LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — On his first day of school at Newcomer Academy, Maikel Tejeda was whisked to the school library. The 7th grader didn’t know why.

He soon got the point: He was being given make-up vaccinations. Five of them.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” said the 12-year-old, who moved from Cuba early this year.

Across the library, a group of city, state and federal officials gathered to celebrate the school clinic, and the city. With U.S. childhood vaccination rates below their goals, Louisville and the state were being praised as success stories: Kentucky’s vaccination rate for kindergarteners rose 2 percentage points in the 2022-23 school year compared with the year before. The rate for Jefferson County — which is Louisville — was up 4 percentage points.

“Progress is success,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But that progress didn’t last. Kentucky’s school entry vaccination rate slipped last year. Jefferson County’s rate slid, too. And the rates for both the county and state remain well below the target thresholds.

It raises the question: If this is what success looks like, what does it say about the nation’s ability to stop imported infections from turning into community outbreaks?

Local officials believe they can get to herd immunity thresholds, but they acknowledge challenges that includes tight funding, misinformation and well-intended bureaucratic rules that can discourage doctors from giving kids shots.

“We’re closing the gap,” said Eva Stone, who has managed the county school system’s health services since 2018. “We’re not closing the gap very quickly.”

Falling vaccination rates

Public health experts focus on vaccination rates for kindergartners because schools can be cauldrons for germs and the launching pad for community outbreaks.

For years, those rates were high, thanks largely to mandates that required key vaccinations as a condition of school attendance.

But they have slid in recent years. When COVID-19 started hitting the U.S. hard in 2020, schools were closed, visits to pediatricians declined and vaccination record-keeping fell off. Meanwhile, more parents questioned routine childhood vaccinations that they used to automatically accept, an effect that experts attribute to misinformation and the political schism that emerged around COVID-19 vaccines.

A Gallup survey released last month found that 40% of Americans said it is extremely important for parents to have their children vaccinated, down from 58% in 2019. Meanwhile, a recent University of Pennsylvania survey of 1,500 people found that about 1 in 4 U.S. adults think the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism — despite no medical evidence for it.

All that has led more parents to seek exemptions to school entry vaccinations. The CDC has not yet reported national data for the 2023-24 school year, but the proportion of U.S. kindergartners exempted from school vaccination requirements the year before hit a record 3%.

Overall, 93% of kindergartners got their required shots for the 2022-23 school year. The rate was 95% in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials worry slipping vaccination rates will lead to disease outbreaks.

The roughly 250 U.S. measles cases reported so far this year are the most since 2019, and Oregon is seeing its largest outbreak in more than 30 years.

Kentucky has been experiencing its worst outbreak of whooping cough — another vaccine-preventable disease — since 2017. Nationally, nearly 14,000 cases have been reported this year, the most since 2019.

Persuading parents

The whooping cough surge is a warning sign but also an opportunity, said Kim Tolley, a California-based historian who wrote a book last year on the vaccination of American schoolchildren. She called for a public relations campaign to “get everybody behind” improving immunizations.

Much of the discussion about raising vaccination rates centers on campaigns designed to educate parents about the importance of vaccinating children — especially those on the fence about getting shots for their kids.

But experts are still hashing out what kind of messaging work best: Is it better, for example, to say “vaccinate” or “immunize”?

A lot of the messaging is influenced by feedback from small focus groups. One takeaway is some people have less trust in health officials and even their own doctors than they once did. Another is that they strongly trust their own feelings about vaccines and what they’ve seen in Internet searches or heard from other sources.

“Their overconfidence is hard to shake. It’s hard to poke holes in it,” said Mike Perry, who ran focus groups on behalf of a group called the Public Health Communications Collaborative.

But many people seem more trusting of older vaccines. And they do seem to be at least curious about information they didn’t know, including the history of research behind vaccines and the dangers of the diseases they were created to fight, he said.

Improving access

Dolores Albarracin has studied vaccination improvement strategies in 17 countries, and repeatedly found that the most effective strategy is to make it easier for kids to get vaccinated.

“In practice, most people are not vaccinating simply because they don’t have money to take the bus” or have other troubles getting to appointments, said Albarracin, director of the communication science division within Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

That’s a problem in Louisville, where officials say few doctors were providing vaccinations to children enrolled in Medicaid and fewer still were providing shots to kids without any health insurance. An analysis a few years ago indicated 1 in 5 children — about 20,000 kids — were not current on their vaccinations, and most of them were poor, said Stone, the county school health manager.

A 30-year-old federal program called Vaccines for Children pays for vaccinations for children who Medicaid-eligible or lack the insurance to cover it.

But in a meeting with the CDC director last month, Louisville health officials lamented that most local doctors don’t participate in the program because of paperwork and other administrative headaches. And it can be tough for patients to get the time and transportation to get to those few dozen Louisville providers who do take part.

The school system has tried to fill the gap. In 2019, it applied to become a VFC provider, and gradually established vaccine clinics.

Last year, it held clinics at nearly all 160 schools, and it’s doing the same thing this year. The first was at Newcomer Academy, where many immigrant students behind on their vaccinations are started in the school system.

It’s been challenging, Stone said. Funding is very limited. There are bureaucratic obstacles, and a growing influx of children from other countries who need shots. It takes multiple trips to a doctor or clinic to complete some vaccine series. And then there’s the opposition — vaccination clinic announcements tend to draw hateful social media comments. 
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WILMINGTON, DELAWARE/WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday hosted the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at his private home in the U.S. state of Delaware for his final convening of the Quad, a strategic security grouping focused on the Indo-Pacific.

But it was Biden’s comments, unintentionally heard by the press, that illuminated the main topic at this unusually private meeting — and that topic was China.

Biden said his administration reads Beijing’s recent actions, including flexing its territorial muscles, as a “change in tactic, not a change in strategy.”

“We believe [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is looking to focus on domestic economic challenges and minimize the turbulence in China’s diplomatic relationships, and he’s also looking to buy himself some diplomatic space, in my view, to aggressively pursue China’s interests,” Biden told the other three leaders in what he said were prepared remarks.

“China continues to behave aggressively, testing this all across the region, and it’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits. It’s true across the scope of our relationship, including in economic and technology issues,” he added.

Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea, including territory claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. It also claims territories in the East China Sea contested by Japan and Taiwan. It views democratically governed Taiwan as part of China.

Publicly, Biden’s message was shorter, simpler – “The Quad is here to stay.”

Those six words were also the final sentence of a lengthy joint statement from Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The group issued their nearly 5,700-word missive after a day of meetings so cloistered that the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association called the lack of access “unacceptable.”

In their statement, the quartet announced moves they say will boost cooperation among the four democracies and address concerns beyond their borders in the massive region, home to more than half of the world’s population and two-thirds of its economy. While they used the word “China” sparingly – only three times, and all three times in reference to the South China Sea – they made very clear how their stance differs from Beijing’s.

“As four leading maritime democracies in the Indo-Pacific, we unequivocally stand for the maintenance of peace and stability across this dynamic region, as an indispensable element of global security and prosperity,” they said.

“We strongly oppose any destabilizing or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion. We condemn recent illicit missile launches in the region that violate U.N. Security Council resolutions. We express serious concern over recent dangerous and aggressive actions in the maritime domain. We seek a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated — one where all countries are free from coercion and can exercise their agency to determine their futures.”

China has previously called out the Quad for its thinly veiled criticisms of China, with a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson in July comparing the grouping to “exclusive clubs that undermine trust and cooperation among regional countries.”

Biden spoke briefly to tout the major steps, including one that aims to strengthen maritime security, and that will inevitably affect China’s maritime presence in others’ waters.

“We’re announcing a series of initiatives to deliver real, positive impact for the Indo-Pacific that includes providing new maritime technologies to our regional partners, so they know what’s happening in their waters, launching cooperation between coast guards for the first time, and expanding the Quad fellowship to include students from Southeast Asia,” Biden said.

