tbilisi, georgia — Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Friday rejected criticism from the United States and European Union of a draft “foreign agents” bill, saying opponents of it were unwilling to engage in a meaningful discussion. 

The draft legislation, which is winding its way through the Georgian Parliament, would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, a requirement opponents attack as authoritarian and Kremlin-inspired. 

Several thousand protesters took to the streets again Friday to voice their opposition, moving toward the headquarters of the ruling Georgian Dream party and then attending a Holy Friday service ahead of Orthodox Easter Sunday.  

The European Union and the United States have urged Tbilisi to drop the legislation or risk harming its chances of European Union membership and a broader Euro-Atlantic future. 

The standoff is seen as part of a wider struggle that could determine whether Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that has experienced war and revolution since the fall of the Soviet Union, moves closer to Europe or back under Moscow’s influence. 

Kobakhidze said the legislation was necessary for transparency and accountability in the South Caucasus nation. 

“I explained to [senior U.S. diplomat Derek] Chollet that false statements made by the officials of the U.S. State Department about the transparency bill and street rallies remind us of similar false statements made by the former U.S. ambassador in 2020-2023,” Kobakhidze said on X. 

He said the previous U.S. statements had encouraged violence from what he called foreign-funded actors and had supported “revolutionary processes” that he said had been unsuccessful.  

“I clarified to Mr. Chollet that it requires a special effort to restart the relations [between Georgia and the United States] against this background, which is impossible without a fair and honest approach.” 

The White House has expressed concern that the legislation could stifle dissent and free speech. 

Kobakhidze also expressed disappointment about a conversation with European Council President Charles Michel, saying the EU had “been reluctant to engage in substantive discussions.” 

“Furthermore, I highlighted that we have not yet heard any counterarguments against this proposed legislation,” he said. 

Michel said on X that “Georgian citizens’ call for an open democratic and pluralistic society must be heeded. … Georgia’s future belongs with the EU. Don’t miss this historic chance.” 

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party and a former prime minister, has said he will fight for what he called “the full restoration of the sovereignty of Georgia.” 
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washington — “Is it good for the Jews?” That has been a question long asked by Jewish Americans, especially immigrants and those of the second generation, scarred by memories of the Holocaust, when assessing the policies of the U.S. government and the pledges of political candidates.

Most of them, most of the time since Franklin Roosevelt first ran for president in 1932, have voted for the Democrat at the top of the ticket.

Fast forward 92 years. More Jews have been voting Republican in recent elections, while many younger and left-leaning Jewish voters no longer see unequivocal support for Israel as a litmus test.

Instead, rising antisemitism is reforging a sense of Jewish self-identity — especially among those who consider themselves fully assimilated and accepted in the American mainstream culture.

Antisemitism “comes from all sides,” said Rachel Sass, antisemitic incident specialist at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “There are right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, anti-Israel protesters. There isn’t necessarily a clear political or ideological bent, just antisemitism.”

There has been a 900% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents in the past decade, with a spike since the Israel-Hamas conflict blew up last year, according to the ADL. 

Jewish Americans are further alarmed by chants on college campuses — in reaction to Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza following the October 7 Hamas terror attack — of “from the river to sea” and “go back to Poland,” along with some physical assaults on Jewish students.

“I’ve seen people respond with a level of fear, being afraid to reveal their Jewish identity. I’ve seen other people who have even leaned more into pride in their Jewish identity, wanting to be even more open because they feel that it’s very important,” said Sass.

Bestselling novelist Allison Winn Scotch said on the social media platform Threads, “Every day, as a Jewish American, I get increasingly nervous that we can’t come back from the brink of this. I don’t know where my family could go though, and I don’t know how we would stay safe when we got there anyway.”

She continued, “Your Jewish friends are living with a blooming seed of dread in the pits of our stomachs.”  

America provided a refuge for Eastern European Jews escaping 19th-century pogroms, who followed the emigration from the more established and prosperous German Jewish community.

Many Jews in the United States, however, did not feel totally accepted into broader American culture until the civil rights movement. Changes not only benefited Blacks but also removed remaining barriers to Jews — such as housing covenants and restricted country club memberships, as well as hiring discrimination at prestigious law firms and entry quotas at the Ivy League universities that such attorneys were drawn from.

The contemporary surge in antisemitism is not institutional.

