DruchinaChina

US Postal Service suspends inbound parcels from China, Hong Kong 

HONG KONG/SEOUL/SHANGHAI — The U.S. Postal Service said it would temporarily suspend parcels from China and Hong Kong, after President Donald Trump ended a trade provision this week used by retailers including Temu and Shein to ship low-value packages duty-free to the U.S.

The Trump administration imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods that came into effect on Tuesday and moved to close the “de minimis” exemption that allows U.S. shoppers to avoid paying tariffs for shipments below $800.

The extra tariff and the elimination of de minimis follow repeated warnings by Trump that Beijing was not doing enough to halt the flow of fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic opioid, into the U.S.

Reuters reported previously that Chinese suppliers use the duty-free provision to export chemical materials for fentanyl by disguising them as gadgets and other low-cost goods.

“This is huge… People waiting for orders from Amazon, Shein and Temu have no way of knowing when they can receive those orders,” said Ram Ben Tzion, founder of Ultra Information Solution, the firm behind digital shipment vetting platform Publican.

USPS said the change will not impact the flow of letters and ‘flats’ — mail that can be up to 15 inches (38 cm) long or 3/4 inches (1.9 cm) thick — from China and Hong Kong. It did not immediately comment on whether this was tied to Trump’s change to ending de minimis shipments from China and other countries.

“The USPS would require some time to sort out how to execute the new taxes before allowing Chinese packages to arrive in the U.S. again,” said Chelsey Tam, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar.

“This is a significant challenge for them because there were 4 million de minimis packages per day in 2024, and it is difficult to check all the packages — so it will take time.”

At a Hong Kong post office, a businessman who had come to check the status of a package he sent to the U.S. earlier expressed frustration after a staffer told him it wasn’t possible to ascertain where his delivery might be now.

“This political war is affecting the local people, not just in Hong Kong but in other places too. It’s very disturbing for us,” John Khan, who has run a trading business for nearly 30 years, told Reuters.

China’s foreign ministry called on Wednesday for dialog and consultation between Beijing and Washington, adding that reducing demand for drugs at home and enhancing law enforcement cooperation was the fundamental way for the U.S. to solve its fentanyl crisis.

Greater scrutiny

Logistics provider Easyship warned clients who regularly send sub-$800 shipments to the U.S. were likely to face much greater scrutiny and advised them to set up distribution centers within the U.S., partner with a local warehouse or U.S. fulfillment center.

Some other international couriers including FedEx FDX.N and SF Express, China’s largest express delivery company, said they continue to send packages to the U.S.

FedEx, however, added it had suspended its money-back guarantee for U.S. inbound shipments effective Jan. 29, citing recent regulatory changes, according to a notice on its website.

Fast-fashion retailer Shein and online dollar-store Temu, both of which sell products ranging from toys to smartphones, have grown rapidly in the U.S. thanks in part to the de minimis exemption.

The two firms together likely accounted for more than 30% of all packages shipped to the United States each day under the de minimis provision, the U.S. congressional committee on China said in a June 2023 report.

Nearly half of all packages shipped under de minimis come from China, according to the report.

Shein and Temu did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

“Doing the paperwork for customs declarations was not something these companies had to deal with very often before,” said Basile Ricard, operations director at Ceva Logistics Greater China.

“So this is a very new process for them. If this remains a largely manual process it will be incredibly difficult… It’s really not clear for us at this stage how they are going to manage that.”

Amazon also has a large seller base in China, with e-commerce consultancy Marketplace Pulse estimating in February that China-based sellers represent nearly half of the top 10,000 sellers on Amazon in the U.S. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In November, the U.S. company set up Amazon Haul to allow shoppers to purchase $5 handbags and $10 sweaters from China-based sellers.

Delays in deliveries

Trump’s crackdown on de minimis would make the products sold by the likes of Shein and Temu more expensive but is unlikely to dramatically impact shipment volumes, experts said.

“E-commerce volumes out of China grew 20-30% last year, so it’s going to take a sledgehammer to crack that level of consumer demand and I’m not sure de minimis alone is enough,” said Niall van de Wouw, Chief Airfreight Officer at freight platform Xeneta.

“They will still be cheaper than buying through retailers in the U.S. Delays in receiving the goods due to operational disruptions could have a bigger impact than price.”

Shein has previously said it supports reform of the de minimis provision.

Both Temu, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, and Singapore-headquartered Shein, which plans to list in London this year, have taken measures such as sourcing more products from outside China, opening U.S. warehouses and bringing more U.S. sellers on board, to mitigate the impact.

In what would be another blow to the two China-founded e-commerce platforms, the U.S. is discussing whether to add Shein and Temu to the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘forced labor’ list, Semafor reported on Tuesday.
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DruafAfrica

South Africa’s unity government steady after stormy start

Johannesburg — In the seven months since it was formed, South Africa’s unlikely unity government has been stretched and cracked but remains intact under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who delivers its first state of the nation address Thursday.

Several loud quarrels have erupted over sticking points such as language education in schools and Ramaphosa’s warm words towards Russia but nothing that has made real the threats and fears of collapse.

“They think we are at each other’s throats. We are not. We continue to meet and talk,” Ramaphosa said in the wake of the latest crisis sparked by his signing of a property expropriation bill last month.

