With violent gangs controlling most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, calls for a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission are growing. The country’s prime minister says the current international effort lacks resources, manpower and the capability to face the gangs. Celia Mendoza reports.
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Washington — Buried in the hundreds of pages of the continuing resolution passed Wednesday by U.S. lawmakers to prevent a government shutdown are Washington’s final steps to implement a 20-year security pact with Pacific Island allies, cementing a U.S. commitment to the region in the face of an increasingly assertive China.

The Compacts of Free Association, or COFA, provide economic support for Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. In exchange, the nations will allow the U.S. military exclusive access to their land, water and airspace and the right to deny Beijing access to their ports and expansive territorial waters.

But six months after the compacts were passed, extending $7 billion in economic aid over 20 years to the three Pacific Island nations, key provisions still languished. Palau’s access to postal service, aviation security, national weather service and federal banking insurance was set to run out on September 30. The temporary spending package finalized Wednesday contained an extension of those services, Representative Ed Case, a Democrat, said in a statement to VOA.

In doing so, said Case, “The U.S. restates its commitment to the people of Palau as a full partner in a shared future and to assisting Palau in resisting the dependence upon and coercion by the PRC that has marked the PRC’s efforts to dominate the countries of the Pacific.” PRC is an abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.

“Reassuring the people of Palau that they [the services] will continue is an important message from the people of the United States to the people of Palau,” Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. said in an interview with VOA on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Cleo Paskal, a nonresident senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues that the extension of these services also sends a message to Beijing. Palau is just one of three remaining Pacific Island nations who still recognize Taiwan diplomatically over Beijing.

Paskal said that a gap in these basic services could have left Whipps — who is running for reelection in November — vulnerable to “those wanting to undermine the relationship with the U.S., possibly feeding into the narrative that the U.S. isn’t helping” its Pacific partners.

But U.S. lawmakers of both parties coalesced around closing the loophole for Palau, said Whipps.

The agreement for Palau “represents a significant milestone in the process of affirming our countries’ partnership for another 20 years,” U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat, said in a statement to VOA. “This relationship is vital to the security and stability” of the U.S. “as we work to promote democracy and our shared values throughout the Pacific.”

U.S. Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a Republican who represents the U.S. territory of American Samoa, led a hearing earlier this month that exposed gaps in COFA implementation, including the Palau federal services expiration.

“It’s extremely important to the entirety of the Pacific region for our allies, and any nation at all, to see the U.S. following through with its commitments to our closest friends in the region,” Coleman Radewagen said in a statement to VOA.
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According to the International Energy Agency, the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. But with that shift comes environmental risks related to the mining of critical minerals. VOA’s Jessica Stone looks at how nations are navigating the environmental challenges of creating a renewable future.
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WASHINGTON — A network of people and virtual currency exchanges associated with harboring Russian cybercrime were hit with sanctions on Thursday, in a government-wide crackdown on cybercrime that could assist Russia ahead of President Joe Biden’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

U.S. Treasury sanctioned alleged Russian hacker Sergey Ivanov and Cryptex — a St. Vincent and Grenadines registered virtual currency exchange operating in Russia. Virtual currency exchanges allow people and businesses to trade cryptocurrencies for other assets, such as conventional dollars or other digital currencies. 

Treasury alleges that Ivanov has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of virtual currency for cyber criminals and darknet marketplace vendors for the last 20 years, including for Timur Shakhmametov, who allegedly created an online marketplace for stolen credit card data and compromised IDs called Joker’s Stash. Ivanov laundered the proceeds from Joker’s Stash, Treasury says. 

The State Department is offering a $10 million reward for information that would lead to the arrest and possible conviction of the two men, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia has unsealed an indictment against them. 

Biden said in a statement announcing the sanctions Thursday that the U.S. “will continue to raise the costs on Russia for its war in Ukraine and to deprive the Russian defense industrial base of resources.” 

He meets with Zelenskyy Thursday to announce a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and other actions meant to assist the war-torn country as Russia continues to invade. 

