ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — To be a parent in the Ukrainian front-line city of Zaporizhzhia means weighing your child’s life against the Russian weapons within striking distance.

Most rain death in an instant: the drones, the ballistic missiles, the glide bombs, the artillery shells. But Russian soldiers control another weapon they have never deployed, with the potential to be just as deadly: The nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The NPP, as it’s known, once produced more electricity than any other nuclear power plant in Europe. It fell to Russian forces in the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, and Russia has held its six reactors ever since. The plant has come under repeated attacks that both sides blame on the other.

These twin dangers — bombs and radiation — shadow families in Zaporizhzhia. Most of the youngest residents of the city have never seen the inside of a classroom. Schools that had suspended in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic more than four years ago continued online classes after the war started in February 2022.

So with missiles and bombs still striking daily, Zaporizhzhia is going on a building binge for its future, creating an underground school system.

Construction has begun on a dozen subterranean schools designed to be radiation- and bomb-proof and capable of educating 12,000 students. Then, officials say, they will start on the hospital system.

The daily bombs are a more tangible fear than radiation, said Kateryna Ryzhko, a mother whose children are the third generation in her family to attend School No. 88. The main building, dating to the Soviet era of the children’s grandmother, is immaculate but the classrooms are empty. The underground version is nearly complete, and Ryzhko said she wouldn’t hesitate to send her kids to class there. Nearly four years of online learning have taken their toll on kids and parents alike.

“Even classmates don’t recognize each other,” she said. “It’s the only safe way to have an education and not be on screens.”

Nuclear shadow

Within days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zaporizhzhia’s 300,000 residents found themselves on the front lines. Unlike larger Ukrainian cities, like Kyiv or Kharkiv, there is no subway system that could do double-duty as a bomb shelter and few schools had basements where students could more safely attend classes.

Many residents left — though some have returned. But the single-family homes and Soviet-style apartment blocks of Zaporizhzhia, the capital of the region that shares its name, filled nearly as quickly with Ukrainians fleeing areas seized by Russian forces, like the cities of Mariupol, Melitopol and Berdyansk.

By the start of the school year in September 2022, which was supposed to mark the post-pandemic return to classrooms, schools were empty. Windows were boarded up to protect against bomb shockwaves, the lawns left unkempt. Fifty kilometers away, the nuclear reactor went into cold shutdown after intense negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Russian government.

The IAEA has rotated a handful of staff on site ever since. There are risks even in cold shutdown, when the reactor is operating but not generating power. The main danger is that its external electrical supply, which comes from Ukrainian-controlled territory under constant Russian bombardment, will be cut off for a longer period than generators can handle.

The nuclear plant needs electricity to keep crucial backups functioning, including water pumps that prevent meltdowns, radiation monitors and other essential safety systems.

During a recent Associated Press trip to the Ukrainian-controlled zone closest to the nuclear plant, two airborne bombs struck electrical infrastructure in a matter of minutes as night fell. Russia has repeatedly struck at Ukraine’s grid, attacks that have intensified this year. Highlighting the constant danger, electricity to the NPP was cut yet again for three days as emergency workers struggled to put out the fire. It was at least the seventh time this year that the plant was down to either a single electrical line or generator power, according to the global Nuclear Energy Agency.

“Nuclear power plants are not meant to be disconnected from the grid. It’s not designed for that. It’s also not designed to be operating in cold shutdown for that long,” said Darya Dolzikova, a researcher on nuclear policy at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accuses Russia of targeting nuclear plants deliberately. The 1986 meltdown in Ukraine’s Chornobyl, on the northern border nearly 900 kilometers from Zaporizhzhia, increased the country’s rates of thyroid disease among Ukrainian children far from the accident site and radiation contaminated the immediate surroundings before drifting over much of the Northern Hemisphere. To this day, the area around the plant, known in Russian as Chernobyl, is an “exclusion zone” off-limits except to the technical staff needed to keep the decommissioned site safe.

Russian forces seized control of Chornobyl in the first days of the invasion, only to be driven back by Ukrainian forces.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has a safer, more modern design than Chornobyl and there’s not the same danger of a large-scale meltdown, experts say. But that doesn’t reduce the risk to zero, and Russia will remain a threatening neighbor even after the war ends.

An investment that might seem extreme elsewhere is more understandable in Ukraine, said Sam Lair, a researcher at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“They are there under a conventional air and missile attack from the Russians, and they have experience with the fact that those attacks aren’t being targeted only at military targets,” Lair said. “If I were in their position, I would be building them too.”

In addition, the Zaporizhzhia region received a European Union donation of 5.5 million iodine pills, which help block the thyroid’s absorption of some radiation.

Since the start of the war, Russia has repeatedly alluded to its nuclear weapons stockpile without leveling direct threats. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would consider any attack by a country supported by a nuclear-armed nation to be a joint attack and stressed that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons to any attack that posed a “critical threat to our sovereignty.”

Ukrainian officials fear that the Russian attacks on Chornobyl and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plants may be just a start. During his speech in late September to the U.N. General Assembly, Zelenskyy warned that Russia was preparing strikes on more nuclear plants, which generate a large portion of Ukraine’s electricity.

“If, God forbid, Russia causes a nuclear disaster at one of our nuclear power plants, radiation won’t respect state borders,” Zelenskyy said.

Underground for the future

The cost to build a subterranean school system is enormous — the budget for the underground version of Gymnasium No. 71 alone stands at more than 112 million hryvnias ($2.7 million). International donors are covering most of it, and the national and local governments have made it a priority on par with funding the army.

“Everybody understands that fortification and aid for the army, it’s priority No. 1,” said Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhzhia region. “But if we lose the new generation of our Ukrainians, for whom (do) we fight?”

Daria Oncheva, a 15-year-old student at Gymnasium 71, looks forward to the underground classes, and not just because she’ll finally be in the same place as her schoolmates.

“It’s safer than sitting at home remotely,” she said.

School No. 88, across town, is further along, with rooms carved out and fully lined with concrete thick enough to block an initial onslaught of radiation. The contractor leading the project is also digging trenches for Ukraine’s military. When done, it will also be the primary bomb shelter for the neighborhood, whose single-family homes tend to have small orchards and trellised gardens — but no basements.

An optimistic timeline has the school ready for children by December. It has three layers of rebar totaling 400 tons of metal, plus 3,100 cubic meters of reinforced concrete. The building will be topped by nearly a meter of earth, concealed by a soccer field and playground.

The school will have an air filtration system, two distinct electrical lines and the ability to operate autonomously for three days, including with extra food and water supplies.

Michael Dillon, a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who studies how people can survive nuclear fallout, said being underground improves survival by a factor of 10.

But Alicia Sanders-Zakre at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said ultimately people can do more — “which is eliminating these weapons instead of … building, really not even a Band-Aid, for the actual problem.” 
…

CHISINAU, Moldova — Moldovans are casting votes in a decisive presidential runoff Sunday that pits pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu against a Russia-friendly opponent, as ongoing claims of voter fraud and intimidation threaten democracy in the European Union candidate country.

In the first round held October 20, Sandu obtained 42% of the ballot but failed to win an outright majority. She will face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general, who outperformed polls in the first round with almost 26% of the vote.

Polling stations opened Sunday at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and will close at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT).

A poll released by research company iData indicates a tight race that leans toward a narrow Sandu victory, an outcome that might rely on Moldova’s large diaspora. The presidential role carries significant powers in areas such as foreign policy and national security and has a four-year term.

Moldova’s diaspora played a key role in a nationwide referendum also held on October 20, when a narrow majority of 50.35% voted to secure Moldova’s path toward EU membership. But the results of the ballots including Sunday’s vote have been overshadowed by allegations of a major vote-buying scheme and voter intimidation.

Instead of winning the overwhelming support that Sandu had hoped, the results in both races exposed Moldova’s judiciary as unable to adequately protect the democratic process.

On Friday, Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Recean said that people throughout the country were receiving “anonymous death threats via phone calls” in what he called “an extreme attack” to scare voters in the former Soviet republic, which has a population of about 2.5 million people.

