Month: March 2024
Biden Administration Unveils Strict Auto Standards to Speed Electric Shift
New York — President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday revised pollution standards for cars and trucks meant to accelerate the U.S. auto industry’s shift to electric to mitigate climate change.
The rules set ambitious emission reductions for 2032 but are moderated somewhat compared with preliminary standards unveiled last April. Following carmaker criticism, the final rules give manufacturers greater flexibility and ease the benchmarks in the first three years.
Those shifts were criticized as a sop to corporations from at least one environmental group, even as the final rule won praise from other leading NGOs focused on climate change.
The final rules — which were described by administration official as “the strongest ever” and would likely be undone if Republican Donald Trump defeats Biden in November — still require a nearly 50% drop in fleet-wide emissions in 2032 compared with 2026 through increased sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and low-emission autos.
The rules, which dovetail with other key Biden programs to build more EV charging stations and manufacturing facilities and incentivize EV sales, establish the environment as a significant point of difference in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump has mocked climate change as a problem and cast the transition to EVs as a job-killer that will benefit China at the expense of American workers.
Biden argues that U.S. auto builders need to take the lead in the expanding EV market.
“I brought together American automakers. I brought together American autoworkers,” said Biden in a statement. “Together, we’ve made historic progress.”
Alluding to his target set three years ago that 50% of new vehicles in 2030 would be EVs, Biden predicted “we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”
EVs accounted for 7.6% in 2023 sales, up from 5.9% in 2022, according to Cox Automotive.
The original proposal had envisioned the EV share surging to as much as 67% of new vehicle sales by 2032.
Carmakers, which are midway through sweeping, multi-billion-dollar investments to build more EV capacity, criticized the initial standards as overly-stringent. They cited the limited state of charging capacity in the United States that has dampened consumer demand, as well as difficulties in supply of metals and other raw materials for EV batteries.
Following input from the auto industry, organized labor and auto dealerships, Biden administration officials decided to allow manufacturers a “variety of pathways” to reaching the standard, a senior Biden administration official said Tuesday.
This path could include a mix of EVs, conventional but more fuel-efficient engines, and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which have seen a rise in demand of late.
Biden administration officials opted to soften year-to-year emissions improvements in the 2027-2030 period, while maintaining the same target in 2032.
Moderating the targets in these first three years “was the right call,” said John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a Washington lobby representing carmakers.
“These adjusted EV targets — still a stretch goal — should give the market and supply chains a chance to catch up,” said Bozzella, adding that the extra time will allow more EV charging stations to come on-line.
The final standards set a fleet-wide target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide in 2032, down from 170 in 2027, according to an administration fact sheet.
Wednesday’s initiative won praise from leading environmental groups including the Sierra Club and NRDC, which said the new rules “take us in the right direction,” according to a statement from the Natural Resources Defense Council chief Manish Bapna.
But Dan Becker, director of the climate transport campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, slammed the adjusted rules as “significantly weaker.”
“The EPA caved to pressure from Big Auto, Big Oil and car dealers and riddled the plan with loopholes big enough to drive a Ford F150 through,” Becker said.
“The weaker rule means cars and pickups spew more pollution, oil companies keep socking consumers at the pump, and automakers keep wielding well-practiced delay tactics.”
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Efforts by US to Crack Down on TikTok Spark Backlash Against Israel
Washington — The initial backlash came quickly.
Within hours of last week’s vote in the House of Representatives approving legislation that could lead to a ban of the popular TikTok app in the United States, anger and outrage poured onto multiple social media platforms.
Some of the anger targeted U.S. lawmakers who supported the bill. Some focused on China.
And a number of social media accounts, some with large followings, put the blame on Israel and pro-Jewish groups in the United States.
“A foreign government is influencing the 2024 election,” Briahna Joy Gray posted on X.
“I’m not talking about China, but Israel,” added the former national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.
Jake Shields, a former mixed martial arts fighter who has used social media in the past to share his views on transgender issues, blamed the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
“The ADL said Tiktok Is a threat to Israel,” Shields posted on X. “AIPAC the Israeli lobby gave Dan Crebsahaw [sic] millions of dollars Now Crenshaw fights to ban TikTok.”
And journalist Glenn Greenwald said on X that the TikTok legislation gained momentum only after “Bipartisan DC became enraged so many Americans were allowed to criticize Israel” using the TikTok app.
Other posts and videos were quickly shared across other major platforms, including TikTok and Facebook.
U.S. officials contacted by VOA said the rush by some social media users to blame Israel or Jewish groups was not a surprise.
“Unfortunately, there are antisemitic people in America who will blame Israel and the Jewish people for anything, even Congress banning a Chinese-controlled app,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said in a statement to VOA.
