Istanbul/Washington — Journalists in Turkey are welcoming a recent Constitutional Court ruling that revoked bans on online access to hundreds of news articles.

Last week, the court published a ruling that lifted the bans, stating that the restrictions are unconstitutional and violate freedom of expression.

Lower courts had blocked the stories, citing Article 9 of Law No. 5651, which enables such bans or removal of content in cases of personal rights violations. Press freedom advocates and journalists have long said that the measure was used as a form of censorship against digital media.

In its recent ruling, the Constitutional Court examined 502 orders to block access to websites and articles from 2014 to 2023. Of those, 352 were appealed by the Freedom of Expression Association, the IFOD.

“We have been following this issue since 2014,” Yaman Akdeniz, IFOD’s co-founder and human rights lawyer, told VOA.

The banned news articles were from several independent digital media outlets, including BirGun, Diken, Gazete Duvar, Arti Gercek and sendika.org.

A list of banned stories compiled by IFOD included articles concerning President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his family, his Cabinet members and politicians from his ruling Justice and Development Party.

Cautious welcome

While welcoming the decision, Berkant Gultekin, BirGun’s digital broadcast coordinator, is taking a cautious stance.

“It is a good decision on paper, but we will see over time how it will affect the news production process in Turkey,” Gultekin said.

“Even if the Constitutional Court decides in favor of journalists, we cannot say, ‘We are free now,’ as the government decides which ruling the judiciary will implement,” Gultekin said, noting that the court’s rulings in other, unrelated cases are worrying.

Turkey has recently experienced a judicial crisis over the continued imprisonment of ex-parliament member Can Atalay. Atalay was elected to parliament in May 2023 from the Workers’ Party of Turkey, or TIP, while serving an 18-year prison sentence on charges of trying to overthrow the government.

In October and December, the Constitutional Court, in separate decisions, ruled for the release of Atalay. Elected parliamentarians in Turkey enjoy legislative immunity as stated in the constitution. Still, the top appeals court, the Court of Cassation, dismissed the rulings, and Atalay’s status as a lawmaker was stripped away by parliament last month.

Banu Tuna is the secretary-general of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, or TGS, which was a plaintiff in the case that sought to repeal the bans on access to digital content.

“Of course, we are pleased with our result, but will this decision protect other outlets from being censored in the future?” Tuna asked.

While welcoming the Constitutional Court’s ruling in the access ban case, she said Atalay’s situation is an example of problems facing Turkey’s judicial system.

“We essentially fulfilled our duty, and the Constitutional Court confirmed we were right,” she said. Tuna added that from this point on, the issue is what the Constitutional Court decisions mean for other courts and to what extent such decisions are implemented.

Diken, an independent media outlet, filed at least 118 applications to the Constitutional Court asking it to revoke access bans.

“The ruling has recorded our right to inform and people’s right to be informed, which we have defended from the very beginning,” said Erdal Guven, the editor-in-chief of Diken. “Yet, it is difficult to say that everything is all right.”

Local courts in Turkey have banned access to several VOA Turkish Service stories.

The Access Providers Association, an organization that implements media bans in Turkey, informed VOA Turkish that an Ankara court lifted a 2021 access ban on a news story, citing the recent ruling.

The content, however, is still not accessible in Turkey since a ban on VOA Turkish’s domain name over a licensing issue has been in effect since August 2023.

In January 2022, the Constitutional Court ruled that Article 9 of Law No. 5651 constituted “a structural problem” that caused the violation of freedom of press and expression. According to the court, the measure’s scope and limits were not clear, and the bans were placed without any input from affected media outlets.

The court gave parliament a year to come up with a solution, but lawmakers have taken no action on the matter.

This past January, the Constitutional Court decided to annul the measure, saying it limits freedom of the press. However, the repeal does not take effect until October.

IFOD’s Yaman Akdeniz has criticized the Constitutional Court for taking this long to annul the measure and decide on the caseload that has been growing since 2014.

“Since the article will be in effect until October 10, criminal judgeships of peace will continue to make decisions before the March 31 elections. The danger of censorship continues,” Akdeniz said. March 31 is when local elections are due to be held.

BirGun’s Gultekin also points out that lower courts can still implement access bans very quickly.

“[The courts] can issue an order to block within a few hours. The number of blocked news has recently reached five or six a week; I do not know the exact number,” Gultekin said.

This article originated in VOA’s Turkish Service.
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White House — With former President Donald Trump doubling down on remarks that, if elected, he would not defend NATO members who don’t meet defense spending targets, and a foreign military funding package stalled in Congress, a stark divide is emerging on how two American presidents and their constituents view America’s role in the world.

Biden, who has made strengthening coalitions against adversaries the central tenet of his foreign policy, advocates for more international cooperation overall. Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is again pushing for his brand of “America First” isolationism that created anxiety among allies and partners during his time in office.

