Austin, Texas — Ecuador says it will suspend visa-free entry into the country for Chinese citizens, starting July 1, citing a “worrying” increase in irregular migration. 

Over the past few years, Ecuador has been the starting point for many of the thousands of Chinese citizens who have decided to take the long and treacherous journey through South America, Central America and Mexico to reach the southern U.S. border.

Some who have already migrated to the United States say Ecuador’s decision and the growing resolve of both Washington and Beijing to stop the flow of illegal migration is a sign that the door may be closing for those seeking to “zouxian” or “walk the line” – as the journey is popularly described in Chinese.

Wang Zhongwei, a 33-year-old Chinese from Anhui, came to the U.S. by “walking the line” from Ecuador in May 2023. He said that after the Ecuadorian government’s announcement, “the discussion [among Chinese illegal immigrants] has been heated, and this has a great impact [because] more than 80% of the people came through Ecuador.”

According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics, the monthly number of encounters for Chinese nationals at the southwestern border hit a record high of nearly 6,000 in December of 2023. In recent months, those encounters have started to come down, slipping to just more than 3,600 in May.

In addition to a recent decision by U.S. President Joe Biden to temporarily restrict asylum eligibility at the U.S.-Mexico border, there are signs that Washington and Beijing are finding ways or at least trying to work together on the issue.  

In May, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Associated Press that Beijing is “willing to maintain dialogue and cooperation with the United States in the field of immigration enforcement” and accept the repatriation of people with verified Chinese nationality.

In April, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas told a congressional hearing that he had “engaged” with his Chinese counterparts and that China had begun to accept the repatriation of Chinese immigrants who have no legal basis to stay in the United States.

VOA emailed the Department of Homeland Security to inquire about U.S.-Chinese cooperation on the deportation of Chinese nationals but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Guo Bin, a Chinese citizen from Guangxi who arrived in the United States at the end of last year with his 12-year-old daughter, said he has heard of some Chinese who “walked the line” being deported in Los Angeles since May.

“There are indeed deportations, and they can be deported on the spot,” he said.

According to posts from social media influencer Teacher Li, Chinese authorities recently issued two documents to public prosecutors that highlight their determination to crack down on those who “walk the line” and to strengthen border control.

VOA could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, but when it asked the Chinese Embassy about the documents the spokesman did not say they were fabricated.

In an emailed response to questions about the post, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said: “China’s Supreme Court performs its duty in keeping with the law.”

“On illegal migration, China’s position is clear and consistent,” he said. “We oppose and firmly combat all forms of illegal migration and human smuggling.”

Li also said that “China’s law-enforcement agencies are working with the relevant countries to combat human smuggling and on extradition as well, in a joint effort to uphold the orderly flow of people across the countries.”

Earlier this year, Mexico strengthened its border control by setting up new checkpoints on major roads and increasing patrols at the more heavily used crossing points into the U.S. More illegal migrants have been intercepted as a result. 

According to the Washington Office on Latin America, Mexican immigration forces set a new record for the number of immigrant arrests in a single month in January and February of this year.

Guo said that he has heard about some Chinese who were intercepted while crossing Mexico. 

“U.S. immigration officers cooperate with the Mexican government and go deep into central Mexico to intercept immigrants,” he said. 

Once Chinese migrants are intercepted, they are sent to southern Mexico, he said.

If they want to continue “walking the line,” they must start again from a place farther away from the U.S., which will cost them more money and time.

Challenges aside, Wang and Guo say there are still ways to make it to the border. 

Wang says the desire of people to leave China is still strong and that some are exploring new routes. 

“You can fly to Cuba, and you can also fly to Bolivia,” Wang said.

In May, the Cuban government began allowing 90-day visa-free entry for Chinese citizens. Bolivia allows Chinese citizens holding ordinary passports to receive tourist visas upon arrival. Those with a transit visa can stay for 15 days or on a tourist visa for 30 days.

The straight-line distance from Cuba to the southernmost tip of Florida is about 150 km. The narrow waterway has been a smuggling route for decades. And some Chinese have already tried, despite the risks.