That includes, the leaders’ statement said, a 2025 joint mission by the four nations’ coast guards. That step is also something that Japanese officials presented as a big summit takeaway when briefing reporters earlier in the day. Earlier in the week, when a top U.S. officials previewed the summit, he said the aim is to counter illegal fishing – adding, tellingly, that the vast majority of illegal fishing vessels are Chinese.

VOA asked the Japanese officials about a point of contention between Washington and Tokyo: Biden’s opposition, on national security grounds, to a proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel. Biden administration officials appeared to play down the matter, noting that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recently extended its review into the deal, pushing any decision past November.

“The president will obviously allow that process to run its course because that’s what’s required from the law, and then we will see what happens,” Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters Saturday.

The American steel company is headquartered in Pennsylvania, an electorally critical state in the fast-approaching U.S. presidential election.

VOA asked the Japanese government to share Toyko’s position on the politically sensitive merger. Japanese officials would not say whether Biden and Kishida even planned to speak on this topic in any of their meetings.

“As a government we refrain from commenting on that,” replied a Foreign Affairs Ministry official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. The official quickly added that Japan is the No. 1 investor in the U.S., and that Tokyo hopes the countries’ cooperation will continue.

Australia’s leader said it matters that the four “like-minded countries,” all democracies, work together.

“We assert the view that national sovereignty is important, that security and stability is something that we strive for, as well as shared prosperity in our region,” Albanese said.

Analysts had predicted China discussion would dominate behind the scenes, but the leaders would refrain from publicly poking Beijing.

“That doesn’t show up in the readouts,” Rafiq Dossani, a longtime Asia scholar, told VOA ahead of the summit.

The four leaders began to meet yearly, in person, under Biden’s presidency. Much of their effort, said analyst Kathryn Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is directed at bread-and-butter governance issues such as health, infrastructure, maritime security and resources, and people-to-people ties.

“This is certainly not a Contain-China club,” she told VOA.

But, said Dossani, who is a senior economist at the Rand research corporation and a professor of policy analysis, there is room for the Quad to evolve.

“The question is as the competition, or the rivalry, between China and the U.S. evolves, how will that at that time affect the deliberations?” he said. “As the Chinese economy recovers and they become more assertive, then you’ll see a different context for the dialogue.”

In the present, though, Biden sees this dialogue among the four leaders as important to his legacy, Paik said.

“It was a central piece to the Indo-Pacific strategy, and elevating the Quad to the leader level has been a significant piece of that strategy,” she said. “Just the fact that the Quad has met annually at the leader level every year of Biden’s administration is quite significant.”

VOA’s Celia Mendoza in Wilmington, Delaware, and Paris Huang and Kim Lewis, in Washington, contributed to this report. 
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BALTIMORE — Federal agents on Saturday boarded a vessel managed by the same company that managed a cargo ship that caused a deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore, Maryland, the FBI confirmed.

In statements, spokespeople for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland confirmed that authorities boarded the Maersk Saltoro. The ship is managed by Synergy Marine Group.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division and Coast Guard Investigative Services are present aboard the Maersk Saltoro conducting court authorized law enforcement activity,” statements from both the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office said Saturday morning.

Authorities did not offer further specifics. The Washington Post first reported on federal authorities boarding the ship.

The raid came several months after investigators conducted a similar search of the Dali, the cargo ship that crashed into the bridge.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department alleged that Dali owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine, both of Singapore, recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the vessel, which lost power multiple times minutes before it crashed into a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.

The Justice Department said mechanical and electrical systems on the massive ship had been “jury-rigged” and improperly maintained, culminating in the power outages and a cascade of other failures that left its pilots and crew helpless in the face of looming disaster. The ship was leaving Baltimore for Sri Lanka when its steering failed because of the power loss.

Six members of a road work crew were killed when the bridge crumbled into the water. The collapse also snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of Baltimore for months before the channel was fully reopened in June.

The Justice Department is seeking to recover more than $100 million the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port.

The companies filed a court petition days after the collapse seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the most expensive marine casualty case in history.

Justice Department officials said there is no legal support for that bid to limit liability and pledged to vigorously contest it.

In its lawsuit, which also seeks punitive damages, the Justice Department argued that vessel owners and operators need to be “deterred from engaging in such reckless and exceedingly harmful behavior.”

That includes Grace Ocean and Synergy themselves because the Dali has a “sister ship,” authorities wrote in the claim.

The two companies “need to be deterred because they continue to operate their vessels, including a sister ship to the Dali, in U.S. waters and benefit economically from those activities,” the lawsuit says.

Darrell Wilson, a Grace Ocean spokesperson, confirmed that the FBI and Coast Guard boarded the Maersk Saltoro in the Port of Baltimore on Saturday morning. Wilson has previously said the owner and manager “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”

Like the Dali, the Singapore-flagged Saltoro was built by Hyundai in 2015.

According to the Justice Department lawsuit, major issues with the Dali’s electrical system might have resulted from excessive vibrations on the ship that can loosen wires and damage connections. A prior captain of the vessel had reported “heavy vibration” in his handover notes in May 2023, saying he had made similar reports to Synergy in the past, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit noted cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of cargo shaken loose. The ship’s electrical equipment was in such bad condition that an independent agency stopped further electrical testing because of safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.

The ship had also experienced power outages while it was still docked in Baltimore. Those blackouts are considered “reportable marine casualties” that must be reported to the U.S. Coast Guard, which authorities say never happened.

The Dali, which was stuck amid the wreckage of the collapse for months before it could be extricated and refloated, departed Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday afternoon en route to China on its first international voyage since the March 26 disaster.

Justice Department officials refused to answer questions Wednesday about whether a criminal investigation into the bridge collapse remains ongoing. FBI agents boarded the Dali in April.
…

washington — President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discussed diplomacy with China and their shared concerns over “coercive and destabilizing activities” in the South China Sea during a meeting on Saturday at the Quad Leaders Summit in Wilmington, Delaware, the White House said. 

Biden and Kishida also reiterated their resolve to maintain peace across the Taiwan strait and commitment to developing and protecting technologies such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors, the White House said. 
…

WILMINGTON, Delaware — U.S. President Joe Biden is showcasing the Indo-Pacific partnership he has nurtured since taking office as he hosts the leaders of Australia, Japan and India in his hometown Saturday with an eye on his legacy as well. 

When Biden entered the White House, he looked to elevate the so-called Quad, which until then had only met at the foreign minister level, to a leader-level partnership as he tried to pivot U.S. foreign policy away from conflicts in the Middle East and toward threats and opportunities in the Indo-Pacific. This weekend’s summit is the fourth in-person and sixth overall gathering of the leaders since 2021. 

Biden put a personal touch on the engagement — potentially the last of the group before he leaves office on January 20 — by opening his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to each of the leaders and hosting a joint meeting and formal dinner at the high school he attended more than 60 years ago. 

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came for the meetings before their appearances at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week. 

“You guys have heard the president say many times that all politics is personal, all diplomacy is personal,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters as meetings were set to get underway. 

“And developing personal relationships has been core to his approach to foreign policy as president. So, opening his home to the leaders of India, Japan and Australia is a way of him showing, not just saying, but these leaders matter to him.” 

Biden welcomes Albanese to his home

On Friday afternoon, Biden welcomed Albanese to his home on a pond in a wooded area several miles west of downtown. Saturday’s agenda included hosting Kishida and Modi and bringing all the leaders together for talks at Archmere Academy in nearby Claymont. 

Sullivan described the vibe of the meeting with Albanese as “two guys — one at the other guy’s home — talking in broad strokes about where they see the state of the world.” He said Biden and Albanese also swapped stories about their political careers. 

