STOCKHOLM — Meta Platforms said on Friday that it had removed a network of group accounts targeting Russian speakers in Moldova ahead of the country’s October 20 election, for violation of the company’s policy on fake accounts.

Authorities in Moldova, an ex-Soviet state lying between Romania and Ukraine, said they had blocked dozens of Telegram channels and chat bots linked to a drive to pay voters to cast “no” ballots in a referendum on European Union membership held alongside the presidential election.

Pro-European President Maia Sandu is seeking a second term in the election and called the referendum on joining the 27-member bloc as the cornerstone of her policies.

The fake Meta accounts posted criticism of Sandu, pro-EU politicians and close ties between Moldova and Romania, and supported pro-Russia parties in Moldova, the company said.

The company said its operation centered on about a dozen fictitious, Russian-language news brands posing as independent entities with presence on multiple internet services, including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, as well as Telegram, OK.ru and TikTok.

Meta said it removed seven Facebook accounts, 23 pages, one group and 20 accounts on Instagram for violating its “coordinated inauthentic behavior policy.”

About 4,200 accounts followed one or more of the 23 pages and about 335,000 accounts followed one or more of the Instagram accounts, Meta said.

In Chisinau, the National Investigation Inspectorate said it had blocked 15 channels of the popular Telegram messaging app and 95 chat bots offering voters money. Users were told the channels “violated local laws” on political party financing.

It had traced the accounts to supporters of fugitive businessman Ilan Shor — members of the banned party bearing his name or the “Victory” electoral bloc he had set up in its place from his base of exile in Moscow.

Moldovan police said on Thursday that they searched homes of leaders linked to Shor as part of a criminal investigation into election-meddling. Police have said tens of thousands of voters were paid off via accounts in a Russian bank to derail the vote.

Shor was sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia last year in connection with the 2014 disappearance of $1 billion from Moldovan banks. He denies allegations of trying to bribe voters.

Sandu accuses Moscow of trying to topple her government while Moscow has accused her of fomenting “Russophobia.”
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washington — The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday that it had sued the state of Virginia for violating the federal prohibition on systematic efforts to remove voters within 90 days of an election.

On August 7, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order requiring the commissioner of the Department of Elections to certify that the department was conducting “daily updates to the voter list” to remove, among other groups, people who are unable to verify that they are citizens to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

U.S. citizens who were identified and notified and did not affirm their citizenship within 14 days would be removed from the list of registered voters, the Justice Department said. It said this practice has led to citizens having their voter registrations canceled ahead of the November 5 election.

“By canceling voter registrations within 90 days of Election Day, Virginia places qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

“Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s quiet period restriction to prevent error-prone, eleventh-hour efforts that all too often disenfranchise qualified voters,” Clarke added.

The department said it was seeking injunctive relief that would restore the ability of affected eligible voters to cast their votes unimpeded on Election Day and would prohibit future violations.

Youngkin called the move politically motivated and an attempt to interfere in the election.

“With the support of our attorney general, we will defend these common sense steps that we are legally required to take with every resource available to us,” he said in a statement on Friday.

Republicans across the U.S. have pushed against noncitizen voting, which is already illegal, ahead of the November election. Some election officials have warned that the move could penalize eligible voters.
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washington — A media watchdog group’s report is prompting renewed scrutiny of the role Serbia is playing in the dissemination of Russian propaganda in the Balkans, particularly as it concerns Moscow’s war on Ukraine. 

“Thanks to the Serbian government’s grip on the media and favorable political environment, RT — formerly Russia Today — uses its Belgrade office to adapt the Kremlin’s narratives before disseminating them across southeastern Europe,” said the report from Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which was updated early this week. 

The Paris-based watchdog group added that it “calls on the European Union (EU) and its member states to hold Serbia accountable for hosting [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies.” 

The EU’s response was not long in coming. On Tuesday, EU spokesperson for external affairs Peter Stano called on Serbia to take urgent measures to counter Russian media manipulation and interference.  

“The European Union has adopted sanctions against Russian state-owned media, including RT,” Stano told Agence France-Presse, adding that those outlets have become an instrument of Russia’s war against Ukraine and “a channel for the dissemination and manipulation of information.” 

A day earlier, Pavol Szalai, head of the Europe and Balkans desk at RSF, told AFP that the Serbian government was allowing the country, an EU candidate nation, to be used as “an amplifier and translator of Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans.” 

In a post on X, Arno Guyon, who heads the Serbian government’s Office for Public and Cultural Diplomacy, responded to the comments by the EU’s Stano and RSF’s Szalai, calling them “very worrying.” 

“It reminds of the period of communism during which censorship was applied in Yugoslavia in the name of fighting against ‘harmful or undesirable ideas.’ It contradicts the values of pluralism, tolerance and freedom of speech, which the Serbs believe in and for which numerous Serbian intellectuals who were imprisoned and killed because of it fought.” 

Asked by VOA’s Serbian Service about the accusations concerning the Serbian government’s alleged role in disseminating Russian disinformation, the U.S. State Department responded:  

“Media manipulation and interference poses significant risks to democratic processes and societal stability in Serbia and the Western Balkans. The Department of State’s Global Engagement Center previously warned  that the Kremlin’s state-funded and state-directed media outlets RT and Sputnik are critical elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”   

The State Department added that it would continue its cooperation with Serbian partners in responding to RT’s activities. 

In September, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced new measures to thwart the activities of the Russian state-funded and -directed media company Rossiya Segodnya, and five of its subsidiaries, including RT. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said those Russian state media entities “are no longer merely firehoses of Russian Government propaganda and disinformation,” but are engaged in “covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.” 

“Thanks to new information — much of which originates from RT employees — we know that RT possess cyber capabilities and engaged in covert information and influence operations and military procurement,” Blinken said. “As part of RT’s expanded capabilities, the Russian Government embedded within RT a unit with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence. RT’s leadership had direct, witting knowledge of this enterprise.” 

RT Balkan, which has existed in Serbia since 2022, publishes its content on the internet and social media. Sputnik Serbia, a subsidiary of Russia’s Sputnik state news agency, arrived in the country a little earlier, in 2017.  

Ruslan Trad, a resident fellow for security research with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told VOA that the Serbian government is providing Russia with a platform for building a serious infrastructure, which also includes a media presence. 

“Russian propaganda media use Serbia to establish a presence in the wider region,” he said. “They use different methods, such as advertising platforms on Google that users have confidence in, in order to redirect them to the contents of ‘Russia Today’ or other Russian or pro-Russian media in the Serbian language.”  