In October 2023, authorities in Florida say, 11 male and six female Chinese citizens were arrested after illegally entering Key Largo, Florida, from Cuba.

Li Xiaosan, a Chinese dissident, arrived in the U.S. in February 2023 by “walking the line.” He says he feels fortunate to be able to start a new life and sad for others who want to leave China now. Since arriving in the U.S., Li opened a translation company in New York and has passed his preliminary hearing for his political asylum application. He also obtained a work permit.

He says that once Ecuador’s new policy takes effect on July 1, even if Chinese people use other routes, the chances of successfully reaching the U.S. and staying will be significantly reduced.

“The door is closed,” Li said, adding that the question now is: “How many people can squeeze in through the cracks?” 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has pleaded guilty to a single felony charge for publishing U.S. military secrets in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that secures his freedom and concludes a drawn-out legal saga that raised divisive questions about press freedom and national security. 

The plea was entered Wednesday morning in federal court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific. He arrived at court shortly before the hearing was to begin and did not take questions. 

Though the deal with prosecutors required him to admit guilt to a single felony count, it would also permit him to return to his native Australia without spending any time in an American prison. He had been jailed in the United Kingdom for the last five years, fighting extradition to the United States on an Espionage Act indictment that could have carried a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction. 

The abrupt conclusion enables both sides to claim a degree of victory, with the Justice Department able to resolve without trial a case that raised thorny legal issues and that might never have reached a jury at all given the plodding pace of the extradition process.  

WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling website that Assange founded in 2006, applauded the announcement of the deal, saying it was grateful for “all who stood by us, fought for us, and remained utterly committed in the fight for his freedom.” 

The deal, disclosed Monday night in a sparsely detailed Justice Department letter, represents the latest and presumably final chapter in a court fight involving the eccentric Australian computer expert who has been celebrated by supporters as a transparency crusader but lambasted by national security hawks who insist that his disdain for government secrecy put lives at risks, and strayed far beyond the bounds of traditional journalism duties. 

The U.S. Justice Department agreed to hold the hearing on the remote island because Assange opposed coming to the continental U.S. and because it’s near Australia, where he will return. 

The guilty plea resolves a criminal case brought by the Trump administration Justice Department in connection with the receipt and publication of war logs and diplomatic cables that detailed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prosecutors alleged that he conspired with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain the records and published them without regard to American national security, including by releasing the names of human sources who provided information to U.S. forces. 

But his activities drew an outpouring of support from press freedom advocates who heralded his role in bringing to light military conduct that might otherwise have been concealed from view. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack by American forces in Baghdad that killed 11 people, including two Reuters journalists. 

The indictment was unsealed in 2019, but Assange’s legal woes long predated the criminal case and continued well past it. 

Weeks after the release of the largest document cache in 2010, a Swedish prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange based on one woman’s allegation of rape and another’s allegation of molestation. Assange has long maintained his innocence, and the investigation was later dropped. 

He presented himself in 2012 to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he claimed asylum on the grounds of political persecution, and spent the following seven years in self-exile there, hosting a parade of celebrity visitors and making periodic appearances from the building’s balcony to address supporters. 

In 2019, his hosts revoked his asylum, allowing British police to arrest him. He remained locked up for the last five years while the Justice Department sought to extradite him, in a process that encountered skepticism from British judges who worried about how Assange would be treated by the American criminal justice system. 

Ultimately, though, the resolution sparing Assange prison time in the U.S. is a repudiation of sorts of years of ominous warnings by Assange and his supporters that the American criminal justice system would expose him to unduly harsh treatment, including potentially the death penalty — something prosecutors never sought. 
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moscow — Russia said on Tuesday it was banning access inside Russia to the broadcasts of 81 different media outlets from the European Union — including Agence France-Presse and Politico — in retaliation for a similar EU ban on several Russian media outlets. 

The European Union said in May it was suspending the distribution of what it described as four “Kremlin-linked propaganda networks,” stripping them of their broadcasting rights in the bloc. 