Reporters and photographers were prohibited from covering Biden’s individual meetings with the leaders, and Biden does not plan to do a news conference — a question-and-answer appearance that is typical at such international summits. 

As part of the summit, the leaders were set to announce new initiatives to bolster maritime security in the region — with enhanced coast guard collaboration through the Pacific and Indian oceans — and improve cooperation on humanitarian response missions. The measures are meant to serve as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. 

Sullivan said he expected Biden and Modi would discuss Modi’s recent visits to Russia and Ukraine as well as economic and security concerns about China. Modi is the most prominent leader from a nation that maintains a neutral position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Sullivan said Biden would underscore “that countries like India should step up and support the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” and that “every country, everywhere, should refrain from supplying inputs to Russia’s war machine.” 

Biden, Kishida say farewell

The gathering was also an opportunity for Biden and Japan’s Kishida to bid each other farewell. Biden and Kishida, who are both stepping away from office amid sliding public support, count the tightening of security and economic ties among the U.S., Japan and South Korea as one of their most significant accomplishments. The two leaders sat down for their wide-ranging, one-on-one conversation on Saturday morning. 

The improved relations between Japan and South Korea, two nations with a deep and complicated history that have struggled to stay on speaking terms, have come amid worrying developments in the Pacific, including strides made by North Korea in its nuclear program and increasing Chinese assertiveness. 

Biden commended Kishida for demonstrating “courage and conviction in strengthening ties” with South Korea, according to the White House. They also discussed China’s “coercive and destabilizing activities” in the Pacific, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and emerging technology issues. 

The U.S. and Japan are negotiating through a rare moment of tension in the relationship. Biden, as well as presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, have opposed a $15 billion bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel to take over American-owned U.S. Steel. 

Biden administration officials indicated this week that a U.S. government committee’s formal assessment of the proposed deal has yet to be submitted to the White House and may not come until after the November 5 election. 

Sullivan pushed back against speculation that the expected timing of the report could suggest Biden is having second thoughts about his opposition to the deal. 

The Biden administration promised that the leaders would issue a joint statement containing the strongest-ever language on China and North Korea to be agreed upon by the four countries. 

The White House said the leaders would also roll out an announcement related to Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative, a long-running passion project of the president and his wife, Jill Biden, aimed at reducing cancer deaths. The Bidens’ son Beau died in 2015 at age 46 of brain cancer. 

White House officials said the leaders will unveil details about a new collaboration aimed at reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific. 

As Biden’s time in office draws down, the White House also was celebrating the bipartisan, bicameral formation of a “Quad Caucus” in Congress meant to ensure the longevity of the partnership regardless of the outcome of the November election. 
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NEW YORK — They may be Tigrinya speakers fleeing the authoritarian Eritrean government’s indefinite military service policy. Or Rohingya people escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar. But refugees navigating resettlement often face a shared hurdle: poor machine translations and a short supply of interpreters knowledgeable in their less-serviced languages.

Tarjimly, a Google-backed nonprofit described as “Uber for translators,” aims to help asylum seekers clear that hurdle. Through a new artificial intelligence partnership, Tarjimly trains outside large language models while allowing its volunteers to respond more urgently to needs for translators. It’s a feedback loop where humans teach the nuances of each language to the machines by sharing data from one-on-one calls and correcting automated translations.

And it’s this uniquely human realm of language that Tarjimly co-founder Atif Javed believes exemplifies the ever-tricky balance between individuals’ ingenuity and technological advancement. He says it’s the needed personal touch that shows why AI’s rapid development shouldn’t generally stoke widespread fears.

Languages popular in the Global South — such as the Dari and Pashto commonly spoken in Afghanistan, home to one of the world’s largest protracted refugee crises — have the worst quality coverage, according to Javed. He feels well positioned to supplement the internet’s English-dominated information troves that train services like Google Translate with his mobile app’s more diverse data sets.

Tarjimly connects refugees with on-demand interpreters, who can communicate during meetings with social workers, immigration officials and doctors, and records the encounters for AI training. To comply with patient privacy protections, Tarjimly anonymizes the conversations on its app. Javed said the nonprofit also has on option for “no record” sessions where none of the data is stored for alternative uses.

Many of its 60,000 volunteers are multilingual refugees themselves who more intimately understand not only their counterpart’s native tongue but also the crisis that brought them there, according to Javed.

Among them is Roza Tesfazion, a 26-year-old Eritrean refugee who works professionally as an interpreter for the United Kingdom’s government. Fluent in Amharic and Tigrinya, she studied English and Swahili to help her immigrant family overcome language barriers when they first moved to Kenya.

Tesfazion said she translates at no cost because she knows “how emotional it is” for the people on the other side of her sessions.

“You have to have that touch of human emotions to it,” she said.

Tarjimly’s founders say their mission’s sensitive nature lends itself to nonprofit status more than a corporate structure. Users arrive in very vulnerable positions, and the nonprofit works with established humanitarian groups including Catholic Charities, the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration.

The work requires a level of trust that would have been difficult to earn in a “for-profit, competitive world,” according to Javed. “The underlying engine of our success is the community we’ve built.”

That community, however, also has room for artificial intelligence. A $1.3 million grant from Google.org has enabled a “First Pass” tool that gives an instantly generated translation for human volunteers to revise. A new information hub will open up its language data for partners, including Google, in early 2025.

But refining a more diverse library of languages will require conversational data at a scale much broader than Tarjimly can likely provide on its own, according to Data & Society researcher Ranjit Singh.

Singh, who studies the social implications of automation and inclusive digital solutions, said translation services will always need a “real person in the middle.”

“There is one part of it which is translation and another part of it which is just trying to understand somebody’s life situation,” he said. “Technologies help us do some of this work. But at the same time, it’s also fairly social.”

Tarjimly was inspired by Javed’s time volunteering with Arabic speakers at refugee camps in Greece and Turkey after graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and working in Silicon Valley. A Muslim American whose family immigrated to the United States in 2001, Javed said he was reminded of his own childhood translating for his refugee grandmother.

His lived experience is one reason why Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Garcìa Jayaram said her organization awarded $300,000 last year to Tarjimly. That “proximate leadership” helps nonprofits better understand developments like artificial intelligence that “can be both cause for excitement and trepidation,” Jayaram said. The risk-averse philanthropic sector may be slow to catch up with disruptive new technologies, she noted, but shouldn’t ignore their positive applications.

“It’s a great example of how not to get stuck in that bogeyman complex about AI,” she said. “To go to leaders who are closest to those issues and say, ‘How would AI unlock the possibilities and opportunities for your organization?'” 
…

…

Wilmington, Delaware — President Joe Biden hosted Australia’s prime minister at his Delaware home Friday at the start of a weekend summit with the “Quad” group he has pushed as a counterweight to China. 

Biden chose Wilmington for a summit of leaders from Australia, India and Japan — the last of his presidency after he dropped out of the 2024 election against Donald Trump and handed the Democratic campaign reins to Vice President Kamala Harris. 

After a one-on-one meeting at his property with Australia’s Anthony Albanese on Friday night, he will welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at his home on Saturday. 

Biden will then host an “intimate” dinner and full four-way summit that day at his former high school in the city. 

“This will be President Biden’s first time hosting foreign leaders in Wilmington as president — a reflection of his deep personal relationships with each of the Quad leaders,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.  

Harris will not be attending, the White House said. 

The Quad grouping dates to 2007, but Biden has strongly pushed it as part of an emphasis on international alliances after the isolationist Trump years. 

China was expected to feature heavily in their discussions amid tensions with Beijing, particularly a series of recent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea. 

“It will certainly be high on the agenda,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, adding that the four leaders had a “common understanding about the challenges that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is posing.” 

The White House, however, faced criticism for giving only limited access to the press throughout the weekend, with reporters questioning whether it was at the request of the media-shy Modi. 