“These acts of intimidation have only one purpose: to create panic and fear,” Recean said in a statement posted on social media. “I assure you that state institutions will ensure order and protect citizens.”

Outside a polling station on Sunday in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, 20-year-old medical student Silviana Zestrea said the runoff would be a “definitive step” toward Moldova’s future.

“People need to understand that we have to choose a true candidate that will fulfill our expectations,” she said. “Because I think even if we are a diaspora now, none of us actually wanted to leave.”

In the wake of the two October votes, Moldovan law enforcement said that a vote-buying scheme was orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled oligarch who lives in Russia and was convicted in absentia last year of fraud and money laundering. Shor denies any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors say $39 million was paid to more than 130,000 recipients through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank to voters between September and October. Anticorruption authorities have conducted hundreds of searches and seized over $2.7 million (2.5 million euros) in cash as they attempt to crack down.

In one case in Gagauzia, an autonomous part of Moldova where only 5% voted in favor of the EU, a physician was detained after allegedly coercing 25 residents of a home for older adults to vote for a candidate they did not choose. Police said they obtained “conclusive evidence,” including financial transfers from the same Russian bank.

On Saturday at a church in Comrat, the capital of Gagauzia, Father Vasilii told the Associated Press that he’s urged people to go and vote because it’s a “civic obligation” and that they do not name any candidates. “We use the goods the country offers us — light, gas,” he said. “Whether we like what the government does or not, we must go and vote. … The church always prays for peace.”

On Thursday, prosecutors also raided a political party headquarters and said 12 people were suspected of paying voters to select a candidate in the presidential race. A criminal case was also opened in which 40 state agency employees were suspected of taking electoral bribes.

Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland University, told the AP that whatever the outcome of the second round, it “will not deflate” geopolitical tensions. “On the contrary, I expect geopolitical polarization to be amplified by the campaign for the 2025 legislative elections,” he said.

Moldovan law enforcement needs more resources and better-trained staff working at a faster pace to tackle voter fraud, he added, to “create an environment in which anyone tempted to either buy or sell votes knows there will be clear and fast consequences.”

Savlina Adasan, a 21-year-old economics student in Bucharest, says she voted for Sandu and cited concerns about corruption and voters uninformed about the two candidates.

“We want a European future for our country,” she said, adding that it offers “many opportunities, development for our country … and I feel like if the other candidate wins, then it means that we are going ten steps back as a country.”

A pro-Western government has been in power in Moldova since 2021, and a parliamentary election will be held in 2025. Moldova watchers warn that next year’s vote could be Moscow’s main target.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU. It was granted candidate status in June of that year, and in summer 2024, Brussels agreed to start membership negotiations. The sharp Westward shift irked Moscow and significantly soured relations with Chisinau.

Since then, Moldovan authorities have repeatedly accused Russia of waging a vast “hybrid war,” from sprawling disinformation campaigns to protests by pro-Russia parties to vote-buying schemes that undermine countrywide elections. Russia has denied it is meddling.  
…

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Nearly 200 families gathered Saturday along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border for heartfelt but brief reunions with loved ones they had not seen for years because they live in different countries. 

Tears flowed and people embraced as Mexican families were allowed to reunite for a few minutes at the border with relatives who migrated to the U.S. Adults and children passed over the Rio Grande to meet with their loved ones. 

This year, the annual “Hugs Not Walls” event organized by an immigrant rights advocacy group happened three days before the U.S. presidential election, whose monthslong campaigns have focused heavily on immigration and border security. It also took place under decreased security, according to the Network in Defense of the Rights of Migrants. 

“We did not have barbed wire, we did not have so many soldiers deployed in our community,” said Fernando Garcia, the organization’s director, highlighting the border security changes that the border has seen since the reunions began last decade. “The barbed wire had to be opened so that the families could have this event.” 

Garcia said he expects migration into the U.S. to continue regardless of who wins Tuesday’s election. Family reunions, he said, will continue, too. 

“Deportation policy, border policy, immigration policy, is separating families in an extraordinary way and is deeply impacting these families,” he said.
…

Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

By immigrants, for immigrants: ‘Documented’ covers immigration through a personal lens

In New York City, a media outlet run by immigrants for immigrants uses messaging apps to engage with communities on elections, crime and local issues. Liam Scott and Cristina Caicedo Smit have the story, narrated by Caicedo Smit. Tina Trinh contributed.

Naturalized citizens to play a bigger role in 2024 election

Naturalized immigrants will make up 10% of Americans eligible to vote in 2024. What impact might they have on the election?

US border arrests remained lower in October amid Biden asylum restrictions

U.S. border authorities apprehended about 54,000 migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in October, according to preliminary figures obtained by Reuters. They show a marginal rise from September but continue the broader downward trend since June when new restrictions were imposed under President Joe Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, has called for even tougher border restrictions in the face of criticism by Republican candidate Donald Trump over illegal immigration. Reuters reports.

Migrant families separated under Trump still feel fallout, fear his return

With the United States on the verge of an election that could put former President Donald Trump back in office, Billy wants people to know that what happened to him and several thousand other children still reverberates. Some families have not been reunited, and many of those together in the U.S. have temporary status and fear a victorious Trump carrying out promised mass deportations. The Associated Press reports.

Immigration around the world

VOA60 World – At least 10 dead after Israeli airstrike on a street in Gaza’s Nuseirat Refugee Camp

An Israeli strike on a street in central Gaza’s Nuseirat Refugee Camp killed at least 10 people, including children, and injured 20 others, according to Palestinian health officials and Associated Press journalists.

Myanmar opposition: Dialogue impossible, China must rethink junta support

Malaysia, hosting about 200,000 Myanmar refugees, has a direct stake in resolving the crisis. Produced by Nyein Chan Aye. 

Canada-India tensions could escalate cyberthreats, hinder immigration

Canada’s deepening dispute with India over its alleged campaign of violence against Sikhs in Canada could intensify Indian-based cyber espionage and hold back immigration, but analysts and experts see no immediate impact on trade. Concern about a widening rift between the two countries comes after a senior Canadian official told a parliamentary national security committee Tuesday that Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was the mastermind behind the alleged plots. Reported by Reuters.

Sudan displacement crisis worsens as fighting, hunger, sexual violence escalates

The International Organization for Migration warned Tuesday that Sudan’s displacement crisis is worsening as increasing numbers of people flee fighting, hunger and sexual violence, thereby threatening “regional instability.” “The scale of this displacement and the corresponding humanitarian needs grows every day,” Amy Pope, IOM director general, told journalists in Geneva on a video link from Port Sudan. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

Uganda struggles to feed 1.7 million refugees as international support dwindles

Uganda is home to more than 1.7 million refugees, the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Despite being renowned for welcoming those fleeing neighboring violence, Ugandan officials and humanitarians say dwindling international support coupled with high numbers of refugees have put much pressure on host communities. Reported by The Associated Press.

Russian army deserters hope French asylum decision will encourage others to flee

Thousands of Russians, including soldiers, have sought asylum in the West since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — though only a small fraction of their applications have been approved. This month, however, France allowed several Russian army deserters to enter the country to seek refugee status. Henry Ridgwell reports.

News Brief

— An investigation led by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Newark resulted in the sentencing of a New Jersey woman for harboring two undocumented women from India and for failing to pay taxes on their wages.
…

MOSCOW — Kyiv called on Moscow on Sunday to provide a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war ready for a swap after Russia accused Ukraine of sabotaging the exchange process. 

In requesting the list of Ukrainians from his Russian counterpart, Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets wrote on his Telegram messaging channel: “We are always ready to exchange prisoners of war!”  

Kyiv and Moscow have frequently exchanged prisoners since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbor in 2022. The last swap took place in mid-October with each side bringing home 95 prisoners.  

On Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine was essentially sabotaging the process and has refused to take back its own citizens.  

Zakharova said Russia’s defense ministry had offered to hand over 935 Ukrainian prisoners of war, but that Ukraine had taken only 279.  