It said at the time that the ban applied to Voice of Europe, to the RIA news agency, and to the Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspapers. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry hit back on Tuesday, releasing a list of 81 media outlets from 25 EU member states, as well as pan-European outlets, whose broadcasts it said would no longer be available on Russian territory. 

It accused the outlets of “systematically distributing inaccurate information” about what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine.  

France’s Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, Austria’s ORF state TV company, Ireland’s RTE broadcaster, digital outlet Politico and Spain’s EFE news agency were among the outlets affected by the move, along with many other national broadcasters and newspapers.  

“The Russian Federation has repeatedly warned at various levels that politically motivated harassment of domestic journalists and unjustified bans on Russian media in the EU will not go unanswered,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

“In spite of this, Brussels and the capitals of the bloc’s countries preferred to follow the path of escalation, forcing Moscow to adopt mirror and proportional countermeasures.” 

It said it would review its ban if the EU lifted its restrictions on RIA, Izvestia and the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, all of which it described as Russian media outlets.  

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma lower house of parliament, said in May that the EU move had shown that the West refused to accept any alternative point of view and was destroying freedom of speech. 

‘Unjustified measure’ 

Italy’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned the Russian decision to ban access to outlets including Italian broadcasters Rai and La7 and newspapers La Repubblica and La Stampa. 

“We regret the unjustified measure taken against these Italian broadcasters and newspapers, which have always provided objective and unbiased information on the conflict in Ukraine,” the ministry said. 

AFP declined to comment, and RTE did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the measures, announced a day before the Russian trial of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges is due to begin.  

Jamil Anderlini, Politico’s editor-in-chief for Europe, described the measures as “completely unacceptable” and said in a statement that it was “not the first time press freedoms have been restricted through politically motivated attacks.” 

“We call for the immediate lifting of these restrictions and continue to call for Evan’s immediate release,” he wrote. 

The first American journalist to be detained on spy charges in Russia since the Cold War more than three decades ago, Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has denied he is a Central Intelligence Agency spy. The Journal says Gershkovich was doing his job and denies he is a spy. 

Many Western news organizations pulled staff out of Russia after it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and passed laws soon afterwards that set long prison sentences for “discrediting” the armed forces. 

Russian officials say large parts of the Western media spread false, unbalanced stories about Russia, and that Western media organizations are waging an information war. 
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Washington — In 2016, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign echoed with a frequent vow to crush “radical Islamic terrorism.” 

Fast forward to today, as he seeks a second chance in the White House, Trump rarely mentions the phrase, his erstwhile rhetoric about Islamist terrorism eclipsed by a focus on immigration, crime and other domestic issues.  

The shift came into sharp relief on Sunday when a coordinated terrorist assault on a police station, churches and synagogues in southern Russia left at least 20 people dead. What might once have prompted a flurry of tweets went unmentioned on Trump’s Truth Social platform.  

Why the silence on what was once a rallying cry? Experts suggest two factors: diminished public concern about terrorism and a possible strategic play for the Muslim American vote. 

Brian Levin, an extremism expert who has closely followed Trump’s rhetoric, said the former president — “more of an opportunist than an ideologue” — is zeroing in on issues that resonate with voters.   

“Eight years ago, when the threat of foreign-inspired extremism polled among the top concerns of voters, Trump successfully invoked terror attacks … to drum up support,” Levin said. “Today, however, Trump has to pivot somewhat to domestic issues relating to the economy, democracy, crime and the border as well as the record of an incumbent he hopes to unseat.” 

Defending his record in office, including his handling of southern border immigration, President Joe Biden has made protecting democracy a centerpiece of his campaign, casting Trump as a grave threat to the country.  

But Biden’s staunch support of Israel during its military campaign in Gaza has angered many Muslim voters, opening a rare opportunity for Trump, according to experts.  

Gabriel Rubin, a justice studies professor at Montclair State University, said Trump may be eyeing the Muslim vote in key battleground states with large Muslim populations that could determine the outcome of the November election.   

“He has an avenue not to mention [‘radical Islamic terrorism’] too much,” Rubin, who has written about Trump’s past rhetoric about Muslims and terrorism, told VOA in an interview. “I think he can win some of these Midwestern states if he plays his cards right.”  