Trad believes that the Serbian authorities will ignore the criticism expressed by the European Union and non-governmental organizations. 

“Belgrade ’s position is clear. The European Union, which has economic interests in Serbia related to lithium, will do little more than comment,” he said. “[Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic doesn’t see it as a problem, so things will continue to work in the same way.” 

Still, Trad said the Serbian government’s relationships with Russia and the West are provisional, not set in stone. 

“It is obvious that Belgrade enables all this out of interest, and not because it is pressed against the wall,” he said. “Unlike other countries in the region, Serbia sees the Russian Federation as an ally, but not as a partner at any cost. It is no coincidence that Belgrade also has ties with China, the U.S. and European countries such as France.” 

He added: “However, if it wants to become a part of the European family, Belgrade will have to implement the rule of law and improve the situation in the media environment.”  
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London — The European Parliament overwhelmingly passed an emergency resolution Thursday condemning the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs and urging China to immediately and unconditionally release detainees, including Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti and Gulshan Abbas.

The resolution is fueled by widespread concern from the international community and highlights its continued concern about the human rights situation in Xinjiang.

The resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 540 in favor, 23 against and 47 abstentions, strongly condemns China’s “repression and targeting of Uyghurs with abusive policies, including intense surveillance, forced labor, sterilization, birth prevention measures and the destruction of Uyghur identity, which amount to crimes against humanity and a serious risk of genocide.”

The European Parliament’s resolution pays attention to the cases of two high-profile Uyghurs. Ilham Tohti, a 54-year-old economist, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 on charges of “separatism.” Tohti has long worked to promote dialogue between Uyghurs and the Han Chinese and is considered a moderate intellectual. In 2019, the European Parliament awarded him the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought for his efforts to uphold human rights.

Gulshan Abbas, a 62-year-old retired doctor, was detained in 2018 and sentenced to 20 years in prison on terrorism-related charges. Abbas’s sister, Rushan Abbas, is a Uyghur human rights activist in the United States.

Ziba Murat, daughter of Gulshan Abbas, told the nonprofit group International Services for Human Rights, “My mother was a medical professional who dedicated her life to helping others and saving lives. She is a non-politicized, warm-hearted and loving mother. The accusations against her are absurd and baseless. My mother is suffering only because her family in the United States has spoken out against the Chinese government’s unfair treatment of Uyghurs. This is an obvious example of kinship punishment and transnational repression.”

Rushan Abbas told VOA, “The adoption of this resolution by the European Parliament signifies more than symbolic recognition; it is a decisive step toward accountability and justice for the countless Uyghur lives devastated by China’s oppressive policies, including my sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas and Ilham Tohti. It is imperative that EU member states not only recognize their moral duty but also seize this political moment to implement sanctions that reinforce this resolution. Our collective demand for justice and the protection of human rights must manifest in substantive measures.”

Rahima Mahmut, executive director of the group Stop Uyghur Genocide, told VOA, “I welcome this decision that is so important. In my opinion, especially for Ilham Tohti’s 10th anniversary this year, and then along with so many thousands of intellectuals, linguistics, artists, scholars, religious leaders and many, many imprisoned unlawfully, serving long-term prison sentences. They are all innocent people, never committed any crime in any standard, even under the Chinese constitution.”

Raphaël Viana David, program manager of International Service for Human Rights, told VOA, “There is indisputable evidence that when governments and U.N. experts press Beijing publicly, in a coordinated and sustained fashion, the wall will eventually crack. It is now the moment for global actors to step up pressure in calling out acts of transnational repression by Beijing, and to call for the release of Dr. Abbas.”

Mahmut said, “I believe the EU and countries, especially democratic countries like the U.K., should impose sanctions against China for illegally detaining millions of people, putting people on forced labor. This is not a new thing anymore. It’s not news anymore.

“There are so many other things that the EU and the U.K. government can do to really show their support to the Uyghurs and the Tibetans and the Hong Kongers. We are suffering under this regime for too long,” she added.

Michael Polak, an international criminal lawyer from London’s Church Court Chambers who is involved in a universal jurisdiction case concerning Uyghurs in Argentina, said, “Five hundred and forty out of 610 members of the European Parliament voted to recognize the repression of the Uyghur people and particularly the continued detention of well-known individual Uyghur leaders.”

He emphasized the legal implications of the vote and said, “This is the biggest Parliament in the world, as far as I’m concerned, to recognize what’s happening to the Uyghur people, which are crimes against humanity and genocide.”

David said, “In the last June session of the Human Rights Council, the high commissioner [the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights] also called out a ‘pattern emerging of transnational repression’ in Southeast Asia ‘whereby human rights defenders seeking refuge in neighboring countries have been subject to rendition and refoulement or disappeared and even killed,’ making implicit reference to the unlawful refoulement of lawyer Lu Siwei from Laos to China. Just today, we received reports that Lu Siwei has been arrested: Governments have to firmly condemn this and urge his release.”

Rushan Abbas said, “I urge each EU member state to not only support this resolution but to actively enforce sanctions against Chinese officials and entities directly responsible for the detention and persecution of Uyghurs. … It is crucial that these sanctions are robust and targeted towards CCP [Chinese Communist Party] officials that aid and abet human rights abuses.

“EU member states should enforce strict compliance with the new EU forced labor regulations. Companies operating within their borders must be transparent about their supply chains and ensure they are not complicit in the exploitation of the Uyghur people,” she added.

The human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has been the focus of international attention in recent years. Several Western countries and human rights groups have accused China of setting up “re-education camps” in Xinjiang and mass detaining Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. Human Rights Watch reports that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs may have been held in so-called “re-education camps” since 2017. Analysis of satellite imagery from the Australia Strategic Policy Institute shows many suspected detention facilities in Xinjiang.

However, the Chinese government firmly denies those allegations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson has repeatedly said that Xinjiang’s measures are aimed at combating terrorism and extremism and ensuring regional security and development.

The Chinese government has not yet officially responded to the European Parliament’s decision.

The Chinese Mission to the European Union did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — A pair of unwelcome and destructive guests named Helene and Milton have stormed their way into this year’s U.S. presidential election.

The back-to-back hurricanes have jumbled the schedules of Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, both of whom devoted part of their recent days to tackling questions about the storm recovery effort.

The two hurricanes are forcing basic questions about who as president would best respond to deadly natural disasters, a once-overlooked issue that has become an increasingly routine part of the job. And just weeks before the November 5 election, the storms have disrupted the mechanics of voting in several key counties.