State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We will continue to use all our tools and authorities to deter and expose these money laundering networks and impose cost on the cyber criminals and support networks. We reiterate our call that Russia must take concrete steps to prevent cyber criminals from freely operating in its jurisdiction.” 

U.S officials have taken several actions against Russian cybercriminals since the start of the invasion in February 2022. 

Earlier this year, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 13 firms — five of which are owned by an already sanctioned person — and two people who have all either helped build or operate blockchain-based services for, or enabled virtual currency payments in, the Russian financial sector, “thus enabling potential sanctions evasion,” according to U.S. Treasury.
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U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts during this campaign. VOA spoke with some gun owners, who say the shootings have not changed their views on gun laws. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has our story. Some VOA footage by Genia Dulot.
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WASHINGTON — Members of a bipartisan House panel investigating the Trump assassination attempts suggested during its first hearing Thursday that the failures that led to a gunman being able to open fire on former President Donald Trump were with the U.S. Secret Service, not local police. 

In his opening statement, the Republican co-chair of the committee, Rep. Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania, blamed a cascade of failures by the Secret Service that allowed the gunman, Thomas Michael Crooks, to gain access to the roof of a nearby building and open fire on Trump. Trump was wounded and a man attending the rally with his family was killed. 

“In the days leading up to the rally, it was not a single mistake that allowed Crooks to outmaneuver one of our country’s most elite group of security professionals. There were security failures on multiple fronts,” said Kelly. 

The panel — composed of seven Republicans and six Democrats — has spent the last two months analyzing the security failures that allowed a gunman to scale a roof and open fire at the former president during a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Now they are also investigating this month’s Secret Service arrest of a man with a rifle on Trump’s Florida golf course who sought to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee. 

The suspect in the second assassination attempt, Ryan Wesley Routh, was allegedly aiming a rifle through the shrubbery surrounding Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course when he was detected by a Secret Service agent. The agent opened fire and Routh fled before being apprehended by local authorities. 

The hearing Thursday is the first time the task force presents its findings to the public after spending weeks conducting nearly two dozen interviews with law enforcement and receiving more than 2,800 pages of documents from the Secret Service. It focuses on the use of local law enforcement by the Secret Service, featuring testimony from Pennsylvania and Butler County police officials. 
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White House — U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House Thursday, where the Ukrainian leader is set to discuss his plans for winning the war against Russia, as Republicans accuse him of “election interference.”

Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet separately with Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris following his meeting with Biden. However, no plans have been announced for a meeting with Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump, who has in recent days increased his criticism that the U.S. continues to “give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal” to end the war.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are demanding that the Ukrainian leader fire his ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, for organizing Zelenskyy’s visit Monday to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, a hotly contested battleground state in the November presidential election.

In a letter to Zelenskyy, Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said the visit to the factory that made munitions for Ukraine was a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats” that amounts to “election interference.”

“Support for ending Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to be bipartisan, but our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished when the candidates at the top of the Republican presidential ticket are targeted in the media by officials in your government,” Johnson said.

On Wednesday Trump suggested that Biden and Harris are at fault for prolonging the war that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said. He argued that Kyiv should have made concessions to Moscow before Russian troops attacked, asserting that Ukraine is now “in rubble” and in no position to negotiate the war’s end.

“Any deal — the worst deal — would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said.

New aid announced

Ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit, the U.S. administration announced $8 billion in new aid for Ukraine. In a statement, Biden said the aid includes a Patriot missile battery and missiles, as well as air-to-ground munitions and a precision-guided glide bomb with a range of up to 130 kilometers.

The administration is also expanding training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots to include an additional 18 pilots next year.

“For nearly three years, the United States has rallied the world to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom from Russian aggression, and it has been a top priority of my administration to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to prevail,” Biden said.

Zelenskyy thanked the U.S., saying the new aid included “the items that are most critical to protecting our people.”

“We will use this assistance in the most efficient and transparent manner to achieve our major common goal: victory for Ukraine, just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security,” Zelenskyy said on social media platform X.

The pair spoke briefly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, during which Zelenskyy thanked Biden for U.S. support for Ukraine and gave an update on the situation on the front lines.