To be sure, the threat of international terrorism hasn’t vanished. In the months since the outbreak of conflict in Gaza, U.S. officials, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, have been sounding the alarm about an increased potential for terrorist attacks.    

But while the warnings seem to have raised the public’s worries about terrorism, “overall concern about the issue still doesn’t match the higher levels of concern it garnered” in 2015 and 2016, according to an April Gallup report.   

Trump’s 2016 campaign rhetoric — from claiming “Muslims hate us” to calling for a “complete and total” shutdown of Muslims entering the country — did not happen in a bubble.  

Though on the run, the Islamic State (IS) still controlled large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq and advocated attacking the West. Adding to Americans’ angst about terrorism were a spate of IS-inspired terror attacks across Europe and the United States. 

In the 12 months leading up to the November election, Trump tweeted 164 times about Islamic State, “radical Islam” and terrorism — nearly twice as much as he did about border security and immigration, according to one estimate. 

Trump’s vitriolic comments on Muslims and Islam, welcomed by his supporters, unnerved many in the Muslim community, drawing charges of Islamophobia against him, which he and his allies reject.   

VOA reached out to the Trump campaign for comment but did not receive a response. The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.    

Biden’s stance on terrorism, particularly Islamist terrorism, also has evolved over the years. 

While he is not known to have used the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” in the past he was more willing to employ similar language while taking a tough stance on terrorism.  

In 2014, as vice president under President Barack Obama, he criticized Turkey and the United Arab Emirates for supporting jihadi groups in Syria and “the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts to the world.” He later apologized for the comment. 

Since becoming president in 2021, Biden has focused on terrorism more broadly without singling out any one region or religion, moving away from the rhetoric of the “War on Terror” of the 2000s.  

On the day he entered the White House, he repealed the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban,” calling it “a stain on our national conscience.”

In the wake of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, moreover, his administration placed a greater emphasis on domestic terrorism as a significant threat to homeland security. In 2021, it launched the first-ever national strategy for countering domestic terrorism. 

After the October 7 Hamas attack, Biden condemned the attack as “pure, unadulterated evil” while putting a distance between the perpetrators and the broader Muslim community. 

“You know, I know many of you in the Muslim American community or the Arab American community, the Palestinian American community, and so many others are outraged and hurting, saying to yourselves, ‘Here we go again,’ with Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9/11,” Biden said on October 10.  

Trump is not known for moderating his rhetoric, even while in office. But after his second year in the White House, the volume of his rhetoric about Muslims and terrorism fell dramatically as he shifted his focus to a new area: border security and illegal immigration. 

That trend has continued into the current campaign. A VOA examination of his most recent social media posts and campaign statements found fewer than 20 references since the start of his reelection campaign, including only one mention of “radical Islamic terrorists.” 

That came last July when he announced that he’d reinstate a travel ban on several Muslim countries that he imposed during his first term in office and which Biden later repealed. 

“We don’t want people coming into our country that hate us. We want people that love us,” he told a rally, citing anti-police riots in France sparked by the killing of a French Moroccan teenager.   

Trump supporters dismiss his rhetoric about Muslims and terrorism as just that — rhetoric.  

“Let’s forget about what this guy says. Let’s look at what he does,” a Muslim Republican activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity.  

Another activist questioned whether Trump has ever said he hates Muslims, adding that more Muslims will likely vote for the former president than did in 2016.  

But if there is one thing both Trump supporters and detractors agree on, it is that Trump will likely follow through on his vow to bring back the “Muslim ban.”  

“The legal structure that allowed the Muslim ban to be implemented in the first place is still on the books so we have to start planning as if a new Muslim ban will come into existence,” said Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director for the Council on American Islamic Relations. 
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Washington — The closed-door trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich is set to begin on Wednesday in Russia, nearly 15 months after he was jailed on espionage charges that are widely viewed as baseless and politically motivated.

A correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich was detained in March 2023 on spying charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The State Department has also declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained.