Vice President Harris is trying to use this as an opportunity to project leadership, appearing alongside President Joe Biden at briefings and calling for bipartisan cooperation. Former President Trump is trying to use the moment to attack the administration’s competence and question whether it is withholding help from Republican areas, despite no evidence of such behavior.

Adding to the pressure is the need to provide more money for the Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which would require House Republicans to work with the Democratic administration. Biden said Thursday that lawmakers should address the situation immediately.

Timothy Kneeland, a professor at Nazareth University in Rochester, New York, who has studied the issue, said, “Dealing with back-to-back crises will put FEMA under more scrutiny and, therefore, the Biden administration will be under a microscope in the days leading up to the election.

“Vice President Harris must empathize with the victims without altering the campaign schedule and provide consistent messaging on the widespread devastation that makes FEMA’s work even more challenging than normal,” Kneeland said.

Already, Trump and Harris have separately gone to Georgia to assess hurricane damage and pledge support, and Harris has visited North Carolina, requiring the candidates to cancel campaign events elsewhere and use up time that is a precious resource in the final weeks before any election. Georgia and North Carolina are political battlegrounds, raising the stakes.

Campaign language altered

The hurricane fallout is evident in the candidates’ campaign events as well.

On Thursday, the first question Harris got at a Univision town hall in Las Vegas came from a construction worker and undecided voter from Tampa, Florida. Ramiro Gonzalez asked about talk that the administration has not done enough to support people after Helene, and whether the people in Milton’s path would have access to aid — a sign that Trump’s messaging is breaking through with some potential voters.

Harris has called out the level of misinformation being circulated by Republicans, but her fuller answer revealed the dynamics at play just a few weeks before an election.

“I have to stress that this is not a time for people to play politics,” she said.

On the same day, Trump opened his speech at the Detroit Economic Club by praising Republican governors in the affected states and blasting the Biden-Harris administration.

“They’ve let those people suffer unjustly,” he said about those affected by Helene in North Carolina.

Voting systems affected

The storms have also scrambled the voting process in places. North Carolina’s State Board of Elections has passed a resolution to help people in the state’s affected counties vote. Florida will allow some counties greater flexibility in distributing mail-in ballots and changing polling sites for in-person voting. But a federal judge in Georgia said Thursday the state doesn’t need to reopen voter registration despite the disruptions by Helene.

Tension and controversy have begun to override the disaster response, with Biden on Wednesday and Thursday saying that Trump has spread falsehoods that are “un-American.”

Candace Bright Hall-Wurst, a sociology professor at East Tennessee State University, said that natural disasters have become increasingly politicized, often putting more of the focus on the politicians instead of the people in need.

“Disasters are politicized when they have political value to the candidate,” she said. “This does not mean that the politicization is beneficial to victims.”

As the Democratic nominee, Harris has suddenly been a major part of the response to hurricanes, a role that traditionally has not involved vice presidents in prior administrations.

On Thursday, she participated virtually at a Situation Room briefing on Milton while she was in Nevada for campaign activities. She has huddled in meetings about response plans and on Wednesday phoned into CNN live to discuss the administration’s efforts.

At a Wednesday appearance with Biden to discuss Milton ahead of it making landfall, Harris subtly tied back the issues into her campaign policies to stop price gouging on food and other products.

“To any company that — or individual that — might use this crisis to exploit people who are desperate for help through illegal fraud or price gouging — whether it be at the gas pump, the airport or the hotel counter — know that we are monitoring these behaviors and the situation on the ground very closely and anyone taking advantage of consumers will be held accountable,” she said.

Harris warned that Milton “poses extreme danger.” It made landfall in Florida late Wednesday and left more than 3 million without power. But the storm surge never reached the same levels as Helene, which led to roughly 230 fatalities and for a prolonged period left mountainous parts of North Carolina without access to electricity, cell service and roads.

Misinformation about Helene

Trump and his allies have seized on the aftermath of Helene to spread misinformation about the administration’s response. Their debunked claims include statements that victims can only receive $750 in aid, as well as false charges that emergency response funds were diverted to immigrants.

The former president said the administration’s response to Helene was worse than the George W. Bush administration’s widely panned handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which led to nearly 1,400 deaths.

“This hurricane has been a bad one; Kamala Harris has left them stranded,” Trump said at a recent rally in Juneau, Wisconsin. “This is the worst response to a storm or a catastrophe or a hurricane that we’ve ever seen ever. Probably worse than Katrina, and that’s hard to beat, right?”

Asked about the Trump campaign’s strategic thinking on emphasizing the hurricane response, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it reflects a pattern of “failed leadership” by the Biden administration that also includes the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and security at the U.S. southern border.

John Gasper, a Carnegie Mellon University professor who has researched government responses to natural disasters, said storm victims generally want to ensure foremost that they get the aid they need.

“These disasters essentially end up being good tests of leadership for local, state and federal officials in how they respond,” he said.

But Gasper noted that U.S. politics have gotten so polarized and other issues such as the economy are shaping the election, such that the debate currently generating so much heat between Trump and the Biden administration might not matter that much on Election Day.
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From pop superstar Taylor Swift to former wrestler Hulk Hogan, celebrity endorsements have been a feature of this year’s U.S. presidential race. But whether they will have any kind of impact on the election is difficult to predict. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
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VIENTIANE, LAOS — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Friday warned China against military provocations toward Taiwan, following Beijing’s strong reaction to an annual speech by the leader of the self-ruled democracy.

“I can tell you that with regard to the so-called Ten Ten speech, which is a regular exercise, China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions,” Blinken told reporters during a press conference in Vientiane, Laos. 

He was referring to October 10, known as Double Ten Day, when Taiwan celebrates the founding of the Republic of China in 1912, just months after an uprising that began on October 10, 1911.

The People’s Republic of China celebrates its national day on October 1, marking the founding of the country in 1949. 

China has continued to ramp up its military threats against Taiwan, following President Lai Ching-te’s Thursday speech, which rejected China’s claim of sovereignty over the island.

Blinken was in Vientiane for meetings with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and participated in the East Asia Summit. 

He said there is a strong desire among all ASEAN countries, along with others present, to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, with neither side taking actions that undermine the status quo.

Earlier on Friday, Taiwan detected 20 Chinese military aircraft and 10 naval vessels around Taiwan. Thirteen of the aircraft crossed the median line and entered Taiwan’s northern and southwestern Air Defense Identification Zone, according to a posting on social media platform X by Taiwan’s defense ministry.