Among the expected topics to be discussed by the leaders Thursday include Ukraine’s request for weapons donors to allow Ukrainian forces to use the weapons to strike targets deeper inside Russia. Ukrainian leaders say such strikes are needed to degrade Russia’s ability to carry out its daily missile and drone attacks.
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is traveling to once-strong bastions of Christianity in the heart of Europe to try to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that is dwindling in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches.

Francis stops first Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of some 650,000 people, and its richest per capita. Torrential downpours are expected, days after the 87-year-old pope canceled his audiences because of a slight flu.

He seemed in fine form at the Vatican on Wednesday, during his general audience on the eve of the trip, but his respiratory health is a constant concern and his medical team will be on hand.

After meeting with Luxembourg’s political leaders, Francis will speak to the country’s Catholic priests and nuns. The venue is the late-Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was built in the early 1600s by Francis’ own Jesuit order and stands as a monument to Christianity’s long and central place in European history.

Francis is likely to dwell on Europe’s role past, present and future — particularly as war rages on European soil — during his visits to Luxembourg and Belgium, where he arrives later Thursday and stays through the weekend.

The trip is a much-truncated version of the 10-day, 1985 tour St. John Paul II made through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, during which the Polish pope delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of adoring faithful.

In Luxembourg alone, John Paul drew a crowd of some 45,000 people to his Mass, or some 10% of the then-population, and officials had predicted a million people would welcome him in Belgium, according to news reports at the time.

But then as now, the head of the Catholic Church faced indifference and even hostility to core Vatican teachings on contraception and sexual morals, opposition that has only increased in the ensuing generation. Those secular trends and the crisis over clergy abuse have helped lead to the decline of the church in the region, with monthly Mass attendance in the single digits and plummeting ordinations of new priests.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that by traveling to the two countries, Francis will likely want to offer “a word to the heart of Europe, of its history, the role it wants to play in the world in the future.”

Immigration, climate change and peace are likely to be themes during the four-day visit, which was organized primarily to mark the 600th anniversary of the founding of Belgium’s two main Catholic universities.

In Luxembourg, Francis has a top ally and friend in the lone cardinal from the country, Jean-Claude Hollerich, a Jesuit like the Argentine pope.

Hollerich, whom Francis made a cardinal in 2019, has taken on a leading role in the pope’s multi-year church reform effort as the “general rapporteur” of his big synod, or meeting, on the future of the Catholic Church.

In that capacity, Hollerich has helped oversee local, national and continental-wide consultations of rank-and-file Catholics and synthesized their views into working papers for bishops and other delegates to discuss at their Vatican meetings, the second session of which opens next week.

Last year, in another sign of his esteem for the progressive cardinal, Francis appointed Hollerich to serve on his kitchen cabinet, known as the Council of Cardinals. The group of nine prelates from around the globe meet several times a year at the Vatican to help Francis govern.
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NEW YORK — Among the issues on the agenda for world leaders who gathered this week for the United Nations General Assembly is Russia’s war against Ukraine. In an interview in New York with VOA’s Ukrainian Service, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said his nation stands “shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ukrainians” and will provide Ukraine with military aid for “as long as it takes” to help it “stand off this aggression.” He also cited intelligence findings that Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing mounting problems, with a deteriorating economy and mounting battlefield losses.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: Have you had the chance to discuss with your counterparts in other countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the issue of lifting restrictions on Ukraine using long-range Western missiles against targets inside Russia?

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy: It was very important for me to be with Secretary Blinken in Ukraine just two weeks ago to see for ourselves, to discuss with [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy … also to discuss Ukraine’s needs as they head out of the autumn into the winter, and that we continue as allies to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to stand off this aggression that we’re seeing from Vladimir Putin.

That was why I also went to the White House with [U.K.] Prime Minister [Keir] Starmer. We remain in the U.K. absolutely clear that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainians. It’s important that Ukraine has the finances and the money, the military aid, as well as the political, diplomatic and humanitarian aid, to get through 2025. And of course, here at the U.N. General Assembly, I will meet with Zelenskyy once again today.