Press freedom experts have said that the trial against Gershkovich will almost certainly be a politically motivated sham.

The trial is taking place in Yekaterinburg, where Gershkovich was first detained. The city in the Ural Mountains is about 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) east of Moscow.

Russian authorities have accused Gershkovich of “gathering secret information” about a military facility. But to date, Moscow has not publicly provided any evidence to substantiate the charges against Gershkovich, who was accredited by Russia’s foreign ministry to work in the country.

Russia’s Washington Embassy did not immediately reply to a VOA email requesting comment.

Secret trials are common practice in Russia for cases of alleged treason or espionage involving classified state material. The charges against Gershkovich carry a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars.

In an open letter on Tuesday, The Journal’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, reaffirmed her view that the trial will not be a fair display of justice.

“To even call it a trial, however, is unfair to Evan and a continuation of this travesty of justice that already has gone on for far too long,” she wrote.

It is not clear whether U.S. officials will be permitted to observe the trial. But Daniel Kanigan, the spokesperson of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, told VOA that the mission “will make efforts to attend any future proceedings.”

Gershkovich is one of two American journalists currently jailed in Russia.

Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian national who works at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, has been jailed since October 2023 on charges of failing to self-register as a “foreign agent” and spreading what the Kremlin views as false information about the Russian army.

Kurmasheva rejects the charges against her, and the U.S. government has called for her immediate release.
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NEW YORK — A judge on Tuesday modified Donald Trump’s gag order, freeing the former president to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the hush money criminal trial that led to his felony conviction but keeping others connected to the case off limits at least until he’s sentenced July 11. 

Judge Juan M. Merchan’s ruling — just days before Trump’s debate Thursday with President Joe Biden — clears the presumptive Republican nominee to again go on the attack against his former lawyer Michael Cohen, adult film actor Stormy Daniels and other witnesses. Trump was convicted May 30 of falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal, making him the first ex-president convicted of a crime. 

Trump’s lawyers had urged Merchan to lift the gag order completely, arguing there was nothing to justify continued restrictions on Trump’s First Amendment rights after the trial’s conclusion. Trump has said that the gag order has prevented him from defending himself while Cohen and Daniels continue to pillory him. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office asked Merchan to keep the gag order’s ban on comments about jurors, court staffers and the prosecution team in place at least until Trump is sentenced on July 11 but said last week they would be OK with allowing Trump to comment about witnesses now that the trial is over. 

Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records arising from what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. She claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies. 

The crime is punishable by up to four years behind bars, but prosecutors have not said if they would seek incarceration, and it’s unclear if Merchan would impose such a sentence. Other options include a fine or probation. 

Following his conviction, Trump complained that he was under a “nasty gag order” while also testing its limits. In remarks a day after his conviction, Trump referred to Cohen, though not by name, as “a sleazebag.” 

In a subsequent Newsmax interview, Trump took issue with jury and its makeup, complaining about Manhattan, “It’s a very, very liberal Democrat area so I knew we were in deep trouble,” and claiming: “I never saw a glimmer of a smile from the jury. No, this was a venue that was very unfair. A tiny fraction of the people are Republicans.” 

Trump’s lawyers, who said they were under the impression the gag order would end with a verdict, wrote a letter to Merchan on June 4 asking him to lift the order. 

Prosecutors urged Merchan to keep the gag order’s ban on comments about jurors and trial staff in place “at least through the sentencing hearing and the resolution of any post-trial motions.” They argued that the judge had “an obligation to protect the integrity of these proceedings and the fair administration of justice.” 

Merchan issued Trump’s gag order on March 26, a few weeks before the start of the trial, after prosecutors raised concerns about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s propensity to assail people involved in his cases. 

Merchan later expanded it to prohibit comments about his own family after Trump made social media posts attacking the judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant. The order did not prohibit comments about Merchan or District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case. 

During the trial, Merchan held Trump in contempt of court, fined him $10,000 for violating the gag order and threatened to put him in jail if he did it again. 

