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London — Find a globe in your local library or classroom and try this: Close the eyes, spin it and drop a finger randomly on its curved, glossy surface.

You’re likely to pinpoint a spot in the water, which covers 71% of the planet. Maybe you’ll alight on a place you’ve never heard of — or a spot that no longer exists after a war or because of climate change. Perhaps you’ll feel inspired to find out who lives there and what it’s like. Trace the path of totality ahead of Monday’s solar eclipse. Look carefully, and you’ll find the cartouche — the globemaker’s signature — and the antipode (point diametrically opposed) of where you’re standing right now.

In the age of Google Earth, watches that triangulate and cars with built-in GPS, there’s something about a globe — a spherical representation of the world in miniature — that somehow endures.

London globemaker Peter Bellerby thinks the human yearning to “find our place in the cosmos” has helped globes survive their original purpose — navigation — and the internet. He says it’s part of the reason he went into debt making a globe for his father’s 80th birthday in 2008. The experience helped inspire his company, and 16 years later — is keeping his team of about two dozen artists, cartographers and woodworkers employed.

“You don’t go onto Google Earth to get inspired,” Bellerby says in his airy studio, surrounded by dozens of globes in various languages and states of completion. “A globe is very much something that connects you to the planet that we live on.”

Building a globe amid breakneck change?

Beyond the existential and historical appeal, earthly matters such as cost and geopolitics hover over globemaking. Bellerby says his company has experience with customs officials in regions with disputed borders such as India, China, North Africa and the Middle East.

And there is a real question about whether globes — especially handmade orbs — remain relevant as more than works of art and history for those who can afford them.

They are, after all, snapshots of the past — of the way their patrons and makers saw the world at a certain point in time. So, they’re inherently inaccurate representations of a planet in constant flux.

“Do globes play a relevant role in our time? If so, then in my opinion, this is due to their appearance as a three-dimensional body, the hard-to-control desire to turn them, and the attractiveness of their map image,” says Jan Mokre, vice president of the International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes in Vienna.

Joshua Nall, Director of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge, says a globe remains a display of “the learning, the erudition, the political interests of its owner.”

How, and how much?

Bellerby’s globes aren’t cheap. They run from about 1,290 British pounds (about $1,900) for the smallest to six figures for the 50-inch Churchill model. He makes about 600 orbs a year of varying size, framing and ornamentation.

The imagery painted on the globes runs the gamut, from constellations to mountains and sea creatures. And here, The Associated Press can confirm, be dragons.

Who buys a globe these days?

Bellerby doesn’t name clients, but he says they come from more socioeconomic levels than you’d think — from families to businesses and heads of state. Private art collectors come calling. So do moviemakers.

Bellerby says in his book that the company made four globes for the 2011 movie, “Hugo.” One globe can be seen in the 2023 movie “Tetris,” including one, a freestanding straight-leg Galileo model, which features prominently in a scene.

‘A political minefield’

There is no international standard for a correctly drawn earth. Countries, like people, view the world differently, and some are highly sensitive about how their territory is depicted. To offend them with “incorrectly” drawn borders on a globe is to risk impoundment of the orbs at customs.

“Globemaking,” Bellerby writes, “is a political minefield.”

China doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country. Morocco doesn’t recognize Western Sahara. India’s northern border is disputed. Many Arab countries, such as Lebanon, don’t acknowledge Israel.

Bellerby says the company marks disputed borders as disputed: “We cannot change or rewrite history.”

Speaking of history, here’s the ‘earth apple’

Scientists since antiquity, famously Plato and Aristotle, posited that the earth is not flat but closer to a sphere. (More precisely, it’s a spheroid — bulging at the equator, squashed at the poles).

No one knows when the first terrestrial globe was created. But the oldest known surviving one dates to 1492. No one in Europe knew of the existence of North or South America at the time.

It’s called the “Erdapfel,” which translates to “earth apple” or “potato.” The orb was made by German navigator and geographer Martin Behaim, who was working for the king of Portugal, according to the Whipple Museum in Cambridge. It contained more than just the cartographical information then known, but also details such as commodities overseas, marketplaces and local trading protocols.

It’s also a record of a troubled time.

“The Behaim Globe is today a central document of the European world conquest and the Atlantic slave trade,” according to the German National Museum’s web page on the globe, exhibited there. In the 15th century, the museum notes, “Africa was not only to be circumnavigated in search of India, but also to be developed economically.

“The globe makes it clear how much the creation of our modern world was based on the violent appropriation of raw materials, the slave trade and plantation farming,” the museum notes, or “the first stage of European subjugation and division of the world.”

Twin globes for Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII

If you’ve got a globe of any sort, you’re in good company. During World War II, two in particular were commissioned for leaders on opposite sides of the Atlantic as symbols of power and partnership.

For Christmas in 1942, the United States delivered gigantic twin globes to American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. They were 50 inches in diameter and hundreds of pounds each, believed to be the largest and most accurate globes of the time.

It took more than 50 government geographers, cartographers, and draftsmen to compile the information to make the globe, constructed by the Weber Costello Company of Chicago Heights, Illinois.

The Roosevelt globe now sits at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., and Churchill’s globe is at Chartwell House, the Churchill family home in Kent, England, according to the U.S. Library of Congress.

In theory, the leaders could use the globes simultaneously to formulate war strategy. “In reality, however,” Bellerby writes, “the gift of the globes was a simple PR exercise, an important weapon in modern warfare.”
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London — The U.S., Britain and Australia are set to begin talks on bringing new members into their AUKUS security pact as Washington pushes for Japan to be involved as a deterrent against China, the Financial Times reported.

The countries’ defense ministers will announce discussions Monday on “Pillar Two” of the pact, which commits the members to jointly developing quantum computing, undersea, hypersonic, artificial intelligence and cyber technology, the newspaper reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the situation.

They are not considering expanding the first pillar, which is designed to deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia, the Financial Times said.

AUKUS, formed by the three countries in 2021, is part of their efforts to push back against China’s growing power in the Indo-Pacific region. China has called the AUKUS pact dangerous and warned it could spur a regional arms race.

U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to step up partnerships with U.S. allies in Asia, including Japan and the Philippines, amid China’s historic military build-up and its growing territorial assertiveness.

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that Japan was “about to become the first additional Pillar II partner.”

A senior U.S. administration official told Reuters on Wednesday that some sort of announcement could be expected in the coming week about Japan’s involvement but gave no details.

Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will likely discuss expanding AUKUS to include Japan when the president hosts the prime minister in Washington on Wednesday, a source with knowledge of the talks said.

Australia, however, is wary of beginning new projects until more progress has been made on supplying Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines, said the source, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Obstacles for Japan

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the FT report.

A Japanese foreign ministry spokesperson said the ministry could not immediately comment.

Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles has said they would “seek opportunities to engage close partners in AUKUS Pillar II” and any involvement of more countries would be decided and announced by the three partners, a spokesperson from his office said.

Britain’s defense ministry said it too would like to involve more allies in this work, subject to joint agreement.

While the U.S. is keen to see Japanese involvement in Pillar Two, officials and experts say obstacles remain, given a need for Japan to introduce better cyber defenses and stricter rules for guarding secrets.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, an architect of U.S. Indo-Pacific policy, said Wednesday the U.S. was encouraging Japan to do more to protect intellectual property and hold officials accountable for secrets. “It’s fair to say that Japan has taken some of those steps, but not all of them,” he said.

The United States has long said that other countries in Europe and Asia are expected to join the second pillar of AUKUS.

The senior U.S. official said any decisions about who would be involved in Pillar Two would be made by the three AUKUS members, whose defense ministers had been considering the questions for many months, based on what countries could bring to the project.

Campbell said that other countries had expressed interest in participating in AUKUS.

“I think you’ll hear that we have something to say about that next week and there also will be further engagement among the three defense ministers of the United States, Australia, and Great Britain as they focus on this effort as well,” Campbell told the Center for a New American Security think tank.

Campbell also said Wednesday the AUKUS submarine project could help deter any Chinese move against Taiwan, the democratically governed island that Beijing claims as part of China.