“Their love for TikTok is no coincidence; it’s a tool used by the Chinese Communist Party to sow division and weaken our nation,” said Rubio, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a supporter of the legislation. “We can debate Middle East policy, but we must not tolerate hate or allow Communist China to manipulate our discourse.”
The FBI, which has warned repeatedly over the last several months both about the danger of TikTok and about a rising tide of antisemitism across the country, declined to comment, pointing to comments made by Director Christopher Wray at congressional hearings earlier this month.
“Americans need to ask themselves whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control access to their data, whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control the information they get through their recommendation algorithm,” Wray told House lawmakers during the annual Worldwide Threats hearing last week.
“When it comes to the algorithm and the recommendation algorithm and the ability to conduct influence operations, that is extraordinarily difficult to detect,” Wray added.
Researchers who track influence operations on social media, while wary, tell VOA that they have yet to see evidence that the spread of conspiracy theories blaming Israel or Jewish groups for the TikTok legislation is part of a concerted campaign.
“The period after 10/7 [Hamas terror attack on Israel] made clear that antisemitic conspiracies can spread rapidly across TikTok just by the nature of the platform’s algorithm, so no external coordination would be required as an explanation,” said Ben Dubow, president of Washington-based Omelas, which uses a combination of data collection, artificial intelligence and experts to track and analyze online disinformation and influence operations.
Dubow did not rule out the possibility that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, could be giving the anti-Israel and antisemitic posts more play if the Chinese government thought it might be helpful.
“The scant research available on TikTok’s algorithm often suggests ByteDance privileges content favorable to CCP [Chinese Communist Party] policy goals,” he said.
Omelas also found the conspiracy theories received some attention from other media outlets, including Russia-controlled RT and Qatar-based Al Jazeera.
“We’re seeing a few posts from RT and Al Jazeera tying the renewed push for a ban to TikTok’s role in the spread of ‘anti-Zionism’ in response to October 7,” Dubow said. “But none tying it explicitly to AIPAC and ADL.”
Geoff Roth, a professor of practice and journalism at the University of Houston, agreed the surge of social media posts echoing the Israel-TikTok narrative appeared to be “more organic.”
“The Israel conspiracy theory, as I like to put it, just seems to be coming from people who in general post stuff that is anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian,” he told VOA.
“It comes from different sides of the political spectrum,” Roth said. “But I think there’s people on both sides of the political spectrum that have a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment because of what’s going on in Gaza.”
Roth also noted that the theory tying the TikTok legislation to Israel and Jewish groups, while possibly the most prominent, is not the only narrative that gained traction following the bill’s passage in the House.
“There’s the narrative of security and concerns about the [Chinese]Communist Party and whether or not that [the legislation] is justified,” he said. “And then sort of the more far out things out there like, this is a Republican plot to get younger voters to be against Biden because if Biden signed it into law, he’s going to lose votes from younger people.”
One account on X pushing the Republican plot theory called the TikTok legislation “another trick.”
A second X account added, “I’d wager Republicans who just voted for a TikTok Ban will rename it the ‘Biden Ban the moment he signs it and within weeks that will be the official name and all anyone remembers.”
Ohtani Brings Koreans, Japanese Together at MLB Opener in Seoul
Seoul — As a South Korean baseball fan, Shin Jae-woong had many reasons to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres open the Major League Baseball season this week in Seoul.
These are the first ever regular season MLB games in baseball-loving South Korea. And the games feature multiple Korean stars, including Padres infielder Kim Ha-seong.
But the main draw is obvious for Shin and his two young sons, who traveled from the southeastern city of Gwangju. They came to see Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani.
“I think Ohtani is out of this world. He’s like another level of player,” said Shin as he watched the Dodgers practice ahead of the series opener on Wednesday.
Ohtani, the do-it-all Japanese megastar – who in December signed a record 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers – draws massive crowds wherever he goes these days.
Perhaps surprisingly, Ohtani also has throngs of fans in South Korea, which shares a fierce sports rivalry and complicated history with Japan.
“He has a good personality. He’s tall. He’s good-looking,” said Eo Soo-young, a 38-year-old Seoul resident. “And that other stuff, that’s an old story.”
This week, it’s all about positive vibes, as South Korea and Japan come together around an American game, which has also become a showcase for improved ties among the three countries.
“It’s almost become a trilateral event,” said Philip Goldberg, the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, who attended the Wednesday game with several senior South Korean and Japanese officials. “In this atmosphere of better relations…it brings even more luster.”