Between Wednesday and Thursday, Taiwan also detected 27 Chinese military aircraft, nine naval vessels, and five official ships.

In Beijing, Chinese officials said Taiwan “has no so-called sovereignty.”

Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, slammed Lai, accusing him of having “the ill intention of heightening tensions in the Taiwan Strait for his selfish political interest.”

Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communists took power in Beijing after defeating Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang nationalists in a civil war, prompting the nationalists’ relocation to the island.

Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing to counter the then-Soviet Union in 1979.  

Since then, relations between the U.S. and Taiwan have been governed by the Taiwan Relations Act that Congress passed in April 1979, under which the U.S. provides defense equipment to Taiwan.

In September, Taiwan President Lai said if China’s claims over Taiwan are truly based on concerns about territorial integrity, it should also seek to reclaim the 600,000 square kilometers of land it ceded to Russia in the 19th century — an area almost the size of Ukraine.
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STOCKHOLM — Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are also known as Hibakusha, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.  

Below are some facts about the background and efforts of the movement.  

Atomic bombing of Japan   

In 1945 the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to bring an end to World War II and avoid a hugely costly invasion of the Japanese home islands.  

The two bombs killed an estimated 120,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while many thousands more died of burns and radiation injuries in the following years. The two atomic bombs remain the only nuclear weapons used in war.  

Local associations    

The fates of those who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were long concealed and neglected, especially in the initial years after the end of the war.  

Local Hibakusha associations, along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations in 1956.   

The organisation, whose name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo, would become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.   

Witness accounts  

Through the years, Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts relating the experience of the nuclear bombs. It has issued resolutions and public appeals, and sent annual delegations to bodies such as the United Nations and peace conferences to advocate nuclear disarmament.   

The movement has helped drive global opposition to nuclear weapons through the force of the survivors’ testimonies while also creating educational campaigns and issuing stark warnings about the spread and use of nuclear arms.  

Future  

With each passing year, the number of survivors from the two nuclear blasts in Japan nearly 80 years ago grows smaller.  

But the grassroots movement has played a part creating a culture of remembrance, allowing for new generations of Japanese to carry on the work.  

Source: The Norwegian Nobel Committee 

 
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kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian missile slammed into a commercial building in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region overnight, killing four people including a 16-year-old girl, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Friday.

It was the fourth Russian attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa and the nearby region in the last five days. Kiper said a day of mourning had been announced for Friday in the region to remember people killed in a Russian drone attack on October 9.

“In two days Russian terrorists killed 13 civilian people in the Odesa region and most of them are youth,” Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

The ability to maintain exports through the Black Sea ports is vital for the Ukrainian economy which has been hit hard by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Prosecutor General’s office said Russian forces had struck civilian infrastructure with a ballistic Iskander missile at about 22:35 (19:35 GMT) on Thursday night.

A two-story commercial building hosting food production facilities where civilians worked was hit and 10 more people were wounded, officials said.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said the Russian attacks targeted civilian infrastructure and strived to create impossible living conditions for millions of Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 29 out of 66 Russian drones launched at Ukraine overnight. Moscow also fired two missiles, it said, and 31 drones were “locationally lost,” an apparent reference to electronic warfare, while two drones returned towards Russian territory.

Zelenskyy meets foreign leaders

The new wave of strikes on Ukrainian Black Sea ports has coincided with visits by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week to meet leaders in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin to discuss his proposed “victory plan.”

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the strike on Odesa. Russia, which invaded in February 2022, denies targeting civilians. It says it targets only military infrastructure and other military targets although towns and cities across Ukraine have been struck repeatedly.

A Russian missile hit a Palau-flagged vessel in Odesa port Monday, while on Sunday, another Russian missile damaged a civilian Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged vessel loaded with corn in the port of Pivdennyi.

Ukrainian officials said Russia had carried out almost 60 attacks on ports over the past three months, resulting in the damage and destruction of almost 300 port infrastructure facilities, 177 vehicles and 22 civilian vessels.

“They are trying from all sides to suppress our intentions to develop, maintain our economy,” Kiper said.
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WASHINGTON — The United States still believes that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon despite Tehran’s recent strategic setbacks, including Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leaders and two largely unsuccessful attempts to attack Israel, two U.S. officials told Reuters.

The comments from a senior Biden administration official and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) added to public remarks earlier this week by CIA Director William Burns, who said the United States had not seen any evidence Iran’s leader had reversed his 2003 decision to suspend the weaponization program.

“We assess that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to resume the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003,” said the ODNI spokesperson, referring to Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The intelligence assessment could help explain U.S. opposition to any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack that Tehran carried out last week.

U.S. President Joe Biden said after that attack he would not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites, but did not explain why he had reached that conclusion. His remarks drew fierce criticism from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

U.S. officials have long acknowledged that an attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program might only delay the country’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb and could even strengthen Tehran’s resolve to do so.

“We’re all watching this space very carefully,” the Biden administration official said.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment but Tehran has repeatedly denied ever having had a nuclear weapons program.

Key Iran ally weakened

In the past weeks, Israel’s military has inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah, the most powerful member of the Iran-backed network known as the Axis of Resistance. The group’s setbacks have included the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last month.

The weakening of a key Iranian ally has prompted some experts to speculate that Tehran may restart its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb to protect itself.

Beth Sanner, a former U.S deputy director of national intelligence, said the risk of Khamenei reversing his 2003 religious dictum against nuclear weapons is “higher now than it has been” and that if Israel were to strike nuclear facilities Tehran would likely move ahead with building a nuclear weapon.

That would still take time, however.

“They can’t get a weapon in a day. It will take months and months and months,” said Sanner, now a fellow with the German Marshall Fund.

Iran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the 90% of weapons grade, at two sites, and in theory it has enough material enriched to that level, if enriched further, for almost four bombs, according to a yardstick of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. watchdog.

The expansion in Iran’s enrichment program has reduced the so-called breakout time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb to “a week or a little more,” according to Burns, from more than a year under a 2015 accord that Trump pulled out of when president. Actually making a bomb with that material would take longer. How long is less clear and the subject of debate.

Possible Israeli attack

Israel has not yet disclosed what it will target in retaliation for Iran’s attack last week with more than 180 ballistic missiles, which largely failed thanks to interceptions by Israeli air defenses as well as by the U.S. military.