Biden, Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are to hold a trilateral summit Thursday.
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Paris — China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao is due in Paris Sunday for talks that are expected to cover China’s fast-growing export of cheap electric vehicles (EVs) into the European market.

Four sources briefed on Wang’s trip told Reuters in late March that the discussions would focus on a European Commission investigation into whether China’s EV industry has benefited from unfair subsidies.

European carmakers have a fight on their hands to produce lower-cost electric vehicles and erase China’s lead in developing cheaper models.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm which forecasts China’s share of EVs sold in Europe could reach 15% of the market in 2025, says Chinese EVs benefit from huge state subsidies and is examining whether to impose punitive tariffs.

China contests the claim its EV industry has boomed because of subsidies and has called the EU inquiry “protectionist.” Analysts say factors, including China’s dominance of the battery supply chain, innovation and cut-throat competition in a crowded domestic market have also reduced prices.

Wang is due Sunday to meet Renault chief executive Luca de Meo, who is also acting chairman of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), a person briefed on the meeting said.

He is also expected to attend a dinner later Sunday with executives from the cosmetics industry, two other sources familiar with the plans said.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said he will hold talks with Wang on Monday. The Chinese trade ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

European Commission investigators inspected leading Chinese automakers BYD, Geely Automobile Holdings and SAIC earlier this year as part of their inquiries. Paris backed the anti-subsidy probe.

BYD’s Europe chief executive Michael Shu will accompany Wang during his trip, said a person briefed on the matter. Representatives of SAIC and Geely were also due to accompany Wang, Reuters reported last month.

BYD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China launched its own anti-dumping investigation into brandy in January in response to Europe’s EV probe. France accounts for almost all EU brandy exports to China.

Wang will meet Monday with the Bureau National Interprofessional du Cognac (BNIC), a brandy trade group, along with company executives, said an association official.

China has said it is selecting Martell & Co, Societe Jas Hennessy & Co, and E. Remy Martin & Co as sample companies for its own investigation.

Wang will also attend a China-Italy business forum Friday in Verona, Italy, alongside the country’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the Italian government said.
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New York — “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” easily swatted away a pair of challengers to hold on to the top spot at the box office for the second week in a row, according to studio estimates Sunday.

After its above-expectations $80 million launch last weekend, the MonsterVerse mashup brought in $31.7 million over its second weekend, a 60% drop from its debut.

The Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures release, directed by Adam Wingard, has thus far outperformed any of the studio’s recent monster films except for 2014’s “Godzilla.”

But with $361.1 million worldwide in two weeks, “Godzilla x Kong” could ultimately leapfrog the $529 million global haul of 2014’s “Godzilla.” The latest installment, in which Godzilla and Kong team up, cost about $135 million to produce.

“Godzilla x Kong” extended its box-office reign as another primate-themed movie arrived in theaters. Dev Patel’s “Monkey Man,” an India-set revenge thriller released by Universal Pictures, opened in 3,029 North American theaters with an estimated $10.1 million.

That marked a strong debut for Patel’s modestly budgeted directorial debut in which he stars in a bloody, politically charged action extravaganza. “Monkey Man,” which cost about $10 million to make, was dropped by its original studio, Netflix, after which Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions swooped in.

The weekend’s other new wide release, “The First Omen,” from Disney’s 20th Century Studios, struggled to make a big impact with moviegoers. It came in fourth with an estimated $8.4 million in ticket sales in 3,375 theaters, while collecting an additional $9.1 million overseas. The R-rated horror film, which cost about $30 million to make, is a prequel to the 1976 Richard Donner-directed original starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.

This version, directed by Arkasha Stevenson and starring Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom and Bill Nighy, follows 2006’s “The Omen,” which opened to $16 million and ultimately grossed $119 million.

The tepid opening for “The First Omen” allowed Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” to take third place with $9 million in its third weekend of release. The sci-fi comedy sequel has collected $88.8 million domestically and $138 million worldwide.

Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” continues to perform strongly. It added $7.2 million in its sixth week, dipping just 37%, to bring its domestic total to $264 million.

One of the week’s biggest performers was in China, where Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning “The Boy and the Heron” landed in theaters. The acclaimed Japanese anime is setting records for a non-Chinese animated film. After opening Wednesday, its five-day total surpassed $70 million, a new high mark for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

Estimated ticket sales are for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” $31.7 million.

2. “Monkey Man,” $10.1 million.

3. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” $9 million.

4. “The First Omen,” $8.4 million.

5. “Kung Fu Panda 4,” $7.9 million.

6. “Dune: Part Two,” $7.2 million.

7. “Someone Like You,” $3 million.

8. “Wicked Little Letters,” $1.6 million.

9. “Arthur the King,” $1.5 million.

10. “Immaculate,” $1.4 million.
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Moscow — Flood waters were rising in two cities in Russia’s Ural mountains on Sunday after Europe’s third longest river burst through a dam, flooding at least 6,000 homes and forcing thousands of people to flee with just their pets and a few belongings. 

A string of Russian regions in the Ural Mountains and Siberia, alongside parts of neighboring Kazakhstan have been hit in recent days by some of the worst floods in decades. 

The Ural River, which rises in the Ural Mountains and flows into the Caspian Sea, swelled several meters in just hours on Friday due to melt water, bursting through a dam embankment in the city of Orsk, 1,800 km (1,100 miles) east of Moscow. 

More than 4,000 people were evacuated in Orsk as swathes of the city of 230,000 were flooded. Footage published by the Emergencies Ministry showed people wading through neck-high waters, rescuing stranded dogs and traveling along flooded roads in boats and canoes.  

President Vladimir Putin ordered Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov to fly to the region. The Kremlin said on Sunday that flooding was now also inevitable in the Urals region of Kurgan and the Siberian region of Tyumen. 

Putin had spoken to the governors of the regions by telephone, the Kremlin said. 

The Orenburg region’s governor, Denis Pasler, said the floods were the worst to hit the region since records began. 

He said that flooding had been recorded along the entire course of the 2,400 km (1,500 mile) Ural River, which flows through Orenburg region and then through Kazakhstan into the Caspian Sea.  

Russian media cited Orenburg region authorities as estimating the cost of flood damage locally as around $227 million, and saying that flood waters would dissipate only after April 20. 

In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Saturday the floods were his country’s largest natural disaster in terms of scale and impact for 80 years. 

Flood warnings were issued in other Russian regions and Kurenkov said the situation could get worse very fast.  

“The water is coming, and in the coming days its level will only rise,” said Sergei Salmin, the mayor of Orenburg, a city of at least 550,000 people. “The flood situation remains critical.” 

Emergencies Minister Kurenkov said bottled water and mobile treatment plants were needed, while local health officials said vaccinations against Hepatitis A were being conducted in flooded areas.  

Local officials said the dam in Orsk was built for a water level of 5.5 meters (18 feet)yet the Ural River rose to 9.6 meters (31.5 feet). 

Federal investigators opened a criminal case for negligence and the violation of safety rules over the construction of the 2010 dam, which prosecutors said had not been maintained properly. 

The Orsk oil refinery suspended work on Sunday due to the flooding. Last year, the Orsk Refinery processed 4.5 million tons of oil.
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Des Moines, Iowa — The jackpot has a cash value of $621 million if the winner chooses to take a lump sum rather than an annuity paid over 30 years. The winning numbers were: 22, 27, 44, 52, 69 and the red Powerball 9. No one had won Powerball’s top prize since New Year’s Day, leading to 41 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. The $1.326 billion prize ranks as the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history. The odds of winning were 1 in 292.2 million.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Powerball player in Oregon won a jackpot worth more than $1.3 billion on Sunday, ending a winless streak that had stretched more than three months.

The single ticket matched all six numbers drawn to win the jackpot worth $1.326 billion, Powerball said in a statement.

The jackpot has a cash value of $621 million if the winner chooses to take a lump sum rather than an annuity paid over 30 years, with an immediate payout followed by 29 annual installments. The prize is subject to federal taxes, while many states also tax lottery winnings.

The winning numbers drawn early Sunday morning were: 22, 27, 44, 52, 69 and the red Powerball 9.