The second-largest partner in the 10-party coalition, the Democratic Alliance, was angry that Ramaphosa signed the act without consulting his partners in the government of national unity (GNU).

“This is not how coalitions work,” DA leader John Steenhuisen fumed. “We will not be reduced to being spectators.”

But the party did not object to the need for land reform in the country, where most farmland is owned by whites. It also sided with Ramaphosa when the bill was attacked by US President Donald Trump for allowing the “confiscation” of property, saying this was untrue.

The DA has six ministries in exchange for propping up Ramaphosa’s ANC in government after it failed to win enough votes in the May election to govern alone, a first since the party took power in 1994 and ended decades of white-minority apartheid rule.

It was an unlikely collaboration, with the DA a long and critical rival of the African National Congress (ANC).

But the GNU, which includes eight other smaller parties, has been credited with bringing some stability to the continent’s most industrialized economy as it faces a host of challenges, from an unemployment rate topping 30%, to high rates of crime.

Big business

While it has fumed and flexed, the center-right DA is also aware that, should it quit the unity government, the ANC could find support from the radical-left EFF and the populist MK parties, now in opposition.

It is a scenario it calls a “doomsday coalition”.

“This is something the DA will move Table Mountain to avoid,” Sunday Times editor-in-chief Makhudu Sefara wrote in a weekend column. “And therein lies the extent to which they’re prepared to compromise.”

The DA will not walk out, said political scientist Sandile Swana. 

“It is the political party of big business,” he said. “And the GNU was mandated, or demanded or directed, to come into existence by big business in South Africa.”

Despite some cynical maneuvring at local government level — for example, to push out the DA mayor of the city of Tshwane in September — the coalition will even survive bitter local elections due in late 2026, said political scientist Susan Booysen told AFP.

“They could actually go into a poisonous, toxic local government election campaign and continue with the national coalition,” she said. “It’s such a schizophrenic type of coalition.”

Ramaphosa, meanwhile, is walking a fine line within his own party, where a large faction of the ANC wants him to assert that it “is not in the DA’s pocket,” Booysen said.

But even if Ramaphosa does not complete his term as president, with his future as head of the party not guaranteed after ANC leadership elections in 2027, his successor is also unlikely to end the fractious collaboration, Swana said.

“Even if Ramaphosa is removed, I do not think they will kick the DA out of government,” Swana said.

“The GNU, as things stand, will last the five-year period.”
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DruasiaAsia

China says it is willing to work with EU on ‘global challenges’

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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DruasiaAsia

India PM Modi’s party seeks to oust anti-corruption crusader in New Delhi state elections

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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DruamAmericas

Decorated pilot Harry Stewart, Jr., one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, dies at 100

Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr, a decorated World War II pilot who broke racial barriers as a Tuskegee Airmen and earned honors for his combat heroism, has died. He was 100.

Stewart was one of the last surviving combat pilots of the famed 332nd Fighter Group also known as the Tuskegee Airmen. They were the nation’s first Black military pilots.

The Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum confirmed his death. The organization said he died peacefully at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on Sunday.

Stewart earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for downing three German aircraft during a dogfight on April 1, 1945. He was also part of a team of four Tuskegee Airmen who won the U.S. Air Force Top Gun flying competition in 1949, although their accomplishment would not be recognized until decades later.

“Harry Stewart was a kind man of profound character and accomplishment with a distinguished career of service he continued long after fighting for our country in World War II,” Brian Smith, president and CEO of the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum, said.

Born on July 4, 1924, in Virginia, his family moved to New York when he was young. Stewart had dreamed of flying since he was a child when he would watch planes at LaGuardia airport, according to a book about his life titled “Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airmen’s Firsthand Account of World War II.” In the wake of Pearl Harbor, an 18-year-old Stewart joined what was then considered an experiment to train Black military pilots. The unit sometimes was also known as the Tuskegee Airmen for where they trained in Alabama or the Red Tails because of the red tips of their P-51 Mustangs.

“I did not recognize at the time the gravity of what we are facing. I just felt as though it was a duty of mine at the time. I just stood up to my duty,” Stewart said of World War II in a 2024 interview with CNN about the war.

Having grown up in a multicultural neighborhood, the segregation and prejudice of the Jim Crow-era South came as a shock to Stewart, but he was determined to finish and earn his wings according to the book about his life. After finishing training, the pilots were assigned to escort U.S. bombers in Europe. The Tuskegee Airmen are credited with losing significantly fewer escorted bombers than other fighter groups.

“I got to really enjoy the idea of the panorama, I would say, of the scene I would see before me with the hundreds of bombers and the hundreds of fighter planes up there and all of them pulling the condensation trails, and it was just the ballet in the sky and a feeling of belonging to something that was really big,” Stewart said in a 2020 interview with WAMC.

Stewart would sometimes say in a self-effacing way that he was too busy enjoying flying to realize he was making history, according to his book.

Stewart had hoped to become a commercial airline pilot after he left the military, but was rejected because of his race. He went on to earn a mechanical engineering degree at New York University. He relocated to Detroit and retired as vice president of a natural gas pipeline company.

Stewart told Michigan Public Radio in 2019 that he was moved to tears on a recent commercial flight when he saw who was piloting the aircraft.

“When I entered the plane, I looked into the cockpit there and there were two African American pilots. One was the co-pilot, and one was the pilot. But not only that, the thing that started bringing the tears to my eyes is that they were both female,” Stewart said.

