MOSCOW — Veteran human rights activist Oleg Orlov was sentenced on Tuesday by a Moscow court to two and a half years in prison after he was found guilty of discrediting Russian’s armed forces in a trial that has been condemned by international observers as politically motivated.

Orlov, 70, has served for more than two decades as one of the leaders of rights group Memorial. It won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, a year after being banned and dissolved in Russia.

Memorial said Orlov was handcuffed after the verdict, and the court ordered him to be taken immediately into custody.

In his closing remarks to the trial on Monday, Orlov decried the “strangulation of freedom” in Russia, which he referred to as a “dystopia.”

The case against him stemmed from an article he wrote in 2022 in which he said Russia under President Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism.

He was initially fined $1,628 by a district court last year, but a retrial was ordered and prosecutors sought a jail sentence of two years and 11 months.

The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, called Orlov’s trial “an orchestrated attempt to silence the voices of human rights defenders in Russia.”

Memorial, founded in 1989, has documented human rights abuses from the time of Soviet leader Josef Stalin to the present and defended freedom of speech, with a focus on identifying and honoring individual victims.
…

…

STATE DEPARTMENT — With a science and technology agreement between the United States and People’s Republic of China due to expire Tuesday, the State Department said it is negotiating to “amend, extend, and strengthen protections within” the agreement but declined to specify if the U.S. would extend the deal.

“We are not able to provide information at this time on specific U.S. negotiating positions or on whether the agreement will be extended past its current expiration date,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.

The Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement is a framework for U.S. governmental collaborations with China in science and technology.  

U.S. officials have said the STA provides consistent standards for government-to-government scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China.  

While the agreement supports scientific collaboration in areas that benefit the United States, U.S. officials acknowledge the challenges posed by China’s national science and technology strategies and its domestic legal framework.

Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, point out China’s restrictions on data and a lack of transparency in sharing scientific findings. Washington is also concerned about personal safety of American scientists who travel to China, as well as Beijing’s potential military application of shared research.

A report by Congressional Research Service said China’s cooperation under the agreement has not been consistent. For example, “China reportedly withheld avian influenza strains required for U.S. vaccines and in 2019, cut off U.S. access to coronavirus research, including U.S.-funded work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” said the CRS.

Advocates for renewing the agreement want to maintain some level of official and unofficial contacts amid strained relationship between the two countries.  

During a recent discussion hosted by the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), panelists said the STA is “important symbolically” and gives confidence to researchers on both sides to deepen their engagement with counterparts.

“In the event of the agreement’s non-renewal, the mutual confidence that sustains and underpins collaboration is bound to suffer,” said ICAS in its post-event summary.

Dean Cheng, a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the American system is far more open, so China will typically be able to gather information regardless of whether there is an agreement.

“The STA is no guarantee that American scientists will, in fact, be able to access Chinese research, information, or scholars, whereas the Chinese side will use the STA as a means of establishing an even greater presence in the U.S.,” Cheng told VOA, adding the “strategic advantage” under the deal will likely be with the PRC.

The STA was originally signed in 1979 by then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then-PRC leader Deng Xiaoping. Under the agreement, the two countries cooperate in fields including agriculture, energy, space, health, environment, earth sciences and engineering, as well as educational and scholarly exchanges.

U.S.-China science and technology activity increased in November 2009 with new agreements on joint projects in electric vehicles, or EVs, renewable energy, and the creation of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, or CERC, a 10-year research effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

The agreement has been renewed approximately every five years since its inception, with the most recent five-year extension occurring in 2018. Last August, it received a six-month extension as officials from the two countries undertook negotiations to amend and strengthen the terms.
…

…

…

The U.S. military has been forced to dip into its own funding to cover American training of Ukrainian forces, a strategy that could leave the Army short on finances in Europe as the Russian war on Ukraine enters its third year. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
…

…

ATHENS, Greece — Greece on Monday formally agreed to participate in and lead a European Union maritime security operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen.