But, also, it’s hugely important that we rally the Global South to ensure that they’re not falling into the trap of Russian propaganda … and efforts to destabilize [and distract] the international community … when in fact what they are doing is taking ballistic missiles from Iran to use against [Ukrainian] men, women and children.

VOA: You’ve already mentioned this meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington. Can you share the details of the conversation?

Lammy: I do think it is very important for us in the U.K. and Europe, and of course in the United States, to understand more the details of President Zelenskyy’s “victory plan.” And over the coming days, he will present that in detail to close allies. And of course, I’m not going to speculate what’s in the papers … because I don’t want to give any advantage to Vladimir Putin.

But I am really clear that this is a time for Western allies to show nerve and guts, because Vladimir Putin thinks that we’ll get distracted. He thinks that we haven’t got the attention span to stand with our Ukrainian friends. That’s why we in the U.K. have found 3 billion pounds for Ukraine to buy and have the military equipment it needs, not just this year, [but] for every year as long as it takes. And that’s what I said to my G7 allies last night when I met with them. That’s the position we’ve got to ensure Ukraine is in.

VOA: When do you think this crucial decision could be made?

Lammy: We meet here in the U.N. General Assembly. I know that President Zelenskyy is meeting with President Biden a little bit later in the week also in Washington. We will head on to the G20 [summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 18-19, 2024] as well. So, over the coming days and weeks, I expect us to be in a very strong position to ensure that Ukraine is in the best position it can be as we head into that tough winter in 2025.

And let’s just be clear about what I mean by that. All of our intelligence actually suggests things are going to get a lot tougher for Vladimir Putin as he comes out of next year. His economy is in trouble. He’s going to find it very problematic with the amount of losses and casualties that he’s taking. And actually, when you look at what Ukraine is doing —  their ability to take back half the ground that’s been lost, their ability to repel him from the Black Sea, their ability to advance in Kursk and hopefully keep the ground — this is a time for Western countries to show their nerve and to be absolutely committed as we head out of the autumn into the winter period.

VOA: What do you say to people, including leaders, who warn that allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike inside Russia could lead to a third world war?

Lammy: Well, we’re really clear that under the U.N. Charter and under Article 51, Ukraine has the right to defend itself, to defend itself against the horrendous attacks that are coming from Russia, and we will do all we can within international law and the rules of engagement to support Ukraine to defend itself.

VOA: You said that the war between Russia and Ukraine is likely to continue for at least another two years. Will Ukraine and the West will have enough to stand so long?

Lammy: Let’s be clear: The war could end tomorrow if Putin left. That’s how it ends: Leave Ukraine. But in the absence of Putin showing any desire to negotiate, we have to continue to stand with Ukraine, because the cost of not standing with Ukraine would actually be financially far greater.

You know, defense spending would rise substantially across all Western allies, and indeed, there will be a very vulnerable Baltic frontier in relation to Putin’s threats. So, that is why we stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And I’m quite sure that … this war will only be settled in the end politically, of course. That also gets into the security guarantees that Ukraine needs. And we’ve always believed in the U.K. that that path to Ukraine joining NATO is a very important dimension of that security guarantee. 
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PITTSBURGH — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday she would offer tax credits to domestic manufacturers and invest in sectors that will “define the next century,” as she detailed her economic plan to boost the U.S. middle class.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate in the November 5 presidential election said she would give tax credits to U.S. manufacturers for retooling or rebuilding existing factories and expanding “good union jobs,” and double the number of registered apprenticeships during her first term.

Harris also promised new investments in industries like bio-manufacturing, aerospace, artificial intelligence and clean energy.

Harris’ speech, which lasted just under 40 minutes, did not detail how these policies would work. She highlighted her upbringing by a single mother, in contrast with former President Donald Trump, the wealthy son of a New York real estate developer.

“I have pledged that building a strong middle class will be the defining goal of my presidency,” Harris said, adding that she sees the election as a moment of choice between two “fundamentally different” visions of the U.S. economy held by her and her Republican opponent, Trump.