Lubinets, in turn, said that Ukraine was always ready to accept its citizens and accused Russia of slowing the exchange process.  

Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova said on Saturday that Ukraine has politicized the issue.  

“We consider it necessary to return to a constructive dialog and speed up the exchange of prisoners,” Moskalkova wrote on Telegram.  
…

The good news: You will get a glorious extra hour of sleep. The bad: It’ll be dark by late afternoon for the next few months in the United States.

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time Sunday, which means you should set your clock back an hour before you go to bed. Standard time will last until March 9, when we will again “spring forward” with the return of daylight saving time. 

“Fall back” should be easier. But it still may take a while to adjust your sleep habits, not to mention the downsides of leaving work in the dark or trying to exercise while there’s still enough light. Some people with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression usually linked to the shorter days and less sunlight of fall and winter, may struggle, too. 

Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said it’s time to do away with time switches and that sticking with standard time aligns better with the sun — and human biology. 

Two states — Arizona and Hawaii — don’t change and stay on standard time. 

Here’s what to know about the twice-yearly ritual. 

How the body reacts to light 

The brain has a master clock that is set by exposure to sunlight and darkness. This circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle that determines when we become sleepy and when we’re more alert. The patterns change with age, one reason that early-to-rise youngsters evolve into hard-to-wake teens. 

Morning light resets the rhythm. By evening, levels of a hormone called melatonin begin to surge, triggering drowsiness. Too much light in the evening — that extra hour from daylight saving time — delays that surge and the cycle gets out of sync. 

How do time changes affect sleep? 

Even an hour change on the clock can throw off sleep schedules — because even though the clocks change, work and school start times stay the same. 

That’s a problem because so many people are already sleep deprived. About 1 in 3 U.S. adults sleep less than the recommended seven-plus hours nightly, and more than half of U.S. teens don’t get the recommended eight-plus hours on weeknights. 

How to prepare for the time change 

Some people try to prepare for a time change jolt by changing their bedtimes little by little in the days before the change. There are ways to ease the adjustment, including getting more sunshine to help reset your circadian rhythm for healthful sleep. 
…

washington — Mariana Katzarova, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, reported Tuesday on the human rights situation in Russia at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, describing torture as Moscow’s main tool of repression. In an interview with VOA, Katzarova detailed how the Russian government has turned brutality into the new norm and how Russians are persecuted for their anti-war views.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: You came to Washington with a new report about torture in Russia. The torture system is not something new. Did it get worse during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine?

U.N. Special Rapporteur on Russia Mariana Katzarova: The main message of this report was about the state-sanctioned system of torture being a tool used in a widespread and systematic manner by the authorities for oppression and control of Russian society.

Yes, it did get worse. First of all, because it’s a tool in the war against Ukraine. For example, we don’t even know how many. Still, thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been detained in the occupied territories of Ukraine by the Russian forces and then deported to Russia proper in Russian prisons. They’re kept incommunicado. They have been tortured, including with electric shocks, with sexual violence, rape against them. Many of them haven’t even been charged with any criminal offenses; they’re just kept there kidnapped. I’ve seen pictures of some of them who have been tried in Rostov-on-Don in military courts. I mean, they look like [they’re] coming from concentration camps.

Also, after the terrorist attack in March in Moscow, it was kind of, you know, a new page was turned where the authorities almost legitimized torture, normalized it, almost encouraged it to be happening because they allowed it on the national television to show torture of the suspects, Tajik migrants. As it happened, the suspects in the Crocus [City Hall] attack, terrorist attack, [were subjected to beatings and torture] including the electric shock to the genitals of one of the suspects or [the] cutting of the ear. There was another transmission on television. These people were [nearly] dead and were brought in front of a judge, and the judge completely pretended that nothing was happening.

VOA: Are you expecting any reaction from Russian officials regarding that report?

Katzarova: I, of course, as a special rapporteur of the U.N. system, I hope that the Russian Federation will pay attention because governments around the world are in charge of protecting the rights of their citizens. If the Russian authorities are not interested in the protection of the human rights of their own people, this is shocking. I mean, that’s why I’m hoping that they’re not going to turn a blind eye, particularly when we’re talking about torture, which is entirely outlawed by international law under all circumstances.

VOA: You said you would like to have some constructive dialogue with the Russian officials. Is that possible?

Katzarova: All special rapporteurs of the U.N. are independent experts the governments appoint, members of the U.N., to advise and present the truth about the human rights situation in these countries. Of course, in normal circumstances, I should have had a constructive dialogue with the Russian authorities.

So far, it’s been one way. It’s a monologue. I’m presenting my report. They’re reading it, but they’re not answering. All I can say is that I am planning to send them my new letters. I do it every year after my mandate is voted on by the governments of the Human Rights Council.

They’re not allowing me to visit Russia to meet with all the Russian people, victims of human rights violations, lawyers, the government authorities, the ombudsperson for human rights. This is what we should be doing as special rapporteurs.

VOA: What kind of role can the U.N. play in helping the victims?

Katzarova: First of all, this report is shedding light on the continuing almost full, complete impunity for torturing ill-treatment. Various people of various targeted groups, starting with [the ones] I just mentioned, the Ukrainian detained civilians and POWs, but also from the Russian society. These are the LGBT persons who are pronounced as extremist organizations by the Supreme Court of Russia.

These are the mobilized conscientious objectors and the mobilized men who refuse to fight and who are tortured as well, subjected to torture, to … convince them to continue fighting or join the war against Ukraine.

And, of course, now another targeted group where the political prisoners, they’re being subjected to torture as conditions of detention. They’re also a target for the authorities, of course, to begin with. Alexey Navalny spent something like 394 and 96 days in SHIZO, which is a special punishment cell.

Also, anti-war activists have been subjected in administrative detention to something called Carrousel. They’re kept for two weeks, then another two weeks until criminal cases are fabricated against them. And we know of deaths in custody of such activists under torture.

VOA: If some Russian officials, let’s say, Sergey Lavrov, would listen to us right now, what would you say?

Katzarova: I would say, “Dear Mr. Lavrov, Your Excellency, please respect your own laws and most importantly, the international law and the rules of the United Nations. All the conventions that you have signed and ratified. And please respect the human rights of the Russian people. They’re your people, and they deserve better than languishing in prisons. They deserve better than being herded, and then sent to fight in the war, which is not their war. So, please respect human rights and show the United Nations that you deserve to be a member of the Security Council and a beacon, a country to show the way for other countries that need to follow in your steps because you’re one of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

And please stop the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian people and the Russian people suffered enough because of this aggressive war.

What else can we do apart from shed light? Speak up, not be afraid, and wait for our messages and the truth to be heard. As we say in Bulgaria and other countries, the darkest time is before sunrise.
…

North Carolina is one of seven so-called swing states that could determine the next U.S. president. Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and their surrogates have spent a lot of time campaigning in this southern state. Black Americans make up 22% of the population, and those voters could decide who gets North Carolina’s 16 Electoral College votes. Rafael Saakov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Aleksandr Bergan
…

ATHENS, GREECE — Greek anti-terror investigators have arrested a man in connection with a deadly explosion in Athens, police said Saturday, warning of “a new generation of terrorists” at work.

Thursday’s blast in an apartment in the capital, which killed a man and seriously injured a woman, is suspected to have been caused by the accidental detonation of a homemade bomb.

Police sources told AFP they had identified the dead man from his dismembered remains as a 36-year-old from the port city of Piraeus who had been previously arrested in Germany.

His fingerprints were in the international database of Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, the sources said.

Investigators have also opened a case for alleged participation in a terrorist organization and committing terrorist acts against the injured woman, 33, who was hospitalized under police supervision, and a 30-year-old woman who remains at large.

In their statement, police said Saturday that the arrested man was detained after turning himself in Friday.

He is believed to have a connection with one of the two women wanted in the case but has denied having anything to do with the explosion, police said.

Police said that a search of the apartment produced two handguns, wigs and face masks among other materials.