Until the latest drawing, no one had won Powerball’s top prize since New Year’s Day, amounting to 41 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner, tying a streak set twice before in 2022 and 2021.

The $1.326 billion prize ranks as the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history. As the prizes grow, the drawings attract more ticket sales and the jackpots subsequently become harder to hit. The game’s long odds for the weekend drawing were 1 in 292.2 million.

Saturday night’s scheduled drawing was held up and took place in the Florida Lottery studio just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday to enable one of the organizers to complete required procedures before the scheduled time of 10:59 p.m., Powerball said in a statement.

“Powerball game rules require that every single ticket sold nationwide be checked and verified against two different computer systems before the winning numbers are drawn,” the statement said. 

“This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. Tonight, we have one jurisdiction that needs extra time to complete that pre-draw process.”

Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sophomore Christian Adams expected he would be studying Chinese when he enrolled at West Virginia University, with a dream of working in labor or immigration law.

He didn’t foresee switching his major to politics, a change he made after West Virginia’s flagship university in September cut its world language department and dozens of other programs in subjects such as English, math and music amid a $45 million budget shortfall.

And he certainly didn’t expect to be studying — or teaching fellow students — about community organizing.

But the cuts, denounced as “draconian and catastrophic” by the American Federation of Teachers, catalyzed a different kind of education: Adams is co-founder of The West Virginia United Students’ Union. The leading oppositional force against the cuts, the union organized protests, circulated petitions and helped save a handful of teaching positions before 143 faculty and 28 majors ultimately were cut.

Disappointed, they say their work is far from done. Led by many first-generation college students and those receiving financial aid in the state with the fewest college graduates, members say they want to usher in a new era of student involvement in university political life.

“Really, what it is for WVU is a new era of student politics,” Adams said.

The movement is part of a wave of student organizing at U.S. colleges and universities centering around everything from the affordability of higher education and representation to who has access to a diverse array of course offerings and workplace safety concerns.

The university in Morgantown had been weighed down financially by enrollment declines, revenue lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects. Other U.S. universities and colleges have faced similar decisions, but WVU’s is among the most extreme examples of a flagship university turning to such dramatic cuts, particularly to foreign languages.

The union called the move to eliminate 8% of majors and 5% of faculty a failure of university leadership to uphold its mission as a land-grant institution, charged since the 1800s with educating rural students who historically had been excluded from higher education. A quarter of all children in West Virginia live in poverty, and many public K-12 schools don’t offer robust language programs at a time when language knowledge is becoming increasingly important in the global jobs market.

As the school continues to evaluate its finances, the union plans to keep a close eye on its budget, mobilize against any additional proposed cuts and prepare alternative proposals to keep curriculum and faculty positions in place.

Another key goal is monitoring and influencing the school’s search for its new president after university head E. Gordon Gee retires next year. Gee, the subject of symbolic motions from a faculty group that expressed no confidence in his leadership, said last year the curriculum cuts came at a time of change in higher education, and that WVU was “leading that change rather than being its victim.”

Higher education nationwide has become “arrogant” and “isolated,” he said, warning that without change, schools face “a very bleak future.”

Union Assembly of Delegates President and Co-Founder Matthew Kolb, a senior math major, said his group doesn’t want a new president who believes running the school as a corporate or business entity is the only option for getting things done properly.

“We know, when push comes to shove, the results of that are 143 faculty getting shoved off a cliff with one vote,” he said.

Adams, a north central West Virginia native who was the first in his family to attend college immediately after high school, said he could transfer to another institution and continue his studies in Chinese. But much of the reason he chose WVU was because of a commitment to the state and a desire to improve its socioeconomic outlook.

“A lot of West Virginians feel trapped in West Virginia and feel like they have to leave — not a lot of people choose to stay here,” Adams said. “I made the conscious decision to go to WVU to stay here to help improve my state.”

The cuts meant reaffirming that commitment, “despite basically being told by my state’s flagship university that, ‘Your major is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter, it’s not worth our time or money to teach.’”

Student union organizations have existed for hundreds of years worldwide. Commonly associated in the U.S. with on-campus hubs where students access dining halls, club offices and social events, in the United Kingdom the union also takes on the form of a university-independent advocacy arm lobbying at the institutional and national level.

Members say they envision the West Virginia United Students’ Union similar to those in the U.K., and it’s a concept they want to help grow.

That has meant a lot of work behind the scenes, strategizing to keep students interested and engaged and building relationships with the university campus workers union, student government and other organizations.

That work with the union helped keep up student morale as they watched faculty scramble to find new jobs and rewrite curriculum, student Felicia Carrara said.

An international studies and Russian studies double major from North Carolina, Carrara said she and many of her peers chose West Virginia University because it was affordable.

“The fact that we would now have to pivot to try and find the scholarships and other money to be able to afford an education anywhere else, or just not get a degree at all or get a degree that’s really bare bones. It’s just really disheartening,” she said.

“When you come to higher ed, you think things are going to be better than they were in high school and in middle school,” she said. “And it’s very sad finding out that they’re not.”

Andrew Ross, a senior German and political science double major, will be the last graduate to major in the language.

A 31-year-old nontraditional student who transferred to WVU in 2022 after earning an associate’s degree, Ross learned about the proposed cuts days after he returned home from a summer program in Germany he attended with the help of a departmental scholarship.

Ross, now the student union’s assembly of delegates vice president, said the cuts “felt like getting slapped in the face.” The university told him to drop the German major. He’s proud of his effort to finish the degree after twists and turns, but it’s bittersweet.

“In some ways and it makes me sad because I hope there isn’t someone who is still growing up that can’t have this experience — we all deserve it,” he said. “This university isn’t just failing me, it’s failing the state.”
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Moscow — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit China on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the war in Ukraine and the deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing.

Talks between Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who extended the invitation to the Russian minister, will include bilateral cooperation as well as “hot topics,” such as the crisis in Ukraine and the Asia-Pacific, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Reuters reported last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief’s first overseas trip of his new presidential term.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing just days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, triggering the deadliest land war in Europe since World War II.

The United States casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat, while U.S. President Joe Biden argues that this century will be defined by an existential contest between democracies and autocracies.

Putin and Xi share a broad world view, which sees the West as decadent and in decline just as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from quantum computing and synthetic biology to espionage and hard military power.

China-Russian trade hit a record of $240.1 billion in 2023, up 26.3% from a year earlier, according to Chinese customs data.

Chinese shipments to Russia jumped 46.9% in 2023 while imports from Russia rose 13%.

China-United States trade fell 11.6% to $664.5 billion in 2023, according to the Chinese customs data.

One year into the Ukraine war, China in 2023 published a 12-point position paper on settling the Ukraine crisis. Russia has said China’s position is reasonable.

Switzerland in January agreed to hold a peace summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has put forward a peace formula that calls for a full Russian withdrawal from all territory controlled by Russian forces.

Reuters reported in February that Putin’s suggestion of a cease-fire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States after contacts between intermediaries.

Moscow says that Zelenskyy’s proposals amount to a ridiculous ultimatum and that the proposed meeting in Switzerland was being used by the West to try to garner support for Ukraine among the Global South.

Russia says that any peace in Ukraine would have to accept the reality of its control over just under one fifth of Ukraine and include a broader agreement on European security.

Ukraine says it will not rest until every last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.
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washington — U.S. President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a White House summit set to bolster trilateral maritime cooperation in the South China Sea, a major move to counter Beijing.

The first-of-its-kind gathering by the United States and its two Asian allies is set for Thursday. It’s part of Biden’s strategy to stitch together existing bilateral alliances into broader “mini-laterals” to amplify U.S. influence in Asia.

The U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral focuses on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Last year, Biden hosted a similar meeting with Japan and South Korea to deal with the threat from North Korea.

Manila is keen to firm up trilateral maritime cooperation, namely plans for joint naval patrols by the three countries, a move that would likely trigger a strong reaction from Beijing.

“Joint patrols are something that we’ve already discussed extensively with Japan and the United States,” Philippines Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez told reporters in a briefing last week. “And I think that we’re hoping that this will come into fruition very soon.”

The White House declined to confirm such plans, reiterating only that the leaders would have much to discuss in their meeting.