“It’s children being targeted at school with antisemitic bullying, synagogues being targeted with threats of bombs or shootings, people even being assaulted on the street because they are visibly Jewish or Orthodox,” according to Sass at the ADL.

American Jews, as is the case with other ethnic or minority groups, do not wholly cast votes based on a single issue.

“We swing with the rest of the country around economic issues, war and peace and all kinds of issues,” Mark Mellman, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told VOA.

The Republican Jewish Coalition’s political and communications director, Sam Markstein, said, “I think this will be the first time for a lot of Jewish voters who’ve never even considered voting Republican in their lives seriously making that consideration this year because of the dereliction of leadership by the Biden administration on these issues.”

Donald Trump, hoping for a second term as president but defeated by Joe Biden four years ago, received somewhere between one-fourth and one-third of the Jewish vote in 2020, according to several polls and Jewish organizations.

“Anybody who knows anything about Donald Trump knows that his alliances are based on people’s commitment to him personally, not to a set of values, not to a set of strategic interests,” said Mellman.

Republicans have done a better job than Democrats in condemning politicians in their respective parties who make antisemitic remarks, Markstein contended, pointing out the RJC supports primary challengers to Republicans in Congress who make such discriminatory comments.

“Unfortunately, there are too many on the Democratic side that don’t seem to want to follow that path and want to either run and hide or issue mealy-mouthed responses that piss everybody off,” Markstein told VOA.

Although Jews constitute only 2.4% of the U.S. adult population, they are more likely to vote than the general registered voting population and to make political donations.

“The Jewish vote in those [swing] states is going to be the decisive [factor],” Markstein predicted.

The Republicans tend to draw most of their Jewish strength from the religious Orthodox, the fastest-growing but still smallest Jewish community among the three largest denominations. Most Orthodox Jews strongly support Israel.

“Day after day, the administration’s response gets less and less supportive of Israel,” Markstein contended.

A majority of Conservative and Reform Jews tend to vote for Democrats and are more open-minded about a two-state solution in the Middle East that would create a sovereign Palestine. 

“To retain Jewish support, Biden’s campaign needs to keep doing exactly what they’re doing — standing strong with Israel, against antisemitism and behind the American Jewish community,” Mellman said. “That’s exactly what I think American Jews are looking for at this very difficult time. It’s exactly what the president is doing.”

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the release of all imprisoned journalists — including three American reporters — who have been jailed over their work, in a Friday statement commemorating World Press Freedom Day.

“Journalism should not be a crime anywhere on Earth,” Biden said in the statement. “On World Press Freedom Day, the United States calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists who have been put behind bars for simply doing their jobs. And we call for the protection of journalists everywhere, including during military operations.”

At the end of 2023, 320 journalists were jailed for their work around the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

That total includes three American journalists: Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva in Russia, and Austin Tice in Syria.

Gershkovich, a Russian correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been jailed since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government vehemently deny. The State Department has also declared him wrongfully detained.

“We’re so proud of him. I can’t believe he’s holding up so well. And he works so, so hard to be able to keep his spirits up,” Gershkovich’s sister Danielle said at a Friday in Washington Friday commemorating World Press Freedom Day.

Danielle said her family manages to stay in touch with Evan through letters.

“I get a letter from him — it’s like Christmas morning. And I hear his voice in my head when I’m reading it. And it just feels like I get to chat to my brother. It’s a lifeline to my parents and I,” she said at the event, which was held at The Washington Post headquarters.

Since his jailing, Russian authorities have not publicly revealed any evidence to substantiate the spying accusations against Gershkovich, who was accredited by Russia’s Foreign Ministry to work in the country. The reporter will be held in pretrial detention until at least June.

Meanwhile, Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor at VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been jailed for more than six months and is also set to be held in pretrial detention until at least June.

The dual U.S.-Russian national traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June 2023. She was waiting for them to be returned when she was arrested in October 2023.

Kurmasheva stands accused of failing to self-register as a so-called “foreign agent” and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russia military. The journalist and her employer reject the charges against her.

“She’s the mom of two wonderful young women who had to grow up awfully quickly over the last six months that she’s been in prison,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said at the event.

In a prerecorded video message, Kurmasheva’s 15-year-old daughter Bibi called for her mother’s immediate release.

“My mom, Alsu, has been behind bars in Russia for six months now, because she is a journalist,” she said. “My sister and I are so proud of her, and we miss her so, so much. She needs to be freed immediately so she can come home to us. Free Alsu.”