Greek police sources told AFP that investigations were ongoing and that the deceased and those charged were probably members of “a new generation of terrorists.”

The country has a decades-old history of far-left extremism involving small urban groups.

The shadow November 17 group, named after an anti-junta student uprising, was behind the 1975 killing of the CIA’s Athens station Chief Richard Welch and claimed responsibility for assassinating 23 people in scores of attacks on U.S., British, Turkish and Greek targets between the 1970s and 1990s.

In the past decade, scores of arson and bomb attacks in Greece have hit financial, diplomatic and political targets, with police blaming radical anarchists.
…

MOSCOW — A court in Russia’s far east said on Friday it had convicted Robert Shonov, a former U.S. consular employee, of illegally and covertly cooperating with the U.S. government to harm Russia’s national security and had jailed him for nearly five years.

Russia’s FSB security service detained Shonov, a Russian national, in Vladivostok in May 2023 and accused him of taking money to covertly supply U.S. diplomats with information that was potentially harmful to Russia.

The United States on Saturday condemned the conviction, calling it “an egregious injustice.”

“The allegations against Mr. Shonov are entirely fictitious and without merit,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

A court in the Primorsky region in Russia’s far east confirmed in a statement on Friday that it had found Shonov guilty and had sentenced him to four years and 10 months in a penal colony.

Video of the verdict being read, released by the court, showed Shonov listening inside a courtroom cage as the judge sentenced him.

The FSB published a video in August 2023 showing a purported confession by Shonov in which he said two senior U.S. diplomats based in Moscow whom Russia later expelled had asked him to collect information about Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, its annexation of “new territories,” its military mobilization and the 2024 Russian presidential election.

In the video, Shonov said he was told to gather “negative” information on these topics, to look for signs of popular protest, and to reflect these in his reports.

It was not clear whether he was speaking under duress.

Shonov was employed by the U.S. Consulate General in Vladivostok for more than 25 years until Russia in 2021 ordered the dismissal of the U.S. mission’s local staff.
…

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwan is expected to receive several weapons that have been battle tested in Ukraine from the United States over the next few years. Analysts say those weapons can help bolster Taiwan’s defense and strike capabilities amid growing military pressure from China.

In the latest round of arms sales to Taiwan, worth about $2 billion, the United States plans to deliver three medium-range National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, also known as NASAMS. The weapons include advanced AMRAAM Extended Range surface-to-air missiles.

The proposed sales will help improve Taiwan’s security and “assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region,” the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement released October 26.

NASAMS has been battle-tested in Ukraine and is viewed by experts as a significant elevation of Taiwan’s air defense capabilities. Australia and Indonesia are the other countries in the Indo-Pacific region that have received the system from the U.S.

Experts say that NASAMS has a high interoperation capability, and that the medium-range air defense system provides needed coverage in Taiwan’s existing air defense capabilities.

“Currently, Taiwan relies on Stinger missiles for short-range air defense while using the Patriot missile system or Taiwan’s indigenous Tien Kung for long-range air defense, so NASAMS can help fill the gap of Taiwan’s medium-range air defense,” said Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research.

He told VOA by phone that when NASAMS is incorporated into Taiwan’s air defense system, it can improve the island’s capabilities to deal with the increasingly frequent patrols the Chinese military is conducting around Taiwan.

“As Chinese naval vessels and military aircraft increase the frequency of their combat-readiness patrols near Taiwan, the risk of abrupt missile attacks launched by Chinese vessels is also increasing, so acquiring NASAMS can further enhance Taiwan’s capabilities to deal with these potential threats,” Su said.

In addition to the surface-to-air missile system, Taiwan’s National Defense Ministry said the island is expected to receive 29 sets of the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, from the United States between the end of 2024 and 2026.

The rocket system has been credited with helping Ukraine destroy Russian weapons or equipment in the ongoing conflict. Apart from receiving HIMARS from Washington, at least 17 Taiwanese soldiers were trained to use the rocket system at a military base in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, this past August.

After a post on the military base’s official Facebook page showed Taiwanese soldiers participating in HIMARS training with counterparts from Romania and Estonia, which has since been removed, Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo said Friday that Taiwan had planned to send at least 30 soldiers to receive HIMARS training in the U.S. between February and October this year.

Since Ukraine has used HIMARS to strike Russian military bases and weaken the Russian military’s momentum, some Taiwanese experts say the systems potentially can be used to target Chinese military facilities in coastal areas.

“The Taiwanese military can use HIMARS to hit some Chinese military facilities along the southeastern coast or target invading troops in different parts of Taiwan,” said Chieh Chung, a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight in Taiwan.

Overall, Chieh told VOA by phone, the acquisition of NASAMS and HIMARS can enhance Taiwan’s capabilities in conducting network-centric warfare and deter China from easily launching an attack against Taiwan.

Other analysts say the series of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan reflects Washington’s commitment to supporting Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, but China will interpret the latest developments as a provocation from Taiwan and the U.S.

“Beijing will interpret this as changing the status quo [across the Taiwan Strait] nevertheless,” Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University in Japan, told VOA in a written response.

China views Taiwan as part of its territory and repeatedly has vowed to reunify with the island, by force, if necessary. In response to the latest U.S. arms sales to Taiwan last week, Beijing condemned it and urged Washington to stop what it called dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

China showcases its naval capability

The arms sales and training come as China’s two aircraft carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, conducted a dual formation exercise for the first time in the disputed South China Sea from late September to October.

Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping told the state-run China Daily newspaper that the exercise will allow the two Chinese aircraft carriers to “integrate and magnify the power” and “enable the fleet to better organize strikes and handle threats from air and sea.”

Chieh in Taiwan said China is showing the U.S. it could assert maritime claims in disputed waters in the Indo-Pacific region at a time when U.S. aircraft carriers are deployed to the Middle East.

“Since the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has forced the U.S. to deploy its aircraft carrier groups to the region, China is trying to remind Washington that it can impose control over certain parts of the Indo-Pacific region amid an American absence,” he said.

Nagy in Japan said that while China can demonstrate its capability to operate aerial and naval assets near areas of potential conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region — such as the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait — such a formation also exposes the Chinese aircraft carriers as obvious targets for more experienced fighting forces.

“Losing one or two of China’s few aircraft carriers would have a very serious reputational cost for the Chinese Communist Party, and the U.S. and its partners understand this, so they are preparing for their scenarios,” he said.
…

Georgia appeared to be on track to elect former U.S. President Donald Trump earlier in the 2024 presidential campaign when President Joe Biden was still in the race. But Vice President Kamala Harris has put the state back into play for Democrats.
…

VALENCIA, SPAIN — Rescuers resumed a grim search for bodies on Saturday as Spain scrambled to organize aid to stricken citizens following devastating floods that killed more than 200 people.

Hopes of finding survivors more than three days after torrents of mud-filled water submerged towns and wrecked infrastructure were slim in the European country’s deadliest such disaster in decades.

Almost all deaths have been recorded in the eastern Valencia region, where thousands of soldiers, police officers and civil guards were frantically clearing debris and mud in the search for bodies.

Officials have said that dozens of people remain unaccounted for, but establishing a precise figure is difficult with telephone and transport networks severely damaged.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Friday told Cadena Ser radio station that 207 people had died and that it was “reasonable” to believe more fatalities would emerge.

It is also hoped that the estimated number of missing people will fall once telephone and internet services are running again.

Restoring order and distributing aid to destroyed towns and villages — some of which have been cut off from food, water and power for days — is a priority.

Authorities have come under fire over the adequacy of warning systems before the floods, and some residents have also complained that the response to the disaster is too slow.

Susana Camarero, deputy head of the Valencia region, told journalists on Saturday that essential supplies had been delivered “from day one” to all accessible settlements.

But it was “logical” that affected residents were asking for more, she said.

Authorities in Valencia have restricted access to roads for two days to allow emergency services to carry out search, rescue and logistics operations more effectively.