The United States has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East, officials say, with Biden publicly voicing his opposition to a nuclear attack and concerns about a strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure.

Israel, however, views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.

The conflicts in the Middle East between Israel and Iran and Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen have become campaign issues ahead of the November 5 presidential election, with Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, positioning themselves as pro-Israel.

Speaking at a campaign event last week, Trump mocked Biden for opposing an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, saying: “That’s the thing you wanna hit, right?”

Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer and government official, said Iran still had space to compensate for setbacks dealt to its proxies and missile force without having to resort to developing a nuclear warhead.

“The Iranians have to recalculate what’s next. I don’t think at this point they will rush to either develop or boost the (nuclear) program toward military capacity,” he said.

“They will look around to find what maneuvering space they can move around in.”
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VIENTIANE, Laos — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Southeast Asian leaders Friday that the U.S. is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea during an annual summit meeting and pledged the U.S. will continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the vital sea trade route.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ meeting with Blinken followed a series of violent confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam, which have fueled concerns that China’s increasingly assertive actions in the waterways could spiral into a full-scale conflict.

China, which claims almost the entire sea, has overlapping claims with ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as well as Taiwan. About a third of global trade transits through the sea, which is also rich in fishing stocks, gas and oil.

Beijing has refused to recognize a 2016 international arbitration ruling by a U.N.-affiliated court in the Hague that invalidated its expansive claims and has built up and militarized islands it controls.

“We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who is filling in for President Joe Biden, in his opening speech at the U.S.-ASEAN summit. “The United States will continue to support freedom of navigation, and freedom of overflight in the Indo Pacific.”

The United States has no claims in the South China Sea but has deployed navy ships and fighter jets to patrol the waters in a challenge to China’s claims.

Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam said last week that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in the disputed sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as exclusive economic zones.

The United States has warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. complained to summit leaders on Thursday that his country “continues to be subject to harassment and intimidation” by China. He said it was “regrettable that the overall situation in the South China Sea remains tense and unchanged” due to China’s actions, which he said violated international law. He has called for more urgency in ASEAN-China negotiations on a code of conduct to govern the South China Sea.

Singaporean leader Lawrence Wong earlier this week warned of “real risks of an accident spiraling into conflict” if the sea dispute isn’t addressed.

Malaysia, who takes over the rotating ASEAN chair next year, is expected to push to accelerate talks on the code of conduct. Officials have agreed to try and complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by sticky issues including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang was defiant during talks on Thursday. He called South China Sea a “shared home” but repeated China’s assertion that it was merely protecting its sovereign rights, officials said. Li also blamed meddling by “external forces” who sought to “introduce bloc confrontation and geopolitical conflicts into Asia.” Li didn’t name the foreign forces, but China has previously warned the U.S. not to meddle in the region’s territorial disputes.

In another firm message to China, Blinken said the United States believed “it is also important to maintain our shared commitment to protect stability across the Taiwan Strait.” China claims the self-ruled island of Taiwan as its own territory and bristles at other countries’ patrolling the body of water separating it from the island.

Blinken also attended an 18-nation East Asia Summit, along with the Chinese premier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and leaders from Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

ASEAN has treaded carefully on the sea dispute with China, which is the bloc’s largest trading partner and its third largest investor. It hasn’t marred trade relations, with the two sides focusing on expanding a free trade area covering a market of 2 billion people.

Blinken said the annual ASEAN summit talks were a platform to address other shared challenges including the civil war in Myanmar, North Korea’s “destabilizing behavior” and Russia’s war aggression in Ukraine. He said the U.S. remained the top foreign investor in the region and aims to strengthen its partnership with ASEAN.
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WINTER PARK, Florida — Many Jews worldwide will mark Yom Kippur in fasting and prayer at their synagogues this weekend.

But for the faithful in Florida, destructive Hurricane Milton has disrupted plans for observing the Day of Atonement — the holiest day of the year in the Jewish faith — that begins Friday evening and caps off the High Holy Days that began with Rosh Hashana on October 2.

Across the storm-threatened areas, rabbis and their congregants spent part of the Days of Awe — the span between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur — protecting their homes and synagogues as Milton churned off the coast, spiraling into a Category 5 storm. Many — though not all — evacuated, heeding the voluntary and mandatory orders, and found safekeeping for their synagogues’ Torah scrolls and themselves.

Milton hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a Category 3 cyclone, with damaging winds, heavy rains and tornadoes. By Thursday, the storm had moved eastward into the Atlantic Ocean.

Why this rabbi decided against evacuating before storm

Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz evacuated most of his family ahead of the storm, but chose to ride it out with his son, also a rabbi, at Chabad Lubavitch of Southwest Florida near Fort Myers. The center is hosting people displaced by the storm, including doctors, first responders and elderly who cannot evacuate.

It’s important to be “with the people and for the people,” and provide emotional and spiritual support, he said as the storm approached.

Near midnight Thursday, the Chabad center and the rest of the neighborhood lost power, said Minkowicz, making them among the millions without it. The center was spared from the storm surge, but homes and other buildings in the area were not, he said.

“Our pressing need is for Power so that we can help our community & hold Yom Kippur services,” Minkowicz told The Associated Press via email Thursday. “We’re praying for this to be resolved asap.”

The center planned to host Yom Kippur observances regardless of the storm. He said it was similar two years ago, when the holy day followed the major hurricane, Ian.

“Yom Kippur is a day that you open up your soul to God and you totally connect with God,” Minkowicz said. “When you go through a hurricane, anything materialistic is not important. They’re already in that zone where they’re totally focused on God.”

Congregation Beth Am in the Tampa Bay area also lost power and plans to hold Yom Kippur services online, said Rabbi Jason Rosenberg of the Reform synagogue.

“It’s important to keep perspective. Having a service online is not what anybody wants, but it could’ve been a lot worse,” he said. “This feels like a blessing.”

The storm underscored one of Yom Kippur’s annual reflections.

An implicit question, he said before Milton’s landfall, is “If this was going to be your last year on earth, how would you want to act differently? … When you’ve got a historical storm, a potentially life-threatening and life-altering storm bearing down on you, that message is really present.”

Milton disrupts Yom Kippur and October 7 commemoration

Like most of her congregants, Rabbi Nicole Luna had evacuated after helping secure Temple Beth El in Fort Myers, and entrusting several Torah scrolls to congregants should the threatened surge devastate the synagogue.

While the congregation braved Hurricanes Irma in 2017 and Ian in 2022, Milton’s timing hit especially hard, having already forced the postponement of community-wide commemoration of Hamas attacking Israel on October 7, 2023. The war that followed is ongoing.

