London — Scottish political veteran John Swinney on Monday was named head of the pro-independence SNP party, leaving him poised to become Scotland’s leader.

Swinney, 60, said on X, formerly Twitter, he was “deeply honored to have been elected as leader of the SNP” after Humza Yousaf resigned last week after little more than a year as Scottish leader and head of the Scottish National Party (SNP).

The SNP confirmed Swinney’s election after nominations for the post closed at 12 noon (1100 GMT) without any other challengers emerging.

Humza stepped down last Monday as he faced a confidence vote in the Scottish parliament that he was set to lose having ditched his junior coalition partners, the Scottish Green Party, in a row over climate policy.

Swinney is likely to become the next first minister, head of the devolved Scottish government, but will still need enough votes in the Scottish parliament to be elected first minister.

Launching his bid last week, Swinney said he was running “to unite the SNP and unite Scotland for independence”, despite polls showing stalled support for a split from the UK.

“I want to build on the work of the SNP government to create a modern, diverse, dynamic Scotland that will ensure opportunity for all of our citizens,” Swinney told supporters in Edinburgh.

Swinney inherits a difficult political legacy with former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon embroiled in a party funding scandal and a challenging domestic policy landscape.

With the SNP heading a minority government in the 129-seat Scottish parliament, he will need the support of another party to form a governing coalition or pass pieces of legislation.
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BERLIN — Germany said Monday it recalled its ambassador to Russia for a week of consultations in Berlin following an alleged hacker attack on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party.

Germany last week accused Russian military agents of hacking into the top echelons of Scholz’s Social Democrats’ party and other sensitive government and industrial targets. Berlin has joined NATO and fellow European countries in warning that Russia’s cyberespionage would have consequences.

The Foreign Office in Berlin said Monday that the government is taking the latest incident “seriously” and that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had decided to call back German Ambassador Alexander Lambsdorff. He would return to Moscow after a week, it said.

“The German government takes this event very seriously as behavior against our liberal democracy and the institutions that support it,” Foreign Office spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said.

Baerbock said last week that Russian military cyber operators were behind the hacking of emails of the Social Democrats, the leading party in the governing coalition. Officials said the hackers had exploited Microsoft Outlook.

The German Interior Ministry said in a statement last week that the hacking campaign began as early as March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with emails at the Social Democrat party headquarters accessed beginning that December. It said German companies, including in the defense and aerospace sectors, as well as targets related to the war in Ukraine were the focus of the hacking attacks.

Officials said the attacks persisted for months.

Relations between Russia and Germany have been tense since Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Germany has been providing military support to Ukraine in the ongoing war.
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Brussels — EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Monday she will press for “fair” competition with China in talks with its President Xi Jinping, who is in Paris on a state visit.

“We have to act to make sure that competition is fair and not distorted,” she said in remarks issued hours before a face-to-face Paris meeting between her, Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron.  

She added that, previously with Xi, “I have made clear that the current imbalances in market access are not sustainable and need to be addressed.”

Von der Leyen’s European Commission, the European Union’s authority on trade issues, has opened a slew of competition probes targeting China in recent months.

Beijing has reacted furiously to the most recent investigation, into suspected inequitable access to China’s medical devices market, calling it a sign of EU “protectionism.”

China is also angry at an EU probe into Chinese wind turbine suppliers for the European market. Other Brussels investigations have focused on Chinese subsidies for solar panels, electric vehicles (EVs) and trains.

Von der Leyen reiterated the EU’s position that it “should derisk its relations, but not decouple from China” — meaning reducing the dependence on Chinese suppliers but not going as far as the United States in penalizing or blocking trade streams in key sectors.

“We have been very clear-eyed about our relationship with China, which is one of the most complex, but also one of the most important,” the commission president said.

“Over the last year, I have met with President Xi twice and we have spent some time discussing the EU-China relations from trade to climate, from global affairs to digital issues,” she said.