‘Overwhelmed’ by solidarity

Thousands of people pushing shopping trolleys and carrying cleaning equipment took to the streets on Friday to help with the effort to clean up.

Camarero said some municipalities were “overwhelmed by the amount of solidarity and food” they had received.

The surge of solidarity continued Saturday as around 1,000 people set off from the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia toward nearby towns laid waste by the floods, an AFP journalist saw.

Authorities have urged them to stay at home to avoid congestion on the roads that would hamper the work of emergency services.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a meeting of a crisis committee made up of top cabinet members on Saturday and is due to address the country later.

The storm that sparked the floods on Tuesday formed as cold air moved over the warm waters of the Mediterranean and is common for this time of year.

But scientists warn that climate change driven by human activity is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of such extreme weather events.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed an overnight drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv that lasted into late morning and wounded at least one person, city officials said on Saturday.

Debris from downed drones struck six city districts, wounding a police officer, damaging residential buildings and starting fires, according to city military administrator Serhiy Popko.

Mayor Vitalii Klitschko had earlier reported that two people had been injured.

“Another night. Another air-raid alert. Another drone attack. The armed forces of the Russian Federation attacked Kyiv again according to their old and familiar tactics,” Popko wrote on social media.

He said all the drones aimed at Kyiv had been shot down, but warned that others currently located in airspace outside the city could turn toward the capital.

Reuters correspondents reported hearing explosions in and around the city during an air-raid alert that lasted more than five hours.

Russia has carried out regular airstrikes on Ukrainian towns and cities behind the front lines of the war which began when Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.

Kyiv’s military said on Friday that Moscow’s forces had launched more than 2,000 drones at civilian and military targets across Ukraine in October alone.

Russia has denied aiming at civilians and said power facilities are legitimate targets when they are part of Ukrainian military infrastructure.
…

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — During the six decades since United Record Pressing stamped out the Beatles’ first U.S. single, the country’s oldest vinyl record maker has survived 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, Napster, iPods and streaming services. Now, the Nashville-based company has rebounded so dramatically that some of its equipment and technology has been retrofitted to keep pace with an ever-growing demand for old-school vinyl.

The 75-year-old company has adjusted its business from filling jukeboxes to helping DJs spin and stocking shelves despite a pandemic. On shelves in its warehouse are master versions by Johnny Cash, Kanye West and The Black Crowes.

When Mark Michaels bought the company in 2007, vinyl was fading — its 38 employees mostly made singles for rap artists, often promos for clubs. Michaels wanted a hands-on chance to build a business and thought he could keep this one steady, but not grow it substantially. It also came with a rich history as the first record pressing plant in the South, including an apartment atop the factory that housed Black artists and music executives during segregation.

“You walked into this building and you just felt 50, 60 years of history and just the importance of what it stood for,” said Michaels, the company’s CEO and chair. “And yeah, you you get choked up, you get gooseflesh just experiencing that.”

Today, United Record Pressing runs a newer factory six times bigger than what Michaels bought, with about 125 employees who make up to 80,000 records a day.

A variety of factors have boosted vinyl in recent years, from independent artists insisting on vinyl albums to big box retailers getting on board again.

In 2023, U.S. revenues from vinyl records grew 10% to $1.4 billion, the 17th-straight year of growth, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Records accounted for 71% of revenues from non-digital music formats, and for the second time since 1987, vinyl outpaced CDs in total sold.

United Record Pressing underwent its own evolution. The initial pressing plant was formed in 1949 by Nashville label Bullet Records. In the 1950s, it changed to Southern Plastics Inc. and focused on 7-inch singles preferred by jukebox makers.

In the early 1960s, the company was pressing more than 1 million records per month. It signed a deal to produce singles for Motown Records and moved to a bigger facility that included the apartment that hosted The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and others — and which became known as the “Motown Suite.” In 1963, it pressed the Beatles’ first U.S. single, “Please Please Me.” Then in the 1970s, a restructuring turned the company into United Record Pressing.

During the 1980s, records dwindled to a niche market. DJs still needed records for their turntables. Rap and hip-hop artists used them for “scratching.” But CDs had overtaken them.

By the late 2000s, indie artists were insisting on releasing vinyl records. By 2015, records were broadly embraced again, but there were few manufacturers, and they were relying on presses from the 1960s and 1970s and a limited number of specialists who could operate them, Michaels said. Demand increased again during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s art,” Michaels said of vinyl records. “Artists and fans, they want something tactile to hold on to and engage with. It’s easy to stream music, and streaming music is a wonderful way to discover new music. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s kind of sonic wallpaper.”

Today, the factory mixes old and new.

There’s plenty of wood paneling on the throwback audio equipment used to test master versions of records before they are used to press copies. And the factory floor has its share of retrofitted pressing equipment that looks and sounds like it’s been around since the last time vinyl ruled the market.

Technology is improving the process, too. Beyond the older presses are sleek, newly made machines that plop out records more quietly and efficiently. And there are huge sacks of colorful pebbles from discarded material that can be pressed again into new records.

The machines that stamp master copies use technology that had been in place to produce CDs and DVDs, now retooled for vinyl.

In a room farther back in the factory, the whizzing of machinery gives way to music.

That’s where Tyler Bryant might listen to 10 records in a shift as the company’s quality control lead. Talking over the rhythms of harmonica from a Cash album, Bryant said he discovers many artists and records that wouldn’t be on his list, ranging from Harry Styles to Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” to indie artists.

“A lot of variety, that’s what I appreciate,” Bryant said. “I don’t like being stuck to just one genre, you know?”

A few miles away, architects and a construction crew are at work to preserve the old 1962 plant and pave the way for its future. As for what that will look like, Michaels says stay tuned.

“My vision is not completely crystallized yet, but the mandate is, it’s some of the most important space in all of music,” Michaels said. “It needs to be celebrated. It needs to be something that people can engage with.”
…

BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA — South Carolina is preparing to put up its first individual statue for an African American on its Statehouse lawn, honoring a man who put on Confederate clothes in order to steal a slaveholder’s ship and sail his family and a dozen others to freedom during the Civil War.

But Robert Smalls isn’t just being honored for his audacious escape. He spent a decade in the U.S. House of Representatives, helped rewrite South Carolina’s constitution to allow Black men equality after the Civil War and then put up a valiant but doomed fight when racists returned to power and eliminated nearly all of the gains Smalls fought for.

U.S. Representative Jermaine Johnson can’t wait to bring his children to the Statehouse to finally see someone who is Black like them being honored.

“The man has done so many great things, it’s just a travesty he has not been honored until now. Heck, it’s also a travesty there isn’t some big Hollywood movie out there about his life,” said Johnson, a Democrat from a district just a few miles from the Statehouse.

The idea for a statue to Smalls has been percolating for years. But there was always quiet opposition preventing a bill from getting a hearing. That changed in 2024 as the proposal made it unanimously through the state House and Senate on the back of Republican Representative Brandon Cox of Goose Creek.

“South Carolina is a great state. We’ve got a lot of history, good and bad. This is our good history,” Cox said.

What will the Robert Smalls memorial look like?

The bill created a special committee that has until January 15 to come up with a design, a location on the Statehouse lawn and the money to pay for whatever memorial they choose.

But supporters face a challenging question: What best honors Smalls?

If it’s just one statue, is it best to honor the steel-nerved ship pilot who waited for all the white crew to leave, then mimicked hand signals and whistle toots to get through Confederate checkpoints, while hoping Confederate soldiers didn’t notice a Black man under the hat in the pale moonlight in May 1862?

Or would a more fitting tribute to Smalls be to recognize the statesman who served in the South Carolina House and Senate and the U.S. House after the Civil War? Smalls bought his master’s house in Beaufort in part with money made for turning the Confederate ship over to Union forces, then allowed the man’s penniless wife to live there when she was widowed.

Or is the elder Smalls who fought for education for all and to keep the gains African Americans made during the Civil War the man most worth publicly memorializing? Smalls would see a new constitution in 1895 wipe out African Americans’ right to vote. He was fired from his federal customs collector job in 1913 when then President Woodrow Wilson purged many Black men out of government jobs.