The prime minister was coaxed to take two questions during a state visit to the White House in 2023 but had not held an open press conference at home in his previous nine years in power. 

The White House insisted Biden would not shy away from addressing rights issues with Modi, who has faced accusations of growing authoritarianism. 

“There’s not a conversation that he has with foreign leaders where he doesn’t talk about the importance of respecting human and civil rights, and that includes with Prime Minister Modi,” Kirby said. 

India is to host the next Quad summit in 2025. 

Biden is famously proud of his home in Wilmington, about 176 kilometers from Washington, and he frequently spends weekends there away from the White House. 
…

Washington — A U.S. soldier who crossed into North Korea last year pleaded guilty to desertion on Friday as part of a plea agreement and was sentenced to 12 months of confinement, his lawyer said.

Because of good behavior and time served, the soldier was released, according to the lawyer.

Travis King was facing 14 charges related to him fleeing across the border from South Korea into the North in July 2023 while on a sightseeing tour of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula, and for prior incidents.

But he pleaded guilty to just five — desertion, assault on a noncommissioned officer, and three counts of disobeying an officer — as part of a deal that was accepted on Friday by a military judge.

“The judge, under the terms of the plea deal, sentenced Travis to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge,” a statement from King’s attorney Franklin Rosenblatt said.

“With time already served and credit for good behavior, Travis is now free and will return home,” the statement said.

“Travis King has faced significant challenges throughout his life, including a difficult upbringing, exposure to criminal environments, and struggles with mental health,” Rosenblatt said. “All these factors have compounded the hardships he faced in the military.”

In a statement, the U.S. Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel confirmed King’s guilty plea as part of a deal and said that “pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement, all other charges and specifications were dismissed.”

“The outcome of today’s court martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the offenses committed by Pvt. King,” prosecutor Major Allyson Montgomery said in the statement.

At the time of the incident, King had been stationed in South Korea, and after a drunken bar fight and a stay in South Korean jail, he was supposed to fly back to Texas to face disciplinary hearings.

Instead, he walked out of the Seoul-area airport, joined a DMZ sightseeing trip and slipped over the fortified border where he was detained by the communist North’s authorities.

Pyongyang had said that King had defected to North Korea to escape “mistreatment and racial discrimination in the U.S. Army.”

But after completing its investigation, North Korea “decided to expel” King in September for illegally intruding into its territory.
…

UNITED NATIONS — World leaders are set to descend on the United Nations in the coming days to talk about a lengthy list of global challenges. But will they spur significant action on any of them?

“We see out-of-control geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts — not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters at a news conference ahead of the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings.

Those three wars are set to dominate the agenda — both in leaders’ speeches before the assembly and at numerous side meetings.

Gaza

Getting to a cease-fire in Gaza is even more urgent now that Israel has turned its attention to its northern border with Lebanon and looks determined to build on a significant blow to Hezbollah militants there.

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance on our part,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told soldiers at the northern Ramat David Airbase on Wednesday. “It is critical that we operate in close cooperation between the [security] organizations, at all levels.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plan to address the General Assembly.

“President Abbas will focus on the plight of his people — he will focus on the genocide campaign that’s taking place, he will warn of the danger of this conflict exploding in the West Bank, and will warn also of the dangers of this conflict not reaching a cease-fire soon, in terms of its implications for the region and regional stability,” Randa Slim, senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told VOA.

In March, a U.N. official said there were reasonable grounds to believe genocide had been committed in Gaza.

Slim continued, “On the other hand, you are going to see the Israeli prime minister reminding people of the terror of October 7, casting the light on the fact that they are in a war of defense, and he is going to reemphasize the priorities of the war … which is the eradication of Hamas.”

In March, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said there were “reasonable grounds” to think Israel has been committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Ukraine

More than 2½ years after Russia invaded Ukraine, peace remains elusive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be in New York calling for international support at a critical time in the war, and as the conflict, in many capitals, has been superseded by the situation in Gaza.

“I think Ukrainian diplomats themselves are a bit worried that their war is going down the agenda,” Richard Gowan, U.N. director at International Crisis Group, told VOA. “But the reality is that the battle between Israel and Hamas has torn the U.N. apart over the last year, and that is going to be the number one focus for a lot of presidents and prime ministers.”

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy will address a high-level U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine, and the following day he will speak at the General Assembly.

“I think he will emphasize the problem of Russian aggression, and that not only Europe, but the rest of the world, must remain on guard for Russia’s attempt to assert its imperial powers,” William Pomeranz, senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute told VOA. “And that the support of Ukraine is a crucial part of global security at the present time.”

On Thursday, Zelenskyy will head to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be coming to New York, but veteran Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to address the General Assembly on September 28.

Sudan

On the African continent, two rival generals in Sudan have been mired in a brutal 17-month struggle for power that has devastated the country. Violence, famine and disease are stalking the population, and 10 million people have fled their homes in search of safety.

The war’s current epicenter is the North Darfur capital of El Fasher, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have advanced on the city and the Sudanese Armed Forces inside El Fasher have been trying to repel them.

“The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, including more than 700,000 internally displaced persons in and around El Fasher, are at immediate threat,” acting U.N. humanitarian chief Joye Msuya told the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, African Union and others have pursued a variety of peace initiatives for months. They have failed to silence the guns, but the U.S. has been successful in opening up some new routes for humanitarian relief into Sudan.

On September 25, ministers will meet to discuss the humanitarian response at a session organized by officials from the U.N., U.S, European Union, African Union, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, is coming to New York. U.N. chief Guterres said he would “express my enormous frustration” to him about the lack of a cease-fire and the start of a serious political process.

Haiti

While it may not grab as many global headlines as Ukraine and Gaza, there is a lot of international solidarity around helping Haiti recover from its latest cycle of insecurity.

The U.N. independent expert on the human rights situation in Haiti wrapped up a visit to the country on Friday and told a news conference that human rights violations are rampant.

“Sexual violence, used as a weapon by gangs to control the population, has drastically increased in recent months,” William O’Neill said. “Gangs have increasingly trafficked children, forcibly recruited them into gangs, and often used them to carry out attacks against public institutions and police operations.”

A multinational security support mission was approved nearly a year ago in the U.N. Security Council to assist Haitian National Police in subduing criminal gangs terrorizing the capital and other regions. After many delays, the first international police contingent from Kenya deployed in June.

There are now about 500 police in total on the ground — 400 from mission leader Kenya and the rest from Jamaica and Belize. Diplomats say they expect other countries will also be deploying.

Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille and his Canadian counterpart, Justin Trudeau, are co-chairing a side meeting on Monday that will look at both the urgent humanitarian situation and longer-term development issues.

“I think we are all beginning to understand how drastic the damage in Haiti is and how devastating the current attacks by the gangs has proven to be,” Canadian Ambassador Bob Rae told VOA. “We are doing everything we can to mobilize international attention on what we can do to turn that around.”

Hello and goodbye

Several new leaders will make their debut at this year’s gathering, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

“I’m going to be looking for any signal he is going to give about restarting the nuclear negotiation,” MEI’s Slim said of the Iranian leader, noting that his administration has indicated an interest in restarting nuclear talks.

This will be Biden’s final time at the General Assembly podium.

“I think his appearance will create mixed emotions among other leaders,” said Crisis Group’s Gowan. “I think there is still some respect for his engagement with multilateralism, but there is also a lot of regret that he didn’t give the U.N. a greater role in dealing with the war in Gaza.”

Looking to the future

Two years ago, Biden announced that the United States supported expanding the number of permanent members on the 15-nation Security Council.

On September 12, his U.N. envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, announced that the administration would support two permanent seats for Africa and one for Latin American and Caribbean countries, in addition to India, Japan and Germany — albeit, without veto power. She said Washington is ready to begin text-based negotiations on the expansion.