The Air Force last month briefly removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs in an effort to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The materials were quickly restored following a bipartisan backlash.
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DruamAmericas

Trump says U.S. will take ownership of Gaza

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants the United States to take ownership of Gaza, moving beyond his earlier statements of forcing Palestinians in the war-torn enclave to relocate to neighboring Jordan and Egypt.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” he said during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Tuesday evening.

In recent days hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the southern parts of Gaza have marched north toward their homes after Israel allowed people to return as part of the ceasefire for a hostage release deal with Hamas.

Trump said he wants to develop the area into what he calls “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

“Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent, in a really magnificent area,” he said.

Netanyahu said one of his war goals is to ensure that Hamas never poses a threat to Israel again. But Trump, Netanyahu said, is “taking it to a much higher level.”

“I think it’s something that could change history, and it’s worthwhile really pursuing this avenue,” he added.

Trump did not share details on how he plans to exert control over the area ravaged by 15 months of war, but he did not rule out sending U.S. troops.

“If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that piece, and we’re going to develop it,” he said.

Trump’s comments mark a remarkable shift from his criticism of America’s involvement in Middle East conflicts. He sees a “long-term ownership position,” for the U.S. that would bring “great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East.”

“This was not a decision made lightly,” he said.

However, any discussion of relocation will certainly be met with resistance from Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes in what is now called Israel: in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and during Israel’s 1967 seizure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Authority and Arab League countries including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia earlier this month rejected Trump’s plans to relocate Palestinians. They warned that such plans “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples.”

It’s unclear how occupying Gaza would fit into Trump’s own stated goal of expanding the Abraham Accords to include Riyadh. He brokered the deal that normalized ties between Israel and Arab countries in 2020.

Saudi Arabia has publicly said it would only agree to recognize Israel, if the Gaza war ends and Palestinians have a path to statehood.

Earlier Tuesday when asked whether the Saudis are demanding a Palestinian state, Trump said, “No they’re not.”

Trump’s statement on Gaza is his latest signaling of expansionist ambitions, following his statements to acquire Greenland from Denmark, taking over the Panama Canal, and absorbing Canada.

Ceasefire renegotiation

Speaking to reporters at the White House earlier Tuesday, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the administration has begun negotiations toward Phase 2 of the three-phase ceasefire-for-hostage-release deal, which includes the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza, a permanent halt in fighting and Israel’s withdrawal from the territory. 

Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, has released 18 hostages so far, while Israel has freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. 

Witkoff suggested that the administration is considering renegotiating parts of the agreement that took effect on Jan. 19, the day before Trump was inaugurated.

“Part of the problem is that it wasn’t such a wonderful agreement that was first signed. That was not dictated by the Trump administration. We had nothing to do with it,” he said. “Now we’re working within that rubric, and we’re figuring things out.”

He doubled down on Trump’s suggestion to remove Gazans, saying that the five-year reconstruction plan for Gaza as outlined in phase three is “physically impossible.”

Trump’s insistence on relocating Gazans could signal a desire to renegotiate the ceasefire deal, particularly the second phase, said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. 

“The goal might be to force Hamas into choosing between relinquishing control of Gaza or leaving the Strip if it wants an Israeli withdrawal or reconstruction, or risk the entirety of the population facing forcible removal, though how that would be carried out is unknown,” he told VOA.

Also Tuesday, Trump ended support for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees and withdrew the U.S. from what he calls the antisemitic UN Human Rights Council.

Iran nuclear

Shortly before his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump directed his aides to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon and to drive down its oil exports to zero.

“I’m unhappy to do it, but I really have not so much choice, because we have to be strong and firm, and I hope that it’s not going to have to be used in any great measure at all,” he said. “It’s very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”  

As of September 2024, U.S. intelligence concluded in a report that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. However, Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce one, if it so chooses,” the report said.

In November, the Justice Department under the Biden administration announced that an Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election had been thwarted. Trump said he has directed his aides to “obliterate” Tehran if the Iranian regime moves to assassinate him.

“If they did that they would be obliterated,” Trump said. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.” 

Pressure on Netanyahu

Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu comes as the Israeli leader faces pressure from his right-wing coalition to end the ceasefire.

Both Trump and Netanyahu share the goal of ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza and return the remaining Israeli hostages, said Jonathan Rynhold, head of the Department of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University. However, the two men place different priorities on different aspects of the goal.

For Netanyahu, the priority is to ensure Hamas has no political future, Rynhold told VOA, while for Trump it’s to maintain the ceasefire “so that he can move to an Israeli-Saudi Arabian normalization agreement.” 

U.S. administrations under Presidents George W. Bush to Joe Biden have stated their support for Palestinian statehood under the two-state solution. In 2020 during his first term, Trump announced his Middle East peace plan that would deny Palestinians having their own state.

Trump was non-committal when asked Tuesday whether he supports the two-state solution. His plan on Gaza “doesn’t mean anything about a two-state or one-state or any other state,” he said.