In seeking to lift the gag order, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that Trump was entitled to “unrestrained campaign advocacy” in light of Biden’s public comments about the verdict, and Cohen and Daniels’ continued public criticism. 
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Campaigners in Georgia are seeking to highlight past atrocities committed by invading Russian troops and allied militias during the early 1990s, which they say should have acted as a warning of the dangers posed by Russia, long before Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Henry Ridgwell reports from Tbilisi.
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Elections in the United States are some of the most expensive in the world. In 2020, more than $16 billion was spent on U.S. presidential and congressional races. 2024 election costs are likely to be higher. How do campaigns help finance these elections? Fundraising.
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UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its key European allies clashed with Iran and Russia over Tehran’s expanding nuclear program, with the U.S. vowing “to use all means necessary to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran” in a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday.

The U.S., France, Britain and Germany accused Iran of escalating its nuclear activities far beyond limits it agreed to in a 2015 deal aimed at preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, and of failing to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran and Russia accused the U.S. and its allies of continuing to apply economic sanctions that were supposed to be lifted under the deal and insisted that Tehran’s nuclear program remains under constant oversight by the IAEA.

The clashes came at a semi-annual meeting on implementation of the nuclear deal between Iran and six major countries — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Under the accord, Tehran agreed to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for the peaceful use of nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

Then-President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal in 2018. Trump said he would negotiate a stronger deal, but that didn’t happen.

The council meeting followed an IAEA report in late May that Iran has more than 142 kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60% purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade level of 90%. The IAEA said this was an increase of over 20 kilograms from February.

The IAEA also reported on June 13 that its inspectors verified that Iran has started up new cascades of advanced centrifuges more quickly enrich uranium and planned to install more.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the council that the IAEA reports “show that Iran is determined to expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible civilian purpose.”

Wood said the U.S. is prepared to use all means to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, but said it remains “fully committed to resolving international concerns surrounding Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy.”

The three Western countries that remain in the JCPOA — France, Germany and the United Kingdom — issued a joint statement after the council meeting also leaving the door open for diplomatic efforts “that ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon.”

They said Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is now 30 times the JCPOA limit and stressed that Iran committed not to install or operate any centrifuges for enrichment under the JCPOA.

Their joint statement also noted that “Iranian officials have issued statements about its capacity to assemble a nuclear weapon.”

Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani blamed “the unilateral and unlawful U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA” and the failure of the three European parties to the deal “to honor their commitments,” saying it is “crystal clear” they are responsible for the current non-functioning of the agreement.

In the face of U.S. and European sanctions, he said, Iran has the right to halt its commitments under the JCPOA.

Iravani reiterated Iran’s rejection of nuclear weapons, and insisted its nuclear activities including enrichment are “for peaceful purposes” and are subject to “robust verification and monitoring” by the IAEA.

The Iranian ambassador strongly endorsed the JCPOA, calling it a hard-won diplomatic achievement “that effectively averted an undue crisis.”

“It remains the best option, has no alternative, and its revival is indeed in the interest of all of its participants,” he said. “Our remedial measures are reversible if all sanctions are lifted fully and verifiably.”

But France, Germany and the UK said some of Iran’s nuclear advances are irreversible.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said U.S. promises “to abandon the policy of maximum pressure on Tehran and to return to the nuclear deal remained empty words.”

He accused some other JCPOA parties, which he didn’t name, of “doing everything possible to continuously rock the boat, jettisoning opportunities for the implementation of the nuclear deal.”

Nebenzia urged the European parties to the agreement and the United States to return to the negotiating table in Vienna and “demonstrate their commitment to the objective of restoration of the nuclear deal.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the coordinator of the JCPOA, said the compromise text he put forward two years ago for the U.S. to return to the JCPOA and for Iran to resume full implementation of the agreement remains on the table.
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WASHINGTON — News that the U.S. Justice Department has reached a plea deal that will lead to freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brings a stunning culmination to a long-running saga of international intrigue that spanned multiple continents. Its central character is a quixotic internet publisher with a profound disdain for government secrets.

A look at Assange, the case and the latest developments:

Who is Julian Assange?