A security committee led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ordered the participation of a Greek frigate in the Aspides operation — named for the Greek word for “shield” — that was launched last week.

The mission will be run from a military base in Larissa, in central Greece, under the command of Greek navy Commodore Vasilios Griparis.

Greece, a major commercial shipping power, has been directly affected by the Houthi attacks. The port of Piraeus, near Athens, reported a 12.7% drop in activity at its container terminal in January, on an annual basis.

“We all understand that participation in this operation involves risks, significant risks,” Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said Monday while on a visit to the navy frigate Hydra at a naval base near Athens.

The frigate departed on the mission late Monday. 

“Greece, as a maritime power with a leading role in global shipping, attaches great importance to the need to safeguard the freedom of navigation, as well as the life of Greek seafarers,” Dendias said.

Germany, Italy and France will also provide warships for the mission, joining the Hydra, while Italy will assume tactical command, according to Greek officials.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius visited the German navy frigate Hessen that is taking part in Aspides, while on a trip to the Greek island of Crete last week. The vessel has since sailed southward to the Red Sea, German authorities said.

Officials in Athens have described the Aspides mission as defensive, adding that Greece would not take part in U.S.-led attacks against Houthi military targets in Yemen.

The Iranian-backed Houthis say their attacks on commercial ships with drones and missiles are a response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas, which began in October.

At a parliamentary committee hearing last week, Dendias said keeping the lines of maritime trade open was an “existential necessity for Greece.”

“We do not take a position on the Houthi issue,” Dendias told lawmakers at the hearing. “But we do challenge the right of anyone to fire at our ships, at European ships, and at ships that sail the region and come to our ports.”
…

washington — An internal review blames privacy restrictions and staff hesitancy for the Pentagon’s failure last month to quickly notify the president and other senior leaders about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for complications from prostate cancer surgery.

The review, which was done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization, which included several days in the intensive care unit. And it says flatly there was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate.”

Instead, the 30-day examination of the lapse — which angered the White House and members of Congress — says procedures must be improved and information shared better about when the defense secretary must transfer decision-making authorities to the deputy.

Austin has been called to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a House hearing and is expected to face sharp criticism. The Defense Department’s inspector general is also conducting a review, which has not yet been completed.

Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early December and went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for surgery on December 22. On January 1, he was taken back to Walter Reed by ambulance after experiencing significant pain and was moved to the intensive care unit the next day.

Although he transferred decision-making authorities to Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks during his initial surgery and then again when he was in intensive care, he did not tell her why and he did not inform the White House.

Pentagon officials have acknowledged that public affairs and defense aides were told on January 2 that Austin had been hospitalized but did not make it public and did not tell the military service leaders or the National Security Council until January 4. Only then did President Joe Biden find out. It took four more days before the reason for his hospitalization was disclosed.

Defense officials released an unclassified summary of the review on Monday and a set of recommended changes. The review suggests there was no established method for handling such an incident, and the fact that his hospitalization was “unplanned” contributed to the failure to let others know.

It also says Austin’s staff was limited by medical privacy laws that prohibited doctors from providing information and they “were hesitant to pry or share any information they did learn.” It adds that since Austin’s condition was “in flux” they could not ensure “timely secured communications.”

Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Monday that Austin’s aides found themselves in an “unprecedented situation.” He said that as Austin was being moved into intensive care, his aides recognized that he would not have access to critical communications, and they made the decision to transfer authorities to the deputy.

The fact that staff and not Austin made the decision raised questions about who was in control of the department at that moment, including America’s nuclear arsenal. Ryder said there were “no gaps” in command and control of the department.

Pressed on the lack of blame and whether anyone is being disciplined, Ryder said, “as the secretary has said, the buck stops with him and he’s taking responsibility for not notifying the president and the White House sooner.”

He added that “dedicated public servants were doing what they thought was the right thing.”