Press freedom groups have criticized the State Department for not yet declaring Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open additional resources to help secure her release.

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

This year’s World Press Freedom Day takes place against a backdrop that experts say is concerning for journalists around the world.

“Media freedom is under siege,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday in a statement. “Without facts, we cannot fight mis- and dis-information. Without accountability, we will not have strong policies in place. Without press freedom, we won’t have any freedom. A free press is not a choice, but a necessity.”

In particular, the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has led to the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, began gathering data in 1992. As of Friday, at least 97 journalists have been killed since the war began, including 92 Palestinians, two Israelis, and three Lebanese, according to CPJ.

“Journalists are civilians, so they need to be protected as any civilian is during a war zone. They shouldn’t be targeted,” CPJ chief Jodie Ginsberg said at the event on Friday.

New York-based CPJ has accused Israel of targeting journalists, which the Israeli government has denied.

About half of the world’s population is set to vote in national elections in 2024, which has press freedom experts concerned about the safety of reporters and potentially harmful effects for press freedom.

“This year is going to be really indicative not just of the future of a free press, but the future of democracy, because how we treat our media in the run-up to these elections is a litmus test for how the other freedoms that we enjoy, and the other democratic rights we enjoy, are likely to be treated afterwards,” Ginsberg said.

Discussions about press freedom tend to center on the negative, but Clayton Weimers, the head of the U.S. office of Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said it’s also important to recognize governments that are defending press freedom.

“World Press Freedom Day should be a celebration of the values of the free press,” Weimers said.

RSF on Friday released its annual press freedom index, which ranks 180 countries and territories in terms of media freedom. Norway and Denmark topped the list this year.

“There’s no freedom without press freedom,” Weimers said. “It’s the freedom on which all the others are based.”
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As Orthodox Christians in Ukraine prepare to celebrate Easter on May 5th, Orthodox priests in Ukraine are finding themselves trying to serve their church and support their state, even when those two are at adds. VOA’s Anna Kosstutschenko reports.
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Defense ministers from the United States, Australia, Japan and the Philippines met for a second round of quadrilateral talks in less than a year this week amid further aggression from the Chinese military. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports on the allies’ growing military ties.
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WASHINGTON — The nation’s employers pulled back on their hiring in April but still added a decent 175,000 jobs in a sign that persistently high interest rates may be starting to slow the robust U.S. job market. 

Friday’s government report showed that last month’s hiring gain was down sharply from the blockbuster increase of 315,000 in March. And it was well below the 233,000 gain that economists had predicted for April. 

Yet the moderation in the pace of hiring, along with a slowdown last month in wage growth, will likely be welcomed by the Federal Reserve, which has kept interest rates at a two-decade high to fight persistently elevated inflation. Hourly wages rose a less-than-expected 0.2% from March and 3.9% from a year earlier, the smallest annual gain since June 2021. 

The Fed has been delaying any consideration of interest rate cuts until it gains more confidence that inflation is steadily slowing toward its target. Fed rate cuts would, over time, reduce the cost of mortgages, auto loans and other consumer and business borrowing. 

Stock futures jumped Friday after the jobs report was released on hopes that rate cuts might now be more likely sometime in the coming months. 

Even with the April hiring slowdown, last month’s job growth amounted to a solid increase, although it was the lowest monthly job growth since October. With the nation’s households continuing their steady spending, many employers have had to keep hiring to meet their customer demand. 

The unemployment rate ticked up 3.9% — the 27th straight month in which it has remained below 4%, the longest such streak since the 1960s. 

Last month’s hiring was led by health care companies, which added 56,000 jobs. Warehouse and transportation companies added 22,000 and retailers 20,000. 

The state of the economy is weighing on voters’ minds as the November presidential campaign intensifies. Despite the strength of the job market, Americans remain generally exasperated by high prices, and many of them assign blame to President Joe Biden. 

America’s job market has repeatedly proved more robust than almost anyone had predicted. When the Fed began aggressively raising rates two years ago to fight a punishing inflation surge, most economists expected the resulting jump in borrowing costs to cause a recession and drive unemployment to painfully high levels. 

The Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times from March 2022 to July 2023, taking it to the highest level since 2001. Inflation did steadily cool as it was supposed to — from a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.5% in March. 