The vice president and Trump are focusing their campaign messaging on the economy, which Reuters/Ipsos polling shows is voters’ top concern, as the election approaches.

The divide between rich and poor has grown in recent decades. The share of American households in the middle class, defined as those with two-thirds to double that of median household income, has dropped from around 62% in 1970 to 51% in 2023, Pew Research shows. These households’ income has also not grown as fast as those in the top tier.

Harris said she was committed to working with the private sector and entrepreneurs to help grow the middle class. She told the audience that she is “a capitalist” who believes in “free and fair markets,” and described her policies as pragmatic rather than rooted in ideology.

Harris in recent months has blunted Trump’s advantage on the economy, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday showing the Republican candidate with a marginal advantage of 2 percentage points on “the economy, unemployment and jobs,” down from an 11-point lead in late July.

Trump discussed his economic plan in North Carolina on Wednesday and said Harris’ role as vice president gave her the chance now to improve the economic record of the Biden administration.

“Families are suffering now. So if she has a plan, she should stop grandstanding and do it,” he said. While Trump has proposed across-the-board tariffs on foreign-made goods — a proposal backed by a slim majority of voters — Harris is focusing on providing incentives for businesses to keep their operations in the U.S.

Boosting American manufacturing in industries such as semiconductors and bringing back jobs that have moved overseas in recent decades have also been major goals for Biden. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — all passed in 2021 and 2022 — fund a range of subsidies and tax incentives that encourage companies to place projects in disadvantaged regions.
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TALLAHASSEE, Florida — An enormous Hurricane Helene swamped parts of Mexico on Wednesday as it churned on a path forecasters said would take it to Florida as a potentially catastrophic storm with a surge that could swallow entire homes, a chilling warning that sent residents scrambling for higher ground, closed schools, and led to states of emergency throughout the Southeast.

Helene’s center was about 735 kilometers southwest of Tampa, Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, and the hurricane was expected to intensify and accelerate as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico toward the Big Bend area of Florida’s northwestern coast. Landfall was expected sometime Thursday evening, and the hurricane center said by then it could be a major Category 4 storm with winds above 208 kph.

Tropical storm conditions were expected in southern Florida on Wednesday night, spreading northward and encompassing the rest of Florida as well as Georgia and South Carolina through Thursday night. The storm was moving north at 19 kph with top sustained winds of 140 kph Wednesday evening.

Helene could create a life-threatening storm surge as high as 6.1 meters in parts of the Big Bend region, forecasters said. Its tropical storm-force winds extended as far as 555 kilometers from its center.

The fast-moving storm’s wind and rain also could penetrate far inland: The hurricane center posted hurricane warnings well into Georgia and tropical storm warnings as far north as North Carolina, and it warned that much of the Southeast could experience prolonged power outages, toppled trees and dangerous flooding.

“Just hope and pray that everybody’s safe,” said Connie Dillard, of Tallahassee, as she shopped at a grocery store with thinning shelves of water and bread before hitting the highway out of town. “That’s all you can do.”

One insurance firm, Gallagher Re, is expecting billions of dollars in damage in the U.S. Around 18,000 linemen from out of state staged in Florida, ready to help restore power. Airports in St. Petersburg, Tallahassee and Tampa were planning to close on Thursday, and 62 hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities evacuated their residents Wednesday.

Georgia activated 250 National Guard soldiers for rapid deployment. State game wardens, foresters and Department of Correction teams will help provide swift-water rescues and other emergency responses.

State meteorologist Will Lanxton said tropical storm-force winds are expected throughout Georgia. Lanxton said metro Atlanta hasn’t seen sustained tropical storm winds since Hurricane Irma in 2017.

“I think we’re going to see some significant power outages, probably nothing like we’ve seen, because it’s 159 counties wide,” said James Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.

In Tallahassee, where stations started to run out of gas, 19-year-old Florida A&M student Kameron Benjamin filled sandbags with his roommate to protect their apartment before evacuating. Their school and Florida State shut down.

“This hurricane is heading straight to Tallahassee, so I really don’t know what to expect,” Benjamin said.