Von der Leyen stressed the problem of Chinese overcapacity and the way that was leading to Chinese goods entering the European Union at prices too low for EU firms to compete with.

“China is currently manufacturing, with massive subsidies, more than it is selling due to its own weak domestic demand. This is leading to an oversupply of Chinese subsidized goods, such as EVs and steel, that is leading to unfair trade,” she said.

“Europe cannot accept such market distorting practices that could lead to de-industrialization in Europe.”

Von der Leyen said she would “encourage the Chinese government to address these overcapacities in the short-term,” adding that the EU will work with other wealthy and emerging economies that were “increasingly affected by China’s market distortions.”
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Mexico City — Thieves killed two Australians and an American on a surfing trip to Mexico to steal their truck, particularly because they wanted the tires, authorities said Sunday.

Baja California state prosecutors released grisly details of the slayings but have not yet officially confirmed the identity of the bodies. They said family members of the victims are viewing the bodies to see if they can be identified by sight.

The corpses were decomposing after the thieves dumped them into a remote, 15-meter deep well. If relatives can’t identify them, further tests will be conducted. The well also contained a fourth cadaver that had been there much longer.

“The probability that it’s them is very high,” said chief state prosecutor Maria Elena Andrade Ramirez, noting the corpses still appeared to be identifiable by sight.

The three men went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, posting idyllic photos on social media of waves and isolated beaches along a stretch of coast south of the city of Ensenada.

But Andrade Ramirez described the moments of terror that ended the trip for brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad.

She said the killers drove by and saw the foreigners’ pickup truck and tents, and wanted to steal their tires.

“Surely, they resisted,” she said of the victims, and the thieves shot them to death.

The thieves then went to what she called “a site that is extremely hard to get to” and dumped their bodies into a well they apparently were familiar with. She said investigators were not ruling out the possibility the same suspects also dumped the first, earlier body in the well as part of their thefts.

“They may have been looking for trucks in this area,” Andrade Ramirez said.

The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomas was near the remote seaside area where the missing men’s tents and truck were found Thursday along the coast. From their last photo posts, the trip looked perfect. But even experienced local expats are questioning whether it is safe to camp along the largely deserted coast anymore.

The moderator of the local Talk Baja internet forum, who has lived in the area for almost two decades, wrote in an editorial Saturday that “the reality is, the dangers of traveling to and camping in remote areas are outweighing the benefits anymore.”

Baja California prosecutors had said they were questioning three people in the case. On Friday, the office said the three had been arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear if they might face more charges.

At least one of the suspects was believed to have directly participated in the killings.

Last week, the missing Australians’ mother, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page an appeal for help in finding her sons. Robinson said Callum and Jake had not been heard from since April 27. They had booked accommodations in the nearby city of Rosarito.

Robinson said one of her sons, Callum, was diabetic. She also mentioned that the American who was with them was named Jack Carter Rhoad, but the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City did not immediately confirm that. The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in Baja but gave no further details.

In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed in western Sinaloa state, across the Gulf of California — also known as the Sea of Cortez — from the Baja peninsula. Authorities said they were victims of highway bandits. Three suspects were arrested in that case.
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Albuquerque, New Mexico — It was a frigid winter morning when authorities found a Native American man dead on a remote gravel road in western New Mexico. He was lying on his side, with only one sock on, his clothes gone and his shoes tossed in the snow.

There were trails of blood on both sides of his body and it appeared he had been struck in the head.

Investigators retraced the man’s steps, gathering security camera footage that showed him walking near a convenience store miles away in Gallup, an economic hub in an otherwise rural area bordered on one side by the Navajo Nation and Zuni Pueblo on the other.

Court records said the footage and cell phone records showed the victim — a Navajo man identified only as John Doe — was “on a collision course” with the man who would ultimately be accused of killing him.