The war in Gaza began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took about 250 people hostage. Israel’s counteroffensive has killed more than 47,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. Israel’s military says the death toll includes 17,000 Hamas militants.
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DruafAfrica

South Africa tests radioactivity in rhino horns to deter poachers

Scientists are testing a novel technique to deter poachers targeting endangered rhinoceros for their prized horns. As part of a pilot study in South Africa, researchers have injected small, radioactive pellets into the horns of live rhinos. The goal is to make the horns radioactive so there is less demand for them on the black market. Marize de Klerk reports from the UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in South Africa.
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DruchinaChina

Former Google engineer faces new US charges he stole AI secrets for Chinese companies

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled an expanded 14-count indictment accusing former Google software engineer Linwei Ding of stealing artificial intelligence trade secrets to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for. 

Ding, 38, a Chinese national, was charged by a federal grand jury in San Francisco with seven counts each of economic espionage and theft of trade secrets. 

Each economic espionage charge carries a maximum 15-year prison term and $5 million fine, while each trade secrets charge carries a maximum 10-year term and $250,000 fine. 

The defendant, also known as Leon Ding, was indicted last March on four counts of theft of trade secrets. He is free on bond. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Ding’s case was coordinated through an interagency Disruptive Technology Strike Force created in 2023 by the Biden administration. 

The initiative was designed to help stop advanced technology from being acquired by countries such as China and Russia or potentially threatening national security. 

Prosecutors said Ding stole information about the hardware infrastructure and software platform that lets Google’s supercomputing data centers train large AI models. 

Some of the allegedly stolen chip blueprints were meant to give Google an edge over cloud computing rivals Amazon and Microsoft, which design their own, and reduce Google’s reliance on chips from Nvidia. 

Prosecutors said Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began his thefts three years later when he was being courted to join an early-stage Chinese technology company. 

Ding allegedly uploaded more than 1,000 confidential files by May 2023 and later circulated a PowerPoint presentation to employees of a China startup he founded, saying that country’s policies encouraged development of a domestic AI industry. 

Google was not charged and has said it cooperated with law enforcement. 

According to court records describing a December 18 hearing, prosecutors and defense lawyers discussed a “potential resolution” to Ding’s case, “but anticipate the matter proceeding to trial.” 

The case is U.S. v. Ding, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-cr-00141. 
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DruafAfrica

Trump orders target several UN bodies

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday stopped U.S. engagement with the U.N. Human Rights Council, extended a halt to funding for the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and ordered a review of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO.

“It’s got great potential and based on the potential we’ll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together,” Trump told reporters. “It’s not being well run, to be honest and they’re not doing the job.

“A lot of these conflicts that we’re working on should be settled, or at least we should have some help in settling them. We never seem to get help. That should be the primary purpose of the United Nations,” the U.S. president said.

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, “From day one, U.S. support for the United Nations has saved countless lives and advanced global security.”

“The secretary-general looks forward to continuing his productive relationship with President Trump and the U.S. government to strengthen that relationship in today’s turbulent world.”

Trump said that he was not looking to take away money from the 193-member world body, though he complained that Washington had to pay a disproportionate amount.

Washington is the U.N.’s largest contributor – followed by China – accounting for 22% of the core U.N. budget and 27% of the peacekeeping budget. The U.N. has said the U.S. currently owes a total of $2.8 billion, of which $1.5 billion is for the regular budget. These payments are not voluntary.

UNRWA

Trump’s order on Tuesday was largely symbolic and mirrored moves he made during his first term in office, from 2017-2021.

Since taking office for a second term on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization and from the Paris climate agreement – also steps he took during his first term in office.

The U.S. was UNRWA’s biggest donor – providing $300 million-$400 million a year – but former President Joe Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militants Hamas that triggered the war in Gaza.

The U.S. Congress then formally suspended contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025. UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

The United Nations has said that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and were fired. A Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed in September by Israel – was also found to have had a UNRWA job. The U.N. has vowed to investigate all accusations made and repeatedly asked Israel for evidence, which it says has not been provided.

Human Rights Council

The first Trump administration also quit the 47-member Human Rights Council halfway through a three-year term over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform. The U.S. is not currently a member of the Geneva-based body. Under Biden, the U.S. was re-elected and served a 2022-2024 term.

A council working group is due to review the U.S. human rights record later this year, a process all countries undergo every few years. While the council has no legally binding power, its debates carry political weight and criticism can raise global pressure on governments to change course.

Trump’s executive order on Tuesday also asks Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review and report back to him on international organizations, conventions, or treaties that “promote radical or anti-American sentiment.”

He specified that the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) should be reviewed first because Washington had previously accused it of anti-Israel bias.
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DruamAmericas

VOA Mandarin: Trump wants ‘Iron Dome’ for US; can it work?

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order to establish a nationwide “Iron Dome” missile defense system has sparked debate over its feasibility, funding, and strategic implications. Unlike Israel’s Iron Dome, which intercepts short-range rockets, Trump’s plan aims to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and hypersonic weapons.  

Click here for the full story in Mandarin. 
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DruchinaChina

VOA Mandarin: China retaliates by imposing tariffs on US goods

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The Chinese government on Tuesday launched four consecutive trade measures against the United States, including 10%-15% tariffs, an antitrust investigation on Google, a blacklist of two U.S. companies, and export controls on five types of metals. Analysts said that Beijing’s four consecutive countermeasures were intended not only to retaliate against the United States but also to increase bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin. 
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DruafAfrica

Scientists test injecting radioactivity into rhino horns to deter poachers

Scientists are testing a novel technique to deter poachers targeting endangered rhinoceroses for their prized horns. As part of a pilot study in South Africa, researchers have injected small, radioactive pellets into the horns of live rhinos. The goal is to make the horns radioactive so there is less demand for them on the black market. Marize de Klerk reports from the UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere Reserve.
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DruafAfrica

Nigeria announces measures to soften impact of USAID programs’ suspension

Abuja, Nigeria — Nigerian officials have launched a committee to develop a transition and sustainability plan for USAID-funded health programs following U.S. President Donald Trump’s 90-day halt of most foreign aid. The multi-ministerial committee aims to secure new financial support for critical health programs. 