At issue is how Washington would meet the collective defense principle under Article 5 of NATO’s charter, which requires members to assist one another in the event of an outside attack. In a campaign speech last week, Trump boasted that as president, he once warned a NATO leader he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to member countries of the alliance that are “delinquent” in allocating 2% of their gross domestic product to military spending.

The remarks have sparked anxiety among NATO allies as they support Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion two years ago but are being dismissed by Trump allies as mere campaign rhetoric.

However, in another campaign event Wednesday evening, Trump retold the story, saying, “Look, if they’re not going to pay, we’re not going to protect. OK?”

Trump has long complained that Washington is saddled with an unfair share of the 31-member alliance’s burden. In the months leading up to his election in 2016, he repeatedly questioned NATO’s purpose and efficacy, calling it “obsolete.”

Pushing for House passage of a $95 billion security aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific allies, Biden on Tuesday denounced Trump’s NATO-bashing comments as “shameful,” “dangerous and shocking” and “un-American.”

He slammed his predecessor’s “transactional” approach, pointing out that Article 5 has been invoked only once, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks against America, allowing allies to assist in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.

Trump is “bowing down to a Russian dictator,” Biden said, vowing his administration would not walk away from its “sacred commitment” to the alliance.

In defense of Trump’s comments, Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said that Trump “got our allies to increase their NATO spending by demanding they pay up, but Joe Biden went back to letting them take advantage of the American taxpayer.”

“When you don’t pay your defense spending you can’t be surprised that you get more war,” Miller said in a statement to VOA.

The White House argues it is Biden who deserves credit for increasing the number of NATO allies that meet their 2% defense threshold, from nine members to 18, since he became president.

“You’ve got NATO countries stepping up now with implementable plans for the defense and deterrence of the east and the south in a way that you never did before,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said during a White House briefing Wednesday. “And you have unity among the NATO alliance in a way that has really been pretty unprecedented in modern memory.”

Opposition from Trump loyalists

The $95 billion funding package for allies passed the Senate on Tuesday but now faces steep opposition from Trump loyalists in the House of Representatives, including Speaker Mike Johnson.

More than half of Republican senators — including some of the party’s most committed foreign policy hawks — voted against the measure.

One of them, Senator Lindsay Graham, said that Trump is “dead set against” the bill. He signaled support for Trump’s idea that the U.S. should make such funding packages “a loan, not a gift.”

Trump allies have also floated ideas to force NATO members to pay. Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and former chief of staff of the White House National Security Council under Trump, suggested a “tiered alliance” in which members that failed to meet the 2% target on defense would no longer be covered by Article 5 protections.

Such signals from Trump and his allies have gone beyond isolationism in shaking the confidence of European allies, said Kristine Berzina, managing director of Geostrategy North at the German Marshall Fund research group. They contradict “the essence of deterrence,” and invite hostilities.

“Trump is trying to win points through bravado. And American bravado on the international stage has been incredibly powerful for America’s friends,” she told VOA. “This is kind of the inverse of bravado. This is a, ‘Well, maybe won’t show up at all.’”

American voters

Until Trump, supporting allies and partners has never been a controversial element of foreign policy, which in itself is not traditionally a key issue in U.S. elections. However, with Trump’s NATO-bashing, the broader issue of America’s role in the world is set to become another divide among voters.

Just 50% of Republicans believe the U.S. benefits from transatlantic alliances, compared to 80% of Democrats and 63% of independents, according to an October poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The issue is “highly politicized” by Trump to “gin up his base,” said Clifford Young, president of public affairs at Ipsos, a polling research firm. For Trump, “it’s about breaking the rules and shaking things up,” Young told VOA. “His base is very much in favor of that in a general sense, not necessarily specifically.”

Among Republicans, 40% of those who identify as Trump supporters support military aid for Ukraine, while 59% of non-Trump Republicans favor it, close to the 63% level among the overall public.

Arguments over NATO and support for Ukraine are set to heat up as the administration hosts an alliance summit in July in Washington, less than a week before the Republican National Convention, where Trump is likely to be officially nominated as the party’s presidential candidate.

The NATO summit is meant to celebrate the group’s 75th birthday and showcase that the “alliance is bigger, stronger and more united than it has ever been,” Sullivan said at a press conference in NATO’s headquarters in Brussels earlier this month.

That message is on track to clash with Trump’s “America First.”

“Much more than any other campaign season, we’re going to see foreign policy and security play an outsized role,” GMF’s Berzina said. “Trump is breaking Republican orthodoxy entirely, not only with his isolationism, but with his pandering to autocrats.”