A grand jury has indicted a man from Zuni Pueblo on a charge of second-degree murder in the Jan. 18 death, and prosecutors say more charges are likely as he is the prime suspect in a series of crimes targeting Native American men in Gallup, Zuni and Albuquerque. Investigators found several wallets, cell phones and clothing belonging to other men when searching his vehicle and two residences.

As people gathered around the nation on Sunday to spotlight the troubling number of disappearances and killings in Indian Country, authorities say the New Mexico case represents the kind of work the U.S. Department of Justice had aspired to when establishing its Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons outreach program last summer.

Special teams of assistant U.S. attorneys and coordinators have been tasked with focusing on MMIP cases. Their goal: Improve communication and coordination across federal, tribal, state and local jurisdictions in hopes of bridging the gaps that have made solving violent crimes in Indian Country a generational challenge.

Some of the new federal prosecutors were participating in MMIP Awareness Day events. From the Arizona state capitol to a cultural center in Albuquerque and the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina, marches, symposiums, art exhibitions and candlelight vigils were planned for May 5, which is the birthday of Hanna Harris, who was only 21 when she was killed on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana in 2013.

It was an emotional day in Albuquerque, where family members and advocates participated in a prayer walk. They chanted: “What do we want? Answers! What do we want? Justice!” There were tears and long embraces as they shared their stories and frustrations. They talked about feeling forgotten and the lack of resources in Native communities.

Geraldine Toya of Jemez Pueblo marched with other family members to bring awareness to the death of her daughter Shawna Toya in 2021. She said she and her husband are artists who make pottery and never dreamed they would end up being investigators in an effort to determine what happened to their daughter.

“Our journey has been rough, but you know what, we’re going to make this journey successful for all of our people that are here in this same thing that we’re struggling through right now,” she said, vowing to support other families through their heartbreak as they seek justice.

Alex Uballez, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Mexico, told The Associated Press on Friday that the outreach program is starting to pay dividends.

“Providing those bridges between those agencies is critical to seeing the patterns that affect all of our communities,” Uballez said. “None of our borders that we have drawn prevents the spillover of impacts on communities — across tribal communities, across states, across the nation, across international borders.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eliot Neal oversees MMIP cases for a region spanning New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Nevada.

Having law enforcement agencies and attorneys talking to each other can help head off other crimes that are often precursors to deadly violence. The other pieces of the puzzle are building relationships with Native American communities and making the justice system more accessible to the public, Neal said.

Part of Neal’s work includes reviewing old cases: time-consuming work that can involve tracking down witnesses and resubmitting evidence for testing.

“We’re trying to flip that script a little bit and give those cases the time and attention they deserve,” he said, adding that communicating with family members about the process is a critical component for the MMIP attorneys and coordinators.

The DOJ over the past year also has awarded $268 million in grants to tribal justice systems for handling child abuse cases, combating domestic and sexual violence and bolstering victim services.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bree Black Horse was dressed in red as she was sworn in Thursday during a ceremony in Yakima, Washington. The color is synonymous with raising awareness about the disproportionate number of Indigenous people who have been victims of violence.

She prosecutes MMIP cases in a five-state region across California and the Pacific Northwest to Montana. Her caseload is in the double digits, and she’s working with advocacy groups to identify more unresolved cases and open lines of communication with law enforcement.

An enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and a lawyer for more than a decade, Black Horse said having 10 assistant U.S. attorneys and coordinators focusing solely on MMIP cases is unprecedented.

“This is an issue that has touched not only my community but my friends and my family,” she said. “I see this as a way to help make sure that our future generations, our young people don’t experience these same kinds of disparities and this same kind of trauma.”

In New Mexico, Uballez acknowledged the federal government moves slowly and credited tribal communities with raising their voices, consistently showing up to protest and putting pressure on politicians to improve public safety in tribal communities.

Still, he and Neal said it will take a paradigm shift to undo the public perception that nothing is being done.

