for Pakistan since 2013 have been a boon for the South Asian nation’s struggling economy.

The two countries have had close ties underpinned by long-standing wariness of their common neighbor, India, and a desire to hedge against U.S. influence across the region.

Pakistan and China recognized the importance of Pakistan’s “Gwadar Port and agreed to fully unleash its potential as a key node for connectivity and trade,” Xinhua said quoting a joint statement from the two countries.

Chinese-funded enterprises would be encouraged to “carry out mining investment cooperation in Pakistan” and cooperate in terrestrial and marine geological resources.

“Pakistan welcomes Chinese companies to participate in the development of offshore oil and gas resources in Pakistan.”

Longtime Pakistan ally China has thousands of nationals working on projects grouped under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The $65 billion investment is part of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, designed to expand Beijing’s global reach by road, rail and sea. 
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WASHINGTON — Greenland’s representative in the United States met recently with at least one ambassador from the Pacific Islands to learn more about a political arrangement that some think could create an opportunity for the Arctic island and Washington, VOA has learned.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his interest in either buying or taking control of Greenland, a resource-rich semiautonomous territory of Denmark, noting its strategic importance and position in the Arctic Ocean where Russia and China are rapidly advancing. But there has been pushback from the island’s residents, political leaders, Denmark and Europe.

Greenland representatives have declined to comment to VOA on their meeting that focused on a framework that Pacific Island nations have with Washington — known as the Compacts of Free Association, or COFA. The compacts give the United States military access to three strategic Pacific Islands — the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau — in exchange for economic aid.

Jackson Soram, ambassador to the United States from the Federated States of Micronesia, told VOA that the discussions took place at the end of January and focused on “basic questions” on the “provisions of economic assistance, and also the security and defense provisions of the compacts.”

Soram said he met with representatives from Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-ruled Danish territory.

Alexander Gray, a former National Security Council chief of staff during the first Trump administration who worked on Pacific Island issues, told VOA he encouraged the Pacific Islands’ ambassadors to conduct these meetings.

“[The Greenlanders] want independence from Denmark,” Gray, who is now a managing partner of American Global Strategies, said in an emailed response. “An independent Greenland, with a tiny population and the second-least densely populated geography on the planet, will quickly become dominated and its sovereignty undermined by Beijing and Moscow.”

Russia has been reopening bases in the region even as Beijing has invested more than $90 billion in infrastructure projects in the Arctic Circle. Both the United States and Denmark have military bases in Greenland.

Gray said arctic dominance by Moscow and Beijing poses “a unique strategic threat” to the United States. He said a COFA “would allow Greenland to maintain its sovereignty, while allowing the U.S. to ensure that sovereignty is truly protected.”

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly told Trump that Greenland is “not for sale.” But Monday, she said Copenhagen welcomes additional U.S. military investment in the strategic island.

“So, if this is about securing our part of the world, we can find a way forward,” she said.

US-Greenland defense agreement

Some analysts say that neither Washington nor Nuuk needs a COFA agreement to increase the U.S. military presence in Greenland. In 2004, the United States, Greenland and Denmark signed the Igaliku Agreement to reduce the U.S. military presence in Greenland to a single air base, the Thule Air Base, which has been renamed Pitfuffik Space Base. It provides Washington with missile defense and space surveillance.

The 2004 agreement provides for “any significant changes to U.S. military operations or facilities” in Greenland to be made through consultation between Washington, Nuuk and Copenhagen.

“Washington can already achieve its objectives through working with Greenland and Denmark,” Otto Svendsen, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote last month on CSIS’s website.

A Danish Institute for International Studies policy brief in 2022 pointed out that COFA has created economic dependence between the Marshall Islands and the United States, as U.S. donor money makes up 70% of the Marshall Islands’ total GDP. This is the opposite of what Greenland’s leaders say they want.