The 30-day review was finished and submitted to Austin on February 8, but only parts of it were publicly released. The Pentagon has argued that portions of the report are classified.

Austin, in a press briefing after he returned to work, told reporters that he never told his staff to keep his surgery and hospitalization secret from the White House, but acknowledged he should have handled it differently and he apologized for keeping Biden and others in the dark. He denied there was a culture of secrecy in his office, and also said that staff members may have perceived that “they’re doing things in my best interest.”

The recommended changes include better guidelines for the transfer of authorities and better reporting requirements during those incidents.

His secrecy about the hospitalizations prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to ensure it will be informed any time a Cabinet head transfers decision-making authorities when they are unreachable due to medical, travel or other reasons.
…

London — Sweden is set to officially join NATO after Hungary finally gave its approval Monday, the last member of the Western alliance to ratify the bid.

Analysts say the addition of the Nordic nation to NATO as its 32nd member will bring significant military capabilities to the Western alliance.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was a “historic day” for his country.

“Sweden is now leaving 200 years of neutrality and nonalignment behind us. It is a big step. We must take that seriously. But it is also a very natural step that we are taking,” Kristersson said at a news conference in Stockholm on Monday, following the Hungarian approval.

“Membership of NATO means that we now join a large number of democracies that work together for peace and freedom. A new home where neighbors cooperate for safety and a group of countries that, in practice, we have belonged for a very long time,” he added.

Hungary vote

Hungarian lawmakers passed the vote with an overwhelming margin of 188 in favor of Sweden’s accession and only six against the motion.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had urged MPs to approve the bid.

“The Swedish-Hungarian military cooperation and Sweden’s accession to NATO will strengthen Hungary’s security,” Orban said ahead of the vote.

Sweden’s submitted its application to join NATO along with Finland in May 2022, three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Finland’s application was ratified relatively quickly, and it joined the alliance in April 2023. However, Sweden’s bid was held up by Turkey and Hungary. Ankara claimed that Sweden was harboring Kurdish groups, which it considers terrorists. Turkey eventually approved the NATO bid in January after Sweden introduced new anti-terror laws.

Hungary’s objections to Sweden’s NATO accession were less clear.

Orban had voiced anger over Sweden’s criticism of a perceived democratic backsliding in his country.

A visit by Kristersson to Budapest last Friday – and the purchase by Hungary of four Swedish Gripen fighter jets – appear to have helped overcome the tensions.

US ambassador

The U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who has been critical of Budapest’s delaying the ratification, welcomed the vote.

“Sweden’s accession to NATO will advance the security of the United States, the security of Hungary and the security of the alliance, and this has been a decision that has taken some time and we look forward to it,” Pressman told reporters outside the Hungarian parliament.

“Sweden has been waiting to join the alliance for now almost two years and a step forward has [been] taken, and this process should conclude rapidly,” he added.

Swedish forces have been training alongside NATO forces for decades, but formal membership will allow far deeper coordination of deployment and defense planning.

Sweden is expected to officially join NATO in the coming days or weeks, breaking its long-held policy of military non-alignment.

“The final piece of the puzzle falling into place, making NATO’s position in the Nordic-Baltic region whole. Sweden gains security in a crowd and supported by American nuclear deterrence,” said Robert Dalsjo, a senior analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, adding that valuable military capabilities will be added to the alliance.

“We have a modern air force, with Gripen planes. We have excellent submarines, especially adapted to the conditions in the Baltic Sea. We have a small but high-tech navy and we have, on the ground, we have sub-arctic capabilities,” Dalsjo told Reuters.

Baltic defense

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are widely seen as among the most vulnerable NATO member states to a potential attack by Russia. Having Finland and Sweden in the alliance creates a powerful deterrence, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

“Enabling the defense of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from different angles. It will be possible to do very large, combined, air operations looking at directions from north Finland, and northwest to western Sweden, with both of those countries as NATO members, something that was not possible to plan as little as a year ago,” Salonius-Pasternak told VOA.