Or would it be best to combine them all in some way? That’s how Republican Representative Chip Campsen, an occasional ship pilot himself, sees honoring one of his favorite South Carolinians.

“The best way to sum up Robert Smalls’ life is it was a fight for freedom as a slave, as a pilot and as a statesman,” Campsen said.

Location, location, location

Then there is the matter of location. While South Carolina has a monument with multiple panels honoring the struggle of African Americans from their journey on slave ships through today, it doesn’t honor an individual Black man or woman among the two dozen monuments scattered around the Statehouse.

At least six different monuments honor people such as Dr. J. Marion Sims, who some consider the father of modern gynecology but who underpinned his research operating without anesthesia on enslaved women and girls. There are several honoring Confederates who fought to protect slavery in the state that started the Civil War and hangs a marble copy of the Articles of Secession in the lobby between its House and Senate chambers.

The dubious list includes “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, a governor and U.S. senator who bragged about how he led groups of whites who killed Black men trying to vote during the election of 1876 which led to the end of Reconstruction, the return of all-white rule and the collapse of everything for which Smalls had worked. None of that is on the plaque for Tillman’s statue.

Some supporters have suggested Smalls’ statue could stand nearby and be taller and more prominent than Tillman’s to give Smalls a triumph some 130 years in the making.

Once design and location are determined, organizers hope raising the money gets easier with a concept in mind.

“We have to get the narrative right,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey said. “This is going to tell a story. I think it is important that we tell that the right way to honor him and to honor South Carolina. I think it’s really cool.”

Robert Smalls’ monumental life

Robert Smalls was born in 1839 in Beaufort and died in 1915 in his hometown a free, but somewhat forgotten man who lived a life unimaginable to a woman holding her son born into slavery. Supporters now have a chance to make sure he never fades into obscurity.

“Robert Smalls writes a new future for this county that in the moment no one can see is happening,” said Chris Barr, the Chief of Interpretation for the Reconstruction Era National Historic Park in Beaufort as he stood beside a bust of Smalls near his grave in his hometown.

Driving a Confederate boat to freedom is what captures the most attention in that remarkable life, Barr said.

“If you’re an enslaved person working on one of these boats around the Charleston Harbor like Robert Smalls, you’ve got the tools, you’ve got the talent, you’ve got the boat and you know how to drive it,” Barr said “And you can literally see freedom floating in the form of the United States Navy just a few miles offshore. All you need is an opportunity.”
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A 22-year-old Russian man considered a political prisoner by activists has died in a penal colony in Belarus, human rights group Viasna said Friday.

The rights group said it confirmed the death of Dmitry Shletgauer, who was recently transferred to a penal colony in Mogilev in eastern Belarus.

Viasna said Shletgauer had been at the penal colony for a short time before his death.

“Provisionally, this happened on October 11,” the rights group said. “He spent less than a month in the penal colony. The exact cause of death is unknown.”

Shletgauer received a 12-year sentence after being convicted of espionage and facilitating extremist activities.

He was arrested in the crackdown in Belarus that occurred after the disputed 2020 presidential election of Alexander Lukashenko that gave the strongman a sixth term.

In September, Shletgauer joined Viasna’s list of recognized political prisoners in Belarus.

Belarus, a close ally of Russia, is reported to have approximately 1,300 political prisoners, according to Viasna.

Radio Free Europe reports Shletgauer was born in Slavgorod, Russia, and acquired residency in Belarus in 2018.

Some information for this story came from Agence France-Presse.
…

washington — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is sending additional bomber aircraft and Navy warships to the Middle East to bolster the U.S. presence in the region as an aircraft carrier and its warships are preparing to leave, U.S. officials said Friday. 

Austin ordered several B-52 Stratofortress bomber aircraft, tanker aircraft and Navy destroyers to deploy to the Middle East, according to four U.S. and military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements. 

The military moves come as Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon rage, including a retaliatory strike on Iran a week ago that likely damaged a base that builds ballistic missiles and launches rockets as part of Tehran’s space program. 

The U.S. is pressing for cease-fires, while repeatedly saying it will defend Israel and continue to protect the American and allied presence in the region, including from Yemen-based Houthi attacks against ships in the Red Sea. 

The long-range nuclear-capable B-52 bomber has been repeatedly deployed to the Middle East in pointed warnings to Iran and it is the second time this month that strategic U.S. bombers will be used to bolster U.S. defenses in the region. 

In October, B-2 stealth bombers were used to strike underground Houthi targets in Yemen. 

Officials did not provide the number of aircraft and ships that will move into the region. The shifts are likely to result in an overall decrease in the total number of U.S. service members in the region, largely because an aircraft carrier contains as many as 5,000 sailors. 

But the addition of bomber aircraft beefs up U.S. combat strength. There have been as many as 43,000 U.S. forces in the region recently. 

According to a U.S. official, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and the three Navy destroyers in its strike group are scheduled to leave the Middle East by midmonth and return to their home port in San Diego. 

When it departs, there will be no aircraft carrier in the Middle East for a period of time, the official said. Officials declined to say how long that gap would last. 

Military commanders have long argued that the presence of an aircraft carrier strike group, with its array of fighter jets, surveillance aircraft and heavily armed warships, is a significant deterrent, including against Iran. 

To make up for that gap, Austin is ordering the deployment of other Navy destroyers to the region. Those destroyers, which are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles, would come either from the Indo-Pacific region or Europe, the official said. 

Eventually, it is expected that the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and its three warships will move to the Mediterranean Sea, but they won’t get there before the Lincoln departs. The Truman strike group has been in the North Sea, participating in a NATO military exercise. 

The Lincoln and two of its destroyers are now in the Gulf of Oman, and its third destroyer is with two other warships in the Red Sea. 

There are also two destroyers and the Marine amphibious ready group — which includes three ships — in the Mediterranean Sea. 
…

A New York prosecutor told jurors on Friday that the way veteran Daniel Penny defused an uncomfortable situation on the subway by using a chokehold “went way too far.”

Prosecutor Dafna Yoran said Penny, a white Marine veteran, continued to hold his arm around the neck of Jordan Neely, a homeless Black man who had been acting erratically, after Neely’s body went limp.

When the train stopped at a station, one rider told Penny, “If you don’t let him go now, you’re going to kill him,” Yoran told the jury in her opening statement Friday. Penny has been charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. He has pleaded not guilty, saying he was acting in self-defense.

“Deadly physical force is permitted only when it’s absolutely necessary and only for as long as it’s absolutely necessary,” Yoran said. Penny “went quite literally for the jugular,” she added.

The deadly encounter happened more than one year ago and received wide news coverage at the time, with some people casting Penny as a hero and others casting Neely as a victim of a vigilante.

Neely, whom Yoran said was homeless and suffering with mental illness, entered the subway train on May 1, 2023, threw his coat to the ground and told the riders he was hungry, thirsty and wanted to return to jail. His erratic behavior is something that New Yorkers can witness daily.

“His voice was loud and his words were threatening,” Yoran said, but Neely was also unarmed and did not physically threaten any of the riders.

Thirty seconds after Neely entered the train, the prosecutor said, Penny placed Neely in a chokehold. Yoran said Penny held Neely in the chokehold for about six minutes.

Video of the incident, Yoran said, would show “how unnecessary this deadly chokehold was.” There is cellphone video of the incident, recorded from the subway platform.

The prosecutor also said that Penny, who has first aid training, did not try to revive Neeley.

Penny later told police, “I put him out” and said that he was trying to “de-escalate” the scene on the subway.

According to The Associated Press, Neeley was a Michael Jackson impersonator who sometimes performed his act for subway riders. His mental illness and drug abuse, AP said, was likely triggered by his mother’s murder when he was a teenager.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

When the U.S. Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on three companies belonging to Denis Postovoy on Wednesday, it was yet another move to break up what U.S. authorities say was an international scheme to violate sanctions.