An Australian editor and publisher, he is best known for having founded the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, which gained massive attention — and notoriety — for the 2010 release of almost half a million documents relating to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His activism made him a cause célèbre among press freedom advocates who said his work in exposing U.S. military misconduct in foreign countries made his activities indistinguishable from what traditional journalists are expected to do as part of their jobs.

But those same actions put him in the crosshairs of American prosecutors, who released an indictment in 2019 that accused Assange — holed up at the time in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London — of conspiring with an Army private to illegally obtain and publish sensitive government records.

“Julian Assange is no journalist,” John Demers, the then-top Justice Department national security official, said at the time. “No responsible actor, journalist or otherwise, would purposely publish the names of individuals he or she knew to be confidential human sources in war zones, exposing them to the gravest of dangers.”

What is he accused of?

The Trump administration’s Justice Department accused Assange of directing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.

The charges relate to WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents, with prosecutors accusing Assange of helping Manning steal classified diplomatic cables that they say endangered national security and of conspiring together to crack a Defense Department password.

Reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq published by Assange included the names of Afghans and Iraqis who provided information to American and coalition forces, prosecutors said, while the diplomatic cables he released exposed journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates and dissidents in repressive countries.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other offenses for leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, allowing her release after about seven years behind bars.

Why wasn’t he already in U.S. custody?

Assange has spent the last five years in a British high-security prison, fighting to avoid extradition to the U.S. and winning favorable court rulings that have delayed any transfer across the Atlantic.

He was evicted in April 2019 from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had sought refuge seven years earlier amid an investigation by Swedish authorities into claims of sexual misconduct that he has long denied and that was later dropped. The South American nation revoked the political asylum following the charges by the U.S. government.

Despite his arrest and imprisonment by British authorities, extradition efforts by the U.S. had stalled prior to the plea deal.

A U.K. judge in 2021 rejected the U.S. extradition request in 2021 on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. Higher courts overturned that decision after getting assurances from the U.S. about his treatment. The British government signed an extradition order in June 2022.

Then, last month, two High Court judges ruled that Assange can mount a new appeal based on arguments about whether he will receive free-speech protections or be at a disadvantage because he is not a U.S. citizen. The date of the hearing has yet to be determined.

What will the deal require?

Assange will have to plead guilty to a felony charge under the Espionage Act of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States, according to a Justice Department letter filed in federal court.

Rather than face the prospect of prison time in the U.S., he is expected to return to Australia after his plea and sentencing. Those proceedings are scheduled for Wednesday morning, local time in Saipan, the largest island in the Northern Mariana Islands.

The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia.

On Monday evening, he left a British prison ahead of a court hearing expected to result in his release.

Is this case connected to the 2016 election?

It’s not, but beyond his interactions with Manning, Assange is well-known for the role WikiLeaks played in the 2016 presidential election, when it released a massive tranche of Democratic emails that federal prosecutors say were stolen by Russian intelligence operatives.

The goal, officials have said, was to harm the electoral effort of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and boost her Republican challenger Donald Trump, who famously said during the campaign: “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks.”

Assange was not charged as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. But the investigation nonetheless painted an unflattering role of WikiLeaks in advancing what prosecutors say was a brazen campaign of Russian election interference.

Assange denied in a Fox News interview that aired in January 2017 that Russians were the source of the hacked emails, though those denials are challenged by a 2018 indictment by Mueller of 12 Russian military intelligence officers.
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Pentagon — The U.S. is expected to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine valued at up to $150 million as soon as Tuesday, two U.S. officials tell VOA.

The package is being provided to Kyiv under the presidential drawdown authority (PDA), which pulls weapons, ammunition and equipment from U.S. military stockpiles to fulfill Ukraine’s short-term needs. 

One of the officials — who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the package ahead of its planned announcement — said the latest round of aid would include munitions for HIMARS and other critical munitions. It does not include cluster munitions, according to the official.

Asked whether the aid package includes long-range missiles known as ATACMS, the official replied, “For operational security reasons, we aren’t going into further details.”

ATACMS have a range of up to 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) and nearly double the striking distance of Ukraine’s missiles. 