“It means we’re ready to work with other countries to negotiate language, prepare amendments, and ready this resolution for a vote in the General Assembly and, ultimately, amend the U.N. Charter,” Thomas-Greenfield told an audience last week at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Security Council reform, as it is known, has for decades been a topic of much discussion but no action. U.N. chief Guterres also would like to see the council change. On Sunday, he opens his signature two-day “Summit of the Future,” in which institutional reform will be high on the agenda.

“And one of the questions that is important in relation to the future relates exactly to the role of the P5 [permanent five members] and to the need to have a certain redistribution of power to make things more fair and more effective,” Guterres told reporters.

In the seventh year of his 10-year tenure, Guterres wants to see better multilateral cooperation to resolve current conflicts, fight climate change, and ease global hunger and debt. He is also worried about emerging challenges, including the power of artificial intelligence.

He is hoping for a strong “Pact for the Future” to be adopted by consensus on Sunday. The document, a policy blueprint to address global challenges and drastic reforms to the U.N. and global financial institutions, has been mired in difficult negotiations.

Germany and Namibia have been facilitating the negotiations for months and their leaders will co-chair the summit. The president of the General Assembly, Philemon Yang, has now taken over negotiations to try to get it over the finish line.

Diplomats said 19 countries, including Russia, raised objections on Thursday night to some language in the latest draft, including around human rights, climate action and fossil fuels. With less than 48 hours to go until the summit opens, discussions are getting down to the wire.

“We very much hope that member states will agree in the coming hours on a way forward for the Summit of the Future, and show ambition and show courage and do whatever they can to get these documents over the finish line,” Guterres’ spokesperson said.
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washington — The U.S. Secret Service says the ability of a lone gunman to fire eight shots at Donald Trump during a campaign rally in rural western Pennsylvania was partially the result of multiple failures by the agents charged with protecting the former president.

A report on the agency’s own investigation into the attempted assassination of the one-time U.S. leader and current Republican presidential candidate identified problems with communication and coordination ahead of the July 13 rally in Butler, as well as an over-reliance on state and local law enforcement partners.

“We cannot abdicate or defer our responsibilities to others,” acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told reporters Friday in Washington.

“The Secret Service did not give clear guidance or direction to our local law enforcement partners,” he said. “While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols.”

The attempted assassination shook much of the U.S., and it prompted the then-director of the Secret Service to resign.

Law enforcement officials have said it was carried out by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who acted alone and saw Trump as a target of opportunity.

Despite the presence of Trump’s protective detail, advance teams and local law enforcement, Crooks was able to climb to the top of a building overlooking the rally and set up with an AR-style rifle before being detected.

The shots wounded Trump and two rally goers, while killing a third.

The Secret Service report released Friday focuses on what the agency is describing as “communication deficiencies” at the rally, blaming agents for failing to make sure the site and surrounding areas — including the roof of the nearby building — were properly secured.

Rowe said that while there were discussions with local law enforcement about the building in particular, there were no subsequent conversations to make sure adequate protection was in place.

“We should have been more direct,” he said. “There was an assumption that they had it covered, but there clearly was not that follow-up to make sure.”

Other problems included a failure by the Secret Service to make sure local law enforcement knew how to communicate with agents on the ground, which prevented Trump’s protective detail from learning about the search for a suspicious person.

Had the detail been aware, a decision could have been made to relocate the former president to a safer location.

Rowe told reporters that Secret Service personnel responsible for the deficiencies will be held accountable, but he denied reports that some had been asked to resign.

“This agency has among the most robust table of penalties in the entirety of the federal government, and these penalties will be administered according to our disciplinary process,” he said.

The release of the Secret Service report comes less than a week after what officials have described as a second apparent assassination attempt against former President Trump.

Sheriff’s deputies in Florida arrested 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, stopping him on a major highway Sunday, about an hour after he fled from the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

Officials said data gathered from Routh’s cellphone showed he lay in wait for 12 hours, hiding in some bushes along a chain-link perimeter fence between the course’s fifth and seventh holes with an AK-47-style rifle.

Routh fled without firing a shot after a member of the Secret Service advance team spotted his rifle sticking out from behind the bushes and fired several shots.

The agent’s reaction “is exactly how we trained and exactly what we want our personnel to do,” Rowe said Friday. “He identified a threat, an individual with a long gun, and he made swift decisions and took a swift action to be able to mitigate that.”

Rowe also said that since the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, the Secret Service has been providing Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris with the same level of protection as President Joe Biden.

He also said that since Trump left office, his security detail has been “more robust than prior former presidents.”

But the acting Secret Service director said the increased levels of security are coming at a cost, asking U.S. lawmakers for more funding and personnel.

“We have finite resources,” Rowe told reporters. “We are burning through a lot of assets and resources.

“We are stretching those resources to their maximum right now.”
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In the U.S. presidential election, Republican candidates have spread false claims that migrants in the Midwest state of Ohio are eating residents’ pet cats and dogs. That has led to security threats and more divisions in an election where immigration is a central campaign theme. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story. Videographer: Obed Lamy
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FRANKFORT, Ky. — A judge in a rural Kentucky county was fatally shot in his courthouse chambers Thursday, and the local sheriff was charged with murder in the killing, police said.

The preliminary investigation indicates Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shot District Judge Kevin Mullins multiple times following an argument inside the courthouse, according to Kentucky State Police. Mullins, who held the judgeship for 15 years, died at the scene, and Stines surrendered without incident.

The fatal shooting in Whitesburg sent shock waves through a tight-knit Appalachian town and county seat of government with about 1,700 residents located about 235 kilometers southeast of Lexington.

Lead county prosecutor Matt Butler described an outpouring of sympathy as he recused himself and his office from investigations in the shooting, citing social and family ties to Mullins.

“We all know each other here. … Anyone from Letcher County would tell you that Judge Mullins and I married sisters and that we have children who are first cousins but act like siblings,” Butler said in statement from his office. “For that reason, among others, I have already taken steps to recuse myself and my entire office.”

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said his office will collaborate with a commonwealth’s attorney in the region as special prosecutors in the criminal case.

“We will fully investigate and pursue justice,” Coleman said on social media.

Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Laurance B. VanMeter said he was “shocked by this act of violence” and that the court system was “shaken by this news.”

Letcher County’s judge-executive signed an order closing on Friday the county courthouse where the shooting took place.

Mullins, 54, was hit multiple times in the shooting, Kentucky State Police said. Stines, 43, was charged with one count of first-degree murder. The investigation is continuing, police said.

It was unclear whether Stines had an attorney. Kentucky State Police referred inquiries about Stines’ legal representation Thursday to a spokesperson who did not immediately respond by email.

Responding to the shooting, Governor Andy Beshear said in a social media post: “There is far too much violence in this world, and I pray there is a path to a better tomorrow.”

Mullins served as a district judge in Letcher County since he was appointed by former Gov. Steve Beshear in 2009 and elected the following year.

Mullins was known for promoting substance abuse treatment for people involved in the justice system and helped hundreds of residents enter inpatient residential treatment, according to a program for a drug summit he spoke at in 2022. He also helped develop a program called Addiction Recovery Care to offer peer support services in the courthouse. The program was adopted in at least 50 counties in Kentucky.

Mullins also served as a founding member of the Responsive Effort to Support Treatment in Opioid Recovery Efforts Leadership Team.

After the shooting, several area schools were briefly placed on lockdown.
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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson vowed on Thursday to remain in the race despite a CNN report that he posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, saying he won’t be forced out by “salacious tabloid lies.”

Robinson, the sitting lieutenant governor who decisively won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, has been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general.

“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in a video posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “And we know that with your help, we will.”

Robinson referenced in the video a story that he said CNN was running, but he didn’t give details.