“It just feels like too much for our hearts to carry right now,” Luna said from Miami ahead of the storm. “It’s all very heavy.”

After the storm passed through, Luna told her congregation that their synagogue had emerged undamaged, though it lost power.

She announced plans for a service via Zoom on Friday evening, and in-person services Saturday.

“We hope by Saturday more traffic lights will be restored but please only come if you can safely navigate the roads,” she said in her message.

Luna said she was grateful for the “big outpouring of support” she received from fellow rabbis across the East Coast of Florida, who were opening their temples for the holidays to evacuees and have emphasized they can come as they are since few grabbed “holiday-appropriate clothing” in the rush to escape Milton’s fury.

The Chabad of Southwest Broward near Fort Lauderdale is hosting several evacuees from areas most affected by the storm, ranging from a mother with her newborn to an elderly couple, said director Rabbi Pinny Andrusier. They are invited to spend Yom Kippur with the Cooper City-based group, including sharing kosher meals before and after the day of fasting.

“We were spared, thank God,” Andrusier said of the storm. “We’ve been able to open up our doors” for those in the hurricane zone.

Synagogue skips holding Yom Kippur services

Hundreds of Jewish families on Longboat Key, a barrier island off Sarasota Bay, won’t be able to observe Yom Kippur in their synagogue for the very first time in their 45-year history, said Shepard Englander, CEO of The Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee.

Access to the island, specifically the John Ringling Causeway, was closed ahead of the storm. The congregation decided it wasn’t worth risking Milton’s might for Day of Atonement services. They had celebrated Rosh Hashana in their building despite a number of nearby homes being damaged by Hurricane Helene, which made landfall last month.

Englander said he and his family evacuated from their home on a riverbank outside Sarasota and were hunkered down at a friend’s home inland. From there, he was trying to make sure community members from Longboat Key and other temples that won’t have services can say their prayers and break their daylong Yom Kippur fast at a newly constructed conference center in Sarasota with food items like blintzes, bagels, cream cheese and smoked salmon.

Ahead of the storm, people were scattered in the region at emergency shelters or staying with family or friends, Englander said.

“It’s in difficult times that you really understand the power of community,” he said. “And this is a caring, tight-knit, generous Jewish community.”
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washington — The article in the Seattle Tribune had everything: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Adolf Hitler and a $15 million classic car. Unsurprisingly, it spread like wildfire across Russia’s state and pro-Kremlin media.

But the subject was a strange one for a news site about a U.S. city; such outlets usually cover only local stories.

In fact, the article with headline “Hitler’s parade car bought by Ukraine’s Zelensky” was another fake spread by Russian propaganda.

There is no such media outlet as the Seattle Tribune, just a website masquerading as a full-fledged publication. And the article itself was a compilation of Russia’s disinformation “greatest hits” about Ukraine — “Nazism,” “unrestrained corruption” and “wasting American aid.”

According to the phony news article, Zelenskyy was spotted in Kyiv exiting a Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser Offener Tourenwagen, Adolf Hitler’s parade car. The sighting supposedly occurred just days after the Ukrainian leader returned from Washington, where the U.S. government had allocated an $8 billion aid package to his country.

The article featured a screenshot of a post by the Ukrainian Telegram messenger channel Realna Viyna (“Real War” in Ukrainian) featuring a photo of the vehicle parked in front of the Ukrainian presidential administration building in Kyiv.

However, beyond the Seattle Tribune news site not actually existing, the article had several other glaring problems.

First, Realna Viyna did not publish the post in the screenshot. Second, the image of “Hitler’s car” was stolen from a photo widely available on the internet that was digitally edited into an image of the Ukrainian presidential administration building.

VOA found that the angle of photo in the screenshot, a black spot on the asphalt under the car’s running board, and the reflection on the front windshield completely match the image of the Mercedes-Benz 770K found across the internet.

Third, the Seattle Tribune website was registered on October 3, 2024, just six days before the fake article was published. And the registration was set for only one year.

The Seattle Tribune appears to belong to a network of disinformation websites controlled by John Mark Dougan, an American living in Russia, according to Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist who fact checks and debunks disinformation at the BBC.

He noted on social network X that creating fake local American news sites is Dougan’s standard approach. That conclusion matches VOA’s observations about Dougan’s network.

A former deputy sheriff in Florida, Dougan was charged with extortion and wiretapping in the United States. In 2016, he fled to Russia and later received political asylum there.

He now operates at least 167 disinformation sites that often publish narratives serving Russian interests, according to a May 2024 investigation by NewsGuard.

Dougan’s sites previously attracted widespread attention for spreading a fake story claiming that Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, had purchased a $4.8 million Bugatti supercar during a visit to France for commemorations of the D-Day landing.

That story seemed to be aimed at a Western audience. The fake “Hitler car” story, however, is mostly spreading in the Russian information space. In a message on the Telegram messenger, Dougan told VOA that he was unaware of the Seattle Tribune.

“Never heard of it. But I looked it up [and] heard there’s lots of great information on there. A real pillar of journalistic integrity, on par with the NYT, CNN and MSNBC,” he wrote, referring to The New York Times and two major U.S. TV news channels.

As is often the case with higher-quality fakes, the phony story about Hitler’s parade car combines a fictitious narrative about Zelenskyy with real facts about the sale of a former Nazi parade car in the United States.

The factual information comes from an article in a real American newspaper: The Seattle Times, which reported in February 2018 that the Mercedes-Benz 770K had briefly appeared in the Seattle area after having been put up for auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, a month earlier.

While the vehicle did not sell at the auction, it soon found a buyer. After that, the “Hitler car” was briefly unloaded from a truck in the wealthy Seattle suburb of Medina, where it attracted the attention of a local resident, who told The Seattle Times about it. Later, the car was likely reloaded onto the truck and taken way.

The director of the auction company Worldwide Auctioneers, Rod Egan (his name was also mentioned in the fake Seattle Tribune story), refused to tell The Seattle Times the buyer of the car, citing a non-disclosure agreement.

However, Egan said the car’s ultimate destination was “very, very far away” outside the United States.

The Seattle Times article also cited a German media report that six such cars were bought by a Russian billionaire in 2009. Among them was the vehicle mentioned in the fake article.

The fake story about Zelenskyy and the “Hitler car” also recalled a scene from the 2001 American comedy film “Rat Race,” in which actor Jon Lovitz steals Hitler’s parade car from a fictional museum of Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie and then crashes it into a gathering of American World War II veterans.