When asked by VOA on June 12 if the United States had provided Ukraine with more ATACMS since mid-March, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C.Q. Brown said, “We’re working through the ATACMS piece, and we continue to provide that capability through our PDAs.” 

Russia has accused Ukraine of using some of the U.S.-provided ATACMS in deadly strikes this week inside Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

Russia summoned the U.S. ambassador in Moscow on Monday to protest the use of the missiles.

This week’s aid package for Kyiv will dip into the $61 billion in Ukraine funding signed into law by President Joe Biden in April. 
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FORT PIERCE, Florida — An attorney for Donald Trump told a federal judge on Monday that the criminal prosecution against the former president on charges he mishandled classified documents was unlawfully funded, as they made another attempt to get the charges thrown out of court. 

Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the funding mechanism for their office has been upheld in past cases, as they sought to work through a thicket of legal challenges that have delayed the trial indefinitely. 

Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally held on to sensitive national security papers after leaving office in 2021 and that he obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. The criminal case is one of four Trump has been facing as he seeks to unseat Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 5 election. 

Cannon, a Trump appointee, set hearings on Friday and Monday in her Florida courtroom for Trump’s lawyers to argue several motions making claims similar to those that have been rejected in other cases. On Friday, Trump attorneys urged her to find U.S. special counsel Jack Smith has too much independence – even though Trump has repeatedly blasted him as a puppet of Biden. 

On Monday, Trump lawyer Emil Bove said the U.S. Justice Department should not be allowed to use a fund Congress set aside in the 1970s for independent politically sensitive investigations to pay for the documents probe. 

“More oversight from Congress is required for the extraordinary things that are going on in these prosecutions,” Bove said. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives have called for defunding Smith’s office. 

Special counsels have been appointed in Democratic- and Republican-led administrations alike to ensure an attorney can independently investigate and, if warranted, prosecute a case without any appearance of political influence. 

U.S. prosecutor James Pearce told Cannon that the funding had been upheld in previous court cases that challenged other special prosecutors – including David Weiss, who recently won a criminal conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. 

Pearce said the Justice Department would fund Smith’s office out of its regular budget if Cannon ruled that it cannot rely on the 1970s law. 

Cannon has allowed a flurry of motions by Trump’s legal team and has ruled in favor of the Republican presidential candidate on previous requests. It is unlikely the case will reach a jury before Trump and Biden face voters in the election. 

Gag order request 

Smith’s team was due to ask Cannon later on Monday to bar Trump from making statements that pose a threat to law enforcement while he awaits trial. 

Trump falsely claimed that a routine FBI use-of-force policy in effect during a 2022 search of his Florida resort authorized agents to attempt an assassination. 

Prosecutors called the claim “deceptive and inflammatory” in a court filing and said it subjected agents to “unjustified and unacceptable risks.” 

Trump’s lawyers say a gag order  would violate Trump’s free-speech rights in the heat of the presidential campaign. They also argue that prosecutors have not presented evidence of threats against the FBI. 

Cannon previously denied the request on procedural grounds after she ruled that prosecutors had not adequately consulted with Trump’s lawyers before filing it. 

Trump faces gag orders limiting his public statements in another federal case, also overseen by Smith, accusing him of attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, and a case in New York that led to his conviction in May for falsifying business records. 

Trump has verbally attacked prosecutors, judges and witnesses in legal cases against him, contending that the U.S. justice system is being used to undermine his campaign. 

Trump’s criticism of the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago social club intensified last month after the bureau’s use-of-force policy was made public as part of a tranche of records related to the FBI operation. 

The policy stipulated that the FBI could not use lethal force unless an agent or other person was at serious risk of death or serious injury. Trump was not present at the club at the time of the search. 

Trump’s baseless claim about an attempted assassination was included in campaign fundraising emails and was echoed by his allies in Congress. 
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As in many countries, job seekers in Ukraine who are in their 50s and 60s have a harder time than younger workers. One organization is trying to change that by taking advantage of Ukraine’s wartime labor shortage. For VOA, Lesia Bakalets reports from Kyiv. VOA footage by Vladyslav Smilianets.
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