“Let me reassure you, the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said. “You know my words. You know my character.”

The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago.

CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”

CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” at women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.

CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.

Media outlets already have reported about a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.

Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina, a state on the U.S. Atlantic coast. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson would hurt former President Donald Trump’s bid to win the battleground state’s 16 electoral votes, and potential other GOP down-ballot candidates.

Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show Stein with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.

Stein and his allies have repeatedly cited a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

The Stein campaign said in a statement after the report that “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”

State law says a gubernatorial nominee could withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins Friday, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday. State Republican leaders could then pick a replacement.

Trump has frequently voiced his support for Robinson, who has been considered a rising star in his party, well-known for his fiery speeches and evocative rhetoric. Ahead of the March primary, Trump at a rally in Greensboro called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking ability.

Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the report. In a statement to the AP, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.”

Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, not mentioning Robinson by name or answering questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington or had been invited to do so.

A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign, Ammar Moussa, said on social media platform X that “Donald Trump has a Mark Robinson problem” and reposted a photo of the two together.

The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.

“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.

Scott Lassiter, a Republican state Senate candidate in a Raleigh-area swing district, did call on Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race.”

Ed Broyhill, a North Carolina member of the Republican National Committee, said he spoke to Robinson Thursday afternoon and still supports him as the nominee. In an interview, Broyhill suggested the online details may have been fabricated.

“It seems like a dirty trick to me,” Broyhill said.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the House GOP’s campaign committee, told reporters the report’s findings were “concerning.” Robinson, he said, has some reassuring to do in the state.

Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy. His four-minute speech to the Greensboro City Council defending gun rights and lamenting the “demonizing” of police officers went viral — and led him to a National Rifle Association board position and popularity among conservative voters.
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Pentagon — The U.S. is returning Special Forces troops to Chad after leaving at the country’s request nearly five months ago.

“We have reached an agreement on the return of a limited number of Special Forces personnel,” Maj. General Kenneth Ekman, who oversaw the  recent U.S. withdrawal from Niger at the request of U.S. Africa Command chief Gen. Michael Langley, told VOA in an exclusive interview Thursday.

“It was a presidential decision by [Chadian] President [Mahamat] Deby, but the decision is made, and now we’re working through the specifics on how we return,” he added.

In April, the U.S. pulled out some 70 Special Forces personnel from Chad ahead of the nation’s presidential election. Deby won that election and ultimately decided to allow U.S. forces to return, a decision that was only recently relayed to U.S. Africa Command.

Ekman told VOA the U.S. military plans a smaller operation than the headquarters that forces previously maintained in Chad, whose 11,000-member counterterror force is fighting a growing number of Boko Haram and Islamic State militants around Lake Chad. 

“The direction of approach from Chad is immensely important,” Ekman said, especially following the U.S. military withdrawal from Niger that officially ended on Sunday with his departure from Niamey. “If our presence in Niger allowed us to go inside out, relative to the Sahelian-based VEO [violent extremist organization] threat, we now have to revert to going outside in.”

The head of U.S. Africa Command, General Michael Langley, has said his forces are starting to “reset and recalibrate” in the region.

Before coups in Niger, the U.S. had hundreds of forces in two bases that served as major counterterrorism hubs. Burkina Faso and Mali also hosted U.S. Special Forces teams prior to coups in their countries that strained their relationship with the United States and ultimately cut off U.S. military access to prime locations from which to monitor terror groups and train local partners.

Under U.S. law the coups prevent AFRICOM from direct military-to-military cooperation.

Now, countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and Chad will determine the U.S. counterterror strategy and force strength in West Africa.

“Each partner has their own unique security concerns. They also have their own respective tolerance and willingness to abide the presence of U.S. forces,” Ekman said.

Ghana and Nigeria have made it clear to the U.S. that they are not interested in hosting U.S. forces, according to Ekman.

But as the violent militant threat spreads primarily southwest from the Sahel, some West African nations along the coast are asking for more U.S. capabilities. Even before the coup in Niger, the U.S. started refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate U.S. military aircraft.

After the coup in Niger, the U.S. moved Special Forces into Ivory Coast as well, Ekman told VOA. Any decision to establish a larger military presence like the one the U.S. built up in Niger will ultimately be a policy decision.

“I don’t think you’re going to see another Air Base 201,” said a senior U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, referring to the $100 million drone base that the U.S. built in the Nigerien desert.

Instead, the U.S. will likely try to work from within partner force garrisons through strengthening base fortifications and capabilities, but the U.S. has not made this type of agreement with any West African partners since the withdrawal from Niger.

“We’re not there yet,” Ekman said.

Diminished access

Since U.S. counterterror operations were halted in Niger, Ekman cautions that the region has become “more opaque” as U.S. partnerships and access have “diminished.” It is more difficult to monitor the terror threat in West Africa, which hurts the U.S. ability to counter it.

Officials admit the U.S. is now “soul searching,” its confidence shaken from broken partnerships and regional approaches that have failed to tamp down the terrorists.

The U.S military has been tasked with “treating the symptom: terrorism,” the senior military official said, acknowledging that diplomatic and economic approaches are what is needed to counter terrorism’s root causes on the continent.

The U.S. military’s withdrawal appears to be a net loss for Niger, the United States and other regional partners who had benefited from U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities available through its bases in Niger.

Since the July 2023 coup, extremist attacks have become more lethal as Niger has lost resources and partners.

“They’re absolutely feeling [those losses],” the senior military official said.

Ekman said he believes that the U.S. and Niger’s shared security objectives will continue to link the two nations even without American forces on the ground.

“How we will pursue [those objectives], either together or apart, as a consequence of the withdrawal remains to be seen, but we wanted to make sure we kept all options on the table,” he said.
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PENTAGON — On Sunday, U.S. Africa Command’s Major General Kenneth Ekman was one of the last two U.S. service members to leave Niger as part of America’s military withdrawal, following the country’s July 2023 coup. Per an agreement reached by the U.S. and Niger in May, the only American service members that remain in the country are those securing the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Niamey.

The general, who served as AFRICOM’s director of strategy, plans and programs before focusing solely on West Africa, spent the last few months methodically overseeing the withdrawal of about 1,100 American service members, along with U.S. weapons, drones and equipment that had been staged for years in two U.S. military bases in Niger. The task was completed on time and within the parameters set by the host nation, but the withdrawal has created a massive hole in the United States’ ability to monitor the growing violent extremist threat.

In an exclusive interview at the Pentagon on Thursday, Ekman explained how the new U.S. footprint in West Africa is beginning to take shape to continue fighting a shared threat.

Below are highlights from his discussion with VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, edited for brevity and clarity:

VOA: On what Nigerians should expect in terms of a partnership with the US military:

Major General Kenneth Ekman: I think that remains to be seen. … I think the starting impetus will be reflecting on the 15 years of very mutually beneficial partnership that we had up to this point. We have shed blood together, right? We have pursued their most acute security threats together, and so you can’t erase that history … It would be really helpful if the Nigerians took the first step — they asked us to leave after all — their first step on what that government and the military that serves them would like next in a U.S. security partnership. And then it will be bounded. What I mean by that is, it’s going to take a while for it ever to be what it was on July 25, 2023, which was the day prior to the coup.

There are some obstacles–everything from the request that we withdraw, to our turnover of bases and facilities and equipment, to the fact that coup sanctions, Section 7008 sanctions, have been imposed against the junta. And so all of that combines to limit the “what next.”

We still have shared security objectives. How we will pursue them, either together or apart, as a consequence of the withdrawal remains to be seen, but we wanted to make sure we kept all options on the table.