Yet the resilient strength of the job market and the overall economy, fueled by steady consumer spending, has kept inflation persistently above the Fed’s 2% target. 

The job market has been showing other signs of eventually slowing. This week, for example, the government reported that job openings fell in March to 8.5 million, the fewest in more than three years. Still, that is nevertheless a large number of vacancies: Before 2021, monthly job openings had never topped 8 million, a threshold they have now exceeded every month since March 2021. 

On a month-over-month basis, consumer inflation hasn’t declined since October. The 3.5% year-over-year inflation rate for March was still running well above the Fed’s 2% target. 
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Kyiv, Ukraine — Two people were killed on Friday in a Russian attack on the city of Kurakhove, located in the eastern Donetsk region, which is bearing the brunt of the fighting between Kyiv and Moscow.

“Various high-rise buildings were damaged. Two people were injured, two people died,” the head of the military administration Roman Padun said on social media.

Kurakhove is near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, 40 kilometers west of the Russia-occupied main city of Donetsk.

Outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian troops in the wider region are struggling against Russian forces who are pushing toward the key town of Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian officials have said Russian forces aimed to seize the hilltop town before May 9, when Russia marks victory over Nazi Germany of World War II, to give President Vladimir Putin a symbolic win.

In an interview with Britain’s The Times, Ukraine’s Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Pavliuk described a dire situation around the key city.

“We are trying everything we can do to stop the Russian plan to capture Chasiv Yar before May 9,” Pavliuk was quoted as saying.

“But Russians have a 10-to-1 ratio of artillery superiority there, and total air superiority,” he said.

Ukrainian forces have been suffering from ammunition shortages, partly due to months-long delays in U.S. aid, which were approved by President Joe Biden last week after Congress finally passed the measure.

Biden vowed to ensure the aid shipments would reach Ukraine swiftly.
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LYPIVKA, Ukraine — This Orthodox Easter season, an extraordinary new church is bringing spiritual comfort to war-weary residents of the Ukrainian village of Lypivka. Two years ago, it also provided physical refuge from the horrors outside.

Almost 100 residents sheltered in a basement chapel at the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary while Russian troops occupied the village in March 2022 as they closed in on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, 60 kilometers to the east.

“The fighting was right here,” the Rev. Hennadii Kharkivskyi said. He pointed to the churchyard, where a memorial stone commemorates six Ukrainian soldiers killed in the battle for Lypivka.

“They were injured and then the Russians came and shot each one, finished them off,” he said.

The two-week Russian occupation left the village shattered and the church itself — a modern replacement for an older structure — damaged while still under construction. It’s one of 129 war-damaged Ukrainian religious sites recorded by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization.

“It’s solid concrete,” the priest said. “But it was pierced easily” by Russian shells, which blasted holes in the church and left a wall inside pockmarked with shrapnel scars. At the bottom of the basement staircase, a black scorch mark shows where a grenade was lobbed down.

But within weeks, workers were starting to repair the damage and work to finish the solid building topped by red domes that towers over the village, with its scarred and damaged buildings, blooming fruit trees and fields that the Russians left littered with land mines.

For many of those involved — including a tenacious priest, a wealthy philanthropist, a famous artist and a team of craftspeople — rebuilding this church plays a part in Ukraine’s struggle for culture, identity and its very existence. The building, a striking fusion of the ancient and the modern, reflects a country determined to express its soul even in wartime.

The building’s austere exterior masks a blaze of color inside. The vibrant red, blue, orange and gold panels decorating walls and ceiling are the work of Anatoliy Kryvolap, an artist whose bold, modernist images of saints and angels make this church unique in Ukraine.

The 77-year-old Kryvolap, whose abstract paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction, said that he wanted to eschew the severe-looking icons he’d seen in many Orthodox churches.

“It seems to me that going to church to meet God should be a celebration,” he said.

There has been a church on this site for more than 300 years. An earlier building was destroyed by shelling during World War II. The small wooden church that replaced it was put to more workaday uses in Soviet times, when religion was suppressed.

Kharkivskyi reopened the parish in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set about rebuilding the church, spiritually and physically, with funding from Bohdan Batrukh, a Ukrainian film producer and distributor.

Work stopped when Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Moscow’s forces reached the fringes of Kyiv before being driven back. Lypivka was liberated by the start of April.

Since then, fighting has been concentrated in the east and south of Ukraine, though aerial attacks with rockets, missiles and drones are a constant threat across the country.