Swedish public opinion swung dramatically in favor of joining NATO after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The latest opinion polls suggest around two-thirds of Swedes approve of its membership.

Stockholm residents largely welcomed Hungary’s ratification of the bid.

“Finally, it’s been a long wait until Hungary to get the acceptance in the Parliament and what’s behind the scenes for it taking this long. But it’s good to finally be here. We have been preparing for a bit of time for this,” Jimmy Dahllof, a boat captain from Stockholm, told Agence France-Presse.

Finland’s experience of joining NATO has lessons for Sweden, said Helsinki-based Salonius-Pasternak.

“It’s the first steps of an ongoing process – a cultural change at the highest political level, societal level – that we are now responsible for our own defense but together and as part of an alliance, rather than solely ‘we alone’ thinking. And this I honestly think will be a generational shift,” he told VOA.

An accession ceremony is expected in the coming days after final formalities of Sweden’s membership are completed. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, NATO’s secretary-general said Monday that Sweden’s accession “will make us all stronger and safer.”

Russia response

Russia did not immediately respond to Hungary’s ratification. In the past Moscow has said that NATO membership would make Sweden “a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures.”

Kristersson said Monday that Moscow had itself to blame.

“As far as Russia is concerned, the only thing we can safely expect is that they do not like Sweden becoming a NATO member. They didn’t like Finland becoming a NATO member either,” Kristersson said. “The whole purpose was to emphasize that a country like Ukraine would not be allowed to choose its own path. Instead of accepting that Russia had veto rights over Ukraine’s way forward, NATO has now, soon instead gained two new members.”

He added, “Russia does not like it. What else they do, we cannot know. We are prepared for all sorts of things. What we see all the time are disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and that sort of thing. I think our whole part of the world is on its toes to face many different things.”
…

…

More than 20,000 people gathered at a rally in Warsaw Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite a difficult situation on the Polish-Ukrainian border, where Polish farmers, complaining about unfair competition, have almost completely blocked the export of some Ukrainian goods, Polish politicians reassured demonstrators that their support of Ukraine is unchanged. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Warsaw. Camera: Daniil Batushchak
…

…

Los Angeles — A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled Monday, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.

U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov’s detention after prosecutors raised concerns that the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence could flee the country.

A different judge had released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring after his Feb. 14 arrest, but Wright ordered him to be taken back into custody last week after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention. Wright said in a written order unsealed Friday that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him were “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”

Smirnov is charged with falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid President Biden and Hunter Biden $5 million each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.

In urging the judge to keep him in jail, prosecutors revealed Smirnov has reported to the FBI having extensive contact with officials associated with Russian intelligence, and claimed that such officials were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden. Prosecutors said Smirnov had been planning to travel overseas to multiple countries days after his Feb. 14 arrest where he said he was meeting with foreign intelligence contacts.

Smirnov, who holds dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship, is charged by the same Justice Department special counsel who has separately filed gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden.

Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial. Defense attorneys have said in pushing for his release that he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime significant other who lives in Las Vegas.

In his ruling last week releasing Smirnov on GPS monitoring, U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimate is $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of his trial.

Smirnov was re-arrested on Thursday morning while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in downtown Las Vegas.

In an emergency petition with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Smirnov’s lawyers said Wright did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be taken back into custody. The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudicial statements” from Wright insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.

The appeals court on Sunday evening denied Smirnov’s emergency petition, refusing to block Monday’s hearing or assign the case to a different judge.

Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said. Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.

While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden. Republicans pursuing investigations of the Bidens demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.
…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A private U.S. lunar lander is expected to stop working Tuesday, its mission cut short after landing sideways near the south pole of the moon.

Intuitive Machines, the Houston company that built and flew the spacecraft, said Monday it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels. Based on the position of Earth and the moon, officials expect that to happen Tuesday morning. That’s two to three days short of the week or so that NASA and other customers had been counting on.