The man charged in the New Mexico case, Labar Tsethlikai, appeared in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty while standing shackled next to his public defender. A victim advocate from Uballez’s office was there, too, sitting with victims’ family members.

Tsethlikai’s attorney argued that evidence had yet to be presented tying her client to the alleged crimes spelled out in court documents. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew McGinley argued that no conditions of release would keep the community safe, pointing to cell phone data and DNA evidence allegedly showing Tsethlikai had preyed on people who were homeless or in need of alcohol so he could satisfy his sexual desires.

Tsethlikai will remain in custody pending trial as authorities continue to investigate. Court documents list at least 10 other victims along with five newly identified potential victims. McGinley said prosecutors wanted to focus on a few of the cases “to get him off the street” and prevent more violence.
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New York — “The Fall Guy,” the Ryan Gosling-led, action-comedy ode to stunt performers, opened below expectations with $28.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, providing a lukewarm start to a summer movie season that’s very much to be determined for Hollywood.

The Universal Pictures release opened on a weekend that Marvel has regularly dominated with $100 million-plus launches. (In 2023, that was “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” with a $118 million debut.) But last year’s strikes jumbled this year’s movie calendar; “Deadpool & Wolverine,” originally slated to open this weekend, is now debuting in July.

So in place of a superhero kickoff, the summer launch went to a movie about the stunt performers who anonymously sacrifice their bodies for the kind of action sequences blockbusters are built on. Going into the weekend, forecasts had the film opening $30 million to $40 million.

“The Fall Guy,” directed by former stuntman and “Deadpool 2” helmer David Leitch, rode into the weekend with the momentum of glowing reviews and the buzz of a SXSW premiere. But it will need sustained interest to merit its $130 million production budget. It added $25.4 million in overseas markets.

Working in its favor for a long run: strong audience scores (an “A-” CinemaScore) and good reviews (83% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal, believes things line up well for “The Fall Guy” in the coming weeks.

“We had a very solid opening,” said Orr. “We’re looking forward to a very long, very robust, very successful run throughout the domestic box office for literally weeks if not months to come.”

But the modest start for “The Fall Guy” hints at larger concerns for the film industry. Superhero films haven’t been quite the box-office behemoth they once were, leading studios to search for fresher alternatives. “The Fall Guy” seemed to check all the boxes, with extravagant action sequences, one of the hottest stars in the business, a director with a track-record for crowd pleasers and very good reviews.

But instead, the opening for “The Fall Guy,” loosely based on the 1980s TV series, only emphasized that the movie business is likely to struggle to rekindle the fervor of last year’s “Barbenheimer” summer. “The Fall Guy” stars one from each: Gosling, in his first post-Ken role, and Emily Blunt, of “Oppenheimer.” Both were Oscar nominated.

“It’s going to be a very interesting, nontraditional summer this year,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore.

In part because of last year’s work stoppages, there are fewer big movies hitting theaters. Expectations are that the total summer box office will be closer to $3 billion than the $4 billion that’s historically been generated.

“The summer season is just getting started, so let’s give ‘The Fall Guy’ a chance to build that momentum over time. It’s a different type of summer kickoff film,” said Dergarabedian. “There’s always huge expectations placed on any film that kicks off the summer movie season, but this isn’t your typical summer movie season.”

In a surprise, No. 2 at the box office went to the Walt Disney Co. rerelease of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” The first episode to George Lucas’ little-loved prequels collected $8.1 million over the weekend, 25 years after “Phantom Menace” grossed $1 billion.

Last week’s top film, the Zendaya tennis drama “Challengers,” slid to third place with $7.6 million in its second week. That was a sold hold for the Amazon MGM release, directed by Luca Guadagnino, dipping 49% from its first weekend.

The Sony Screen Gems supernatural horror film “Tarot” also opened nationwide. It debuted with $6.5 million, a decent enough start for a low-budget release but another example of horror not quite performing this year as it has the last few years.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “The Fall Guy,” $28.5 million.