By May 2022, workers had resumed work on the church. It has been slow going. Millions of Ukrainians fled the country when war erupted, including builders and craftspeople. Hundreds of thousands of others have joined the military.

Inside the church, a tower of wooden scaffolding climbs up to the dome, where a red and gold image of Christ raises a hand in blessing.

For now, services take place in the smaller basement, where the priest, in white and gold robes, recently conducted a service for a couple of dozen parishioners as the smell of incense wafted through the candlelit room.

He is expecting a large crowd for Easter, which falls on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection.

A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, with which the Lypivka church is affiliated. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.

Kharkivskyi says the size of his congregation has remained stable even though the population of the village has shrunk dramatically since the war began. In tough times, he says, people turn to religion.

“Like people say: ‘Air raid alert — go see God,’” the priest said wryly.

Liudmyla Havryliuk, who has a summer home in Lypivka, found herself drawn back to the village and its church even before the fighting stopped. When Russia invaded, she drove to Poland with her daughters, then 16 and 18 years old. But within weeks she came back to the village she loves, still besieged by the Russians.

The family hunkered down in their home, cooking with firewood, drawing water from a well, sometimes under Russian fire. Havryliuk said that when they saw Russian helicopters, they held hands and prayed.

“Not prayer in strict order, like in the book,” she said. “It was from my heart, from my soul, about what should we do? How can I save myself and especially my daughters?”

She goes to Lypivka’s church regularly, saying it’s a “place you can shelter mentally, within yourself.”

As Ukraine marks its third Easter at war, the church is nearing completion. Only a few of Kryvolap’s interior panels remain to be installed. He said that the shell holes will be left unrepaired as a reminder to future generations.

“(It’s) so that they will know what kind of ‘brothers’ we have, that these are just fascists,” he said, referring to the Russians.

“We are Orthodox, just like them, but destroying churches is something inhumane.”
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WASHINGTON — Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger’s junta to expel U.S. forces.

The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington’s fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian forces were not mingling with U.S. troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital.

The move by Russia’s military, which Reuters was the first to report, puts U.S. and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the nations’ military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious over the conflict in Ukraine.

It also raises questions about the fate of U.S. installations in the country following a withdrawal. “(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable,” the official said.

Asked about the Reuters report, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin played down any risk to American troops or the chance that Russian troops might get close to U.S. military hardware.

“The Russians are in a separate compound and don’t have access to U.S. forces or access to our equipment,” Austin told a press conference in Honolulu.

“I’m always focused on the safety and protection of our troops … But right now, I don’t see a significant issue here in terms of our force protection.”

The Nigerien and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. and its allies have been forced to move troops out of a number of African countries following coups that brought to power groups eager to distance themselves from Western governments. In addition to the impending departure from Niger, U.S. troops have also left Chad in recent days, while French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso.

At the same time, Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African nations, pitching Moscow as a friendly country with no colonial baggage in the continent.

Mali, for example, has in recent years become one of Russia’s closest African allies, with the Wagner Group mercenary force deploying there to fight jihadist insurgents.

Russia has described relations with the United States as “below zero” because of U.S. military and financial aid for Ukraine in its effort to defend against invading Russian forces.

The U.S. official said Nigerien authorities had told President Joe Biden’s administration that about 60 Russian military personnel would be in Niger, but the official could not verify that number.

After the coup, the U.S. military moved some of its forces in Niger from Airbase 101 to Airbase 201 in the city of Agadez.

It was not immediately clear what U.S. military equipment remained at Airbase 101.

The United States built Airbase 201 in central Niger at a cost of more than $100 million. Since 2018 it has been used to target Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters with armed drones.

Washington is concerned about Islamic militants in the Sahel region, who may be able to expand without the presence of U.S. forces and intelligence capabilities.

Niger’s move to ask for the removal of U.S. troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior U.S. officials raised concerns including the expected arrival of Russia forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium.

While the U.S. message to Nigerien officials was not an ultimatum, the official said, it was made clear U.S. forces could not be on a base with Russian forces.

“They did not take that well,” the official said.

A two-star U.S. general has been sent to Niger to try to arrange a professional and responsible withdrawal.

While no decisions have been taken on the future of U.S. troops in Niger, the official said the plan was for them to return to U.S. Africa Command’s home bases, located in Germany.
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Washington — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said late Thursday he does not see signs that Hamas is going to attack U.S. forces who are building a pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver aid to the war-torn strip by sea.