The question is, Berzina added, how many centrist Republicans and Democrats would vote to say that Trump’s message is not in line with what America is.
…

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — The mass shooting that unfolded amid throngs of people at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl celebration appeared to stem from a dispute between several people, authorities said Thursday. 

Police Chief Stacey Graves said that the 22 people injured in the shooting ranged between the ages of 8 and 47 years old, half of whom were under the age of 16. A mother of two was also killed. 

Three people were detained — including two juveniles — and firearms were recovered during the mayhem, police said. But investigators are calling for witnesses, people with cellphone footage and victims of the violence to call a dedicated hotline. 

“We are working to determine the involvement of others. And it should be noted we have recovered several firearms. This incident is still a very active investigation,” Graves said at a news conference. 

The shooting outside Union Station occurred despite the presence of more than 800 police officers who were in the building and nearby, including on top of nearby structures, said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother and ran for safety when the shots rang out. But he doesn’t expect to cancel the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day parade. 

“We have parades all the time. I don’t think they’ll end. Certainly we recognized the public safety challenges and issues that relate to them,” Lucas said. 

Throngs had lined the parade route before the shooting, with fans climbing trees and street poles or standing on rooftops for a better view. Players rolled through the crowd on double-decker buses, as DJs and drummers heralded their arrival. 

It’s unclear exactly how many people attended the Chief’s Super Bowl parade. When the Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 2015, an estimated 800,000 people had flocked to that victory parade, shattering expectations in a city with a population of about 470,000 and a metropolitan area of about 2 million. 

Witnesses described confusion as gunshots began, sounding to some like fireworks. 

Some people didn’t run at first but others immediately scrambled for cover. The rally music initially continued playing despite the havoc. And then, within moments of the shooting stopping, some people were walking as if nothing happened. 

Gene Hamilton, 61, of Wichita, Kansas, said he found it unnerving that the upbeat rally music continued among the confusion. 

“If people are shooting, they should change the music,” he said. 

Ashley Coderre, a 36-year-old from Overland Park, Kansas, said she heard two or three shots after walking out of a Panera near Crown Center, a couple blocks from Union Station. She said people were running and yelling. 

Then suddenly she said people were walking around like nothing had happened: “We were so confused.” 

It is the latest sports celebration in the U.S. to be marred by gun violence, following a shooting that wounded several people last year in Denver after the Nuggets’ NBA championship and gunfire last year at a parking lot near the Texas Rangers’ World Series championship parade. 

Social media users posted shocking video of police running through Wednesday’s crowded scene as people scrambled for cover and fled. One video showed someone apparently performing chest compressions on a victim as another person, seemingly writhing in pain, lay on the ground nearby. People screamed in the background. 

Another video showed two people chase and tackle a person, holding them down until two police officers arrived. In an interview Thursday with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Trey Filter of Wichita, Kansas, said he saw someone being chased and took action. 

“I couldn’t see much. I heard, ‘Get ’em!’ I saw a flash next to me. And I remember I jumped and remember thinking, ‘I hope this is the fool they were talking about,'” he said. “They started yelling that, ‘There’s a gun! There’s a gun!'” 

Filter said he and another man kept the person pinned down until officers arrived. “I remember the officers pulling my feet off of him and at that point I was just looking for my wife and kids,” he said. 

It was not immediately clear if the person he held down was involved in the shooting, but Filter’s wife, Casey, saw a gun nearby and picked it up. 

The woman killed in the shooting was identified by radio station KKFI-FM as Lisa Lopez-Galvan, host of “Taste of Tejano.” 

Lopez-Galvan, whose DJ name was “Lisa G,” was an extrovert and devoted mother from a prominent Latino family in the area, said Rosa Izurieta and Martha Ramirez, two childhood friends who worked with her at a staffing company. 

“She’s the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anybody — that would be Lisa,” Izurieta said. 

Kansas City has long struggled with gun violence, and in 2020 it was among nine cities targeted by the U.S. Justice Department in an effort to crack down on violent crime. In 2023, the city matched a record with 182 homicides, most of which involved guns. 

Lucas has joined with mayors across the country in calling for new laws to reduce gun violence, including mandating universal background checks. 

“We did everything to make this event as safe as possible,” Lucas, a Democrat, said in an interview on KMBC-TV Thursday. “But as long as we have fools who will commit these types of acts, as long as we have their access to firearms with this level of capacity, then we may see incidents like this one.” 

The parade and rally were the third in five years after Chiefs’ Super Bowl wins. Lucas said it may be time to reconsider how to handle the next one if they win again, perhaps holding a “vastly smaller event” at Arrowhead Stadium, with fans going through metal detectors. 

Lisa Money of Kansas City was trying to gather some confetti near the end of the parade when she heard somebody yell, “Down, down, everybody down!” At first she thought it might be a joke, until she saw the SWAT team jumping over the fence. 