Japan-South Korea ties have long been strained, often over issues related to atrocities committed by Japan during its brutal 1910-45 occupation of Korea. When South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol took office in 2022, he instead chose to focus on the future, expanding security cooperation and holding several meetings with his counterpart, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Nonetheless, Japan remains a sensitive issue in South Korea, where many left-leaning politicians accuse Yoon of being too friendly with Japan.
According to Japanese media reports, planning was under way for Kishida to attend Wednesday’s MLB opener in Seoul, perhaps alongside Yoon. Kishida’s visit was called off because it may have been too controversial ahead of next month’s general election in South Korea, the reports suggested.
“Even though the two governments have been able to kind of smooth things over, this historical issue hasn’t been resolved, I think. And that leaves open the possibility of the relationship deteriorating in the future,” said Benjamin Engel, a professor at Seoul National University.
For now, ties are warming, even at the people-to-people level. Recent polls suggest a majority of young Koreans want to improve relations with Japan. And South Korean interest in Japanese cultural productions, such as anime, and commercial products like beer, has surged.
In an interview with VOA, Ambassador Goldberg said he was optimistic that trilateral ties will also remain strong.
“It just makes so much sense. It’s in the interests of the three countries,” he told VOA in an interview. “There are going to be moments where we have to manage and go through different periods. But I think there’s a logic to all of this that will keep it going.”
And Ohtani – whom Koreans refer to as the “baseball genius” – can’t hurt, at least if you ask many Korean baseball fans.
Many were impressed that during his pre-game comments to the media, Ohtani had nothing but warm words for South Korea. That is a contrast to Ichiro Suzuki, another Japanese baseball legend, who stirred resentment among many Koreans by taunting, and sometimes even insulting, their country.
“(Ohtani) just respects Korea…that’s why other people respect him too,” said Seoul resident Ryoo Sung-kyu. “It’s give and take, I think.”
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Biden to Tout Government Investing $8.5 Billion in Intel’s Computer Chip Plants in Four States
Washington — The Biden administration has reached an agreement to provide Intel with up to $8.5 billion in direct funding and $11 billion in loans for computer chip plants in Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico and Oregon.
President Joe Biden plans to talk up the investment on Wednesday as he visits Intel’s campus in Chandler, Arizona, which could be a decisive swing state in November’s election. He has often said that not enough voters know about his economic policies and suggested that more would support him if they did know.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the deal reached through her department would put the United States in a position to produce 20% of the world’s most advanced chips by 2030, up from the current level of zero. The United States designs advanced chips, but its inability to make them domestically has emerged as a national security and economic risk.
“Failure is not an option — leading-edge chips are the core of our innovation system, especially when it comes to advances in artificial intelligence and our military systems,” Raimondo said on a call with reporters. “We can’t just design chips. We have to make them in America.”
The funding announcement comes amid the heat of the 2024 presidential campaign. Biden has been telling voters that his policies have led to a resurgence in U.S. manufacturing and job growth. His message is a direct challenge to former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, who raised tariffs while in the White House and wants to do so again on the promise of protecting U.S. factory jobs from China.
Biden narrowly beat Trump in Arizona in 2020 by a margin of 49.4% to 49.1%.
U.S. adults have dim views of Biden’s economic leadership, with just 34% approving, according to a February poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The lingering impact of inflation hitting a four-decade high in 2022 has hurt the Democrat, who had a 52% approval on the economy in July 2021.
Intel’s projects would be funded in part through the bipartisan 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which the Biden administration helped shepherd through Congress at a time of concerns after the pandemic that the loss of access to chips made in Asia could plunge the U.S. economy into recession.
When pushing for the investment, lawmakers expressed concern about efforts by China to control Taiwan, which accounts for more than 90% of advanced computer chip production.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat up for reelection this year, stressed that his state would become “a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing” as Intel would be generating thousands of jobs. Ohio has voted for Trump in the past two presidential elections, and Brown in November will face Republican Bernie Moreno, a Trump-backed businessman from Cleveland.
Wednesday’s announcement is the fourth and largest so far under the chips law, with the government support expected to help enable Intel to make $100 billion in capital investments over five years. About 25% of that total would involve building and land, while roughly 70% would go to equipment, said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel.
“We think of this as a defining moment for the United States, the semiconductor industry and for Intel,” said Gelsinger, who called the CHIPS Act “the most critical industrial policy legislation since World War II.”
The Intel CEO said on a call with reporters that he would like to see a sequel to the 2022 law in order to provide additional funding for the industry.
Biden administration officials say that computer chip companies would not be investing domestically at their expected scale without the government support. Intel funding would lead to a combined 30,000 manufacturing and construction jobs. The company also plans to claim tax credits from the Treasury Department worth up to 25% on qualified investments.