“Certainly, the tensions in the South China Sea are not going away,” said national security spokesperson John Kirby in response to VOA’s question during a White House briefing Thursday. “That was an issue that was raised in the president’s call with President Xi [Jinping of China] just a couple of days ago.”

Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder also declined to confirm, telling VOA only that the goal of trilateral efforts in the South China Sea is to “ensure that the Indo-Pacific region remains free, it remains open and that there is security and stability throughout the region.”

However, an announcement on joint naval patrols is “widely expected” at the summit, said Gregory Polling, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. Following increased Philippine naval activities with regional partners including the United States, Japan and Australia, the trilateral naval patrol “is an obvious next step,” he told VOA.

The meeting and expected announcement will come amid ramped-up tension in the South China Sea, where for weeks Chinese coast guard ships have deployed water cannons against Philippine vessels to block a resupply mission to the Second Thomas Shoal.

Since 1999, Philippine soldiers have guarded a wrecked ship left on the shoal to maintain the country’s sovereignty claims over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

The Philippines is a U.S. ally under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which means skirmishes between Manila and Beijing in the Spratlys are a problem for Washington.

“While we’re focused on Taiwan for obvious reasons, conflict between the U.S. and China remains more likely in the South China Sea,” Polling told VOA. “The ceiling on that might be lower; we’re not going to escalate into a general war in the South China Sea. But a lower-level military conflict is uncomfortably possible.”

More robust Japan role

The South China Sea is a vital passageway for Japan’s global supply chains, a reaffirming factor for Tokyo as Washington draws it into a more robust military role in the region.

“There is tremendous expectation for Japan,” said Shihoko Goto, director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center.

Tokyo is “at the heart of regional security,” she told VOA, considering its involvement in the two trilateral formations and in the quadrilateral strategic security dialogue among Australia, India, Japan and the United States, also known as the Quad.

For Japan’s Kishida, the summit will be another chance to flex his country’s diplomatic muscles as it stands beside Washington, its strongest ally.

Kishida wants to showcase the transformation of Japan’s bilateral alliance with Washington that serves peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific to a “global partnership that stands as the cornerstone of international liberal order,” said Yuki Tatsumi, co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the Japan Program at the Stimson Center.

The key deliverables, she told VOA, include plans for a modernized alliance command and control and plans for a consultative body for defense industrial cooperation.

Japan has been an anchor of various U.S. regional alliances and partnership in the region. Ahead of the summit, Tokyo and Manila are already in talks on a Reciprocal Access Agreement that would enhance shared military operations and training.

US lagging on building prosperity

While many analysts applaud Biden on his strong and coordinated security approach for the region, they say Washington is lagging Beijing when it comes to building regional prosperity.

“We’re not seeing as much leadership on the economic front,” Goto said. “That will be something that there will be greater demand for.”

In previous meetings with Biden, Kishida reiterated Japan’s calls for Washington to join the 2018 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The 11-country bloc representing one of the largest free-trade areas in the world is a reincarnation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement pushed in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama and then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Then-President Donald Trump withdrew from the TPP in 2017.

Kishida and Biden are also likely to discuss Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel. Ahead of the American presidential election in November, the potential deal has become embroiled in protectionist campaign rhetoric.

Biden sees steel as critical to national security and has said the company should remain domestically owned. His prospective opponent, Trump, has promised to block the $14 billion deal if he is elected again.

Trilateral aside, Biden will honor Kishida, whom he last met at the G7 summit in Hiroshima last year, with an official visit Wednesday. He will meet separately with Marcos on Thursday, a repeat of the Philippines leader’s White House visit last May.

Analysts say the frequent meetings with the leaders underscore Biden’s desire for the U.S. to remain a Pacific power, despite the president’s focus being pulled toward the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Japan and the Philippines Thursday. The first trilateral summit between Washington and its two Asian allies is set to launch initiatives including bolstering maritime cooperation in the South China Sea. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its Western allies are feuding with Russia over its diamond production, but they joined forces Wednesday to keep supporting the Kimberley Process, which aims to eliminate the trade in “blood diamonds” that helped fuel devastating conflicts in Africa.

At a U.N. General Assembly meeting, its 193 member nations adopted a resolution by consensus recognizing that the Kimberley Process, which certifies rough diamond exports, “contributes to the prevention of conflicts fueled by diamonds” and helps the Security Council implement sanctions on the trade in conflict diamonds.

The Kimberley Process went into effect in 2003 in the aftermath of bloody civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia where diamonds were used by armed groups to fund the conflicts.

Zimbabwe’s U.N. Ambassador Albert Chimbindi, whose country chaired the Kimberley Process in 2023, said in introducing the resolution that it would renew the General Assembly’s “commitment to ensuring that diamonds remain a force for inclusive sustainable development instead of a driver of armed conflict.”

It was true in 2003 and “remains true now,” he said, that profits from the diamond trade can fuel conflicts, finance rebel movements aimed at undermining or overthrowing governments, and lead to the proliferation of illegal weapons.

The European Union’s Clayton Curran told the assembly after the vote that the Kimberley Process “is facing unprecedented challenges” and condemned “the aggression of one Kimberley Process participant against another” — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

For the first time in its history, last November’s plenary meeting of Kimberley Process participants failed to produce a consensus communique because of serious differences between Russia and the West.

The key reason was a Ukrainian request, supported by the United States, Britain and others, to examine whether Russia’s diamond production is funding its war against Kyiv and the implications for the Kimberley Process which Russia and several allies strongly opposed.

Russia refused to support a communique that acknowledged Ukraine’s request. And before Wednesday’s vote, the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s economic department, Alexander Repkin, accused Western countries of sabotaging international cooperation on diamonds for “their own geopolitical interests.”

Alluding to sanctions on Russian diamonds by the European Union, Repkin accused the West and its companies of trying to gain a hold over the global production and processing of diamonds.

He said “the further functioning of the Kimberley Process is at stake,” but Russia will do everything it can to support its work.

He noted that the plenary communique has served as the foundation for the General Assembly resolution on the role of conflict diamonds in fueling conflict but without one the resolution approved Wednesday “is largely technical in nature.”

The EU’s Curran urged reform of the process “to broaden the definition of `conflict diamonds’ to capture the evolving nature of conflicts and the realities on the ground.” He said the EU will also try again this year to discuss the issue of the negative impact of the illegal trade in diamonds on the environment.

Britain expressed regret at the failure to discuss the link between Russia’s rough diamond revenue and their invasion of Ukraine, and reiterated the need for a discussion to ensure that the Kimberley Process deals with issues related to delinking diamonds from conflict.

United Arab Emirates deputy ambassador Mohamed Abushahab said it’s more important than ever to strengthen the Kimberley Process, which his country is chairing this year.

The UAE has identified three ways: to establish a permanent secretariat which was approved at the end of March in Botswana’s capital, Gabarone, to complete a review and reform of the process by the end of the year, and to identify digital technologies that can strengthen the Kimberley Process, he said.
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ROME — An international campaign to ban surrogacy received a strong endorsement Friday from the Vatican, with a top official calling for a broad-based alliance to stop the “commercialization of life.”

A Vatican-affiliated university hosted a two-day conference promoting an international treaty to outlaw surrogacy, be it commercial arrangements or so-called altruistic ones. It’s based on the campaigners’ argument that the practice violates U.N. conventions protecting the rights of the child and surrogate mother.

At issue is whether there is a fundamental right to have a child, or whether the rights of children trump the desires of potential parents.

The conference, which also drew U.N. human rights representatives and experts, marked an acceleration of a campaign that has found some support in parts of the developing world and western Europe. At the same time, Canada and the United States are known for highly regulated arrangements that draw heterosexual and homosexual couples alike from around the world, while other countries allow surrogacy with fewer rules.

Pope Francis in January called for an outright global ban on the practice, calling it a despicable violation of human dignity that exploits the surrogate mother’s financial need. On Thursday, Francis met privately with one of the proponents calling for a universal ban, Olivia Maurel, a 33-year-old mother of three.