“I can’t believe it really happened,” Money said. “Who in their right mind would do something like this?” 

University Health spokesperson Leslie Carto said two of the eight gunshot victims brought to the hospital are still in critical condition. One is in stable condition. The other five have been discharged. The hospital also treated four people from the rally who had nongunshot injuries. Three of those patients were discharged, Carto said. 

Stephanie Meyer, chief nursing officer for Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said it was treating 12 patients from the rally, including 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15, many of whom suffered gunshot wounds. All were expected to recover, she said. 

When asked about the condition of the children, Meyer responded: “Fear. The one word I would use to describe what we saw and how they came to us was fear.” 

St. Luke’s Hospital spokesperson Emily Hohenberg said one gunshot victim at the hospital remains in critical condition. Four people who suffered injuries while fleeing the aftermath of the shooting were treated and released. 
…

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — China and Russia have doubled down on their “no-limits partnership” in recent weeks, with leaders from both countries vowing to maintain “close personal interaction” and the Chinese ambassador to Russia revealing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to visit China this year. 

During a Feb. 8 call, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin celebrated the deepened bilateral engagement and cooperation between China and Russia in various sectors and criticized what they called “U.S. interference in other countries’ affairs.” 

In addition to the call between Xi and Putin, China’s ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, told Russian state media Sputnik Feb. 10 that Putin will visit China this year and that the two leaders are expected to hold several meetings during the year.

“Putin’s visit to China [this year] will definitely take place [and] China looks forward to his arrival,” Zhang said in the interview. 

Some analysts say Beijing and Moscow hope to use their recent interactions to show the world they are “strongly aligned with each other.” 

They want to show “that they have each other’s back because they both feel pressure from the U.S.,” Ian Chong, a political scientist at National Singapore University, told VOA by phone.

Since Russia and China share the goal of replacing the U.S. and weakening coordination between Washington and its allies, other experts say Beijing and Moscow believe that it is in their interests to further deepen bilateral ties. 

“While there are frictions between Russia and China, they have been fairly successful in weakening democracies and exploiting their systems,” Sari Arho Havrén, an associate fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute, told VOA in a written response, adding that the relationship between China and Russia brings more positives than negatives to both countries. 

Despite the mutual commitment to deepen ties, some recent developments may limit the degree of cooperation. Several media outlets reported that the EU is preparing to propose sanctions on three Chinese companies and four companies in Hong Kong for supporting the Russian military. 

The sanctions would be part of EU efforts to close loopholes that may allow Russia to obtain military technologies required for its weapons manufacturing. In response to the news, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it considers the sanctions imposed by the EU “unacceptable.” 

“China strongly opposes the application of illegal sanctions or ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ against China because of China-Russia cooperation,” the ministry said in a statement shared with some media outlets, adding that Beijing “will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.” 

In addition to the proposed sanctions, some Chinese banks have reportedly either ceased operations with Russian or Belarusian companies or tightened regulations around transactions with Russia to comply with Western sanctions on Russia.

In response to the development, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said Moscow is confident that payment issues with China will be solved, adding that trade between China and Russia is expanding successfully.

Despite the closeness of their political relationship, some experts say the EU sanctions on Chinese companies and some Chinese banks’ reluctance to deal with Russian entities show that the commercial relationship between Beijing and Moscow is quite complex. 

“Chinese businesses and the Chinese government are very careful about not getting punished by international sanctions imposed by the U.S. and EU,” Philipp Ivanov, a senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute, told VOA in a video interview. 

He said that while diplomatic visits between the two countries will continue, Beijing will try to carefully manage the commercial activities between China and Russia.

“At the moment, it’s hard to see [recent developments] having a huge impact on trade [between China and Russia], but China may adjust its approach [to manage its trade relationship with Russia] in the mid- to long-term,” Ivanov said. 

Since this month marks two years since Putin and Xi declared the “no-limits partnership” between China and Russia, Ivanov said the close bilateral relationship may have reached its peak. “Russia and China are politically and diplomatically very close and their economic and trade ties are growing,” he told VOA. 

However, “since Russia can’t offer anything else to China apart from what’s already offering in terms of energy and commodities, there’s not a lot else that they can do together,” Ivanov said, adding that one area to observe is how Beijing and Moscow coordinate their strategic interests. 

As Switzerland prepares to facilitate possible peace talks on the Ukraine war, all sides are looking at how China positions itself in the process. Following his visit to Beijing earlier this month, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said he hopes China can contribute to the potential peace process by leveraging its close relationship with Russia.

Despite the aspirations expressed by Switzerland, Chong in Singapore said China may prefer to maintain its vague position on Ukraine, which is that all parties will strive to “create favorable conditions for the political settlement of the crisis.” 