Nigeria’s health minister said the committee—comprising officials from the ministries of finance, health, and environment—intends to ensure that patients receiving treatment for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria do not experience setbacks amid the uncertainty over U.S. foreign policy.

Shortly after taking office two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on U.S. foreign aid. But days later, he approved a temporary waiver for life-saving humanitarian assistance, covering medicine, medical services, food, and shelter.

Despite the exemption, concerns remain over the future of U.S. funding for global health programs.

Public health expert Ejike Orji welcomed Nigeria’s proactive response to the U.S. funding freeze.

“What this means is that they’re going to do a review, situation assessment of what’s going on and that would give them the opportunity to make recommendations to the government. They (U.S.) gave a ninety-day review because of the strategic importance of continuing the HIV program in Nigeria, so that means there’s still a possibility after their review, they might say, ‘Look, we don’t want to continue this funding,” said Orji.

Nigeria is a significant recipient of U.S. foreign aid, receiving $1.02 billion in 2023, much of it through agencies like USAID.

USAID funding to Nigeria plays a pivotal role in HIV/AIDS treatment, maternal and child care, and disease prevention efforts.

On Monday, the Nigerian Federal Executive Council approved $1 billion for healthcare sector reforms and allocated an additional $3.2 million to procure 150,000 HIV treatment packs over the next four months.

Authorities said the new funding will support improvements in primary healthcare services, maternal and child healthcare, and training of healthcare professionals.

But Ndeayo Iwot, general secretary of the Health Sector Reforms Coalition, said it will be difficult to sustain those programs without continued U.S. support.

“Even when they’re releasing the available funds on time, they will not be able to cover all the areas that those funds [aid] were helping them to achieve. It will take time, probably two, three years,” said Iwot.

Approximately 1.8 million Nigerians are living with HIV. The country also accounts for the world’s highest number of malaria deaths and ranks among the top countries for tuberculosis cases.

Iwot said Nigeria needs new partnerships for health programs.

“Health needs a multi sectoral approach, it works on partnerships, there are certain things you shouldn’t do alone as a country. Going through resource pulling from many partners and stakeholders is a recommended approach to financing health activities,” said Iwot.

Currently, only about 4% of Nigeria’s annual budget is allocated to the health sector—far below the 15 percent target set by African leaders in the 2001 Abuja Declaration.

It’s unclear whether the U.S. will reverse its decision after the 90-day pause. But with uncertainty looming, analysts say careful implementation of policies and new partnerships may be Nigeria’s best path forward.
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Edison power company sued over California fires

In Los Angeles, residents of fire-devastated areas are filing lawsuits against the city’s electricity supplier. Some residents have videos they say show that sparking power lines caused one of the most destructive fires. Angelina Bagdasaryan visited the area and spoke with residents. Anna Rice narrates her story. Videographer: Vazgen Varzhabetian
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DruasiaAsia

Trump, Xi to discuss tariffs imposed on each other’s exports

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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Taliban threaten to use US arms to thwart attempts to retake them 

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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DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT fuels debate over AI building blocks

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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Trump support for denuclearization talks with Russia, China raises hopes 

white house — Arms control advocates are hoping U.S. President Donald Trump’s fresh words of support for denuclearization will lead to talks with Russia and China on arms reduction.

U.S. negotiations with the Russians and Chinese on denuclearization and eventual agreements are “very possible,” according to Trump, who addressed the World Economic Forum a week ago in Davos, Switzerland.

“Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear [weapons], and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about because you don’t want to hear,” he said. “It’s too depressing.”

Trump noted that in his first term, he discussed the topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We were talking about denuclearization of our two countries, and China would have come along,” according to Trump. “President Putin really liked the idea of cutting back on nuclear [armaments], and I think the rest of the world — we would have gotten them to follow.”

Just months before leaving office, former U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit in Peru where both agreed that decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons should remain under human control. That consensus was seen as a positive step after the Chinese, four months previously, suspended nuclear arms control talks with Washington to protest American arms sales to Taiwan.

The horror of nuclear attacks first became evident to many in the world through magazines in the West, which printed photographs of the radiation-burned survivors of the U.S. atomic attack on two Japanese cities in 1945 to end World War II. In subsequent years during the Cold War, U.S. government films captured the destructive force of test detonations in the Nevada desert, eventually prompting public demonstrations to “ban the bomb” and diplomacy to reduce or eliminate all nuclear weapons.

A major breakthrough occurred in 1987 with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) between the United States and the Soviet Union. It entered into full force the following year. By 1991, nearly 2,700 missiles had been dismantled. That was the first time the two nuclear superpowers achieved a reduction of such weapons rather than just limiting their growth.