Maurel was born in the U.S. in 1991 via surrogacy and attributes a lifetime of mental health issues to the “trauma of abandonment” she says she experienced at birth. She says she was separated from her biological mother and given to parents who had contracted with an agency in Kentucky after experiencing infertility problems when they tried to have children in their late 40s.

Maurel says she doesn’t blame her parents and she acknowledges there are “many happy stories” of families who use surrogate mothers. But she says that doesn’t make the practice ethical or right, even with regulations, since she said she was made to sacrifice “for the desire of adults to have a child.”

“There is no right to have a child,” Maurel told the conference at the LUMSA university. “But children do have rights, and we can say surrogacy violates many of these rights.”

She and proponents of a ban argue that surrogacy is fundamentally different from adoption, since it involves creating a child for the specific purpose of separating him or her from the birth mother for others to raise as their own.

Monsignor Miloslaw Wachowski, undersecretary for relations with states in the Vatican secretariat of state, concurred, saying the practice reduces human procreation to a concept of “individual will” and desire, where the powerful and wealthy prevail.

“Parents find themselves in the role of being providers of genetic material, while the embryo appears more and more like an object: something to produce — not someone, but something,” he said.

He called for the campaign to ban the practice not to remain in the sphere of the Catholic Church or even faith-based groups, but to transcend traditional ideological and political boundaries.

“We shouldn’t close ourselves among those who think exactly the same way,” he said. “Rather, we should open up to pragmatic alliances to realize a common goal.”

The Vatican’s overall position, which is expected to be crystalized in a position paper Monday on human dignity, stems from its belief that human life begins at conception and must be given the consequent respect and dignity from that moment on. The Vatican also holds that human life should be created through intercourse between husband and wife, not in a petri dish, and that surrogacy takes in vitro fertilization a step further by “commercializing” the resulting embryo.

As the conference was getting underway, Italy’s main gay family advocacy group, Rainbow Families, sponsored a pro-surrogacy counter-rally nearby. The aim was to also voice opposition to proposals by Italy’s hard-right-led government to make it a crime for Italians to use surrogates abroad, even in countries where the practice is legal.

“We are families, not crimes,” said banners held by some of the 200 or so participants, many of them gay couples who traveled abroad to have children via surrogate.

A 2004 law already banned surrogacy in Italy. The proposed law would make it illegal in Italy for citizens to engage a surrogate mother in another country, with prison terms of up to three years and fines of up to 1 million euros ($1.15 million) for convictions.

Participants at the rally complained that the law would stigmatize their children and they denied anyone’s rights or dignity was violated in the surrogacy process, which they noted was legal and regulated.

“All parties involved are consenting, aware,” said Cristiano Giraldi, who with his partner Giorgio Duca used a surrogate in the U.S. to have their 10-year-old twins. “We have a stable relationship with our carrier, our children know her. So actually there is no exploitation, there is none of the things that they want the public to believe.”

In the U.S., Resolve, the National Infertility Association, which advocates for people experiencing infertility problems, has criticized any calls for a universal ban on surrogacy as harmful and hurtful to the many people experiencing the “disease of infertility.”

“Resolve believes that everyone deserves the right to build a family and should have access to all family building options,” Betsy Campbell, Resolve’s chief engagement officer, said in a telephone interview. “Surrogacy, and specifically gestational carrier surrogacy, is an option.”

She said the U.S. regulations, which include separate legal representation for the surrogate and the intended parents, and mental health and other evaluations, safeguard all parties in the process and that regardless less than 2% of pregnancies in the U.S. using assisted reproductive technology involves surrogacy.

“Most people do not expect to have infertility or to need medical assistance to build their families,” she said. “So when non-medical people speak about IVF and surrogacy in a negative way, it can be very discouraging and make an already challenging journey all the more challenging.”

Velina Todorova, a Bulgarian member of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, told the Rome conference that the U.N. committee hasn’t taken a definitive position on surrogacy, but that its concern was the rights of children born via the practice.

It was a reference to legislation to prevent parents from being able to register the births of children born through surrogacy in their home countries.
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Strasbourg, France — Europe’s top rights court will on Tuesday issue unprecedented verdicts in three separate cases on the responsibility of states in the face of global warming, rulings that could force governments to adopt more ambitious climate policies.

The European Court of Human Rights, part of the 46-member Council of Europe, will rule on whether governments’ climate change policies are violating the European Convention on Human Rights, which it oversees.

All three cases accuse European governments of inaction or insufficient action in their measures against global warming.

In a sign of the importance of the issue, the cases have all been treated as priority by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, the court’s top instance, whose 17 judges can set a potentially crucial legal precedent.

It will be the first time the court has issued a ruling on climate change.

While several European states, including France, have already been condemned by domestic courts for not fulfilling commitments against global warming, the ECHR could go further and make clear new fundamental rights.

The challenge lies in ensuring “the recognition of an individual and collective right to a climate that is as stable as possible, which would constitute an important legal innovation,” said lawyer and former French environment minister Corinne Lepage, who is defending one of the cases.

Turning point

The court’s position “may mark a turning point in the global struggle for a livable future,” said lawyer Gerry Liston, of the NGO Global Legal Action Network.

“A victory in any of the three cases could constitute the most significant legal development on climate change for Europe since the signing of the Paris 2015 Agreement” that set new targets for governments to reduce emissions, he said.

Even if the Convention does not contain any explicit provision relating to the environment, the Court has already ruled based on Article 8 of the Convention — the right to respect for private and family life — an obligation of states to maintain a “healthy environment” in cases relating to waste management or industrial activities.

Of the three cases which will be decided on Tuesday, the first is brought by the Swiss association of Elders for Climate Protection — 2,500 women aged 73 on average — and four of its members who have also put forward individual complaints.

They cite “failings of the Swiss authorities” in terms of climate protection, which “would seriously harm their state of health.”

Damien Careme, former mayor of the northern French coastal town of Grande-Synthe, in his case attacks the “deficiencies” of the French state, arguing they pose a risk of his town being submerged under the North Sea.

In 2019, he filed a case at France’s Council of State — its highest administrative court — alleging “climate inaction” on the part of France. The court ruled in favor of the municipality in July 2021, but rejected a case he had brought in his own name, leading Careme to take it to the ECHR.

‘For benefit of all’

The third case was brought by a group of six Portuguese, aged 12 to 24, after fires ravaged their country in 2017.

Their case is not only against Portugal, but also 31 other states – every EU country, plus Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and Russia.

Almost all European countries belong to the Council of Europe, not just EU members.

Russian was expelled from the COE after its invasion of Ukraine but cases against Moscow are still heard at the court.

The ECHR hears cases only when all domestic appeals have been exhausted. Its rulings are binding, although there have been problems with compliance of certain states such as Turkey.

The three cases rely primarily on articles in the Convention that protect the “right to life” and the “right to respect for private life.”

However, the Court will only issue a precedent-setting verdict if it determines that these cases have exhausted all remedies at the national level.

The accused states tried to demonstrate this is not the case during two hearings held last year.
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BEIJING — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday that the ability to have difficult conversations has put the two economic superpowers on “a more stable footing” over the past year.

As they began a meeting in Beijing, Li responded that the two countries needed to respect each other and should be partners, not adversaries, adding that “constructive progress” had been made during Yellen’s trip.

Yellen said Washington and Beijing had a “duty” to responsibly manage the complex relationship, as she brought her case for reining in China’s excess factory capacity to the Chinese leadership.

“While we have more to do, I believe that, over the past year, we have put our bilateral relationship on more stable footing,” Yellen said. “This has not meant ignoring our differences or avoiding tough conversations. It has meant understanding that we can only make progress if we directly and openly communicate with one another.”

Yellen has made the threat of China’s excess production of electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels and other clean energy products to producers in the U.S. and other countries a focus of her second visit to China in nine months.

She visited Beijing in July 2023 to try to normalize bilateral economic relations after a period of heightened tension caused by differences over issues ranging from Taiwan to COVID-19’s origins and trade disputes.

In a further sign of the ties stabilizing, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping sought to manage tensions over the South China Sea in a nearly two-hour call on Tuesday, their first direct talks since a summit in November.

U.S. and Chinese military officials met their Chinese counterparts last week for a series of rare meetings in Hawaii focused on operational safely and professionalism.