“Both Beijing and Moscow may be betting on the possibility of former U.S. President Donald Trump returning to office [in November,] which could reshuffle things to the advantage of China and Russia,” he told VOA. 
…

Berlin — German automaker Volkswagen said Wednesday several of its models had been refused entry into the United States, after it emerged that a Chinese-made component may have breached labor laws.

“We are working to rectify a delay in delivering certain Volkswagen Group vehicles from ports to dealers due to a customs issue,” Volkswagen said in a statement.

The trouble related to a “small electronic component,” which was “in the process of being replaced,” Volkswagen said.

The part, said to be from “western China,” was found to be in breach of U.S. anti-forced labor laws, according to the Financial Times, which reported the news first. The Financial Times said Porsche, Bentley and Audi models were affected.

According to the report, Volkswagen was not aware of the origin of the part, having sourced it from a supplier.

The German auto group was made aware of the issue by a supplier and notified U.S. authorities, per the report.

Volkswagen said it “takes allegations of infringements of human rights very seriously, both within the company and in the supply chain.”

“As soon as we received information of allegations regarding one of our sub-suppliers, we have been investigating the matter,” the group said.

The United States has banned most imports from Xinjiang, in western China, unless companies offer verifiable proof that production did not involve forced labor.

Rights campaigners have for years accused Beijing of a brutal crackdown against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, including through forced labor and detention camps. Beijing denies the allegations of abuse.

The issue of forced labor is acutely sensitive for Volkswagen, which has long been plagued by questions over its factory in the region, operated by its local partner SAIC.

Earlier on Wednesday, Volkswagen said it was discussing the future of its activities in China’s troubled Xinjiang province, after the Handelsblatt daily reported that forced labor may have been used to build a test track in Turpan, Xinjiang.

VW said it had seen no evidence of human rights violations in connection with the project but that it would likewise investigate any new information that came to light.
…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A moon lander built by Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines was launched from Florida early Thursday on a mission to conduct the first U.S. lunar touchdown in more than a half century and the first by a privately owned spacecraft.

The company’s Nova-C lander, dubbed Odysseus, lifted off shortly after 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) atop a Falcon 9 rocket flown by Elon Musk’ SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.

A live NASA-SpaceX online video feed showed the two-stage, 25-story rocket roaring off the launch pad and streaking into the dark sky over Florida’s Atlantic coast, trailed by a fiery yellowish plume of exhaust.

The launch, previously set for Wednesday morning, was postponed for 24 hours because of irregular temperatures detected in liquid methane used in the lander’s propulsion system. SpaceX said the issue was later resolved.

Although considered an Intuitive Machines mission, the IM-1 flight is carrying six NASA payloads of instruments designed to gather data about the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s planned return of astronauts to the moon later this decade.

Thursday’s launch came a month after the lunar lander of another private firm, Astrobotic Technology, suffered a propulsion system leak on its way to the moon shortly after being placed in orbit on January 8 by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket making its debut flight.

The failure of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which was also flying NASA payloads to the moon, marked the third time a private company had been unable to achieve a “soft landing” on the lunar surface, following ill-fated efforts by companies from Israel and Japan.

Those mishaps illustrated the risks NASA faces in leaning more heavily on the commercial sector than it had in the past to realize its spaceflight goals.

Plans call for Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C vehicle, a hexagonal cylinder with four legs, to reach its destination after about a weeklong flight on February 22 for a landing at crater Malapert A near the moon’s south pole.

If successful, the flight would represent the first controlled descent to the lunar surface by a U.S. spacecraft since the final Apollo crewed moon mission in 1972, and the first by a private company.

The feat also would mark the first journey to the lunar surface under NASA’s Artemis moon program, as the U.S. races to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite before China lands its own crewed spacecraft there.

IM-1 is the latest test of NASA’s strategy of paying for the use of spacecraft built and owned by private companies to slash the cost of the Artemis missions, envisioned as precursors to human exploration of Mars.

By contrast, during the Apollo era, NASA bought rockets and other technology from the private sector, but owned and operated them itself.

NASA announced last month that it was delaying its target date for a first crewed Artemis moon landing from 2025 to late 2026, while China has said it was aiming for 2030.

Small landers such as Nova-C are expected to get there first, carrying instruments to closely survey the lunar landscape, its resources and potential hazards. Odysseus will focus on space weather interactions with the moon’s surface, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies and navigation.

Intuitive Machine’s IM-2 mission is scheduled to land at the lunar south pole in 2024, followed by an IM-3 mission later in the year with several small rovers.

Last month, Japan became the fifth country to place a lander on the moon, with its space agency JAXA achieving an unusually precise “pinpoint” touchdown of its SLIM probe last month. Last year, India became the fourth nation to land on the moon, after Russia failed in an attempt the same month.