A month earlier, on September 16, law enforcement officials arrested the 44-year-old Russian national in Sarasota, Florida.

He was charged with conspiring to violate sanctions on Russia, commit smuggling, commit money laundering and defraud the United States.

According to the indictment, Postovoy used an international network of companies to export dual-use microelectronic components from the United States to Russia –– potentially spare parts for military drones used in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

Postovoy is not the first Russian charged with violating U.S. export controls. But he is one of the few who allegedly did it from inside the United States.

Using court documents and open-source information, VOA pieced together Postovoy’s history, revealing a story involving international trade, criminal charges in two countries, a U.S. startup and Florida real estate.

Postovoy pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted, he could face decades in prison.

Postovoy is in pretrial detention and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer did not respond to a VOA request for comment. When VOA reached Postovoy’s wife by phone, she hung up. She did not respond to questions sent to her on the WhatsApp messenger app.

According to the latest court filings, Postovoy’s case was transferred to the U.S. District Court in Washington.

American charges

After Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the U.S. significantly expanded restrictions on the export of microelectronics to Russia.

The Department of Justice has accused Postovoy and several unnamed co-conspirators of using a network of companies under their control in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Russia to violate those sanctions.

It claims Postovoy misrepresented the buyers and destinations of the goods, routing them through Hong Kong, Switzerland, Turkey and Estonia.

“As alleged, he lied about the final destination for the technology he was shipping and used intermediary destinations to mask this illegal activity,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves stated in a press release. “Fortunately, our skilled law enforcement partners at HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] and our dedicated attorneys unraveled the plot.”

The prosecution states that Postovoy’s clients included the Russian company Streloi Ekommerts and other unnamed firms. According to the indictment, the contract with Streloi was completed before the company was added to the U.S. sanctions list in December 2023.

An investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty found that Streloi actively helps Russia circumvent Western export restrictions.

Another recipient of the microelectronics, according to an invoice included in the case materials, was the Russian technology company Radius Avtomatika.

Neither company responded to emailed questions from VOA.

It is unclear whether the microelectronics Postovoy allegedly exported were ultimately used in drones, but one court document states that the people he contacted were members of Russia’s military-industrial complex.

Hong Kong story

Originally from Novosibirsk, Russia, Postovoy had lived in Hong Kong since at least 2010 with his wife — a Ukrainian citizen from Crimea — and their three children.

Shipping records indicate his companies were involved in exporting goods from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, to Russia. Prosecutors allege that after the U.S. expanded its sanctions, some of this activity became illegal.

When the DOJ announced Postovoy’s arrest, it also listed the names of his companies that it said were involved in the alleged scheme. Aside from the Russian-registered firm Vektor Group, all the others were in Hong Kong: Jove HK Limited, JST Group Hong Kong and WowCube HK Limited.

All are now under U.S. sanctions, except for WowCube HK Limited.

Its appearance in the indictment provoked a rapid response from Cubios, another company previously associated with Postovoy. It produces the WOWCube gaming console, wich looks like a Rubik’s cube with multiple screens.

Just a day after Postovoy’s arrest was announced, Cubios publicly denied any connection to WowCube HK Limited.

“Neither Cubios nor any of its officers, directors, managers or employees … have any connection to the HK Entity whatsoever. We do not own, operate or are in any way affiliated with the HK Entity,” the company said in a statement on its website.

The startup also said that Postovoy “falsely listed himself as a VP of the Company” on LinkedIn.

In fact, Postovoy was previously Cubios’ vice president for production, according to archived versions of its website.

Ilya Osipov, CEO of Cubios, told VOA that a mutual friend introduced him to Postovoy.

“I was looking for someone who could help with production in China — they gave me Denis,” he wrote in a message to VOA.

According to Osipov, Postovoy became a business partner and made important contributions to prototypes and test batches of the WOWCube. Later the company decreased cooperation with him.

Although Postovoy did not have an official position, Cubios allowed him to call himself the vice president of production “for business purposes,” Osipov told VOA.

He claimed that Postovoy founded the Hong Kong firm without Cubios’ permission. It was planned to become a distributor of the consoles in Asia, but that never happened, Osipov said.

Coming to America

In 2022, Postovoy and his family moved to Sarasota, Florida, where Cubios’ headquarters is.

According to Osipov, Postovoy said the move was motivated by a desire to raise children in a Western country and concerns about increasingly strict Chinese control of Hong Kong.

American prosecutors see a different motivation.

In a response to U.S. federal investigators included in the case materials, Hong Kong police said Postovoy was charged on March 1, 2022, with money laundering — a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison and a fine of up to $643,000.

According to the email, Postovoy was scheduled to appear in court on March 4 but left Hong Kong the day before.

Hong Kong police did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

By June 2022, Postovoy’s wife purchased a house in southeastern Sarasota.

Sarasota County property records indicate the house was valued at around $980,000. A mortgage covered $680,000 of the cost.

In August 2023, Postovoy bought another house, in the new Rivo Lakes gated community in Sarasota. According to purchase documents, it cost $1.13 million. In September, he transferred it to a trust controlled by his wife.

On the same day, his wife transferred the house to another trust and later sold the property.

According to a U.S. magistrate judge, Postovoy’s decision to transfer the second house into a trust was likely an attempt to conceal his ownership.

He “did not list his home — which is valued at nearly a million dollars and held in the name of a trust controlled by his wife — on his financial affidavit submitted to this Court,” the judge wrote in a decision not to grant Postovoy bail.

This may not be the only attempted cover-up in the case: Russian company records indicate that, in December 2023, a man named Dmitry Smirnov replaced Postovoy as owner of his Vektor Group company.

VOA’s Cantonese Service contributed research to this story.
…

istanbul — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday sued the main opposition leader and Istanbul’s powerful mayor over allegedly slanderous remarks made at a protest rally a day earlier, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Filed on Friday, the two separate lawsuits targeted Ozgur Ozel, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, also a top party official.

One accused Ozel of “publicly insulting the president” and “clearly committing a crime against the reputation and honor of the office of the presidency.”

The second suit alleged Imamoglu had made “unfounded accusations including slander, that violated Erdogan’s rights” and had “acted with the aim of humiliating the president in front of the public.”

Each lawsuit sought 1 million Turkish lira ($30,000) in damages from the accused.

The legal action centers on remarks the pair allegedly made Thursday at a demonstration in the Istanbul district of Esenyurt a day after police arrested its opposition mayor for alleged links to the banned Kurdish PKK militant group.

It was not immediately clear which remarks prompted the legal action, but Ozel, who took over as CHP leader just a year ago, quickly hit back.

Erdogan “pretends to have been insulted without any insult being made, and tries to make himself the victim … as if it was not he who insulted and victimized Esenyurt” by arresting its mayor, he told reporters. 

Imamoglu, who was elected as Istanbul mayor in 2019, is often portrayed as Erdogan’s biggest political rival and is widely expected to run in the 2028 presidential race. He is seen as one of Turkey’s most popular politicians.

Two years ago, Imamoglu was sued for defamation after describing Istanbul election officials as “idiots” during the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election.

A court found him guilty, sentenced him to nearly three years in jail and barred him from politics for the duration of the sentence, prompting an international outcry.

Imamoglu has appealed while continuing to serve as mayor.

At the time, Erdogan insisted the case had nothing to do with him.

The 70-year-old Turkish leader launched his own political career in the 1990s by being elected as mayor of Istanbul.
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JOHANNESBURG — Whoever U.S. voters choose as their next president — former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris — the election has global implications, with the probability it will affect other economies, foreign conflicts and personal freedoms, analysts told VOA.

South African independent political analyst Asanda Ngoasheng said the winner could usher in policies that affect ordinary people in Africa.

“I hope that as Americans vote, they’re aware that whatever decision they make, it’s going to determine the future of not only America but the rest of the world,” she said.

“How we engage with issues of termination of pregnancy, how we engage with issues of LGBT rights, how we engage with issues of race and racism will be determined by this election, not just for America but for everyone else and everywhere else in the world,” Ngoasheng continued.