As Big Bend residents battened down their homes, many saw the ghost of 2018’s Hurricane Michael. That storm rapidly intensified and crashed ashore as a Category 5 that laid waste to Panama City and parts of the rural Panhandle.

On Wednesday, the National Weather Service posted an urgent warning for residents along Apalachee Bay: “There is a danger of catastrophic and unsurvivable storm surge for Apalachee Bay,” it said. “Storm surge may begin to arrive as early as late Wednesday night ahead of the winds. This forecast, if realized, is a nightmare surge scenario for Apalachee Bay. Please, please, please take any evacuation orders seriously!”

“People are taking heed and hightailing it out of there for higher ground,” said Kristin Korinko, a Tallahassee resident who serves as the commodore of the Shell Point Sailboard Club, on the Gulf Coast about 48 kilometers south of Tallahassee.

For toughened Floridians who are used to hurricanes, Robbie Berg, a national warning coordinator for the hurricane center, advised: “Please do not compare it to other storms you may have experienced over the past year or two.”

Helene is forecast to be one of the largest storms in breadth in years to hit the region, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. He said since 1988, only three Gulf hurricanes were bigger than Helene’s predicted size: 2017’s Irma, 2005’s Wilma and 1995’s Opal.

Areas 160 kilometers north of the Georgia-Florida line can expect hurricane conditions. More than half of Georgia’s public school districts and several universities canceled classes.

And for Atlanta, which is under a tropical storm watch, Helene could be the worst strike on a major Southern inland city in 35 years, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd.

“It’s going to be a lot like Hugo in Charlotte,” Shepherd said of the 1989 storm that struck the North Carolina city, knocking out power to 85% of customers as winds gusted above hurricane force.

Landslides were possible in southern Appalachia, with catastrophic flooding predicted in the Carolinas and Georgia, where all three governors declared emergencies. Rainfall is possible as far away as Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana.

Parts of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula were under hurricane warnings as Helene wound between it and the western tip of Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm formed Tuesday in the Caribbean, and it flooded streets and toppled trees as it passed offshore and brushed the resort city of Cancun.

In Cuba, authorities moved cattle to higher ground and medical brigades went to communities often cut off by storms. The government preventively shut off power in some communities as waves as high as 5 meters slammed Cortes Bay. In the Cayman Islands, schools remained closed as residents pumped water from flooded homes.

In the U.S., federal authorities positioned generators, food and water, along with search-and-rescue and power restoration teams.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that Helene could be as strong as a Category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall. The state was providing buses to evacuate people in the Big Bend region and taking them to shelters in Tallahassee.

But near Florida’s center, outside Orlando, Walt Disney World said its only closures Thursday would be the Typhoon Lagoon water park and its miniature golf courses.

Helene is the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average Atlantic hurricane season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.

In the Pacific, former Hurricane John reformed Wednesday as a tropical storm and was strengthening as it threatened areas of Mexico’s western coast. Officials posted hurricane warnings for southwestern Mexico.

John hit the country’s southern Pacific coast late Monday, killing at least two people, triggering mudslides, and damaging homes and trees. It grew into a Category 3 hurricane in a matter of hours and made landfall east of Acapulco. It reemerged over the ocean after weakening inland.
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The war in Ukraine, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, and an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah dominated the second day of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reports.
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new york — President Joe Biden is turning to Africa in the sunset of his presidency. In the space of one day, in front of world leaders, he elevated Sudan’s conflict to a priority, announced he would travel to Angola and endorsed adding two seats for African countries to the U.N. Security Council.

In his valedictory speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Biden made several brief overtures to the African continent — reminding world leaders of the evils of South Africa’s apartheid regime, calling for an end to Sudan’s grueling conflict and citing urgency in combating an mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But these two short lines may have the most weight:

“The U.N. needs to adapt to bring in new voices and new perspectives,” he said. “That’s why we support reforming and expanding the membership of the U.N. Security Council.”

For years, African leaders have called for a seat at this table. But critics point out that Washington does not support a critical privilege enjoyed by the current permanent members of the Security Council: veto power.

Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says African nations are puzzled by Biden’s position.