The Santa Clara, California-based company will use the funding in four different states. In Chandler, Arizona, the money will help to build two new chip plants and modernize an existing one. The funding will establish two advanced plants in New Albany, Ohio, which is just outside the state capital of Columbus.
The company will also turn two of its plants in Rio Rancho, New Mexico into advanced packaging facilities. And Intel will also modernize facilities in Hillsboro, Oregon.
The Biden administration has also made workforce training and access to affordable childcare a priority in agreements to support companies. Under the agreement with the Commerce Department, Intel will commit to local training programs as well as increase the reimbursement amount for its childcare program, among other efforts.
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Q&A: TikTok Owner Is Essentially ‘Subsidiary’ of China’s Communist Party, US Lawmaker Says
washington — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill March 13 that, if enacted into law, would give ByteDance, the Chinese owner of the TikTok social media app, 180 days to divest its U.S. assets or face a ban over concerns about national security, including Beijing’s ability to access Americans’ private information through the company
ByteDance denies it would provide such private data to the Chinese government, despite reports indicating such information could be at risk.
VOA sat down on the day the bill passed with Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs, and co-chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, to hear why he supported the bill and why he’s calling for faster military support for Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as a breakaway province that must one day reunite with the mainland, by force if necessary.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of Congress’ enactment of the Taiwan Relations Act, which outlines nondiplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in the wake of formal U.S. recognition of Beijing as the government of China. The act states that the U.S. must provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
VOA: The House just passed a bill that would require ByteDance to divest TikTok. Did you support this bill?
U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart: I absolutely did. … It has strong bipartisan support. And there’s also been a lot of misinformation about it. People say that it’s to ban TikTok. No, it’s basically saying you have to divest from, in essence, being controlled by the Communist Party of China.
We would have never allowed, during the Soviet empire, the Soviet Union to control, to own, one of the major networks in the United States – ABC, NBC, CBS. Why? Because it’s a threat to national security. In this case, it’s even more dramatic because they [the Chinese] have access not only to getting into people’s homes, but to actually get information from the American people. And they’ve been pretty good and very aggressive at doing that. And so TikTok needs to be divested. That’s the least that we should be requiring, and if so, then they can continue to function. But we cannot allow for this to function, getting information from the American people to an entity that is in essence a subsidiary of the Communist Party of China.
VOA: It is a consensus in Washington that if China invaded Taiwan, it would trigger a domino effect that could be catastrophic for the U.S. What are the most important actions the U.S. can take right now to prevent that from happening?
Diaz-Balart: The key is to avoid China doing something stupid, to avoid China being irresponsible in trying to intervene militarily with Taiwan. … And the way to do that is to make sure that Taiwan has the weaponry, everything it needs, so that China understands that trying to invade Taiwan is a very, very bad proposition.
VOA: The Biden administration last month approved a package of military equipment sales to Taiwan. Some analysts are worried this may not be sufficient to counter China’s aggression in the region. Do you think military sales to Taiwan are sufficient?
Diaz-Balart: I think military sales to Taiwan have to be done quicker. We have to be more aggressive … not only, obviously, directly, to help send the weaponry, sell the weaponry, and send the weaponry to Taiwan, but we also have to keep up with our defense spending domestically to keep the military industrial base alive and, well, with what we’ve seen, for example, going on Ukraine, [that] has demonstrated that we’re not where we need to be as far as our industrial base.
VOA: You visited Taiwan in January right after its election. What is your key takeaway from that trip?
Diaz-Balart: Taiwan is a very vigorous democracy. The press is very aggressive. That’s a good thing. … We made a point of obviously visiting with the president and the vice president-elect, also with the outgoing president. But we also met with the leadership of the other two parties, because it’s important to demonstrate that we cherish and that we love democracy and freedom. Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy.
VOA: It is the bipartisan consensus to see China as one of the biggest geopolitical challenges for the U.S. in the coming decades. What should be the top priority the U.S. should tackle right now with China?
Diaz-Balart: We have to be a little bit more serious about understanding that China is a very dangerous player in the world. It is the largest fascist dictatorship on the planet, and the wealthiest fascist dictatorship on the planet. It has very ambitious goals. It has, you know, we see the cyberattacks that have taken place in this country that we know have come from Communist China. We also know that there have been thousands upon thousands of men, military-age males, coming from China across the southern border, which should frankly frighten all of us. …
That means utilizing every diplomatic and economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is: a growing threat to the United States and to the world. And you see, for example, in the region, how countries are very concerned about China’s aggressiveness, whether it’s the Philippines or India or even Vietnam. So there’s a growing concern in the world about this aggressive attitude of China. But we need to take real steps to confront that in a way to avoid war.