The United States, the former Soviet Union and China are the only other countries that have carried out successful soft lunar touchdowns. China scored a world first in 2019 by achieving the first landing on the far side of the moon.
…

…

Washington — The White House along with other top officials are seeking to reassure the American public after a key lawmaker sounded alarms about a “serious national security threat” facing the United States.

In an unusual move that caught some of his fellow lawmakers by surprise, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee publicly called on President Joe Biden to declassify intelligence on the unnamed threat so that the American public and its allies could formulate a response.

Republican Representative Mike Turner declined to elaborate.  But in an email Turner reportedly sent to colleagues, shared on social media by various news outlets, he described the danger as a “foreign military destabilizing capability.” 

Several media outlets, quoting U.S. officials, reported late Wednesday that the threat involves a new Russian space-based capability.

But a U.S. official, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence, said that while the danger is significant, it is not imminent.

“The threat described does not involve an active capability that has been deployed,” the official said.

The White House also sought to downplay concerns, noting it was already set to brief lawmakers on some of the details Thursday.

“I’m confident that President Biden, in the decisions that he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the American people going forward,” said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“We believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the United States,” Sullivan told reporters, adding he was surprised that Turner took his concerns public since they were scheduled to meet for a classified briefing Thursday.

Sullivan also defended the decision not to make the threat intelligence public, pointing both to concerns about protecting U.S. “sources and methods,” and the president’s willingness to declassify intelligence in the past.

“You definitely are not going to find an unwillingness to do that when it’s in our national security interests to do so,” he said. “This administration has gone further and, in more creative, more strategic ways, dealt with the declassification of intelligence in the national interest of the United States than any administration in history.”

Some key lawmakers also pushed back.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, called the threat “a significant one” but “not a cause for panic.”

“As to whether more can be declassified about this issue, that is a worthwhile discussion,” he added in a statement. “But it is not a discussion to be had in public.” 

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee likewise sought to allay concerns.

The committee “has the intelligence in question and has been rigorously tracking this issue from the start,” Democratic Chairman Mark Warner and Republican Vice Chairman Marco Rubio said in a statement.

“We continue to take this matter seriously and are discussing an appropriate response with the administration,” they added. “In the meantime, we must be cautious about potentially disclosing sources and methods that may be key to preserving a range of options for U.S. action.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson separately told reporters multiple times there is “no need for public alarm.”

“I want to assure the American people,” Johnson said. “We just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it and there’s no need for alarm.” 
…

washington — Special counsel Jack Smith urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to let former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case proceed to trial without further delay. 

Prosecutors were responding to a Trump team request from earlier in the week asking for a continued pause in the case as the court considers whether to take up the question of whether the former president is immune from prosecution for official acts in the White House. Two lower courts have overwhelmingly rejected that position, prompting Trump to ask the high court to intervene. 

The case — one of four criminal prosecutions confronting Trump — has reached a critical juncture, with the Supreme Court’s next step capable of helping determine whether Trump stands trial this year in Washington or whether the proceedings are going to be postponed by weeks or months of additional arguments. 

The trial date, already postponed once by Trump’s immunity appeal, is of paramount importance to both sides. Prosecutors are looking to bring Trump to trial this year while defense lawyers have been seeking delays in his criminal cases. If Trump were to be elected with the case pending, he could presumably use his authority as head of the executive branch to order the Justice Department to dismiss it or could potentially seek to pardon himself. 

Rapid response

Reflecting their desire to proceed quickly, prosecutors responded to Trump’s appeal within two days even though the court had given them until next Tuesday. 

Though their filing does not explicitly mention the upcoming November election or Trump’s status as the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, prosecutors described the case as having “unique national importance” and said that “delay in the resolution of these charges threatens to frustrate the public interest in a speedy and fair verdict.” 

“The national interest in resolving those charges without further delay is compelling,” they wrote. 

Smith’s team charged Trump in August with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including by participating in a scheme to disrupt the counting of electoral votes in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when his supporters stormed the building in a violent clash with police. 

“The charged crimes strike at the heart of our democracy. A president’s alleged criminal scheme to overturn an election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power to his successor should be the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity from federal criminal law,” they wrote. 

Trump’s lawyers have argued that he is shielded from prosecution for acts that fell within his official duties as president — a legally untested argument since no other former president has been indicted. 

The trial judge and then a federal appeals court rejected those arguments, with a three-judge appeals panel last week saying, “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.” 

The proceedings have been effectively frozen by Trump’s immunity appeal, with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan canceling a March 4 trial date while the appeals court considered the matter. No new date has been set. 

Further delays possible

Trump’s appeal and request for the Supreme Court to get involved could cause further delays depending on what the justices decide. In December, Smith and his team had urged the justices to take up and decide the immunity issue, even before the appeals court weighed in. But the court declined. 