Over the years, the Americans and the Russians lost their monopoly on nuclear weapons. Nine countries presently have nuclear arsenals, although Israel has never acknowledged possession of such weaponry.

The United States and Russia each have more than 5,000 nuclear warheads — 90% of the world’s total. The combined global force of all countries’ nuclear weapons could destroy the world many times over, according to arms control advocates.

The current New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed in 2010 by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, set limits on the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems, while including on-site inspection and exchanges of data for verification.

The treaty expires in early February 2026, which adds urgency to Trump’s call for talks with Russia and China, according to Xiaodon Liang, senior analyst for nuclear weapons policy and disarmament at the Arms Control Association.

“And because of that, this issue has to be at the top of the agenda, and having a signal that the president is concerned about this issue and thinking about it is very positive,” Liang told VOA.

Since a formal, comprehensive agreement could take years to negotiate — possibly spanning beyond the four years of the second Trump presidency — Liang suggests the U.S. president consider an “executive agreement” with Putin, an informal consensus or a series of unilateral steps to continue adhering to the numbers in New START for an indefinite period.

“That would be a stabilizing factor in this important bilateral relationship,” Liang added.

There are analysts who advocate a more aggressive tactic.

Trump should consider ordering a resumption of nuclear testing to demonstrate to America’s adversaries that the U.S. arsenal of weapons of mass destruction remains viable and as an act of resolve, writes Robert Peters, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank seen as having a dominant influence on Trump administration policies.

Peters also suggests that Trump might want to withdraw from the 1963 Test Ban Treaty made with Moscow and “conduct an above-ground test either at the Nevada National Security Site or in the Pacific Ocean over open water, where nuclear fallout can be minimized” to stave escalatory moves by an adversary to the United States.

The Heritage Foundation did not respond to multiple requests from VOA to interview Peters.

Moscow is not known to have conducted any sort of test causing a nuclear chain reaction, known as criticality, since 1990. Two years later, the United States announced it would no longer test nuclear weapons, although subcritical simulations continue. The other nuclear nations have followed suit except North Korea, which last triggered a nuclear test explosion in 2017.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Tuesday moved up the hands of its “Doomsday Clock” by one second to 89 seconds to midnight, meant to signify the peril from weapons of mass destruction and other existential threats.

“We set the clock closer to midnight because we do not see positive progress on the global challenges we face, including nuclear risk, climate change, biological threats and advances in disruptive technology,” said Daniel Holz, a physics professor at the University of Chicago, just after the hands of this year’s clock were unveiled at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

While the Doomsday Clock is merely symbolic, Liang at the Arms Control Association sees it as an annual important ritual highlighting the risks to Americans and everyone else posed by the world’s nuclear arsenals.

“It is a good tool for bringing this to more people’s attention, and you can’t blame Americans for having so many other issues on their plate. And having this [clock] as a reminder, I think, is an effective communications tool,” Liang said.

At the Doomsday Clock ceremony, VOA asked former Colombian President and Nobel laureate Juan Manuel Santos what he viewed as the biggest hurdle to Trump, Putin and Xi making progress on denuclearization.

“The biggest challenge, in my view, is for them to understand that they should sit down and talk about how the three of them can take decisions to save their own countries and the whole world,” he said.

Liang compared the situation to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s call to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which led Washington and Moscow to pull back from the brink of nuclear war.

That resolution turned the hands of the Doomsday Clock the following year back to 12 minutes to midnight in recognition of the Americans, Soviets and British banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in space and under water.

It has been several years since the United States engaged in any denuclearization negotiations. Those working-level talks in 2019 in Sweden between the first Trump administration and North Korean officials did not yield any agreement, with Pyongyang’s chief negotiator, Kim Myong Gil, telling reporters that the Americans had raised expectations with promises of flexibility but would not “give up their old viewpoint and attitude.”

The State Department spokesperson at the time, Morgan Ortagus, said in a statement the two countries could not be expected to “overcome a legacy of 70 years of war and hostility on the Korean Peninsula in the course of a single Saturday,” but such weighty issues “require a strong commitment by both countries. The United States has that commitment.”
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Rwanda-backed rebels in eastern Congo say they plan to take their fight to the capital

GOMA, CONGO — Rwanda-backed rebels who captured eastern Congo’s largest city said Thursday they want to take their fight to the far-off capital, Kinshasa, while Congo’s president called for a massive military mobilization to resist the rebellion and his defense minister rejected calls for talks.

In a video message, Congo’s Defense Minister Guy Kabombo Muadiamvita said he has directed plans for any dialogue with the rebels to “be completely burned immediately.”

“We will stay here in Congo and fight. If we do not stay alive here, let’s stay dead here,” said Muadiamvita, a close ally of Congo’s president.

At a briefing where they sought to assert their control over the eastern city of Goma and surrounding territory in the neighboring South Kivu province, the M23 rebels said they would be open to dialogue with the government, also proposed by the east African regional bloc of which Rwanda is a member.

Their motive, however, is to gain political power, Corneille Nangaa, one of the political leaders of M23, said during the briefing. “We want to go to Kinshasa, take power and lead the country,” Nangaa said. He did not indicate how the rebels planned to advance on the capital, more than 1,500 kilometers away.

Rwanda’s leader, Paul Kagame, said he spoke with Angola’s President Joao Lourenco — a mediator in the conflict who also met with Congo’s leader a day earlier — and both leaders committed to working with other African countries to resolve the hostilities.