Search for independence

A 2009 law called the Act on Greenland Self-Government outlines a “road map” —-drawn up by Nuuk and Copenhagen — for an independent Greenland, which requires a successful referendum.

In his New Year’s address, Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede said, “The upcoming new election period must, together with the citizens, create these new steps,” opening the door for a referendum during parliamentary elections in April.

A 2019 survey suggested that more than two-thirds of Greenlanders want independence at some point. Yet in a poll released in January by two newspapers in Denmark and Greenland, 85% say they do not want to be part of the United States. Fifty-five percent, however, see Trump’s interest in Greenland as an opportunity.

Gray told VOA that the U.S., Denmark and Greenland should enter trilateral discussions for a compact.

“Working together, Washington, Copenhagen, and Nuuk can find common ground and move forward on a post-independence arrangement that works for all parties,” he said in an emailed response.

As far back as 2010, Greenland told the United Nations it was exploring the idea of negotiating independence through a “free association” with Denmark.

Egede said he is ready to meet with Trump, but, “We do not want to be Danes. We do not want to be Americans.”

Soram said he is trying to get ambassadors from Palau and the Marshall Islands to attend additional meetings with Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark.
…

President Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on imports from Mexico, temporarily put on hold this week, could disrupt the strategy of Chinese companies that have relocated to northern Mexico in recent years. By moving production closer to the U.S. market, these firms have been able to bypass U.S. tariffs toward China through the USMCA trade deal. Experts warn that these companies now face two significant challenges. 

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.

 
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ISLAMABAD — The United Nations agencies focused on refugees and migration jointly voiced their concerns Wednesday over Pakistan’s plans to begin a new round of mass deportations of Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers.

The reaction came a week after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved a multistage plan targeting nearly 3 million Afghan citizens residing in Pakistan. They include legally declared refugees, documented as well as undocumented migrants, and those who are awaiting promised relocation to the United States and other Western countries.

The official plan seen by VOA mandates the immediate relocation of all Afghans from the national capital, Islamabad, and the adjacent city of Rawalpindi to designated camps before their repatriation to Afghanistan. The document emphasized without mentioning a timeline that no public announcement should be made regarding the deportations.

In a joint statement Wednesday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR, and the International Organization for Migration, IOM, said they “are seeking clarity over the modality and timeframe of this relocation.”

Both agencies urged Pakistan to consider human rights standards when implementing relocation measures. This includes ensuring due process for legal refugees and economic migrants who have been granted Afghan Citizen Cards or ACC, by Pakistan in collaboration with IOM, the statement explained. Official estimates put the ACC population at more than 800,000.

“Forced return to Afghanistan could place some people at increased risk. We urge Pakistan to continue to provide safety to Afghans at risk, irrespective of their documentation status,” said Philippa Candler, the UNHCR country representative.

Mio Sato, the IOM chief of mission in Islamabad, said her organization is committed to working with the Pakistani government and UNHCR to develop a mechanism to register, manage and screen Afghan nationals in Pakistan.

“This will open the door to tailored solutions, including international protection to those in need and pathways for Afghan nationals with long-standing socioeconomic and family ties in the country,” she said.

In the first phase, the deportation plan requires authorities to relocate people possessing an ACC, along with undocumented Afghan migrants, from Islamabad and Rawalpindi and send them back to Afghanistan.

Pakistan has allowed more than 1.4 million legal Afghan refugees to remain in the country until June 30, 2025. The new plan requires their relocation from the two cities in the second phase without stating whether they will also be deported to Afghanistan.

Sharif has also ordered authorities to deport around 40,000 Afghans from Islamabad and Rawalpindi by March 31 in the third phase of the deportation plan and subsequently arrange for their repatriation if their relocation and resettlement cases to third countries are not processed expeditiously.

These individuals fled Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of the country in 2021, primarily seeking shelter from potential retribution due to their affiliations with the U.S. and NATO forces.