Asked whether he was familiar with the film and scene, Dougan replied, “Comedy gold right there.”
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WASHINGTON — Russian opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza was released from a Russian prison on August 1 as part of a wide-ranging exchange of prisoners between Russia and several Western countries. He had been jailed in April 2022 on charges of treason for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. He was almost fatally poisoned twice, in 2015 and 2017.

Since his release, Kara-Murza has been actively involved in the Russian opposition’s diplomatic efforts, meeting with the U.S. and French presidents and the German chancellor. During a recent visit to Washington, he sat down for interviews with Voice of America journalists. Speaking to VOA’s Ukrainian Service, he discussed the agenda that the Russian opposition is promoting in the West.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: After your release, you met with [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden, [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron and [German] Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz. What was your main message to them about policy toward Russia?

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition politician: There are two main messages. The first message is that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin must lose the war in Ukraine, because if he does win, that means that in a year or a year and a half, we will be talking about another war or another Russian invasion, because this is what this man does.

The second message is that the democratic nations of the free world must have a strategy. We know from the last couple of centuries of Russian history that failed wars of aggression always lead to political changes at home. Once Putin is defeated in Ukraine, there must be a prepared strategy for reintegrating a new, changed, post-Putin democratic Russia back into Europe, back into the civilized world, and back into what we call the international rules-based order.

VOA: If Putin loses power, how can democratization possibly happen? Someone from his inner circle would most likely grab power.

Kara-Murza: I hope he doesn’t die in office and that’s how it ends. I’m a Christian, and I know that everybody gets a trial up there, and so will he. But I really want that man to get a trial in this life, too.

On the question of change, this is a personalistic dictatorship. It is not an ideological dictatorship like in Soviet times, with the collective Politburo, when you could replace the person at the top without replacing the regime. This system is going to collapse very quickly, as we saw in 1953 after [Josef] Stalin’s death.

VOA: But [Nikita] Khrushchev, who replaced Stalin, was from his inner circle; he wasn’t an outsider.

Kara-Murza: Even if the next leader comes from the same circle, they always base their rule on a complete denial of everything that happened before. Khrushchev was one of Stalin’s closest entourage. He was the one who released millions of people from the gulag and engaged in a very incomplete, very imperfect but nevertheless de-Stalinization process that we had in the late 1950s, early 1960s — the so-called “Thaw.”

VOA: What kind of preparations should be made? How could democratic forces seize power?

Kara-Murza: The domestic aspect concerns reflection and accountability, which I call a truth-and-reconciliation process. That is necessary for any society that has undergone the trauma of totalitarian rule. All the people who are responsible for the crimes against Russian citizens, like the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, the assassination of Alexei Navalny and the persecution of hundreds and hundreds of political prisoners, have to be brought to justice. All the archives and the documents of all the crimes committed must be made public.

VOA: What about confronting the Russian imperialist mentality? Should Russia also confront all the crimes it has committed toward other people throughout its history?

Kara-Murza: It is part of the totalitarian past, because for years and years, for decades, the regime in the Kremlin has been committing crimes against our people in Russia and against other countries, other people and other nations. Look at the aggression and the wars this regime has conducted against the Chechens, against the Georgians, against Ukraine — let’s not forget, starting in 2014. Then, in Syria, of course, let’s not forget [Sergei] Shoigu, [Putin’s] defense minister, boasted about new armaments they had tested — tested! — on people, on civilians in residential areas.

VOA: I want to address your main argument about integrating Russia into the West after democratization and liberalization. The main argument against this would be that the West already tried that in the 1990s. Russia was part of the G8. NATO and the EU engaged with Russia. It received assistance. However, as Russia became richer, it became more aggressive. The more it became integrated with the West, the more efficient its malicious activities against the West became.

Kara-Murza: Here is where I fundamentally disagree, because the whole problem is that the West did not do that in the 1990s. Yes, there were some symbolic steps, like the G8, which is just a summit meeting. But, unlike other countries of the former Warsaw Pact, Russia in the 1990s was never offered a prospect of what I would call first-tier European or Atlantic integration with tangible benefits like free trade, visa-free travel and common security guarantees.

VOA: But it requires time. Ukraine still hasn’t been offered NATO membership …

Kara-Murza: But the problem is that these windows of opportunity are, by definition, short and brief. They last a few months at best, and the West lost that window of opportunity in Russia in the early 1990s. We cannot allow that to happen again.

In 1943, as WWII was ongoing, the U.S. government developed the Morgenthau Plan for postwar Germany. It was about dismembering, de-industrializing, humiliating and basically destroying Germany as a functioning state. Given the horrors committed at the time of the war, it was emotionally very understandable. However, leaders of Western-allied nations realized that they could not base long-term strategic policy on emotion. So, the Morgenthau Plan was abandoned in favor of the Marshall Plan, which was the exact opposite: to rebuild and reconstruct Germany after the war, to make it a successful market economy and a functioning liberal democracy.

VOA: Should this happen before or after Russia pays reparations for the destruction of Ukraine?

Kara-Murza: It should be simultaneous. The only way we can ensure long-term peace, stability, security and democracy on the European continent is with a democratic Russia. It’s not going to happen any other way.
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STOCKHOLM — Swedish police said on Thursday they were investigating a shooting near an Israeli target in the city of Gothenburg, which the national broadcaster said was a unit of Israeli defense electronics firm Elbit Systems. 

Police said in a statement it had apprehended a young suspect at the scene and launched a probe into suspected attempted murder and serious weapons crimes. 

They did not identify the company, but Elbit Systems Sweden CEO Tobias Wennberg told Reuters there had been a serious incident outside its premises on Thursday, adding that no one was injured in the incident. 

“Elbit Systems Sweden otherwise has no knowledge of the incident. Our operations continue as usual,” he said in an email. 

A police spokesperson said there was only one suspect, and investigators were not aware of any concrete threats against other Israeli targets in the city on Sweden’s west coast. 

The suspect is under 15 years of age, public broadcaster SVT and other Swedish media reported, without identifying their sources. 

The Israeli Embassy in Stockholm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Swedish police in May said they had stepped up security around Israeli and Jewish interests in the Nordic country after officers on patrol heard suspected gunshots near Israel’s embassy in Stockholm. 