U.S. President Donald Trump described the conflict as a “very serious problem” when asked about it Thursday but declined to comment further, and a U.N. spokesman said the agency is “disturbed” by reports that neighboring Rwandan forces have crossed the border in the direction where the rebels are said to be advancing.

The M23 rebels are backed by some 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, far more than in 2012 when they first captured Goma. They are one of more than 100 armed groups vying for control in Congo’s mineral-rich east, which holds vast deposits estimated to be worth $24 trillion that are critical to much of the world’s technology.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, meanwhile, called on young people to enlist massively in the military, as a crucial meeting of neighbors asked the Congolese government to talk with the rebels. Rwanda’s leader also threatened to “deal” with any confrontation with South Africa, which has complained that fighting in eastern Congo has left South African peacekeepers dead.

In his first public remarks since the M23 rebels advanced into Goma on Monday, Tshisekedi vowed “a vigorous and coordinated response” from his forces to push back the rebels while reaffirming his commitment to a peaceful resolution.

On Thursday, he met with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Kinshasa, the Congolese presidency said on X, noting that France has provided significant support to Congo in recent U.N. meetings on the issue. “(Congo) expects a little more action in the face of this crisis,” it added.

Dead bodies, looting in Goma

Goma remained largely without electricity and water on Thursday, as the bodies of several alleged government soldiers lay in the streets, horrifying residents, including children.

M23 rebels escorted some 2,000 government soldiers and police officers — who they said surrendered — to an undisclosed location, some of them singing anti-Tshisekedi songs.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Congo said basic services are largely paralyzed in Goma, a humanitarian hub critical for more than 6 million people displaced by the conflict. “After several days of intense clashes, the city is now (faced) with massive humanitarian needs and severely impacted response capacities,” said Bruno Lemarquis, the humanitarian coordinator.

Footage from Goma showed residents carrying food items and goods looted from stores and warehouses in the city. “This is something that is going to exacerbate a dangerous cycle of violence as desperate times call for desperate measures,” the U.N. World Food Program emergency coordinator in eastern Congo, Cynthia Jones, said Thursday.

South Kivu gripped by fear

After capturing much of Goma, the rebels were advancing toward South Kivu’s provincial capital, Bukavu, causing fear and panic among residents, witnesses said Thursday.

Nana Bintou, a civil society leader, said gunshots and explosions were heard in Mukwinja, a captured town 135 kilometers from Bukavu.

The Congolese military has been weakened after hundreds of foreign military contractors withdrew and handed over their arms to the rebels. Residents of Goma described seeing soldiers changing into civilian clothing and dropping their guns as they crossed over the border to Rwanda or took shelter in foreign peacekeeping bases.

“The (Congolese) military bases in Bukavu have been emptied to reinforce those in Nyabibwe, Bushushu, and Nyamukubi” along the way to the capital, one youth leader said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was worried about his safety.

Neighbors urge talks with M23 as tensions grow

A summit of the regional East African bloc called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in eastern Congo and “strongly urged” Tshisekedi’s government to hold talks with the rebels. Tshisekedi was conspicuously absent from the virtual summit attended by Rwanda, also a member.

While African countries as well as the U.N. and U.S. have called for an immediate ceasefire, the risk of a regional war has increased, analysts say, exacerbated by the rebels’ advance into South Kivu and diatribes between Rwandan and South African officials. Congo is a member of the southern Africa regional bloc and also that of east Africa, whose peacekeeping force it expelled last year after deeming it ineffective.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the “Rwanda Defense Force militia” for the fighting that has resulted in the deaths of 13 South African peacekeepers in eastern Congo. He also said his government will ensure the peacekeepers are “sufficiently supported during this critical mission.”

His comment drew an angry response from Kagame, who called the South African peacekeepers a “belligerent force” working alongside armed groups that target Rwanda. “If South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day,” the Rwandan leader said on the social media platform X.

Who are the M23 and what do they want?

The chaotic situation with the M23 has its roots in ethnic conflict, stretching back to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when 800,000 Tutsis and others were killed by Hutus and former militias. M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and others involved in the genocide. Many Hutus fled into Congo after 1994.

Unlike in 2012 when the rebels seized Congo for days, observers say their withdrawal could be more difficult now. The rebels have been emboldened by Rwanda, which feels Congo is ignoring its interests in the region and failed to meet demands of previous peace agreements, according to Murithi Mutiga, program director for Africa at the Crisis Group, a think tank.

“Ultimately, this is a failure of African mediation (because) the warning signs were always there. Kigali was adopting very bellicose rhetoric and the Congolese government was also adopting very, very aggressive rhetoric,” Mutiga said.
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Dick Button, Olympic great and voice of skating, dies at 95

NEW YORK — Dick Button was more than the most accomplished men’s figure skater in history. He was one of his sport’s greatest innovators and promoters.

Button, winner of two Olympic gold medals and five consecutive world championships, died Thursday, said his son, Edward, who did not provide a cause. He was 95.

As an entrepreneur and broadcaster, Button promoted skating and its athletes, transforming a niche sport into the showpiece of every Winter Olympics.

“Dick was one of the most important figures in our sport,” Scott Hamilton said. “There wasn’t a skater after Dick who wasn’t helped by him in some way.”