Last month, President Donald Trump halted the U.S. Refugee Admission Program to assess whether reinstating it serves the interests of Washington, leaving at least 15,000 Afghan allies in Pakistan approved or being assessed for relocation to the U.S. in a state of uncertainty.

Since 2023, Pakistani authorities have forcibly repatriated more than 800,000 undocumented Afghans from its territory. The deportations resulted from a government crackdown on foreigners living in the country without legal permission or whose visas had expired. Islamabad has attributed a recent rise in crimes and militancy in Pakistan to Afghan nationals.

UNHCR and IOM said that they recognize the challenges Islamabad faces, especially in security, and that refugees, like all, must abide by Pakistan’s laws. “The overwhelming majority of Afghan nationals in Pakistan are law-abiding individuals whose situation needs to be seen through a humanitarian lens,” they said in their joint statement.

The two U.N. agencies expressed their particular concern for Afghan nationals who may face harm upon their return, including ethnic and religious minorities, women and girls, journalists, human rights activists and members of artistic professions such as musicians.

The Islamist Taliban leaders have placed sweeping restrictions on women’s access to education, employment and public life and have banned music in Afghanistan.
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New Delhi — A U.S. deportation flight carrying Indian nationals accused of entering the U.S. illegally landed in the northern state of Punjab Wednesday – the first such flight to India since the Trump administration launched a crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

The military aircraft, which landed amid tight security, brought 104 deportees, according to media reports. Authorities did not confirm the number, but said the deportees will be received in a friendly manner.

New Delhi, which does not want to make illegal immigration a contentious issue with Washington, has said that it is open to the return of undocumented Indians in the United States if their nationality is verified.

President Donald Trump said last week that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured him that the country would “do what’s right” in taking back illegal immigrants. His comment came following a phone conversation with Modi.

In New Delhi, foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a media briefing on Friday that India and the United States are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration and “cooperation between India and the U.S. is strong and effective in this domain. This will be evident in times to come.”

Trade and migration are expected to be key issues during a meeting that could take place next week between Trump and Modi.

“India does not want to focus on the issue of illegal migrants being deported. We know it is big business in India, sending migrants illegally. Instead, the government’s interest is in ensuring that legal migration channels to the U.S. for Indian nationals are not restricted by the Trump administration,” according to Manoj Joshi, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

Those legal routes are H-1B visas for skilled workers and visas for students.

“Both sides are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration, while also creating more avenues for legal migration from India to the U.S.,” Jaiswal has said.

The number of Indian migrants attempting to enter the U.S. unlawfully has grown in recent years, with India now accounting for the largest number of illegal immigrants to the United States from Asian countries, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

Their overall numbers, however, are still small; Indians account for only about 3 percent of illegal crossings.

The United States has identified some 18,000 undocumented Indian migrants to be sent back home, according to a Bloomberg report last week.

Deportation flights to India are not new — between October 2023 and September 2024, more than 1,000 Indian nationals were repatriated, but Wednesday’s flight was the first time that they were sent back via military aircraft.

The deportation flight was routed to Amritsar city in Punjab, which is among the three states where much of the illegal migration from India to the U.S. originates. The others are Haryana in the north and the western state of Gujarat.

Hours before the flight landed, Punjab’s minister for NRI (Non-Resident Indians) Affairs, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, urged people in the state to avoid illegal migration and instead focus on acquiring skills and education to access global opportunities through legal channels.
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BEIJING — China is willing to work with the European Union on boosting cooperation and responding to “global challenges,” its foreign ministry said on Wednesday, as the bloc faces potential U.S. tariffs on its shipments to the world’s largest economy.

China attaches great importance to EU ties and hopes the bloc will become a reliable cooperation partner, said Lin Jian, spokesperson at the Chinese ministry.

The EU’s trade chief said on Tuesday that the bloc wanted to engage swiftly with the United States over President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen forecast negotiations with Washington would be tough.