VOA: You’re also the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on state, foreign operations and related programs. What kind of role would you like to see U.S. international broadcasting agencies like Voice of America play in countering Chinese Communist Party propaganda?
Diaz-Balart: The Voice of America has been a key player for decades in that cause of freedom and in getting real news, real information to people who don’t have access to it because of censorship. And so I’ve always been a strong supporter of it because of that. I think information is key. The first thing that happens in a dictatorship is that they close the ability for people to get real information, to get real news. And if we can be helpful to have people around the world get real information, real news, not only about what happens around the world but also what even happens in their own country, I think that is a service to humanity.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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US Supreme Court Examines Government Efforts to Curb Online Misinformation
Washington — The US Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Monday in a social media case involving free speech rights and government efforts to curb misinformation online.
The case stems from a lawsuit brought by the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to get platforms to combat vaccine and election misinformation.
A lower court last year restricted some top officials and agencies of President Joe Biden’s administration from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content.
The ruling was a win for conservative advocates who allege that the government pressured or colluded with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor right-leaning content under the guise of fighting misinformation.
The order applied to a slew of agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department and Justice Department as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decision restricted agencies and officials from meeting with social media companies or flagging posts containing “free speech” protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry hailed the “historic injunction” at the time, saying it would prevent the Biden administration from “censoring the core political speech of ordinary Americans” on social media.
He accused federal officials of seeking to “dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more.”
The order could seriously limit top government agencies from notifying the platforms about false or hateful content that can lead to harmful consequences.
But the ruling said that the government could still inform them about posts involving criminal activity, national security threats and foreign attempts to influence elections.
In addition to communications with social media companies, the ruling also restricted agencies from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering” with groups such as the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of research institutions that tackle election-related falsehoods.
Some experts in misinformation and First Amendment law criticized the ruling, saying authorities needed to strike a balance between calling out falsehoods and veering towards censorship or curbing free speech.
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Back to the Moon – Part 1
After the Apollo program ended, the US took a long hiatus from lunar exploration. What happened during this time, and what has NASA been doing? This documentary by the Voice of America’s Russian service explores the multiple attempts to return to the Moon, the space developments that laid the foundation for future concepts, and the birth of the Artemis lunar program.
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Usher, Fantasia Barrino, ‘Color Purple’ Honored at 55th NAACP Image Awards
LOS ANGELES — Usher was named entertainer of the year at the 55th annual NAACP Awards on Saturday night, which highlighted works by entertainers and writers of color.
After Usher accepted his award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the superstar R&B singer spoke about being thankful about the journey of his successful career that has lasted three decades.
He reeled off several of his recent big moments including his sold-out residency in Las Vegas, getting married, releasing his ninth studio album “Coming Home” and his Super Bowl halftime performance, which became the most-watched in the game’s history.
Usher beat out Colman Domingo, Fantasia Barrino, Halle Bailey and Keke Palmer.
“I don’t know how many people do that much stuff in one setting,” said the multi-Grammy winner, who was presented the award by Oprah Winfrey. After being surprised by Winfrey’s presence, he thanked those who have supported him throughout the years.
“This is for you, you, my number ones,” the singer said as the audience repeated his words back to him. The final words of his speech were recited lyrics from his popular song “Superstar” from his 2024 album “Confessions,” which has sold more than 10 million units in the U.S.
Earlier in the ceremony, Usher was honored with the President’s Award for the singer’s public service achievements through his New Look Foundation. He thanked the strong women in his life, including his mother and wife Jenn Goicoechea, whom he married after his Super Bowl halftime performance last month.
“The say behind or beside or with every strong man is a stronger woman,” he said.
Queen Latifah hosted the awards ceremony aired live on BET.
“The Color Purple” was awarded best motion picture. The musical film featured star-studded cast including Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Domingo, H.E.R., Danielle Brooks, Corey Hawkins and Bailey.
Barrino, who starred as Celie in the film, won for best actress in a motion picture.
“I didn’t prepare a speech, because I didn’t think I was going to win,” the singer-actor said. “I was afraid to play Celie, but I’m glad I did. Because I kept saying ‘If I don’t win an award, the awards that I will win will come from the people who watched ‘Color Purple’ and the women who will relate to her and feel like Oscars when they walk out.’”
New Edition was inducted into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame. The induction is bestowed on individuals who are viewed as pioneers in their respective fields and whose influence shaped their profession.
“We stand here in brotherhood,” said Michael Bivins while his group members behind him. The Grammy-nominated group includes Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill, Ralph Tresvant, Ronnie DeVoe and Ricky Bell.