Button’s impact began after World War II. He was the first U.S. men’s champion — and his country’s youngest at age 16 — when that competition returned in 1946. Two years later, he took the title at the St. Moritz Olympics, competing outdoors. He performed the first double axel in any competition and became the first American to win the men’s event.

“By the way, that jump had a cheat on it,” Button told the U.S. Olympic Committee website. “But listen, I did it and that was what counted.”

That began his dominance of international skating, and U.S. amateur sports. He was the first figure skater to win the prestigious Sullivan Award in 1949 — no other figure skater won it until Michelle Kwan in 2001.

In 1952, while a Harvard student, he won a second gold at the Oslo Games, making more history with the first triple jump (a loop) in competition. Soon after, he won a fifth world title, then gave up his eligibility as an amateur. All Olympic sports were subject to an amateur/professional division at the time.

“I had achieved everything I could have dreamed of doing as a skater,” said Button, who earned a law degree from Harvard in 1956. “I was able to enjoy the Ice Capades (show) and keep my hand in skating, and that was very important to me.”

With the Emmy Award-winning Button as the TV analyst, viewers got to learn not only the basics but the nuances of a sport foreign to many as he frankly broke down the performances. He became as much a fixture on ABC’s Wide World of Sports as Jim McKay and the hapless ski jumper tumbling down the slope.

“Dick Button is the custodian of the history of figure skating and its quintessential voice,” 1988 Olympic champion Brian Boitano said in Button’s autobiography. “He made the words ‘lutz’ and ‘salchow’ part of our everyday vocabulary.”

After a 1961 plane crash killed the entire U.S. figure skating team on the way to the world championships, which then were canceled, Button persuaded ABC Sports executive Roone Arledge to televise the 1962 event on Wide World. That’s when he joined the network as a commentator.

Button’s death coincided with another tragedy in the skating world, Wednesday night’s crash of an American Airlines flight that collided with an Army helicopter and plummeted into the Potomac River outside Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board. Two teenage figure skaters, their mothers, and two former world champions who were coaching at the Skating Club of Boston were among the 14 people killed from the skating community.

Button skated for the Boston club and remained close to it for the rest of his life. The trophy room at the club is named in his honor.

He also provided opportunities for skaters to make money after their competitive careers. He ran professional events he created for TV for years, attracting many top names in the sport — Hamilton, Torvill and Dean, Kristi Yamaguchi, Kurt Browning and Katarina Witt.

Button’s Candid Productions, formed 1959, also produced such made-for-TV programs as Battle of the Network Stars. He also dabbled in acting, but the rink was his realm.

“Dick Button created an open and honest space in figure skating broadcasting where no topic or moment was off-limits,” said Johnny Weir, the three-time U.S. champion and current NBC Sports figure skating analyst. “He told it like it was, even when his opinion wasn’t a popular one. His zingers were always in my mind when I would perform for him, and I wanted to make him as happy and proud as I would my coaches.

“I think that is something very special about commentating figure skating. As an athlete, we rarely have an opportunity to speak, and we rely on the TV voices to tell our story for us. Nobody could do it like Mr. Button.” 
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DruafAfrica

Ugandan nurse dies of Ebola

A male nurse in Uganda has died of Ebola, the first recorded death by the disease in the East African country since an outbreak ended in 2023, health officials said.

The 32-year-old nurse worked at Mulago National Specialised Hospital in Kampala, Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of Uganda’s health ministry, said Thursday.

The nurse died Wednesday of the Sudan strain of Ebola, Atwine said.

He sought treatment at several hospitals and had also consulted with a traditional healer before tests confirmed an Ebola diagnosis, health officials said.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X that his organization was supporting Uganda’s efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in Uganda with a $1 million allocation from WHO’s Contingency Fund for Emergencies.

Atwine said on her X social media account that “rapid response teams are fully deployed, contact tracing is underway, and all necessary measures are in place to contain the situation. We assure the public that we are in full control.”

Contact tracing, however, could be challenging in Kampala, with its population of 4 million people.

The health ministry, however, reported that it had identified 44 contacts of the late nurse, which included 30 other health care workers.

The symptoms of Ebola, an often fatal disease, include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, and at times internal and external bleeding.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health care workers and family members caring for someone with Ebola are at high risk for contracting the disease.

WHO said Ebola “is transmitted to people from wild animals (such as fruit bats, porcupines and non-human primates) and then spreads in the human population through direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g., bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.”

Ebola’s fatality rate is around 50%, WHO said on its website, but it also said that fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in some outbreaks.
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DruasiaAsia

Experts: Trump faces tough task to denuclearize North Korea 

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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DruamAmericas

Even under Trump, no clear path to peace between Russia and Ukraine

Russian forces continue to attack Ukraine even as the Trump administration works to bring both sides to the negotiating table. While Ukraine is ready for peace talks, analysts see little evidence that Moscow is prepared to end the war. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from former Moscow correspondent Ricardo Marquina.
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DruchinaChina

VOA Mandarin: Pessimism clouds New Year’s Eve’s Market in Hong Kong

Despite the Hong Kong government’s optimistic projection about Hong Kong’s economic recovery, vendors and shoppers at the New Year’s Eve’s Market at Victoria Park, the biggest of its kind in Hong Kong, told VOA they were pessimistic about economic prospect in the Year of the Snake.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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