Balanced growth

On Saturday in the southern export hub of Guangzhou, Yellen and her main economic counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, agreed to launch a dialogue focused on “balanced growth.” Yellen said she intends to use the forum to advocate for a level playing field with China to protect U.S. workers and businesses.

“As the world’s two largest economies, we have a duty to our own countries and to the world to responsibly manage our complex relationship and to cooperate and show leadership on addressing pressing global challenges,” Yellen told Li.

The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts China’s battery manufacturing capacity will outpace demand by a factor of four by 2027, as its EV industry continues to grow.

Beijing’s support for battery-powered rides has helped homegrown champions like BYD and Geely grab share in the world’s biggest car market, and turn China into the world’s largest auto exporter.

But rapid growth has also meant China has created excess manufacturing capacity that could be between 5 and 10 million EVs per year, according to consultancy Automobility.

Still, far from curbing investment in manufacturing, China has doubled down on Xi’s new mantra of unleashing “new productive forces,” by investing in cutting-edge technology including EVs, commercial spaceflight and life sciences – areas where many U.S. firms hold advantages.

Throughout her visit, Chinese state media have pushed back against Yellen’s message on excess capacity.

State news agency Xinhua said Saturday that talking up “Chinese overcapacity” in the clean energy sector created a pretext for protectionist policies to shield American companies.

Suppressing China’s EV-related industries will not help the U.S. grow its own, Xinhua said, expressing hope that more headway could be made during Yellen’s visit to break down barriers hindering mutually beneficial cooperation.
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wilmington, delaware — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee said Saturday that they raised more than $90 million in March and ended the year’s first quarter with $192 million-plus in cash on hand, further stretching their money advantage over Donald Trump and the Republicans. 

The Biden campaign and its affiliated entities reported collecting $187 million from January through March and said that 96% of all donations were less than $200. 

That total was bolstered by the $26 million-plus that Biden reported raising from a March 28 event at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan that featured former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.  

Trump and the Republican party announced earlier in the week that they raised more than $65.6 million in March and closed out the month with $93.1 million. As the incumbent in 2020, Trump had a huge campaign treasury when he lost to Biden.  

Trump’s campaign said it raised $50.5 million from an event Saturday with major donors at the Florida home of billionaire investor John Paulson, setting a single-event fundraising record. 

Campaign fundraising reports filed with the Federal Election Commission detailing donations from Saturday’s event are not expected until a mid-July filing date.

Biden’s campaign says the pace of donations has allowed it to undertake major digital and television advertising campaigns in key states and to work with the DNC and state parties to better mobilize would-be supporters before the November election. 

The campaign said the $192 million-plus as of March 31 was the highest total ever by any Democratic candidate. About 1.6 million people have donated to the campaign since Biden announced in April 2023 that he was seeking a second term. The campaign raised more than $10 million in the 24 hours after the president’s State of the Union speech in early March. 

“The money we are raising is historic, and it’s going to the critical work of building a winning operation, focused solely on the voters who will decide this election – offices across the country, staff in our battleground states, and a paid media program meeting voters where they are,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. She scoffed at “Trump’s cash-strapped operation that is funneling the limited and billionaire-reliant funds it has to pay off his various legal fees.” 

Trump campaign officials have said they do not expect to raise as much as the Democrats but will have the money they need. The Biden campaign says its strong fundraising shows enthusiasm for the president, defying his low approval ratings and polls showing that most voters would rather not see a 2020 rematch. 
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LONDON — A journalist for an independent Iranian media outlet in London stabbed outside his home last week has returned to work, saying “the show must go on.”

Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for Iran International, needed hospital treatment for leg wounds suffered in the March 29 attack.

The 36-year-old said the stabbing was a “warning shot.”

“The fact that they just stopped in my leg was their choice,” he told ITV News.

“They had the opportunity to kill me because the way the second person was holding me and the first person took the knife out, they had the opportunity to stop anywhere they wanted,” he added.

Zeraati said he had returned to work Friday, adding: “Whatever the motive was, the show must go on.”

London’s Metropolitan Police say the two suspects went straight from the scene in southwest London to Heathrow Airport and left the U.K. “within a few hours.”

Detectives were considering whether “the victim’s occupation as a journalist at a Persian-language media organization based in the U.K.” could have prompted the assault.

Iran’s charge d’affaires in the U.K., Mehdi Hosseini Matin, however, said Tehran denied “any link” to the attack.

The Metropolitan Police has previously disrupted what it has called plots in the U.K. to kidnap or even kill British or Britain-based individuals perceived as enemies of Tehran.

The Iranian government has declared Iran International a terrorist organization.

The U.K. government last year unveiled a tougher sanctions regime against Iran over alleged human rights violations and hostile actions against its opponents on U.K. soil.
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london — Airline passengers in parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland faced travel disruptions Saturday due to flight cancellations as a storm swept across both countries and left thousands of Irish homes with power outages. 

The disruption caused by Storm Kathleen, named by the Irish Meteorological Service and the 11th named storm of the 2023-24 season, has affected flights at airports across Ireland and the U.K., including Manchester Airport and Belfast City Airport. 

Dublin Airport said travelers due to fly were being advised to check with their airline for travel updates after weather conditions at other airports led to some cancellations and flight diversions. 

EasyJet said that due to the impact of the storm, some flights to and from the Isle of Man and Belfast International had been unable to operate Saturday. 

“We are doing all possible to minimize the impact of the weather disruption,” the airline said in a statement to Reuters. 

EasyJet said it was providing customers whose flights were cancelled with the option to transfer to an alternative flight or receive a refund, hotel accommodation and meals. 

In Scotland, rail and ferry services were also affected and faced disruption due to Storm Kathleen with Scottish rail services implementing temporary speed restrictions earlier in the day. 

Strong winds associated with the storm also led to several power outages across the country, with approximately 34,000 homes, farms and businesses impacted, Irish power supplier ESB Networks said. 

“ESB Networks crews are mobilized in impacted areas and responding to power outages where safe to do so,” the company said in an update Saturday.  
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Some U.S. voters were waiting for a third political party to announce its presidential ticket before they decided on the Democratic or Republican nominee. VOA Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti tells us what they will do now that the No Labels group dropped plans to post a unity ticket. Camera:  Adam Greenbaum
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — A rising challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban mobilized tens of thousands of supporters in Hungary’s capital Saturday, outlining a plan to unite the country and bring an end to the populist leader’s 14-year hold on power.

At the center of the demonstration, the latest in a recent series of protests against Orban’s right-wing nationalist government, was political newcomer Peter Magyar, a former insider within Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party who has shot to prominence in recent weeks through his allegations of entrenched corruption and cronyism among the country’s leaders.

Magyar addressed a crowd that filled the sprawling square near the parliament building in Budapest, announcing his creation of a new political community aimed at uniting both conservative and liberal Hungarians disillusioned by Orban’s governance and the fragmented, ineffectual political opposition.

“Step by step, brick by brick, we are taking back our homeland and building a new country, a sovereign, modern, European Hungary,” Magyar said, adding that the protest was “the biggest political demonstration in years.”

Magyar, 43, was once a member of Orban’s political circle and is the ex-husband of former justice minister and Orban ally Judit Varga. But he broke ranks in February in the wake of a political scandal that led to the resignation of his ex-wife and the president and has amassed a large following with frequent media appearances where he portrays Hungary’s political life as having been taken over by a privileged group of oligarchs and anti-democratic elites.

He has argued that Orban’s government operates as a “mafia,” and advocated for a moral, political and economic transformation of the country that would rein in corruption and create a more pluralistic political system.

“More than 20 years have passed as our elected leaders have incited the Hungarian people against each other. Whether the fate of our country went well, or we were close to bankruptcy, we were pitted against each other instead of allowing us to band together,” Magyar said. “We will put an end to this now.”

Hungary’s government has dismissed Magyar as an opportunist seeking to forge a new career after his divorce with Varga and his loss of positions in several state companies. But his rise has compounded political headaches for Orban that have included the resignation of members of his government and a painful economic crisis.