“You’ve seen our story. You know what we’ve been through,” said Bivins, who spoke about the group overcoming conflict and tension in their earlier years to now holding a residency in Las Vegas.
“But we call each other every day,” he continued. “We text each other every day. We check on our families. You watched us grow up. We’re still growing.”
Damson Idris won best actor in a drama television series for his role in “Snowfall.” Henson and Domingo took home best supporting roles in “The Color Purple.” Domingo also won best actor in a motion picture for his role in “Rustin.”
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Russian-Belarusian Band Returns to Stage After Detention in Thailand
Warsaw, Poland — A Russian-Belarusian rock band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion returned to the stage this week, voicing defiance after being detained in Thailand in January and threatened with deportation to Russia.
The band, Bi-2, formed in the 1980s in Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union, left Russia in protest over the invasion and has been touring ever since in countries with large Russian-speaking communities.
Ahead of a concert in Vilnius on Thursday, band members met with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and supporters of late Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month.
“We have become hostages to Russian history,” Egor Bortnik, one of the band’s two founders, told AFP ahead of a concert in Warsaw on Saturday.
But 51-year-old Bortnik, who is better known by his stage name “Lyova,” said he was “not against the war.”
“On the contrary, I’m for the war. I just want Ukraine to liberate its own territory,” he said.
“Putin has to gather his orcs and get out of Ukraine,” Bortnik said, using a disparaging term for Russian soldiers frequently used by Ukrainians.
The band was detained in Phuket, Thailand, in January on immigration charges in a case that has alarmed Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin living abroad.
The organizers of their concerts said all the necessary permits had been obtained, but the band was issued with tourist visas in error, and they accused the Russian consulate of waging a campaign to cancel the concerts.
After a week in detention, the band members were released and traveled to Israel, where they met with Foreign Minister Israel Katz who said in a statement that the episode showed that “music will win.”
Several of their concerts in Russia were canceled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left the country.
“I put my prosperity on the line when the war began, and I had to leave Russia. It was unexpected, it was not a process we had prepared for,” Bortnik said.
Bortnik, who moved to Israel while still a teenager, said he was more used to emigration than some of his peers who left Russia in the wake of the war.
“I understand how difficult it is,” he said.
Bortnik said he was no “geopolitician” and does not write explicitly “political songs” although their lyrics can “hit a nerve that is constantly vibrating.”
He said Putin’s demise could be sudden and violent and would also bring down Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades.
“If something happens to Putin then there could be a civil war — the finale for any tyranny,” he said.
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US Sanctions Network Smuggling American Tech to Iran’s Central Bank
Washington — The U.S. Treasury Department unveiled sanctions against a network of companies and individuals for facilitating illegal technology transfers from dozens of U.S. firms to Iranian entities, including the country’s central bank.
The sanctions relate to Informatics Services Corporation (ISC), the technology arm of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), the Treasury Department said in a statement Friday.
It also sanctioned a number of alleged ISC subsidiaries and front companies based in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and three individuals allegedly linked to them including Pouria Mirdamadi, a French-Iranian dual national.
Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said the CBI “has played a critical role” in providing financial support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the foreign arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the Quds Force.
“The United States will continue to use all available means to disrupt the Iranian regime’s illicit attempts to procure sensitive U.S. technology and critical inputs,” he said in a statement.
The Treasury’s move freezes any U.S. assets associated with the sanctioned individuals and entities, and generally prohibits Americans from doing business with them.
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‘Squid Game’ Star Found Guilty of Sexual Misconduct
Seoul — South Korea’s “Squid Game” actor O Yeong-su has been found guilty of sexual misconduct, a local court said Friday, after he was charged with assaulting a woman in 2017.
The 79-year-old in 2022 became the first South Korean to win a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor in a series for his performance as a seemingly vulnerable old man in the mega-hit Netflix dystopian thriller.
The actor was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, the Seongnam Branch of the Suwon District Court told AFP.
He has been also ordered to complete 40 hours of classes on sexual violence, the court added.
The victim’s own records of the assault and her claims are “consistent … and appear to be statements that cannot be made without actually experiencing them,” judge Jeong Yeon-ju said, according to the court.
O was indicted in 2022 without detention on charges of sexually assaulting a woman, who has not been identified, on two occasions.
The incidents took place when O was staying in a rural area for a theatre performance in 2017, on a walking path and in front of the victim’s residence, respectively, according to the Suwon District Court.
“Squid Game,” a series that depicts a dark world where marginalized individuals are forced to compete in deadly versions of traditional children’s games, quickly gained immense popularity on Netflix.
Within less than four weeks of its release in 2021, it attracted a staggering 111 million viewers.