The abortion issue is a particularly divisive topic for U.S. Republicans and Democrats.

While the United States is the largest funder of global reproductive health programs, Trump slashed that funding during his presidency by extending a policy that barred U.S. aid from going to any organization that supported abortion.

Experts said they believe that a second Trump presidency would likely do that again and could negatively affect PEPFAR, the U.S.’s key HIV/AIDS program.

Trade is another key area in which analysts think Harris and Trump would differ, given Trump’s “America first” policy.

African governments hope that next year the U.S. will renew the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a Clinton-era policy that gives countries duty-free access to the U.S. market.

Ray Hartley, research director of South African Brenthurst Foundation think tank, does not have high hopes for a second Trump presidency.

“I think that a Trump presidency would reinforce America’s isolationist approach in international affairs, and that might not be good for trade,” he said.

Other analysts said they believe general U.S. policy toward Africa won’t differ radically regardless of who wins.

They said that while Africa was often neglected in terms of U.S. foreign policy, that has shifted in recent years amid renewed competition with Russia and China on the resource-rich continent.

Moscow has strengthened military ties with many African governments, while U.S. troops have been kicked out of Niger and Chad. Beijing, meanwhile, is Africa’s largest trade partner and has been building infrastructure throughout the continent.

Ebenezer Obadare, senior fellow for Africa studies at U.S. research organization  Council on Foreign Relations, said, “Insofar as the United States is intent on competing with those powers in Africa, keeping its old alliances and building new ones, I don’t think one administration is likely to differ much from another, strictly in terms of their Africa policy.”

As vice president, Harris traveled to the continent, where she pushed President Joe Biden’s line that the U.S. was “all in on Africa.” The Biden administration also started holding an annual U.S.-African leaders’ summit.

And, as it increases competition with China, the current administration has also undertaken funding the biggest U.S. infrastructure project in Africa in generations: the Lobito corridor, a railway connecting Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo that will be used to transport critical minerals.

Biden was forced to reschedule a promised visit to Africa and is now expected in Angola in December. The choice of country has been criticized by some for what they say is Angola’s shoddy human rights record.

Trump’s signature initiative involving the continent was creating Prosper Africa, a U.S. agency designed to assist American companies doing business in Africa.

However, he also offended many Africans during his first term, using a derogatory term to refer to countries on the continent and mispronouncing Namibia’s name. More recently he raised ire by comparing himself to South African icon Nelson Mandela.

Analysts said that while Harris and Trump have generally ignored Africa over the course of their campaigns, whoever becomes America’s next president would do well to keep up engagement with the continent, which boasts the world’s youngest population.
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WASHINGTON — In the run up to the presidential election, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has increased its outreach to Arab and Muslim Americans, particularly in battleground state Michigan. But it is her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, who has made surprising gains with this group that makes up a significant portion of voters angry over President Joe Biden’s policies on the Gaza war.

On Friday, Trump is expected to visit a halal cafe in Dearborn, Michigan, a city dubbed the Arab capital of America, in a state home to almost 400,000 Arab Americans. Many of them have expressed determination to punish Harris over the Biden administration’s support for Israel.

Trump’s visit is a continuation of his outreach to the Arab and Muslim community that have borne him important endorsements from leaders of two nearby Michigan cities that, while tiny, carry symbolic importance. Bill Bazzi, the first Muslim and Arab American mayor of Dearborn Heights, and Amer Ghalib, the Yemeni American mayor of Hamtramck, the only U.S. city with an all-Muslim city council, have endorsed the Republican candidate.

“My meeting with President Trump was positive, and we hope that he can change the current situation,” Ghalib told VOA. “He said he doesn’t want wars, and he will listen to our concerns.”

Three of the six members of the Hamtramck City Council followed Ghalib’s endorsement and the rest endorsed Harris — a split that reflects the community’s polarized views of the candidates.

“Harris has answered this question many times that she is going to work with Gaza. She’s going to be fair with people of Gaza,” council member Mohammed Alsomiri told VOA. “Trump, I don’t believe him, and I don’t trust him.”

The former president has been intensively courting the group. At a rally last week in the Detroit suburb of Novi, about a half-hour drive from Dearborn, he said Muslim and Arab voters “want a stop to the endless wars and a return to peace in the Middle East. That’s all they want.”

Trump was joined onstage by what his campaign described as “prominent leaders of Michigan’s Muslim community,” including Imam Belal Alzuhairi of the Great Mosque of Hamtramck.

“We, as Muslims, stand with President Trump because he promises peace, not war!” said Alzuhairi.

This despite Trump suggesting that he would give Israel’s military offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah more leeway, telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a recent call to, “Do what you have to do.” He often boasts he will end the wars in the Middle East “in 24 hours,” without explaining how.

As president, in 2017 Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims, banning individuals from six Muslim-majority countries from entering, a policy that activists say is “cruel, inhumane, and violated international law.”

The Trump campaign has not responded to VOA’s queries on outreach to the community.

Harris’ outreach

On the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, 25 Muslim leaders released an open letter telling Muslim voters that backing Harris “far outweighs the harms of the other options.”

The Harris campaign said it is “working hard” to engage the community. The vice president met twice with a small group of leaders in Michigan, in Detroit in August shortly after she became the Democratic nominee and in Flint in early October. She has had one other meeting since then, with Black imams and community leaders in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, another key swing state.

Afghan American Nasrina Bargzie and Egyptian American Brenda Abdelal, two lawyers spearheading Muslim and Arab outreach for the Harris campaign, have met with groups in Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada, the Harris campaign told VOA. Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security adviser, met virtually in early October with leaders across the country, the campaign said.

But many of these meetings have been with friendlier groups, suggesting that they were not aimed at changing hearts and minds. Gordon’s meeting excluded major Muslim and Arab organizations as well as pro-Palestinian activist groups and was more of a “check the box” engagement, according to James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, who participated in the eight-person meeting.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Harris’ vice presidential pick, has had one engagement with Arab and Muslim Americans, an October virtual meeting with Engage Action, the political arm of an 18-year-old Muslim American advocacy group, which already endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in September.

Third-party candidates

While polls suggest that support among Arab American and Muslim Americans for Trump is unlikely to surpass Harris’, they also show that third-party candidates could pull a significant portion of votes away from her. In Michigan, Green Party candidate Jill Stein has been campaigning on a platform to “end the genocide.”

A poll released Friday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy organization, showed that 29.4% of American Muslims plan to vote for Harris, 29.1% for Stein, and 11.2% for Trump. Some 16.5% remain undecided.

The numbers suggest an improvement for Harris and Trump among the group. Before Biden’s withdrawal, CAIR’s poll showed Biden received 7.3% support and Trump 4.9%.

Compared to Biden, Harris has been more vocal in expressing sympathy for Palestinians and calling out Israel to “follow humanitarian law.” She has also addressed the suffering in Lebanon and announced $157 million in assistance from the administration.

At a Harris rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this week, Assad Turfe, an Arab American official from nearby Wayne County, said that Harris is a leader “who will give voice to our pain.”

But as in her various campaign events, in that rally Harris was heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters. “Hey guys, I hear you,” she said. “We all want this war to end as soon as possible.”

A candidate must secure a minimum of 270 out of 538 Electoral College votes to win. With 16 Electoral College votes, Michigan could tip the balance in what is expected to be a very close election. Biden won the state in 2020 with 154,000 votes more than Trump. In 2016, Trump won the state over Hillary Clinton by just under 11,000 votes.

The Gaza war has been a divisive issue among the community. At a Dearborn press conference announcing Arab American leaders’ endorsement for Harris last week, a group of anti-Harris Arab Americans confronted them, calling them traitors.

Ronald Stockton, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan-Dearborn who has studied the community for decades, said he has never seen such polarization. He fears the community may be torn apart for good, regardless of who wins.

“There will be permanent scars left behind,” Stockton told VOA, “like battlefield scars that remain decades after the war ends.”

VOA’s Iram Abbasi contributed to this report.
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