Last month, Magyar released an audio recording of a conversation between him and Varga that he said proved that top officials conspired to manipulate court records to cover up their involvement in a corruption case. He has called on Orban’s government to resign and for a restoration of fair elections.

Orban’s critics at home and in the European Union have long accused him of eroding Hungary’s democratic institutions, taking over large swaths of the media and altering the country’s election system to give his party an advantage. The EU has withheld billions in funding to Budapest over alleged democratic backsliding, misuse of EU funds and failure to guarantee minority rights.

One demonstrator on Saturday, Zoltan Koszler, said he wanted a “complete change in the system, which is now completely unacceptable to me.”

“I want to live in a normal, rule-of-law state where the principles of the rule of law are really adhered to, not only on paper, but in reality,” he said.

Magyar has said he will establish a new party that will run in EU and municipal elections this summer.
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BUCHAREST, Romania — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned of threats posed by right-wing populists Saturday as he addressed a gathering of center-left European parties ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June. 

Scholz arrived in Romania’s capital Bucharest for a conference of the Party of European Socialists, part of the Socialists and Democrats group, the second biggest in the Parliament. Voters in the 27 EU member states go to the polls June 6-9. 

“Right-wing populists are running election campaigns against our united Europe,” the German leader said at the Palace of the Parliament, which hosted the conference. “They are ready to destroy what we have built for the kids; they stir up sentiment against refugees and minorities.” 

Opinion polls indicate a significant shift to the right in the upcoming election, with the radical right Identity and Democracy group likely to gain enough seats to become the third-largest group in the legislature, mainly at the expense of the Greens and the centrist Renew Europe group. 

Scholz said a prosperous EU capable of “getting things done” is “the best response to populism and autocrats.” He also pledged continued support for Ukraine, saying it’s “key to restoring peace in Europe.” 

Scholz leads an unpopular three-party coalition. Recent national polls have shown his center-left party far behind Germany’s main center-right opposition bloc and at best roughly level with the far-right Alternative for Germany party. 

The Socialists and Democrats President Iratxe Garcia Perez also addressed the issue of rising populism in the June elections, saying those parties “only pose a threat to our European project.” 

The meeting comes after the EU’s largest political party, the center-right European People’s Party, met in Bucharest last month, where representatives endorsed Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second five-year term leading the bloc’s powerful Commission.

Jobs and Social Rights Commissioner Nicolas Schmit from Luxembourg was chosen as the Socialists and Democrats lead candidate for Brussels’ top job. The next Commission chief will require approval from leaders of all EU’s member states. Almost half of the EU’s 27 national leaders are members of the European People’s Party. 
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PENTAGON — Russian microchip company AO PKK Milandr continued to provide microchips to the Russian armed forces at least several months after Russia invaded Ukraine, despite public denials by company director Alexey Novoselov of any connection with Russia’s military.

A formal letter obtained by VOA dated February 10, 2023, shows a sale request for 4,080 military grade microchips for the Russian military. The sale request was addressed from a deputy commander of the 546 military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the commercial director of Russian manufacturer NPO Poisk to Milandr CEO S.V. Tarasenko for delivery by April 2023, more than a year into the war.

The letter instructs Milandr to provide three types of microchip components to NPO Poisk, a well-established Russian defense manufacturer that makes detonators for weapons used by the Russian Armed Forces.

“Each of these three circuits that you have in the table on the document, each one of them is classed as a military-grade component … and each of these is manufactured specifically by Milandr,” said Denys Karlovskyi, a research fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies. VOA shared the document with him to confirm its authenticity.

In addition to Milandr CEO Tarasenko, the letter is addressed to a commander of the Russian Defense Ministry’s 514 military representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense named I.A. Shvid.

Karlovskyi says this inclusion shows that Milandr, like Poisk, appears to have a Russian commander from the Defense Ministry’s oversight unit assigned to it — a clear indicator that a company is part of Russia’s defense industry.

Milandr, headquartered near Moscow in an area known as “Soviet Silicon Valley,” was sanctioned by the United States in November 2022, for its illegal procurement of microelectronic components using front companies.

In the statement announcing the 2022 sanctions against Milandr and more than three dozen other entities and individuals, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, “The United States will continue to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s military supply chains and deny Russia the equipment and technology it needs to wage its illegal war against Ukraine.”

Karlovskyi said that in Russia’s database of public contracts, Milandr is listed in more than 500 contracts, supplying numerous state-owned and military-grade enterprises, including Ural Optical Mechanical Plant, Concern Avtomatika and Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant, or IEMZ Kupol, which also have been sanctioned by the United States.

“It clearly suggests that this entity is a crucial node in Russia’s military supply chain,” Karlovskyi told VOA.

Novoselov, Milandr’s current director, told Bloomberg News last August that he was not aware of any connections to the Russian military.

“I don’t know any military persons who would be interested in our product,” he told Bloomberg in a phone interview, adding that the company mostly produces electric power meters.

The U.S. allegations are “like a fantasy,” he said. “The United States’ State Department, they suppose that every electronics business in Russia is focused on the military. I think that is funny.”

But a U.S. defense official told VOA that helping Russia’s military kill tens of thousands of people in an illegal invasion “is no laughing matter.”

“The company is fueling microchips for missiles and heavily armored vehicles that are used to continue the war in Ukraine,” said the defense official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivities of discussing U.S. intelligence.

Milandr’s co-founder Mikhail Pavlyuk was also sanctioned during the summer of 2022 for his involvement in microchip smuggling operations and was caught stealing from Milandr. Pavlyuk fled Russia and has claimed he was not involved.

Officials estimate that 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed or injured in the war, with tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians killed in the fighting.

“There are consequences to their actions, and the U.S. will persist to expose and disrupt the Kremlin’s supply chain,” the U.S. defense official said.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The United States and China have agreed to hold talks and create two economic groups focused on a wide range of issues — including addressing American complaints about China’s economic model, growth in domestic and global economies and efforts against money laundering — according to a statement released Saturday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

The agreement comes on the second day of an official visit to China by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during which she has urged Chinese leaders to change their domestic manufacturing policies.

The two sides are set to hold “intensive exchanges” on cultivating more balanced economic growth and combating money laundering.

Yellen said the efforts would establish a structure for Beijing and Washington to exchange views and address Chinese industrial overcapacity, its ability to supply more product than is demanded.

“I think the Chinese realize how concerned we are about the implications of their industrial strategy for the United States, for the potential to flood our markets with exports that make it difficult for American firms to compete,” she told journalists after the announcement Saturday.

Yellen was en route to Beijing after beginning her five-day visit in the southern city of Guangzhou, which is a key manufacturing and export center for China.

While the issue of China’s industrial overcapacity will not be resolved instantly, Yellen said Chinese officials understand it’s an “important issue” for Americans, adding that her exchanges with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will facilitate a discussion around macroeconomic imbalances and their connection to overcapacity.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported Chinese officials “comprehensively responded” to the issue of industrial overcapacity raised by the Americans. “Both sides agreed to continue to maintain communication,” an official readout said.

The announcement came a day after Yellen urged Beijing to reform its trade practices and create “a healthy economic relationship” with the U.S. It also follows Chinese state media’s warning that Washington may consider rolling out more protectionist policies to shield U.S. companies.”

Some analysts say the announcement reflects Yellen’s effort to push forward on collaboration in areas the U.S. and China agreed on during U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s San Francisco summit last November.

“When Xi met Biden in November, they agreed to set up working groups, so Yellen is continuing to push that forward with the meeting,” Dexter Roberts, director of China affairs at the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center, told VOA by phone.

While he called the announcement a positive development, Roberts said he does not think Beijing and Washington will reach agreement on contentious trade issues during Yellen’s trip.

“There could be temporary things like China easing off on subsidizing electric vehicles a bit, but it’s unclear how either side is going to change what’s happening in a way that allows the tension over trade to lessen,” he said.

Beijing’s displeasure

While Washington highlighted threats posed by China’s industrial overcapacity, Beijing focused on its concerns about U.S. export controls on Chinese companies during the meeting between Yellen and He.

“The Chinese side expressed serious concerns over Washington’s restrictive economic and trade measures against China,” read the Chinese readout published by Xinhua.