The show’s success has amplified South Korea’s increasingly outsized influence on global popular culture, following global fame won by the likes of K-pop band BTS and the Oscar-winning film “Parasite.”
Multiple figures in South Korea’s film industry — including late filmmaker Kim Ki-duk and actor Cho Jae-hyun — have faced sexual assault allegations.
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Alec Baldwin Seeks Dismissal of Grand Jury Indictment in Fatal Shooting of Cinematographer
SANTA FE, N.M. — Defense attorneys for Alec Baldwin urged a New Mexico judge on Thursday to dismiss a grand jury indictment against the actor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”
The indictment in January charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021, at a movie ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
Baldwin has pleaded not guilty to the charge. His attorneys in a new court filing accused prosecutors of “unfairly stacking the deck” against Baldwin in grand jury proceedings that diverted attention away from exculpatory evidence and witnesses.
They say that prevented the jury from asserting their obligation to hear testimony from director Joel Souza, who was wounded in the shooting while standing near Hutchins, as well as assistant director and safety coordinator Dave Halls and props master Sarah Zachry.
“The grand jury did not receive the favorable or exculpatory testimony and documents that the state had an obligation to present,” said the court motion signed by defense attorney Luke Nikas. “Nor was the grand jury told it had a right to review and the obligation to request this information.”
Prosecutor Kari Morrissey declined to comment and said a response will be filed with the court.
Baldwin’s motion also asserts that the grand jury received inaccurate and one-sided testimony about the revolver involved in the fatal shooting.
“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted by a jury last week in the shooting and is being held without bond pending an April sentencing hearing. Involuntary manslaughter carries a felony sentence of up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and injuring Souza. Baldwin has maintained that he pulled back the gun’s hammer, but not the trigger.
Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed at a two-week trial for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set of “Rust” where it was expressly prohibited. They also said she failed to follow basic gun-safety protocols.
Halls last year pleaded no contest to negligent handling of a firearm and completed a sentence of six months of unsupervised probation.
Baldwin is scheduled for trial in July.
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US Senate Considers Bill That Could Ban TikTok in United States
The White House is urging senators to quickly begin considering a bill that would address national security concerns related to the social media app TikTok. The House approved the measure earlier this week. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports. Camera: Saqib Ul Islam.
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Ukraine Oscar Winner Mstyslav Chernov Talks to VOA About His Film
This month’s Academy Awards ceremony saw a big first for Ukraine as Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol” won the best documentary Oscar. The film is a first-person account of being in the eastern Ukrainian city during the first weeks of Russia’s invasion. Khrystyna Shevchenko talked with Chernov. Anna Rice has that story.
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World’s Largest Drone Maker Expands in US Amid Rights Abuse Allegations
washington — Chinese drone maker DJI is expanding in the U.S. with its first flagship store in New York City amid allegations of links to human rights abuses and ties to China’s military.
DJI’s “first concept” North American store on New York’s Fifth Avenue welcomes customers into a futuristic, minimalist space to shop. The company describes itself on its website as “the world’s leader in civil drones and creative camera technology.”
“We continue to see growing consumer demand throughout North America as we expand our consumer product portfolio,” said Christina Zhang, senior director of corporate strategy at DJI.
Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, the company was founded in 2006. DJI, also known as Da Jiang Innovations, has become the world’s largest drone maker, having achieved global dominance in less than 20 years. The company now supplies 70% of the world’s consumer drones and nearly 80% of U.S. consumer drones.
Abuse allegations
On March 5, the day of DJI’s official store opening in New York, the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), a Washington research and advocacy group, released a report titled Surveillance Tech Series: DJI’s Links to Human Rights Abuses in East Turkistan.
The report accuses DJI of being involved in mass surveillance and rights violations against Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and other Muslim communities in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which the group calls East Turkistan.
“DJI is directly involved in mass surveillance schemes in East Turkistan and has supplied public security agencies with tools to surveil and target Uyghurs, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz people,” the UHRP report said. “Xinjiang public security departments entered into seven procurement orders with DJI that were worth nearly US$300,000 between 2019 and 2022.”
The report stated that DJI sells drones to Xinjiang’s paramilitary organization, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which the U.S. government sanctioned because of its “connection with serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities” in Xinjiang.
“Other documents show tenders worth US$47,000 for DJI drones for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps,” the UHRP report stated.
The report also said that a DJI drone captured footage of dozens of individuals, seemingly Uyghur prisoners, blindfolded and shackled at a train station in southern Xinjiang. The video, first released on YouTube in 2019, garnered widespread media attention.
“It’s unethical to support a company that knowingly engages in egregious rights violations,” Nuzigum Setiwaldi, the report’s author, told Voice of America.