“I don’t see any indications currently that there is an active intent to do that,” Austin told reporters at a press conference in Hawaii.

Austin stressed that the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, CENTCOM chief Gen. Erik Kurilla, has put several security measures in place to keep the troops who are building the pier and helping with aid distribution safe.

“Our allies are also providing security in that area as well, and so it’s going to require that we continue to coordinate with them very closely to ensure that if anything happens that, you know, our troops are protected,” Austin said.

The new port is just southwest of Gaza City. Last week a mortar attack targeted the port site but officials said no one was hurt.

“This is an accident, a very serious accident waiting to happen,” Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA.

Bowman, who is also a U.S. Army veteran, said Thursday that efforts to feed those in desperate need are “laudable,” but security concerns since the inception of this U.S. mission appear to remain unanswered while some of the plans are still being developed.

“The kind of terrorists, the kind of person – I hesitate to use that term – that would … wage the October 7 terror attack, use human shields and hold innocent men, women and children as hostages, those are the very same people that will not hesitate to attack those trying to bring food and water to hungry and thirsty people,” Bowman said.

Crews from the USNS Roy P. Benavidez and several Army vessels started building the floating platform for the operation last week, according to a senior military official. Next will come construction of the causeway, which will be anchored to the shore by the Israel Defense Forces.

U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope to complete construction and begin operations this month.

The senior military official told reporters the Pentagon expects deliveries to “begin at about 90 trucks a day … and then quickly increase to 150 trucks a day.”

Aid has been slow to get into Gaza because of long backups of vehicles at Israeli inspection points. The U.S. and other nations have been air-dropping food into Gaza, but each military plane only holds about one to three truckloads of food, a U.S. official told VOA.

Aid organizations have said several hundred truckloads of food are needed in Gaza each day.

Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 terror attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken hostage. In the nearly seven months since the attack, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gazan health officials.  
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Moscow has cracked down on Russian media outlets that offer independent reporting on the war in Ukraine, prompting hundreds of journalists to flee. While in exile, these media workers have found ways to keep the news flowing into the heavily censored country. For VOA News, Lisa Bryant has the story from Paris. VOA footage by Vahid Karami.
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Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine has an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.

The ministry said on Wednesday that it would “for the first time in history” use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans.

Dressed in a dark suit, the spokesperson introduced herself as Victoria Shi, a “digital person,” in a presentation posted on social media.

The figure gesticulates with her hands and moves her head as she speaks.

The foreign ministry’s press service told AFP that the statements given by Shi would not be generated by AI but “written and verified by real people.”

“It’s only the visual part that the AI helps us to generate,” it said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the new spokesperson was a “technological leap that no diplomatic service in the world has yet made.”

The main reason for creating her was “saving time and resources” for diplomats, he said.

Shi’s creators are a team called The Game Changers who have also made virtual reality content related to the war in Ukraine.

The spokesperson’s name is based on the word victory and the Ukrainian for artificial intelligence: shtuchniy intelekt.

Shi’s appearance and voice are modeled on a real person: Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine’s version of The Bachelor reality show.

Nombre was born in the now Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

She has 54,000 followers on her Instagram account, which she uses to discuss stereotypes about mixed-race Ukrainians and those who grew up as Russian speakers.

The ministry said that Nombre took part free of charge.

It stressed that Shi and Nombre “are two different people” and that only the AI figure gives official statements.

To avoid fakes, these will be accompanied by a QR code linking them to text versions on the ministry’s website.

Shi will comment on consular services, currently a controversial topic.

Ukraine last week suspended such services for men of fighting age living abroad, making it necessary for them to return to their country for administrative procedures and potentially face the draft. 
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washington — The U.S. says it has been trying to engage North Korea by sending messages repeatedly despite Pyongyang’s apparent lack of interest in dialogue and its escalation of threats in the region.

“We have sent such messages in multiple ways – through third parties and directly, orally and in writing – and have included specific proposals on humanitarian cooperation and other topics for discussion,” a State Department spokesperson said.

“We have also emphasized our willingness to discuss practical steps both sides could take to address the security situation in the region,” the spokesperson continued via email to VOA’s Korean Service on April 26.