As transatlantic ties come under strain with Trump’s tariff threats, China hawks within the EU such as von der Leyen are showing signs of willingness to rethink the relationship between Beijing and Brussels, a bond that had been tested by trade tensions and China’s ties with Russia.

Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, von der Leyen said the EU would keep “de-risking” its relationship with China but added that there was room to “find solutions” in their mutual interest and “find agreements” that could even expand trade and investment ties.

She did not give details on what those agreements could be.

In Davos, Switzerland, last month, von der Leyen also said both sides should find solutions of mutual interest.

In October, the EU imposed double-digit tariffs on China-made electric vehicles after an anti-subsidy investigation, in addition to its standard car import duty of 10%. The move drew loud protests from Beijing, which in return, raised market entry barriers for certain EU products such as brandy.
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NEW DELHI — Thousands begin voting in the Indian capital’s state legislature election on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party trying to unseat a powerful regional group that has ruled New Delhi for over a decade.

Voters walked to polling booths on a cold, wintry morning to cast their ballots across the sprawling capital. Manish Sisodia, a key Aam Aadmi Party leader, and others offered prayers in a temple before voting.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is up against the AAP, led by Arvind Kejriwal, which runs New Delhi and has built a vast support base on its welfare policies and an anti-corruption movement. Kejriwal, a popular crusader against corruption, suffered a setback as he himself faced graft allegations.

The AAP won 62 out of 70 seats in a landslide victory in the last election, held in 2020, leaving BJP with only eight and the Congress party with none. The AAP had also swept the 2015 state elections, winning 67 seats, with the BJP taking three.

Modi and Kejriwal have both campaigned vigorously in roadshows with thousands of supporters tailing them. They have offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity, and a monthly stipend of over 2,000 rupees ($25) to poor women.

Voting ends later Wednesday, with results due on Saturday. More than 15 million people are eligible to vote in New Delhi’s election.

Arati Jerath, a political commentator, predicted a tight contest between the two parties, saying, “Even since the AAP rose to prominence, it has been a one-sided contest.”

Delhi, a city of more than 20 million people, is a federal territory that Modi’s party has not won for over 27 years despite having a sizable support base there.

Kejriwal and other AAP leaders recently faced graft allegations in a liquor license case.

Neerja Chowdhury, a political analyst, said the liquor policy case — in which several AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, went to jail — had dented Kejriwal’s clean image.

Kejriwal was arrested last year along with two key leaders of his party ahead of national elections on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. They have consistently denied the accusations, saying they are part of a political conspiracy. The Supreme Court allowed the release of Kejriwal and other ministers on bail.

Kejriwal later relinquished the chief minister’s post to his most senior party leader.

The BJP, which failed to secure a majority on its own in last year’s national election but formed the government with coalition partners, has gained some lost ground by winning two state elections in northern Haryana and western Maharashtra states.

Modi’s party hopes to benefit after last week’s federal budget slashed income taxes on the salaried middle class, one of its key voting blocks.

Opposition parties widely condemned Kejriwal’s arrest, accusing Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken political opponents, and pointed to several raids, arrests and corruption investigations of key opposition figures in the months before the national election.

Kejriwal vowed to be an anti-corruption crusader and formed the AAP in 2012 after tapping into public anger against the then-Congress party government over a series of corruption scandals. His pro-poor policies have focused on fixing state-run schools and providing cheap electricity, free health care and bus transport for women.

The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 by the Congress party, which ran the government for 15 years. In the 2015 and 2020 elections in Delhi, the AAP won landslide victories.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are set soon to hold a high-stakes phone call on the tit-for-tat tariffs each has imposed on the other country’s exports.

Trump’s new 10% tariff on Chinese goods took effect at midnight Monday, with China quickly announcing it would impose 15% tariffs on U.S. coal and liquified natural gas, as well as 10% tariffs on crude oil, agricultural machinery and some automobiles.