The lander, named Odysseus, is the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years, carrying experiments for NASA, the main sponsor. But it came in too fast last Thursday and the foot of one of its six legs caught on the surface, causing it to tumble over, according to company officials.

Based on photos from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flying overhead, Odysseus landed within 1.5 kilometers of its intended target near the Malapert A crater, just 300 kilometers from the moon’s south pole.

The LRO photos from 90 kilometers up are the only ones showing the lander on the surface, but as little more than a spot in the grainy images. A camera-ejecting experiment by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, to capture images of the lander as they both descended, was called off shortly before touchdown because of a last-minute navigation issue.

According to NASA, the lander ended up in a small, degraded crater with a 12-degree slope. That’s the closest a spacecraft has ever come to the south pole, an area of interest because of suspected frozen water in the permanently shadowed craters there.

NASA, which plans to land astronauts in this region in the next few years, paid Intuitive Machines $118 million to deliver six experiments to the surface. Other customers also had items on board.

Instead of landing upright, the 4.3-meter Odysseus came down on its side, hampering communication with Earth. Some antennas were covered up by the toppled lander, and the ones still exposed ended up near the ground, resulting in spotty communications. The solar panels also ended up much closer to the surface than anticipated, less than ideal in the hilly terrain. Even under the best of circumstances, Odysseus only had a week to operate on the surface before the long lunar night set in.

Since the 1960s, only the U.S., Russia, China, India and Japan have successfully pulled off moon landings, and only the U.S. with crews. Japan’s lander ended up on the wrong side, too, just last month.

Despite its slanted landing, Intuitive Machines became the first private business to join the elite group. Another U.S. company, Astrobotic Technology, gave it a try last month, but didn’t make it to the moon because of a fuel leak.

Intuitive Machines almost failed, too. Ground teams did not turn on the switch for the lander’s navigating lasers before the Feb. 15 liftoff from Florida. The oversight was not discovered until Odysseus was circling the moon, forcing flight controllers to rely on a NASA laser-navigating device that was on board merely as an experiment.

As it turned out, NASA’s test lasers guided Odysseus to a close to bull’s-eye landing, resulting in the first moon landing by a U.S. spacecraft since the Apollo program.

Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 through 1972. While NASA went on to put an occasional satellite around the moon, the U.S. did not launch another moon-landing mission until last month. Astrobotic’s failed flight was the first under NASA’s program to promote commercial deliveries to the moon.

Both Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic hold NASA contracts for more moon landings.
…

…

During two years of war, Ukrainians have supported their army financially. Despite the tough economic situation in the country, the level of donations remains high, and volunteers find new ways to raise funds. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Kyiv. Video: Evgenii Shynkar
…

…

New York — Dragons took a starring role at the Lunar New Year parade in Manhattan’s historic Chinatown on Sunday — it’s the Year of the Dragon, after all — as hundreds of revelers filled the cold clear air with the sound of drums, cymbals and puffs of confetti.

Lions and red lanterns were interspersed with around a dozen groups displaying traditional dragon puppets, which stretched up to 20 meters (65 feet) long, in interconnected segments held by up to 11 people walking beneath.

Two people also held up a giant golden picture frame with the Chinese character for “Dragon” on a red background.

Other staples of the parade included waves of red lanterns, a file of classic cars, as well as formations by local civic organizations, businesses, New York City agencies, and politicians. Many marchers yelled “Happy New Year” in English, mixing in traditional greetings in Mandarin and Cantonese wishing financial prosperity.

Asian communities across the world started ringing in the Lunar New Year on Feb 10, celebrating the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac. Fireworks, parades and other Lunar New Year rituals are centered around removing bad luck and welcoming prosperity.

In New York, there have already been major celebrations in larger Chinese immigrant enclaves in Queens and Brooklyn. While the symbolic new lunar cycle ended earlier this week with the full moon, Manhattan’s parade was scheduled for the weekend.
…

…