“This is really, I think, an unfinished project of his, probably more words than reality,” he told VOA. The fact that Biden supported council membership for them but not veto power “has left Africans scratching their heads.”

John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said it mattered that Biden used this platform to call for an end to Sudan’s raging 17-month conflict, but he doubted whether that call would provoke action.

Trying to elevate issue

“This is one of the conflicts that is serious but has not been getting world attention, and I think his pointing to it is really to elevate it in world consciousness but not yet to really know how we’re going to see an end to this,” Fortier said.

This conflict has displaced millions of people and sparked a near-famine. And so, analysts say, it matters that the American president is putting pressure on the warring parties.

“I think Biden genuinely wants to alleviate the humanitarian crisis and resolve the conflict in Sudan,” said Daniel Volman, director of the African Security Research Project, in an email to VOA. “But I think he is reluctant to press countries like Egypt and the [United Arab] Emirates that are arming the generals, because they are key allies during the Gaza war.

“Also, Biden is being driven by pressure from some members of Congress to take stronger and more effective action. I think he will take some limited action, like the new funds for humanitarian aid just announced, but I don’t think this will yield significant results.”

And finally, Biden’s off-camera announcement that he will visit Angola next month allows him to keep his promise to visit the continent. But again, Hudson wondered how this long-delayed visit would land.

“Coming, as it does, at the very tail end of his administration, without much to, I think, really celebrate in terms of his involvement in Africa, I think the visit will ring rather hollow,” Hudson said.

Biden has four months left in his presidency.
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HELSINKI — A zoo in Finland has agreed with Chinese authorities to return two loaned giant pandas to China more than eight years ahead of schedule because they have become too expensive for the facility to maintain as the number of visitors has declined.

The private Ahtari Zoo in central Finland some 330 kilometers north of Helsinki said Wednesday on its Facebook page that the female panda Lumi, Finnish for “snow,” and the male panda Pyry, meaning “snowfall,” will return “prematurely” to China later this year.

The panda pair was China’s gift to mark the Nordic nation’s 100 years of independence in 2017, and they were supposed to be on loan until 2033.

But since then, the zoo has experienced several challenges, including a decline in visitors due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine, as well as an increase in inflation and interest rates, the facility said in a statement.

The panda deal between Helsinki and Beijing, a 15-year loan agreement, had been finalized in April 2017 when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Finland for talks with then-Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. The pandas arrived in Finland in January 2018.

The Ahtari Zoo, which specializes in typical northern European animals such as bears, lynxes and wolverines, built a special annex at a cost of about $9 million in hopes of luring more tourists to the remote nature reserve.

The upkeep of Lumi and Pyry, including a preservation fee to China, cost the zoo $1.7 million annually. The bamboo that giant pandas eat was flown in from the Netherlands.

The Chinese Embassy in Helsinki noted to Finnish media that Beijing had tried to help Ahtari solve its financial difficulties by urging Chinese companies operating in Finland to make donations to the zoo and supporting its debt arrangements.

However, declining visitor numbers combined with drastic changes in the economic environment proved too high a burden for the smallish Finnish zoo. The panda pair will enter a monthlong quarantine in late October before being shipped back to China.

Finland, a country of 5.6 million people, was among the first Western nations to establish political ties with China, doing so in 1950. China has presented giant pandas to countries as a sign of goodwill and closer political ties, and Finland was the first Nordic nation to receive them.
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis took the unusual decision Wednesday to expel 10 people — a bishop, priests and laypeople — from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.

The move against the leadership of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, followed Francis’ decision last month to expel the group’s founder, Luis Figari, after he was found to have sodomized his recruits.

The decision was announced by the Peruvian Bishops Conference, which posted a statement from the Vatican embassy on its website.

The statement was astonishing because it listed the abuses uncovered by the Vatican investigation that have rarely been punished canonically with such measures, and the people responsible. According to the statement, the Vatican investigators uncovered physical abuses “including with sadism and violence,” sect-like abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority, economic abuses in administering church money and the “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”

The latter was presumably aimed at a Sodalitium-linked journalist who has attacked critics of the movement on social media.