VOA:  On repercussions concerning military partnerships and training exercises with countries who’ve undergone a coup:

Ekman: There are absolutely repercussions. Because when they’re omitted, they lose everything from the chance to interact in a region that’s becoming increasingly dis-integrated, right, to the chance to practice and practice at a high level within the context or the scenario of the exercise. So it is a net loss, right? It’s a net loss for the region, and it’s a loss for each of those individual countries as they are excluded.

VOA:  On increased U.S. military presence in other West African nations:

Ekman: What you’re talking about is that layer of forces, most of which came from Niger, that we reposition around the Sahel. If our presence in Niger allowed us to go inside out, relative to the Sahelian based VEO (violent extremist organization) threat, we now have to revert to going outside in … Countries like Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Ghana, Benin, Chad, our access to them and the degree to which they want to partner with us will influence how we go outside in.

We’re at a different phase with each of those countries. What I mean is, each partner has their own unique security concerns. They also have their own respective tolerance and willingness to abide the presence of U.S. forces. So in some cases, we moved some forces well prior to the Niger coup, because that’s where the threat was going. We were invited early on, and whether it was a small SOF (special operations forces) team or an ISR (intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance) platform, we moved them months ago.  The larger question is, and it’s a policy question, where, and if we establish significant presence of forces, probably on a partner base, serving alongside them, doing everything from command and control to projecting things like ISR and personnel recovery, to sustaining them and to medically treating them. That is something where we’re not there yet, and no agreements have been made.

There are some cases where, for now, we’re definitely not (establishing a significant force presence). So that’s true in Nigeria. We have a very clear message from them … Likewise in Ghana.

The ones where things are still kind of under consideration, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, those were, what we want to do is, within the partners’ needs, support their partner-led, U.S.-enabled counter VEO ops.

VOA: On U.S. military movements, specifically, refurbishing an airfield in Benin to accommodate U.S. aircraft, sending special forces to Ivory Coast and bringing U.S. forces back to Chad:

Ekman: The most lethal violent extremist organization threat in the world resides in West Africa, and it resides in the Sahel. It’s also spreading. The primary direction of travel is to the southwest, so well-prior to the Niger coup we were already working with partners on what they needed with regards to U.S. presence and capabilities. In the Benin case, we started that a while ago. In the Cote d’Ivoire case, it’s been really post-coup (in Niger). So each of them is on their own timeline as we work with them… We did have some forces in Mali and Burkina Faso. We had special forces teams there as well. And given our current relationship, that’s just not something that we can do, and so we had some forces available who needed to move and there were requirements in other countries. The specifics beyond that kind of remain to be seen.

VOA: But the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) case, the (U.S.) special forces were moved from Niger to there?

Ekman: That’s correct.

VOA: OK, and then the airfield (refurbishment) in Benin (to accommodate U.S. aircraft) was started a little prior, but then also worked on during.

Ekman: That’s it.

A consistent request that we receive from all partners is intel sharing, right? And so that’s something that we can offer uniquely… It is a common currency from which everyone benefits.

VOA: That has diminished.

Ekman: The region has become more opaque. Absolutely.

We did remove about 70 U.S. Special Forces personnel (from Chad) at the end of April. That was at their request. They asked us to leave. An election was coming and we obliged. That’s what partners do. Since then, they had a successful election on May 6. And so in the aftermath of that, they’ve started asking us, well, what can we do together?

Our goal is to do something less than we had there before. We had a headquarters there before, but we have reached an agreement on the return of a limited number of special forces personnel. It is a presidential decision. So these are big policy decisions. It was a presidential decision by President Deby, but the decision is made, and now we’re working through the specifics on how we return… His decision was conveyed to us in just recent weeks. Chad is really important because… it’s an outside-in strategy. And the direction of approach from Chad is immensely important. They’ve also been a significant contributor to Sahelian security.

VOA: On the effect that losing Niger has on region counterterrorism efforts:

Ekman: If there was one country that was most important on our ability to address Sahelian VEO problems or the Sahelian VEO challenge, it was Niger. So, for one, of Niger, I talked about it as a strategic setback, (but) the degree to which that setback endures ties to how we reposition and then what our partners want to do with us… That is a snapshot in time. All is not lost.

VOA: On concerns that Niger could fall to violent extremist organizations:

Ekman: Their risks have definitely gone up. Their ability to confront extremist organizations, intel sharing, partnership with our and other allied forces, it’s gotten worse. So they are a capable force… the degree to which they can handle the problem themselves remains to be seen. It is a fact that in Niger, violent extremist attacks have become more lethal. That’s a fact. Since the coup on July 26, 2023. They’ve got fewer resources and fewer partners.

VOA: Have you seen any evidence, or heard anything from your engagements about JNIM starting to collaborate with some of the ISIS elements (in West Africa)?

Ekman: I think that one varies. For what I can talk about in here, some cases they collaborate, some cases they compete, and that often manifest down to the local level.

VOA: On Russia’s military presence in Niger:

Ekman: In the Nigerian case, that presence is actually quite small. The Nigerians signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia related to security cooperation two governments ago. And so they fly Russian equipment. They drive Russian equipment. There’s nothing new there. The Russian trainers who showed up? Didn’t see much of them while we were there. And so, to date, Russian presence in Niger has been quite limited… We caution them of the malign impacts of partnering, particularly with Russian PMCs who have yet to help anybody from a security perspective. And then their methods are abhorrent to us, OK? And so that’s where we, we encourage them to draw the line.

VOA: On whether terrorists in the Sahel now have the capacity to try external operations:

Ekman: Given the lack of access that we have, given the lack of ISR, our ability to gage… the trend in their development of capability and will, it’s become more difficult.

Our access and our partnerships have diminished. It’s a tough operational problem.
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World leaders gather for their annual meetings at the United Nations starting Sunday, and the wars in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine will be center stage. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.
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new york — Wall Street romped to records Thursday as jubilation swept markets worldwide one day after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s big cut to interest rates. 

The S&P 500 jumped 1.7% for one of its best days of the year and topped its last all-time high set in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average leaped 522 points, or 1.3%, to beat its own record set on Monday, and the Nasdaq composite led the market with a 2.5% spurt. 

The rally was widespread, and Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and Ruth’s Chris, led the way in the S&P 500 with a jump of 8.3%. It said sales trends have been improving since a sharp step down in July, and it announced a delivery partnership with Uber. 

Nvidia, meanwhile, barreled 4% higher and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Lower interest rates weaken criticism by a bit that its shares and those of other influential Big Tech companies look too expensive following the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. 

Wall Street’s gains followed rallies for markets across Europe and Asia after the Federal Reserve delivered the first cut to interest rates in more than four years late on Wednesday. 

It was a momentous move, closing the door on a run where the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the U.S. economy enough to stamp out high inflation. Now that inflation has come down from its peak two summers ago, Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed can focus more on keeping the job market solid and the economy out of a recession. 

Wall Street’s initial reaction to Wednesday’s cut was a yawn, after markets had run up for months on expectations for coming reductions to rates. Stocks ended up edging lower after swinging a few times. 

“Yet we come in today and have a reversal of the reversal,” said Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at BTIG. He said he did not anticipate such a big jump for stocks on Thursday. 

Some analysts said the market could be relieved that the Fed’s Powell was able to thread the needle in his press conference and suggest the deeper-than-usual cut was just a recalibration of policy and not an urgent move it had to take to prevent a recession. 

That bolstered hopes the Federal Reserve can successfully walk its tightrope and get inflation down to its 2% target without a recession. So too did a couple reports on the economy released Thursday. One showed fewer workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, another signal that layoffs across the country remain low. 

Lower interest rates help financial markets in two big ways. They ease the brakes off the economy by making it easier for U.S. households and businesses to borrow money. They also give a boost to prices of all kinds of investments, from gold to bonds to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose above $63,000 Thursday, up from about $27,000 a year ago. 