Some experts say the United States and China could make progress on U.S. export restrictions on Chinese companies.

“Some U.S. businesses are calling for the government to remove some of the export restrictions, especially for chips [integrated circuits],” Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California in San Diego, told VOA by phone.

Since China is either already making, or is on the cusp of making, some of the computer chips on the sanctions list, Shih said he thinks restricting U.S. companies from selling some of the chips to China will only hurt American interests. “It’s really not hurting China that much,” he said.

In addition to U.S. controls on exports to Chinese entities, Shih said the other big topic Chinese officials are likely to raise in meetings with Yellen is potential tariffs Washington may impose on Chinese products.

“Since China is the largest exporter in the world, it’s not in its interest for there to be a lot of tariffs around the world, especially for major importers like the U.S.,” he said, adding that talking to Washington about lowering tariffs and not enacting new ones will be an important agenda item for Beijing.

While she has not explicitly promised to impose new sanctions on Chinese products, Yellen said she would not rule out the possibility of adopting more measures to safeguard the American supply chain for electric vehicles, batteries or solar panels from heavily subsidized Chinese green energy products.

During a phone call Tuesday with Biden, Xi warned that if the United States is “adamant on containing China’s high-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development, China is not going to sit back and watch.”

Bilateral communication

Despite persistent differences over contentious trade issues, Yellen and He underscored the importance for China and the U.S. to “properly respond to key concerns of the other side” to build a more cooperative economic relationship.

“It also remains crucial for the two largest economies to seek progress on global challenges like climate change and debt distress in emerging markets in developing countries, and to closely communicate on issues of concern such as overcapacity and national security-related economic actions,” Yellen said Friday.

Based on Yellen and He’s comments and signals from the Biden-Xi call Tuesday, some analysts say the U.S. and China will continue to put guard rails around the bilateral relationship to prevent it from further deteriorating.

“The two sides have come to the realization that they will have to live together, perhaps uncomfortably at times,” said Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University.

While the relationship will remain highly competitive, Zhu said he thinks Beijing and Washington will “stay engaged and seek cooperation in areas of common interest.”

“Maintaining stability is the priority for both Xi and Biden now,” he said.

Yellen is scheduled to have meetings with other senior officials Sunday and Monday in Beijing.
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PHILADELPHIA — He surveyed the Arizona crowd that had paid to catch a wrestling glimpse of the planet’s mightiest heavyweight, as measured in both box-office heft and ink-stained muscles. Then The Rock let the abuse fly. And as with so many public outbursts these days, attacking his opponents wasn’t enough. He had to insult the people, too.

“The Rock did a little bit of research, and here’s what he found out. This is the truth. This is a fact. The No. 1 city in America for cocaine and meth use is Phoenix, Arizona,” The Rock said to a roaring crowd that seemed to revel in the insults. Then and only then did he lay the smack down on his WrestleMania opponents.

Were The Rock’s assertions true? Or just an engine for vigorous trash talk? Most importantly: Does anyone really care, as long as the entertainment value is cranked to 11 and WWE churns out more fans to watch and fork over cash for its signature spectacle, WrestleMania, unfolding in Philadelphia this weekend?

Along the murky lines that intertwine sports, entertainment and, yes, politics, the ethos of being bad has never been so good. Say what you want. Do you want. The public eats it up. And for decades, somehow, the garish world of professional wrestling has sat smack in the middle of it all.

Outside the ring, the Superman spandex traded for Clark Kent glasses and a leather jacket, Dwayne Johnson crafts his good-guy image to plug his movies, his tequila label, his men’s care line, his football league — business interests where the bottom line doesn’t require calling the competition a bunch of “roody-poo candy-asses.” But under the house lights each week on live TV, Johnson knows storylines are sold on his Hollywood heel persona.

“I feel like everybody wants to be the good guy, the good girl. Everyone wants to be loved and cheered and considered the hero, which is great and it’s natural,” he says. “But, I have felt in my career, the rare air is when you have the opportunity to grab it by the throat, you don’t let it go. And that’s the opportunity to be a great bad guy.”

Wrestlemania and its cultural pull

The Rock is set to headline one of two nights of the annual WrestleMania event this weekend in Philadelphia, where more than 70,000 fans each night are expected to pack the NFL stadium that is home to the Eagles.

Banners of your favorite wrestlers, or the ones you love to hate, have smothered city street poles. Philly has been overrun by wrestling conventions, autograph signings, independent wrestling shows, podcast tapings, a 2K24 gaming tournament and all the other trappings that have turned the industry into a mainstream cultural phenomenon.

From the start, WrestleMania was born to be different.

Mr. T and Muhammad Ali helped pack Madison Square Garden in 1985, and “The Showcase of the Immortals” quickly turned a night of wrestling usually reserved for smoky arenas into the Super Bowl of entertainment. As WrestleMania approaches 40, it’s never been bigger — even with brainchild Vince McMahon a pariah and ousted from the company in the wake of a sex abuse lawsuit.

Yes, McMahon and Donald Trump even tangled at WrestleMania in 2007 in a “Battle of the Billionaires” match.

“Donald Trump, to a certain extent, represents a great deal of Americana,” McMahon said in 2007. “He’s larger than life, which really fits into what the WWE is.”

Maybe wrestling really does represent who we are as a nation. But even if you still scrunch your nose like you took a whiff of curdled milk over the very idea that anyone would like this flavor of wrestling, odds are you’ve still heard of The Rock and Hulk Hogan. Andre the Giant and John Cena. You’ve snapped into a Slim Jim because Randy Savage ordered you to, or let out a “Woooo!” at a hockey game like Ric Flair. Dave Bautista won a WrestleMania championship before he ever guarded the galaxy.

“Look at the way it was marketed in the 80s, when Vince McMahon really changed the whole industry forever,” said author Brad Balukjian, whose new book is on 1980s WrestleMania stars. “He’s got the action figures, he’s got the cartoon and the bedsheets and the lunch boxes. He turned these guys into the Batmans and the Marvel Cinematic Universe of the 80s, in a way.”

Revel in the universally accepted fakery

Fans have long been in on the con — and embraced it. It’s a mutual agreement forged for even paying customers to play their own roles in the four-sided ring performance. So they cheer. They boo. And despite all evidence to the contrary, they openly accept that each move is as legitimate a sporting action as anything found in a weeknight ballgame.

Wrestling pretended for so long to be on the up-and-up. Comedian Andy Kaufman drew gasps when he was slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler on Late Night with David Letterman. But the curtain was yanked open long ago. On Wednesday, Johnson and WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns appeared on the The Tonight Show without any manufactured theatrics on their final hype job ahead of WrestleMania.

Former WWE star Dave Schultz slapped a 20/20 reporter in the 1980s for calling wrestling fake. Now ESPN, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports have dedicated pages that report on both storylines and behind-the-scenes news, where the real drama is more likely found. Wrestling news is treated as seriously as any other sport’s.

But is it? A sport, that is.

Debate the definition all you want. Wrestling — a precursor to reality TV and all the Real Housewives — isn’t going anywhere. And its biggest fans are often the athletes who want to emulate the super-sized stars.

This week, Joel Embiid was about to divulge that he suffered from depression during an injury that cost him two months of his NBA career. But before the Philadelphia 76ers big man unburdened himself, he pulled on a WWE T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan of the wrestling company’s most boorish faction, Degeneration X: “Suck It.”

For pro wrestling, momentum is at hand. WWE’s weekly television show Raw will move to Netflix next year as part of a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion. That’s some serious cash that even the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase would envy.

So go ahead. Sneer at wrestling. Or let go, turn a blind eye to the subterfuge and embrace Hulkamania and the frenzy that followed as a staple of the global sports landscape. Because it’s not leaving the building anytime soon.

Consider John Kruk, retired Phillies star and team broadcaster. You’d think that the pinnacle moment of baseball each year would be a must-see for him. But if pro wrestling is coming to town, as he told wrestler Kofi Kingston on TV recently, other priorities prevail.

“If it was a World Series game, if the Phillies aren’t participating, and wrestling was on,” Kruk said, “I’m watching wrestling.”
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