2. “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” $8.1 million.

3. “Challengers,” $7.6 million.

4. “Tarot,” $6.5 million.

5. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” $4.5 million.

6. “Civil War,” $3.6 million.

7. “Unsung Hero,” $3 million.

8. “Kung Fu Panda 4,” $2.4 million.

9. “Abigail,” $2.3 million.

10. “Ghostbuster: Frozen Empire,” $1.8 million.
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DEBRECEN, Hungary — A rising challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held what he called the largest countryside political demonstration in the country’s recent history Sunday, the latest stop on his campaign tour that has mobilized thousands across Hungary’s rural heartland.

Some 10,000 people gathered in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, in support of Peter Magyar, a political newcomer who in less than three months has shot to prominence on pledges to bring an end to problems like official corruption and a declining quality of life in the Central European country.

Supporters endured a brief but unexpected rain shower ahead of the afternoon demonstration, turning the city’s central square into a sea of umbrellas. They waved Hungarian flags bearing the names of towns and villages across the country from which they had come.

“Today, the vast majority of the Hungarian people are tired of the ruling elite, of the hatred, apathy, propaganda and artificial divides,” Magyar told the crowd. “Hungarians today want cooperation, love, unity and peace.”

Magyar, a former insider within Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, has since February denounced the nationalist Orban as running an entrenched “mafia state,” and declared war on what he calls a propaganda machine run by the government.

His party, TISZA (Respect and Freedom), has announced it will run 12 candidates in the June 9 European Union elections, with Magyar appearing first on the party list. TISZA has also announced it will run four candidates in local council elections in the capital Budapest.

His appearance Sunday in Debrecen, a stronghold of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, reflected the focus his fledgling campaign has placed on the Hungarian countryside, where Orban is popular.

The Mother’s Day event was the latest stop on a tour of the country where Magyar has appeared in dozens of cities, towns and villages, often drawing thousands of supporters — numbers that few Orban opponents have ever been able to mobilize in rural areas.

Addressing the crowd, he said that “government propaganda” had tried to discredit his movement as “just a downtown Budapest media hack,” and criticized Hungary’s traditional opposition parties as having abandoned rural Hungarians.

“We’ve heard for 14 years from the opposition that it’s impossible in these circumstances to defeat Orban, that it’s not worth traveling to the countryside, that young people aren’t interested in politics, that you can’t break down the walls of propaganda,” he said. “But look around! What’s the truth?”

Katalin Nagy, who traveled several hours to the rally, said she finds Magyar credible “because he comes from the inside.”

“He’s aware of the things that are really causing problems in this country, and I think he can provide solutions to problems so that we can come out of the hole that this country is currently in,” she said.

Recent polls show that Magyar’s party may have become the largest opposition force in little more than a month before the election. Pollster Median this week measured TISZA at 25% among certain voters, with Orban’s Fidesz well ahead at 45%.

Governing party politicians have dismissed Magyar, who describes himself as a moderate conservative, as a leftist in disguise, and suggested that foreign interests lie behind his rise.

Orban and has party have ruled Hungary with a constitutional majority since 2010.
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Washington — A driver died after crashing a car into the exterior gate of the White House late Saturday, the US Secret Service said. 

“Shortly before 10:30pm a vehicle traveling at a high speed collided with an outer perimeter gate on the White House complex,” the service said in a statement on social media platform X, adding there was “no threat” to the White House itself. 

Officers arriving at the scene “attempted to render aid to the driver who was discovered deceased,” the statement said. 

The Secret Service, along with the police and fire departments of the District of Columbia, have launched an investigation into the fatal crash, according to Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. 

He added there was “no threat or public safety implications”. 

In January, authorities detained another person who crashed a vehicle into the exterior gate of the same complex. 