An adage suggests investors should not “fight the Fed” and should instead ride the rising tide when the central bank is cutting interest rates. Wall Street was certainly doing that Thursday. But this economic cycle has thrown out conventional wisdom repeatedly after the COVID-19 pandemic created an instant recession that gave way to the worst inflation in generations. 

Wall Street is worried that inflation could remain tougher to fully subdue than in the past. And while lower rates can help goose the economy, they can also give inflation more fuel. 

The upcoming U.S. presidential election could also keep uncertainty reigning in the market. A fear is that both the Democrats and Republicans could push for policies that add to the U.S. government’s debt, which could keep upward pressure on interest rates regardless of the Fed’s moves. 

Indexes climbed even more across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They rose 2.3% in France, 2.1% in Japan and 2% in Hong Kong. 

The FTSE 100 added 0.9% in London after the Bank of England kept interest rates there on hold. The next big move for a central bank arrives Friday, when the Bank of Japan will announce its latest decision on interest rates. 
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With fewer than 50 days left in this year’s U.S. presidential race, candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are campaigning in key swing states, each declaring to be the nominee with policies that can boost the economy. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Thursday the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower interest rates was “an important signal” that inflation has eased as he characterized Donald Trump’s economic policies as a failure in the past and sure to “fail again” if revived. 

“Lowering interest rates isn’t a declaration of victory,” Biden told the Economic Club of Washington. “It’s a declaration of progress, to signal we’ve entered a new phase of our economy and our recovery.” 

The Democratic president emphasized that there was more work left to do, but he used his speech to burnish his economic legacy even as he criticized Trump, his Republican predecessor who is running for another term. 

“Trickle down, down economics failed,” Biden said. “He’s promising again trickle down economics. It will fail again.” 

Biden said Trump wants to extend tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, costing an estimated $5 trillion, and implement tariffs that could raise prices by nearly $4,000 per family, something that Biden described as a “new sales tax.” 

A spokesman for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Trump has routinely hammered Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate this year, over higher costs. 

“People can’t go out and buy cereal or bacon or eggs or anything else,” Trump said during last week’s debate. “The people of our country are absolutely dying with what they’ve done. They’ve destroyed the economy.” 

Biden dismissed Trump’s claims that he supports workers, saying “give me a break.” Biden’s administration created more manufacturing jobs and spurred more factory construction, and it reduced the trade deficit with China. 

Trump’s economic record was undermined by the coronavirus outbreak, and Biden blamed him for botching the country’s response. 

“His failure in handling the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of Americans dying,” he said. 

Biden struggled to demonstrate economic progress because of inflation that spread around the globe as the pandemic receded and supply chain problems multiplied. 

He expressed hope that the rate cut will make it more affordable for Americans to buy houses and cars. 

“I believe it’s important for the country to recognize this progress,” he said. “Because if we don’t, the progress we made will remain locked in the fear of a negative mindset that dominated our economic outlook since the pandemic began.” 

He said businesses should see “the immense opportunities in front of us right now” by investing and expanding. 

Biden defended the independence of the Federal Reserve, which could be threatened by Trump if he is elected to another term. Trump publicly pressured the central bank to lower rates during his presidency, a break with past customs. 

“It would do enormous damage to our economy if that independence is ever lost,” Biden said. 

During his speech, Biden inaccurately said he had never met with Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, while he’s been president. 

Jared Bernstein, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said at a subsequent briefing that Biden intended to say that he had never discussed interest rates with Powell. 

“That’s what he meant,” Bernstein said.
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People from across the globe are convening on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City for Climate Week. On the agenda: the environmental impact of seabed mining. The discussion comes as tech companies seek ways to fuel the green revolution while minimizing environmental impacts. VOA’s Jessica Stone has more.]
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Washington — A hearing to seek the release of imprisoned Americans in Beijing highlighted reasons for the U.S. to expand its list of U.S. citizens wrongly detained in China to prioritize their return.

Members of Congress and witnesses argued at a congressional hearing this week that the U.S. government should expand the list of Americans that it designates as being “unjustly detained” in China.

“More Americans should be considered to be unjustly detained by the State Department,” Representative Chris Smith, the chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said Wednesday in opening remarks at the CECC hearing.

China is known for a justice system lacking transparency and arbitrarily detaining foreigners as well as its own citizens.

The State Department officially had three Americans listed as unjustly detained in China including American Pastor David Lin, who has now been released by Beijing, the State Department announced on Sunday. 

The other two are Kai Li and Mark Swidan. Li, a businessman from Long Island, was detained by China in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for espionage, which his family denies. Swiden, a Texas businessman, was detained in 2012 and convicted on drug-related charges in 2019. His supporters say there is evidence he was not in China at the time of the alleged offense.

Although estimates vary, human rights organizations assess that more U.S. citizens are wrongly detained in China. 

Dui Hua, a human rights group that advocates for clemency and better treatment of detainees in China, doubts about 200 Americans who are held under coercive measures in China and more than 30 who are barred from leaving the country.

The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, a group that seeks to free Americans held captive abroad, estimates that 11 U.S. nationals are wrongfully detained in China, including those subject to exit bans.

In the opening statement of his testimony, Nelson Wells, the father of detained American citizen Nelson Wells, Jr., lamented that “Nelson is not considered a political prisoner or held unjust” by the State Department.

Later, he added, “We tried to get Nelson’s name included” in the list and expressed his hope that the hearing will pave the way.

Nelson Wells, Jr., from New Orleans, was arrested in 2014 in China and sentenced to life on drug-related charges, which his family denies. His term was reduced to 22 years in 2019, and he will remain in prison until 2041.

The U.S. determines whether its citizens are detained “unlawfully or wrongfully” by either “a foreign government or a non-governmental actor” based on criteria set by the Levinson Act signed into law in 2020.

Such criteria “can include, but is not limited to, a review of whether the individual is being detained to influence U.S. policy, whether there is a lack of due process or disparate sentencing for the individuals, and whether the person is being detained due to their U.S. connections, among other criteria,” said a spokesperson for the State Department in a statement to VOA Korean on Tuesday.

“The Secretary of State has ultimate authority to determine whether a case is a wrongful detention. This determination is discretionary, based on the totality of the circumstances, and grounded in the facts of the case. We do not discuss the wrongful detention determination process in public,” the spokesperson continued.

A spokesperson for the Foley Foundation told VOA that it believes 11 Americans currently detained in China meet “the criteria for wrongful detention, as specified in Levinson Act.”

Its report, published in July, says China “remains the leading country in wrongfully detaining U.S. nationals,” based on the data collected by the Foley Foundation in the period from 2022 to 2024.

Sophie Richardson, a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, told VOA China’s practice of arbitrary detention is harmful to its culture and economy.

“It’s a big part of what is deterring people from going to the country,” including students who are interested in studying Chinese as well as business executives who are “concerned they might run afoul of certain kinds of data regulations and [be] arbitrarily detained,” said Richardson, a former China director at Human Rights Watch.

A record number of approximately 15,200 high-net worth individuals are expected to leave China in 2024, according to New World Wealth, a wealth intelligence firm, cited by the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report.

Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, said, “The Chinese government clearly wants more Americans to travel to China, but as long as our loved ones are being held, as long as there are so many people at risk, then that travel warning must be escalated.”

The State Department currently advises Americans to “reconsider” traveling to the country “due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” including exit bans and wrongful detention. The next level of advisory would say “do not travel.”

Bob Fu, the founder and president of China Aid, a human rights group that advocates for religious freedom, told VOA that “increasing international isolation” felt by the Chinese Communist Party could have led it to the release of David Lin.  

He said the prospect for the release of other Americans would depend on “how much persistent pressure from the highest level of the U.S. government” is exerted on Beijing.

The State Department spokesperson told VOA Korean that the U.S. has raised the case of “other wrongfully detained Americans” in addition to David Lin and will “continue to push for the release of other Americans.”
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