Figari founded the movement in 1971 as a lay community to recruit “soldiers for God,” one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America, starting in the 1960s. At its height, the group counted about 20,000 members across South America and the United States. It was enormously influential in Peru.

Victims of Figari’s abuses complained to the Lima archdiocese in 2011, although other claims against him reportedly date to 2000. But neither the local church nor the Holy See took concrete action until one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, wrote a book along with journalist Paola Ugaz detailing the twisted practices of the Sodalitium in 2015, entitled “Half Monks, Half Soldiers.”

An outside investigation ordered by Sodalitium determined that Figari was “narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation” of Sodalitium’s members.

The investigation, published in 2017, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them “experience pain, discomfort and fear” and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report found.

Still, the Holy See declined to expel Figari from the movement in 2017 and merely ordered him to live apart from the Sodalitium community in Rome and cease all contact with it. The Vatican was seemingly tied in knots by canon law that did not foresee such punishments for founders of religious communities who weren’t priests.

But according to the findings of the latest Vatican investigation, the abuses went beyond Figari and included harassing and hacking the communications of their victims all the while covering up crimes committed as part of their official duties.

The highest-ranking person ordered expelled was Archbishop Jose Antonio Eguren, whom Francis already forced to resign as bishop of Piura in April over his record, after he sued Salinas and Ugaz for their reporting.

The Vatican, in the statement, said the Peruvian bishops join Pope Francis in “seeking the forgiveness of the victims” while calling on the troubled movement to initiate a journey of justice and reparation.
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Early voting for the U.S. presidential election in the state of Georgia begins October 15. Polls show a close contest there between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Atlanta, Georgia.
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Washington — On Wednesday, China’s commerce ministry said it “firmly opposes” the United States’ proposed ban on the sale of connected vehicles that use Chinese or Russian software and hardware technology. 

Most new vehicles are considered to be “connected” because they can share data with other vehicles and infrastructure with the help of onboard software, hardware and internet access.  

The U.S. warns that data collected by Chinese or Russian software in connected and autonomous vehicles could pose a threat to national security. 

A spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Commerce said the proposed U.S. ban has no “factual basis, violates the principles of market economy and fair competition, and is a typical protectionist act.”   

“China urges the United States to stop its wrong practice of generalizing national security, immediately revoke the relevant restrictions, and stop its unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies,” according to a ministry statement. 

The proposed rule is the latest example of the deteriorating relationship between Washington and Beijing.   

In February, the Biden Administration said it would probe Chinese cars that pose a risk to national security. The U.S. Department of Commerce said it opened the probe because vehicles “collect large amounts of sensitive data on their drivers and passengers (and) regularly use their cameras and sensors to record detailed information on U.S. infrastructure.” 

The Biden Administration also implemented a 100% tariff on Chinese-made EVs earlier this month, citing unfair business practices and the potential for Chinese EVs to flood international markets. 

The new proposed prohibition on connected vehicles applies both to the software and hardware that link vehicles to the outside world. It did not specify which manufacturers are likely to be impacted by the rule, which will be finalized after a 30-day period for public comment.  

In a press release Tuesday, the Coalition for a Prosperous America, or CPA, voiced its support for the proposed ban. 

“For years, the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] has aggressively pursued global dominance in the automotive industry building tremendous overcapacity to dominate their home market and to displace auto manufacturing worldwide,” said the CEO of CPA, Michael Stumo. 

“The Commerce Department’s proposed ban on this technology is an important measure to protect our automotive sector and secure Americans’ sensitive information,” he added. 

China’s commerce ministry also condemned the U.S. on Wednesday for its newly proposed ban and tariffs implemented earlier this month, saying Washington placed “high tariffs on Chinese cars, restricted participation in government procurement, and introduced discriminatory subsidy policies.”  

“Now, on the grounds of so-called national security, it [Washington] has slandered Chinese connected car software, hardware and complete vehicles as ‘unsafe’ and restricted their use in the United States,” a ministry statement said. 

Some information for this report came from  Agence France-Presse.   
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