Trump on Monday retreated for a month from imposing 25% tariffs on most exports from the United States’ other top-three trading partners, Mexico and Canada. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed to increase efforts to curb the flow of fentanyl, the deadly opioid that has killed several hundred thousand Americans over recent years.

Trump said he imposed the tariff on Chinese exports to pressure China to take action to prevent fentanyl smuggling into the U.S., which identified China as a major source of the precursor chemicals used by Mexican drug cartels to manufacture fentanyl.

China said it has taken steps to crack down on the industry and other illicit drug trade.

“China hopefully is going to stop sending us fentanyl, and if they’re not, the tariffs are going to go substantially higher,” Trump said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s call with Xi “is being scheduled and will happen very soon.”

The U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest economies, engaged in an escalating trade war in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office when he repeatedly raised tariffs on Chinese goods, and Beijing responded each time.

This time, China is much better prepared, analysts say. The country announced numerous measures that go beyond tariffs and cut across different sectors of the U.S. economy. China is also more wary of upsetting its own fragile and heavily trade-dependent economy.

China’s tariffs and other moves

China’s State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement announcing its levy on U.S. products, “The U.S.’s unilateral tariff increase seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization. It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.”

But the impact on U.S. exports could be limited. Although the U.S. worldwide is the biggest exporter of liquid natural gas, it does not export much to China. In 2023, the U.S. exported 173,247 million cubic feet of LNG to China, about 2.3% of its total natural gas exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

China imported fewer than 110,000 vehicles from the U.S. last year, although auto market analyst Lei Xing told The Associated Press that the tariffs could be painful for General Motors, which is adding the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon to its China lineup, and for Ford, which exports the Mustang and F-150 Raptor pickup.

In addition to the tariff hike, China announced export controls on several elements critical to the production of modern high-tech products.

They include tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium, many of which are designated as critical minerals by the U.S. Geological Survey, meaning they are essential to U.S. economic or national security that have supply chains vulnerable to disruption. The export controls are in addition to ones China placed in December on such key elements as gallium.

The Commerce Ministry also placed two American companies on an unreliable entities list: PVH Group, which owns clothing companies Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and Illumina, which is a biotechnology company with offices in China.

The listing could bar them from engaging in China-related import or export activities and from making new investments in the country. The ministry said its investigations show the two U.S. companies have “disrupted normal business with Chinese companies, taken discriminatory measures against Chinese companies and severely harmed the legitimate rights of Chinese companies.”

Beijing began investigating PVH Group in September 2024 over what it described as “improper Xinjiang-related behavior” after the company allegedly boycotted the use of Xinjiang cotton.

Illumina competes with the Chinese biotech firm BGI in gene-sequencing.

In a statement, Illumina said it complies with regulations wherever it operates.

“We are assessing this announcement with the goal of finding a positive resolution,” the company said.

Mexico and Canada tariffs

On Monday, Sheinbaum said she would dispatch 10,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to try to curb the flow of drugs into the United States. 

“Mexico will reinforce the northern border … to stop drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, in particular fentanyl,” she posted on X after talking with Trump. “The United States commits to work to stop the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”

Trudeau said Canada would deploy new technology and personnel along its southern border with the United States to stop the flow of fentanyl.

“I just had a good call with President Trump,” Trudeau said on X. “Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together.”

Effects on US consumers

Trump acknowledged Sunday that the new tariffs on the three biggest U.S. trading partners could hit inflation-weary Americans with higher prices for groceries, gasoline, cars and other consumer goods but said the higher tariffs would be “worth the price” to bolster U.S. interests.

U.S. consumers could face higher prices because companies that pay the tariffs to the federal government to import goods from other countries often pass on at least part, if not all, of their higher costs to consumers, rather than absorb the extra expenses themselves.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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ISLAMABAD  — The Taliban have warned that the military weapons left behind by the United States in Afghanistan now belong to them as “spoils of war” and will be utilized to defend against any attempts to reclaim them. 