The Supreme Court’s options include rejecting the emergency appeal, which would enable Chutkan to restart the trial proceedings in Washington’s federal court. The court also could extend the delay while it hears arguments on the immunity issue. In that event, the schedule the justices set could determine how soon a trial might begin, if indeed they agree with lower-court rulings that Trump is not immune from prosecution. 

On Wednesday, prosecutors urged the court to reject Trump’s petition to hear the case, saying that lower-court opinions rejecting immunity for the former president “underscore how remote the possibility is that this Court will agree with his unprecedented legal position.” 

But if the court does want to decide the matter, Smith said, the justices should hear arguments in March and issue a final ruling by late June. 

Prosecutors also pushed back against Trump’s argument that allowing the case to proceed could chill future presidents’ actions for fear they could be criminally charged once they leave office and open the door to politically motivated cases against former commanders-in-chief. 

“That dystopian vision runs contrary to the checks and balances built into our institutions and the framework of the Constitution,” they wrote. “Those guardrails ensure that the legal process for determining criminal liability will not be captive to ‘political forces,’ as applicant forecasts.”
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Albania and then to Germany this week for the Munich Security Conference. Among issues he will likely face in Europe is the stalling of military aid to Ukraine in the U.S. House and former President Donald Trump’s comments threatening to abandon some NATO allies if he is reelected. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin hosted a virtual meeting with allies on Wednesday to discuss support for Ukraine as the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion nears. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.
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washington — The U.S. on Wednesday sanctioned three people and four firms — across Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey — for allegedly helping to export goods and technology purchased from U.S. companies to Iran and the nation’s central bank. 

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the procurement network transferred U.S. technology for use by Iran’s Central Bank in violation of U.S. export restrictions and sanctions. 

Some of the materials acquired by the Central Bank of Iran were items classified as “information security items subject to national security and anti-terrorism controls” by the Commerce Department, Treasury said. 

Included in the sanctions package was Informatics Services Corp., an Iranian subsidiary of Iran’s Central Bank that most recently developed the Central Bank Digital Currency platform for the bank; a UAE-based front company, which acquired U.S. tech for the Central Bank of Iran and the front company’s CEO; and a Turkey-based affiliate firm that also made purchases that ended up in Iran. 

“The Central Bank of Iran has played a critical role in providing financial support to” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militant group Hezbollah, said Treasury Undersecretary Brian E. Nelson, adding that they were the “two key actors intent on further destabilizing the Middle East.” 

“The United States will continue to use all available means to disrupt the Iranian regime’s illicit attempts to procure sensitive U.S. technology and critical inputs,” he said. 

The sanctions block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.
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Washington — Some Asia experts are calling for tough new economic sanctions on China, arguing that the nation’s economic downturn makes it particularly vulnerable to pressure to crack down on North Korea’s ability to make and launder money for its nuclear weapons and missile programs. 

Other analysts argue the opposite, saying new sanctions now would make Beijing less receptive to U.S. efforts to get it to help curb Pyongyang’s weapons programs. 

“Beijing is worried that a long or deep recession would lead to political unrest,” and “that worry gives Washington greater leverage over Beijing — leverage that it didn’t have during the period of strong Chinese economic growth,” said Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington, D.C., who helped draft the Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016.  

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted in a report last month that China’s economy will slow from 5.2% GDP growth in 2023 to 4.6% this year, further declining into 4.1% in 2025. 

China’s manufacturing activities contracted for the fourth consecutive month in January and the country is further troubled by soaring debt in the property market and local governments. 

In an email to VOA last Friday, Stanton said the Biden administration should “increase pressure on a central government that fears any regional recession” and “designate canneries and sweatshops that employ North Korean labor.”  

Chinese factories are known to employ North Korean laborers and label products they manufactured as made in China. Approximately 3,000 North Koreans working illegally in China staged a violent protest in January over unpaid wages, according to Reuters, citing South Korea’s intelligence agency.  

In 2017, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution urging countries to repatriate all North Korean workers by December 2019 to curb Pyongyang’s ability to make income abroad that supports its weapons programs. North Korean workers remit most of their overseas earnings to the regime. 

Stanton argued that Washington should also “apply enhanced scrutiny to local bank branches in Chinese cities” that launder money for North Korea. “China always promises to cooperate if we don’t sanction its banks, but it always breaks those promises,” he said. 

China been tightening regulations on its banks that deal with Russia recently in response to strengthened U.S. sanctions on financial institutions that work with the Russian military.

Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, dismissed the Biden administration’s current North Korea sanctions as “weak and ineffective.” 

“The administration should target North Korea’s revenue generation and Russian and Chinese banks, entities, and individuals aiding Pyongyang’s sanctions evasion,” he said.  

David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said North Korea still works “largely via China” to finance and acquire high-technology products for its military and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. 