“To date, however, the DPRK has shown no indication it is interested in engaging. Instead, we have seen a marked increase in the scope and scale of DPRK provocations, which have only served to raise regional tensions and increase the risk of accidental or unintentional escalation,” the spokesperson added.

North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea has been conducting multiple missile and rocket tests, including what it said was its first nuclear counterattack drills using “super-large” artillery rockets carrying mock nuclear warheads on April 22.

Pyongyang has also ramped up its cooperation with Russia, sending arms to support Moscow’s fight against Ukraine. Russia has been shipping refined petroleum to North Korea above the limit of 500,000 barrels annually set by the U.N. Security Council, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday.

The North Korean mission to the U.N. did not respond to a VOA inquiry on its reaction to the U.S. description of its efforts made to resume talks.

Dialogue between the two has been deadlocked since October 2019 when working-level talks failed to reconcile differences over denuclearization and sanctions relief that became apparent a few months earlier at a summit in Hanoi.

Washington has maintained that it is open to renewed dialogue on Pyongyang’s nuclear program without preconditions.

Former U.S. officials suggested that the Biden administration provided the unusually detailed account of its efforts to engage Pyongyang in response to criticisms saying it has not done enough.

“The Biden team is quite sensitive to the attacks coming from ‘liberals,’ especially critics who claim the administration has not attached sufficient priority to North Korea and has not done enough to pursue diplomacy with Pyongyang,” said Evans Revere, a former State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea.

Revere added that some of these critics are arguing that Washington needs to change its approach, offer concessions and engage in arms control and threat reduction talks with North Korea. He said this explains not only the administration’s detailed description of its efforts at talks but its willingness to discuss “interim steps” toward denuclearization.

Two senior U.S. officials said in March that Washington is willing to consider such steps and discuss sanctions and confidence-building measures.

Robert Rapson, who served as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, said the Biden administration may be trying to address China’s call for talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

“It’s possible Beijing may have laid out a quid pro quo for any support with North Korea by calling on the U.S. to up its efforts to engage with Pyongyang – hence the statement” from the State Department, said Rapson.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference in Beijing after talks with Chinese officials that he “encouraged” Beijing “to press Pyongyang to end its dangerous behavior and engage in dialogue.”

Joseph DeTrani, who served as the special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006, said, “The Biden administration wants to make it clear, for the record and as we approach the November presidential election, that the administration was proactive in its policy toward North Korea and they did everything possible” to have Pyongyang “return to negotiations.”

 
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united nations — Four hundred days.

That’s how long American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been held in a Russian prison.

Russia’s Federal Security Service detained him while he was on assignment for U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal in the city of Yekaterinburg and accused him of espionage.

The newspaper and the U.S. government have denied the charges against the now 32-year-old reporter.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Thursday at a U.S.-hosted event on the eve of World Press Freedom Day that reporters are too often wrongfully detained for “simply telling the truth.”

“That was Evan’s crime. Reporting the facts about Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine,” she said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. Gershkovich was arrested a day after publishing a report on how the war had hurt Russia’s economy.

Thomas-Greenfield said the Biden administration will not rest until Gershkovich is reunited with his family. His parents and sister were present at the event.

Mariana Katzarova, U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, told the gathering by video from Bulgaria that she is very concerned that Gershkovich has been held for over a year without a trial or evidence.

“The arrest and detention of Evan raises serious concerns about his personal safety, as well as the safety of all foreign journalists conducting their legitimate business in Russia,” she said.

In October 2023, dual U.S.-Russian national Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, who works for VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was also arrested in Russia. She remains jailed on charges of failing to self-register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian military. If convicted, she could face up to 15 years in prison.

Kurmasheva was in Russia to visit her elderly and ailing mother.

Katzarova said Russia has one of the highest conviction rates in the world.

“Once charged, the likelihood of being found guilty in the Russian court is very high,” she said, “raising concerns about the fairness and independence of the judiciary in Russia and about the rights of the accused to a fair trial.”

David Rohde, an American journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2008 but escaped after seven months in captivity, told the gathering that the source of attacks on journalists has shifted in the past several years.

“There has been a dramatic change where the people detaining and in some places killing journalists has shifted from extremist groups and criminal groups to a large number of states,” he said.

“It has been more than a year now, and every day is a day too long,” Danielle Gershkovich said of her brother’s detention.

“We need to do whatever it takes to bring him home now.”
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LONDON — British police arrested 45 people on Thursday after a violent protest in London against the transfer of asylum seekers form a hotel to a barge off southern England.