The statement marks the first official response from the internationally unrecognized government in Kabul to President Donald Trump’s pledge on the eve of his Jan. 20 inauguration to retrieve U.S. arms from the de facto Islamist Afghan leaders.  

“The weapons that America abandoned in Afghanistan, as well as those provided to the former Afghan regime, are now in the possession of the Mujahideen [or Taliban forces] as spoils of war,” claimed Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesperson, while participating in an X space session late on Monday.  

“The Afghan people now own these weapons and are utilizing them to defend their independence, sovereignty, and Islamic system. No external force can compel us to surrender these weapons, nor will we accept any demands for their surrender,” Mujahid stated. “We will use these weapons to repel invaders who dare to seize them.” 

U.S.-led Western troops were stationed in Afghanistan for nearly two decades to counter terrorist groups and protect the internationally backed government in Kabul at the time. They hastily and chaotically withdrew in August 2021, just days after the then-insurgent Taliban stormed back to power. 

A U.S. Department of Defense report in 2022 found that about $7 billion worth of military hardware was left behind in Afghanistan after the military withdrawal was completed. The equipment, including aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, communications equipment, and other materials, was subsequently seized by the Taliban. 

Trump stated in his pre-inauguration remarks at a rally in Washington last month that his predecessor, Joe Biden, “gave our military equipment, a big chunk of it, to the enemy.” He went on to warn that future financial assistance to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan would be contingent upon the return of U.S. military arms.  

“If we’re going to pay billions of dollars a year, tell them we’re not going to give them the money unless they give back our military equipment,” Trump said then, without elaborating.  

Mujahid, while speaking on Monday, rejected Trump’s assertions, saying the Taliban have not received “a single penny” from the U.S. in financial aid since regaining control of the country. He stated that Kabul has neither anticipated nor sought any assistance from Washington.  

The Taliban have displayed U.S. military gear in their so-called victory day celebrations since returning to power in Afghanistan. 

The U.S. troop exit from Afghanistan stemmed from the February 2020 Doha Agreement that the first Trump administration negotiated with the then-insurgent Taliban. Biden completed and defended the military withdrawal, saying the choice he had was either to follow through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban. 
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — When Chinese startup DeepSeek released its AI model this month, it was hailed as a breakthrough, a sign that China’s artificial intelligence companies could compete with their Silicon Valley counterparts using fewer resources.

The narrative was clear: DeepSeek had done more with less, finding clever workarounds to U.S. chip restrictions. However, that storyline has begun to shift.

OpenAI, the U.S.-based company behind ChatGPT, now claims DeepSeek may have improperly used its proprietary data to train its model, raising questions about whether DeepSeek’s success was truly an engineering marvel.

In statements to several media outlets this week, OpenAI said it is reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have trained its AI by mimicking responses from OpenAI’s models.

The process, known as distillation, is common among AI developers but is prohibited by OpenAI’s terms of service, which forbid using its model outputs to train competing systems.

Some U.S. officials appear to support OpenAI’s concerns. At his confirmation hearing this week, Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick accused DeepSeek of misusing U.S. technology to create a “dirt cheap” AI model.

“They stole things. They broke in. They’ve taken our IP,” Lutnick said of China.

David Sacks, the White House czar for AI and cryptocurrency, was more measured, saying only that it is “possible” that DeepSeek had stolen U.S. intellectual property.

In an interview with the cable news network Fox News, Sacks added that there is “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek “distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models,” adding that stronger efforts are needed to curb the rise of “copycat” AI systems.

At the center of the dispute is a key question about AI’s future: how much control should companies have over their own AI models, when those programs were themselves built using data taken from others?

AI data fight

The question is especially relevant for OpenAI, which faces its own legal challenges. The company has been sued by several media companies and authors who accuse it of illegally using copyrighted material to train its AI models.