The U.S. and several Western parliaments have accused China of genocide in Xinjiang, targeting Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim populations. The U.N. human rights office released a report saying the human rights violations in Xinjiang may amount to crimes against humanity. China criticized Western nations for spreading “lies” about human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet.
A spokesperson from DJI told VOA the company has not engaged in any activities, including sales distribution and product development, that violate or abuse human rights.
“Like other manufacturers, we do not have control over how our products are used as they are available off the shelf,” wrote a DJI spokesperson in an email response. “However, we have demonstrated – through years of investments in product safety and security initiatives – that our products are developed for peaceful and civilian use only.”
Chinese military company or not?
In 2022, The Washington Post reported that DJI obscured ties to Chinese government funding.
In the same year, the U.S. Department of Defense classified DJI as a “Chinese military company.” As of January, DJI remains on the list of such companies operating in the United States. The department said it maintains companies on the list to counter China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy, which supports the modernization of the Chinese army.
Reuters reported that former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who ran the U.S. Justice Department from 2015 to 2017 and is now with the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison law firm, wrote a letter to the Defense Department last July on behalf of DJI, urging the removal of her client from the Pentagon’s Chinese military companies list.
In her letter, Lynch cited the importance and urgency of such a move because of the wide use of and dependence on DJI products by a variety of U.S. stakeholders.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned in January that Chinese-made drones posed “significant risk” to U.S. national security and critical infrastructure.
“[T]he PRC’s 2017 National Intelligence Law compels Chinese companies to cooperate with state intelligence services, including providing access to data collected within China and around the world,” CISA said in its cybersecurity guidance on Chinese manufactured drones or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).
However, DJI’s spokesperson told VOA that DJI “is not a Chinese military company.”
According to DJI, the company remains one of the few drone companies that clearly “denounce and actively discourage” the use of drones in combat.
“We do not pursue business opportunities for combat use or operations. Our distributors, resellers and other business partners globally have also committed to following this policy when they sell and use our products,” DJI spokesperson said.
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Spacex Hoping to Launch Starship Farther in 3rd Test Flight
BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX’s Starship, a futuristic vehicle designed to eventually carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, was poised for a third uncrewed test launch Thursday that Elon Musk’s company hopes will carry it farther than before, even if it ends up exploding once again in flight.
The spacecraft, mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, was due for liftoff as early as 8 a.m. EDT from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site on the Gulf of Mexico near Boca Chica, Texas.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration just granted a license for the test flight on Wednesday afternoon.
Unlike the first two test flights last year, aimed mainly at demonstrating that the spacecraft’s two stages can separate after launch, the third test flight will involve an attempt to open Starship’s payload door and reignite one of its engines in space.
Each of the previous flights were routed toward a planned crash landing near the Hawaiian islands in the Pacific, while the latest flight is targeting a splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean.
Even if it achieves more of its test objectives than before, SpaceX acknowledges a high probability that Starship’s latest flight will end up like the first two, with the vehicle blowing itself to bits before its intended trajectory is complete.
Regardless of how well it performs on Thursday, all indications are that Starship remains a considerable distance from becoming fully operational.
Musk, SpaceX’s billionaire founder and CEO, has said the rocket should fly hundreds of uncrewed missions before carrying its first humans. And several other ambitious milestones overseen by NASA are needed before the craft can execute a moon landing with American astronauts.
Still, Musk is counting on Starship to fulfill his goal of producing a large, multipurpose next-generation spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon later this decade, and ultimately flying to Mars.
Closer to home, Musk also sees Starship as eventually replacing the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as the workhorse in company’s commercial launch business that already lofts most of the world’s satellites and other payloads to low-Earth orbit.
For Thursday, SpaceX is aiming to at least exceed Starship’s performance with its Super Heavy booster during their inaugural test launch together last April, when the spacecraft exploded over the Gulf less than four minutes into a planned 90-minute flight.
That flight went awry from the start. Some of the Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines malfunctioned on ascent, and the lower-stage rocket failed to separate as designed from the upper-stage Starship, leading to termination of the flight.
The second test flight in November made it farther than the first, and managed to properly achieve stage separation, but the spacecraft exploded about eight minutes after launch.
SpaceX’s engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry’s more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.
NASA, SpaceX’s biggest customer, has a lot riding in the success of Starship, which the U.S. space agency is giving a central role in its Artemis program, successor to the Apollo missions that put astronauts on the moon for the first time more than 50 years ago.
While NASA Administrator chief Bill Nelson has embraced Musk’s frequent flight-testing approach, agency officials in recent months have made clear their desire to see greater progress with Starship’s development as the U.S. races with China to the lunar surface.
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