Dozens of protesters outside the hotel in Peckham, southeast London, attempted to stop a bus carrying the asylum seekers from leaving, reportedly deflating its tires and obstructing the vehicle by surrounding it, London’s Metropolitan Police said.

Tackling illegal migration is one of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s top priorities, and to bring down the high costs of accommodating migrants in hotels while their asylum claims are processed, the government has been trying to use barges and former military sites.

Critics, however, have called the Bibby Stockholm barge — which is docked at Portland Port in Dorset and can house up to 500 men — inhumane and compared it to a prison ship.

Several police officers were assaulted during the protest in Peckham, but none were seriously hurt, police said.

“We will always respect the right to peaceful protest, but when officers are assaulted and obstructed from their duty, then we can and will take decisive action,” Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said.

Arrests were made for offenses that included obstruction of the highway, obstructing police and assault on police.

“Housing migrants in hotels costs the British taxpayer millions of pounds every day,” Home Secretary James Cleverly said on social media platform X, alongside a video of the protest.

“We will not allow this small group of students, posing for social media, to deter us from doing what is right for the British public,” he said.
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BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbian lawmakers on Thursday voted into office a new government that reinstated two pro-Russia officials who are sanctioned by the United States, reflecting persistent close ties with Moscow despite the Balkan nation’s proclaimed bid to join the European Union. 

Prime Minister Milos Vucevic’s government got backing in a 152-61 vote in the 250-member parliament. The remaining 37 lawmakers were absent. 

The government includes former intelligence chief Aleksandar Vulin, who has made several visits to Russia in recent months, as one of several vice-premiers, along with Nenad Popovic, another Russia supporter who has faced U.S. sanctions. 

The foreign minister in the previous government, Ivica Dacic, also a pro-Russia politician, will be in charge of the Interior Ministry in the new Cabinet. 

The vote followed a heated two-day debate. President Aleksandar Vucic’s ruling nationalist conservative Serbian Progressive Party holds a comfortable majority after an election in December that fueled political tensions because of reports of widespread irregularities. 

The increasingly authoritarian Vucic has refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, though Serbia has condemned the aggression. 

Vucevic, the new prime minister, reiterated that Belgrade doesn’t intend to impose sanctions on Russia and “cannot and will not give up” the friendship with Russia. Integration into the EU remains a “strategic goal,” Vucevic said. 

“Best possible” relations with the U.S. also are in Serbia’s interest, Vucevic added. “I firmly believe that our relations can once again be on a high level.” 

Security analyst and a Belgrade university professor Filip Ejdus described the new government’s composition as a “spin” designed to send a message both to the West and Russia, and to voters at home. 

“It sends a message to the EU that they should not push Belgrade too much over democracy, rule of law, or Kosovo if they want to keep Serbia in its orbit,” Ejdus said. “At the same time, it signals to Moscow a readiness to strengthen the strategic partnership with Russia.” 

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Vulin in July, accusing him of involvement in illegal arms shipments, drug trafficking and misuse of public office. 

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said that Vulin used his public authority to help a U.S.-sanctioned Serbian arms dealer move illegal arms shipments across Serbia’s borders. Vulin is also accused of involvement in a drug-trafficking ring, according to U.S. authorities. 

Vulin, who in the past had served as both the army and police chief, has recently received two medals of honor from Russia, one from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, and the other awarded to him by Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Popovic, a businessman and a former government minister, has “used his Russia-based businesses to enrich himself and gain close connections with Kremlin senior leaders,” the U.S. Treasury said last November in a statement. 

The U.S. sanctions against individuals and companies in the Balkans are designed to counter attempts to undermine peace and stability in the volatile region and Russia’s “malign” influence. 

The West has stepped up efforts to lure the troubled region into its fold, fearing that Russia could stir unrest to avert attention from the war in Ukraine. The Balkans went through multiple wars in the 1990s, and tensions still persist. 

Serbia’s falling democracy record has pushed the country away from EU integration, explained Ejdus. Reports of election fraud at the December 17 vote triggered street protests and clashes. 

“Vucic is still pretending to be on the EU path because it’s beneficial for Serbia’s economy, and the EU tolerates his authoritarian tendencies out of fear of instability that could be caused in its backyard if Belgrade was lost to Russia and China,” Ejdus said. 
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