Justin Hughes, a Loyola Law School professor specializing in intellectual property, AI, and data rights, said OpenAI’s accusations against DeepSeek are “deeply ironic,” given the company’s own legal troubles.

“OpenAI has had no problem taking everyone else’s content and claiming it’s ‘fair,'” Hughes told VOA in an email.

“If the reports are accurate that OpenAI violated other platforms’ terms of service to get the training data it has wanted, that would just add an extra layer of irony – dare we say hypocrisy – to OpenAI complaining about DeepSeek.”

DeepSeek has not responded to OpenAI’s accusations. In a technical paper released with its new chatbot, DeepSeek acknowledged that some of its models were trained alongside other open-source models – such as Qwen, developed by China’s Alibaba, and Llama, released by Meta – according to Johnny Zou, a Hong Kong-based AI investment specialist.

However, OpenAI appears to be alleging that DeepSeek improperly used its closed-source models – which cannot be freely accessed or used to train other AI systems.

“It’s quite a serious statement,” said Zou, who noted that OpenAI has not yet presented evidence of wrongdoing by DeepSeek.

Proving improper distillation may be difficult without disclosing details on how its own models were trained, Zou added.

Even if OpenAI presents concrete proof, its legal options may be limited. Although Zou noted that the company could pursue a case against DeepSeek for violating its terms of service, not all experts believe such a claim would hold up in court.

“Even assuming DeepSeek trained on OpenAI’s data, I don’t think OpenAI has much of a case,” said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in intellectual property and technology.

Even though AI models often have restrictive terms of service, “no model creator has actually tried to enforce these terms with monetary penalties or injunctive relief,” Lemley wrote in a recent paper with co-author Peter Henderson.

The paper argues that these restrictions may be unenforceable, since the materials they aim to protect are “largely not copyrightable.”

“There are compelling reasons for many of these provisions to be unenforceable: they chill good faith research, constrain competition, and create quasi-copyright ownership where none should exist,” the paper noted.

OpenAI’s main legal argument would likely be breach of contract, said Hughes. Even if that were the case, though, he added, “good luck enforcing that against a Chinese company without meaningful assets in the United States.”

Possible options

The financial stakes are adding urgency to the debate. U.S. tech stocks dipped Monday after following news of DeepSeek’s advances, though they later regained some ground.

Commerce nominee Lutnick suggested that further government action, including tariffs, could be used to deter China from copying advanced AI models.

But speaking the same day, U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to take a different view, surprising some industry insiders with an optimistic take on DeepSeek’s breakthrough.

The Chinese company’s low-cost model, Trump said, was “very much a positive development” for AI, because “instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less, and you’ll come up with hopefully the same solution.”

If DeepSeek has succeeded in building a relatively cheap and competitive AI model, that may be bad for those with investment – or stock options – in current generative AI companies, Hughes said.

“But it might be good for the rest of us,” he added, noting that until recently it appeared that only the existing tech giants “had the resources to play in the generative AI sandbox.”

“If DeepSeek disproved that, we should hope that what can be done by a team of engineers in China can be done by a similarly resourced team of engineers in Detroit or Denver or Boston,” he said. 
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washington — The White House says President Donald Trump is going to pursue the denuclearization of North Korea, although analysts say that is easier said than done.

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

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

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

Commitment to denuclearization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daunting task

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In June 2018, Trump decided to suspend major military exercises with South Korea in an apparent gesture of good faith, right after his first meeting with Kim in Singapore. It raised some fears among South Koreans that such a move could weaken defense against the North.
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A conversation with Ambassador Matthew Klimow, the former top U.S. diplomat in Turkmenistan, takes a deeper look into a country often described as one of the most closed and repressive in the world. Klimow argues that there has been noticeable progress in Turkmenistan and that significant factors must be considered in U.S. policy toward the nation.‪

Click here for the full story in Uzbek.

 
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