Sweden has seen an epidemic of gun violence in recent years, driven by criminal gangs feuding over drugs and other illicit activities. 
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When major disasters like hurricanes and floods hit the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, coordinates major rescue efforts that would overwhelm local officials. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports on how the agency works. 
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WASHINGTON — Disinformation and conspiracy theories have spread quickly in response to natural disasters in the southeastern United States, creating distrust in the government response, according to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“It is absolutely the worst I have ever seen,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on a Tuesday call.

The spread of lies surrounding the natural disasters comes at a time when social media infrastructure will allow “virtually any claim” to amplify and spread, experts say.

Hurricane Helene left more than 200 people dead and many more injured or without power, and Hurricane Milton has left at least four dead after ravaging Florida, according to the Associated Press.

Some frequently spread falsehoods include accusations that FEMA prevented Florida evacuations and claims that funding for storm victims was instead given to undocumented migrants.

Such misinformation is “demoralizing” to first responders, Criswell said in the press call.

Additionally, the fabrications could put first responders and residents of impacted areas in even more danger, according to Matthew Baum, a Harvard University professor who focuses on fake news and misinformation.

“When you’re talking about life-and-death situations, [misinformation] can cause people not to take advantage of help that’s available to them, and it can also be dangerous for first responders who are being accused of all sorts of badness,” Baum told VOA. “And if first responders start to worry about their own safety, that’s going to undermine how they do their jobs.”

Many of the other falsehoods stem from former President Donald Trump’s campaign and allies.

In an October 3 rally, the former president falsely claimed that the Biden-Harris administration was diverting FEMA funding to house illegal migrants.

Last week, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, claimed that “they control the weather” in a post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. She did not specify who “they” are.

To combat popular conspiracies surrounding hurricane relief efforts, FEMA launched a “Hurricane Rumor Response” webpage to “help correct rumors and provide accurate information,” according to a press release.

Baum, however, told VOA that those who believe the false claims may not be swayed by the government-funded website, as they are already “deep down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial thinking.”

“I don’t think the website will have a significant effect, but it’s still worth doing because journalists read it and having that information out there gets it into the news ecosystem,” Baum said. “But fundamentally, it’s not likely to reach many of the people that are at risk of being harmed by this disinformation.”

FEMA put up a similar rumor response webpage during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

On social media platforms such as X, misinformation tends to spread faster than true stories, a 2018 MIT study found. False news stories are 70% more likely to be reposted than true ones are.

Media scholar Matt Jordan told VOA the vast amount of disinformation circulating is part of a “firehose of falsehood” strategy, in which bad actors publish so much “garbage” that people don’t know what to believe.

“It’s a way of eliminating the capacity for the press to help generate democratic consensus by just putting so much garbage into the zone,” the Penn State professor said.

U.S. President Joe Biden said during a Tuesday morning briefing that this misinformation “misleads” the public.

“It’s un-American, it really is,” he said in his remarks. “People are scared to death; people know their lives are at stake.”
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WASHINGTON — Inflation in the United States dropped last month to its lowest point since it first began surging more than three years ago, adding to a spate of encouraging economic news in the closing weeks of the presidential race. 

Consumer prices rose 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August, and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month. 

But excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices, a gauge of underlying inflation, remained elevated in September, driven higher by rising costs for medical care, clothing, auto insurance and airline fares. Core prices in September were up 3.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from August. Economists closely watch core prices, which typically provide a better hint of future inflation. 

Taken as a whole, the September figures show that inflation is steadily easing back to the Fed’s 2% target, even if in a gradual and uneven pattern. Apartment rental costs grew more slowly last month, a sign that housing inflation is finally cooling, a long-awaited development that would provide relief to many consumers. 

Overall inflation last month was held down by a big drop in gas prices, which fell 4.1% from August to September. Grocery prices jumped 0.4% last month, after roughly a year of mild increases, though they’re 1.3% higher than a year earlier. 

Restaurant food prices increased 0.3% last month and are up 3.9% in the past year. And clothing prices rose 1.1% from August to September and are up 1.8% from a year ago. 

The improving inflation picture follows a mostly healthy jobs report released last week, which showed that hiring accelerated in September and that the unemployment rate dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%. The government has also reported that the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate in the April-June quarter. Growth likely continued at roughly that pace in the just-completed July-September quarter. 

Cooling inflation, solid hiring and healthy growth could erode former President Donald Trump’s advantage on the economy in the presidential campaign as measured by public opinion polls. In some surveys, Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled even with Trump on the issue of who would best handle the economy, after Trump had decisively led President Joe Biden on the issue. 

At the same time, most voters still give the economy relatively poor marks, mostly because of the cumulative rise in prices over the past three years. 

For the Fed, last week’s much-stronger-than-expected jobs report fueled some concern that the economy might not be cooling enough to slow inflation sufficiently. The central bank reduced its key rate by an outsized half-point last month, its first rate cut of any size in four years. The Fed’s policymakers also signaled that they envisioned two additional quarter-point rate cuts in November and December. 

In remarks this week, a slew of Fed officials have said they’re still willing to keep cutting their key rate but at a deliberate pace, a signal that any further half-point cuts are unlikely. 

The Fed “should not rush to reduce” its benchmark rate “but rather should proceed gradually,” Lorie Logan, president of the Federal Reserve’s Dallas branch, said in a speech Wednesday. 

Inflation in the United States and many countries in Europe and Latin America surged in the economic recovery from the pandemic, as COVID closed factories and clogged supply chains. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened energy and food shortages, pushing inflation higher. It peaked at 9.1% in the U.S. in June 2022. 

Economists at Goldman Sachs projected earlier this week that core inflation will drop to 3% by December 2024. And few analysts expect inflation to surge again unless conflicts in the Middle East worsen dramatically. 

Though higher prices have soured many Americans on the economy, wages and incomes are now rising faster than costs and should make it easier for households to adapt. Last month, the Census Bureau reported that inflation-adjusted median household incomes — the level at which half of households are above and half below — rose 4% in 2023, enough to return incomes back to their pre-pandemic peak. 

In response to higher food prices, many consumers have shifted their spending from name brands to private labels or have started shopping more at discount stores. Those changes have put more pressure on packaged foods companies, for example, to slow their price hikes. 

This week, PepsiCo reported that its sales volumes fell after it imposed steep price increases on its drinks and snacks.
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Hurricane Milton left behind widespread destruction as it hit Florida on Wednesday as a dangerous Category 3 storm – the second time in two weeks the southeastern state was hit by a powerful hurricane. VOA’s Richard Green has the latest.
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