Asher, who oversaw the disruption of North Korea’s illegal trading and WMD networks during the George W. Bush administration, said last Saturday via email that there is a “robust” criminal sector in China, “especially Macao and Hong Kong, where North Korean elites continue to launder money including billions of dollars generated via cybercrime.” 

But other experts are warning against sanctioning China, especially when its economy is slowing, and the U.S. is trying to get Beijing’s help to curb to North Korea’s missile launches.  

“You can twist the knob on China and try to enforce more pain in return for its support on North Korea,” said Ken Gause, senior adversary analytics specialist at the Center for Naval Analyses, in a telephone interview on Friday. 

“But that will blow up in your face because then, China would see us actively trying to harm China to get it to do something on North Korea.”

He continued, “China will not react very well to that, and we could actually make the situation much worse.”

He added that “the only way sanctions would work” is when there are “overlapping U.S. and Chinese strategic equities.”

Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and WMD during the Obama administration, agreed during a telephone interview on Monday that the Biden administration may be concerned that sanctioning Chinese entities would make Beijing “less likely to cooperate on diplomatic efforts.” 

Samore, who is currently professor of the practice of politics at Brandeis University, added that even if some Chinese entities stopped doing business with North Korea because of sanctions, there could be other Chinese entities that would be willing to work with North Korea.  
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ROME — Pope Francis urged Catholics to forgo worldly trappings and focus on essentials as he opened the season of Lent with a traditional Ash Wednesday Mass on one of Rome’s historic seven hills.

He criticized people’s tendency to lay bare their lives on social media, deploring “a world in which everything, including our emotions and deepest feelings, has to become ‘social.'”

Instead, the faithful should enter their “inner chamber” to find time for quiet reflection and prayer, the 87-year-old pontiff said in a homily.

Lent is a 40-day period of penance that leads to Easter, the most important Christian festival, which celebrates the day on which Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.

It represents the 40 days Jesus is said in the Bible to have spent fasting in the desert. During the season, Catholics are asked to fast, remember the needy and reflect on mortality.

“Life is not a play: Lent invites us to come down from the stage and return to the heart, to the reality of who we are,” Francis said.

“Let us not be afraid to strip ourselves of worldly trappings and return to the heart, to what is essential.”

He spoke at a service held in the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill, preceded by prayers in a nearby church and a procession of cardinals and bishops.

Mass goers, including the pope, had ashes sprinkled on their heads in the Ash Wednesday ritual that, for the world’s more than 1.35 billion Catholics, serves as a reminder of mortality.
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Turkish security forces are detaining hundreds of people in the aftermath of an Islamic State attack on an Istanbul church. Authorities are warning of further attacks against Jews and Christians. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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PARIS — A Paris appeals court ruled Wednesday that former President Nicolas Sarkozy was guilty of illegal campaign financing over his failed 2012 reelection bid, confirming a previous ruling by a lower court, but his lawyer said he would take his case to France’s highest court.  

Sarkozy was handed a one-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended, that can be served through alternative means, such as wearing an electronic bracelet without going to jail.  

Sarkozy, 69, had been handed a one-year prison sentence in 2021 when first found guilty, although that was suspended while he launched his appeal. The new appeal will again mean the sentence is placed on hold. 

“Today’s ruling is highly questionable. That is why we will appeal to the Cour de Cassation,” his lawyer Vincent Desry told reporters, reiterating that Sarkozy was innocent.  

The Cour de Cassation is the country’s highest court, and its rulings typically focus on whether the law has been applied correctly rather than on the facts of the case. Appeals to the court can take years.  

Sarkozy was in court on Wednesday to hear the verdict but left without commenting to waiting reporters. 

President from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy has remained an influential figure among conservatives and is on friendly terms with President Emmanuel Macron — despite a string of trials and investigations linked to various legal issues surrounding his campaign finances.  

He has always denied accusations that his party, Les Republicains, then known as the UMP, worked with a public relations firm named Bygmalion to hide the true cost of his campaign — marked by lavish show events previously unseen in French politics.  

During a hearing, Sarkozy put the blame on some members of his campaign team: “I didn’t choose any supplier; I didn’t sign any quotation, any invoice,” he told the court. 

France sets strict limits on campaign spending. Prosecutors allege that the firm invoiced UMP rather than the campaign. They say Sarkozy spent $45.9 million on his 2012 campaign, almost double the permitted amount.
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Over 1.7 million electric cars are currently on the road in California. But drivers in the nation’s largest EV market say they are struggling to find chargers. VOA’s Anna Rice narrates this report by Angelina Bagdasaryan. Video: Vazgen Varzhabetian
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The U.S. Senate approved a $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan early Tuesday. But as VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports, the bill faces a tough path to passage in the Republican-majority U.S. House of Representatives.
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