The White House has seen a string of high-profile trespassing incidents in recent years, prompting the construction of a higher, tougher metal fence around the iconic mansion’s perimeter in 2020.
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MEREDITH, New Hampshire — Burt Rutan was alarmed to see the plane he had designed was so loaded with fuel that the wing tips started dragging along the ground as it taxied down the runway. He grabbed the radio to warn the pilot, his older brother Dick Rutan. But Dick never heard the message. 

Nine days and three minutes later, Dick, along with copilot Jeana Yeager, completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history: the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling. 

A decorated Vietnam War pilot, Dick Rutan died Friday evening at a hospital in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with Burt and other loved ones by his side. He was 85. His friend Bill Whittle said he died of a severe lung infection. 

“He played an airplane like someone plays a grand piano,” said Burt Rutan of his brother, who was often described as having a velvet arm because of his smooth flying style. 

A design, a dream

Burt Rutan said he had always loved designing airplanes and became fascinated with the idea of a craft that could go clear around the world. His brother was equally passionate about flying. The project took six years. 

There was plenty to worry Burt during testing of the light graphite plane, Voyager. There were mechanical failures, any one of which would have been disastrous over a distant ocean. When fully laden, the plane couldn’t handle turbulence. And then there was the question of how the pilots could endure such a long flight on so little sleep. But Burt said his brother had an optimism about him that made them all believe. 

“Dick never doubted whether my design would actually make it around, with still some gas in the tank,” Burt Rutan said. 

Voyager left from Edwards Air Force Base in California just after 8 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1986. Rutan said with all that fuel, the wings had only inches of clearance. Dick couldn’t see when they started dragging on the runway. But when Burt called on the radio, copilot Yeager gave a speed report, drowning the message. 

“And then, the velvet arm really came in,” Burt Rutan said. “And he very slowly brought the stick back and the wings bent way up, some 30 feet at the wingtips, and it lifted off very smoothly.” 

They arrived back to a hero’s welcome as thousands gathered to witness the landing. Both Rutan brothers and Yeager were awarded a Presidential Citizenship Medal by President Ronald Reagan, who described how a local official in Thailand at first “refused to believe some cockamamie story” about a plane flying around the world on a single tank of gas. 

“We had the freedom to pursue a dream, and that’s important,” Dick Rutan said at the ceremony.  

A vet of combat missions

Richard Glenn Rutan was born in Loma Linda, California. He joined the U.S. Air Force as a teenager and flew more than 300 combat missions during the Vietnam War. 

He was part of an elite group that would loiter over enemy anti-aircraft positions for hours at a time. The missions had the call sign “Misty” and Dick was known as “Misty Four-Zero.” Among the many awards Dick received were the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. 

He survived having to eject twice from planes, once when his F-100 Super Sabre was hit by enemy fire over Vietnam, and a second time when he was stationed in England and the same type of plane had a mechanical failure. He retired from the Air Force with the rank of lieutenant colonel and went on to work as a test pilot. 

Dick Rutan set another record in 2005 when he flew about 10 miles (16 kilometers) in a rocket-powered plane launched from the ground in Mojave, California. It was also the first time U.S. mail had been carried by a such a plane. 
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tokyo — Japan and India on Saturday decried remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden describing them as “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, which the president said during a campaign fundraising event earlier in the week. 

Japan said Biden’s judgment was not based on an accurate understanding of its policy, while India rebutted the comment, defending itself as the world’s most open society. 

Biden grouped Japan and India as “xenophobic” countries, along with Russia and China as he tried to explain their struggling economies, contrasting the four with the strength of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. 

Japan is a key U.S. ally, and both Japan and India are part of the Quad, a U.S.-led informal partnership that also includes Australia in countering increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific. 

Just weeks ago, Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on an official visit, as the two leaders restated their “unbreakable alliance” and agreed to reinforce their security ties in the face of China’s threat in the Indo-Pacific. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made a state visit to Washington last year, when he was welcomed by business and political leaders. 

The White House said Biden meant no offense and was merely stressing that the U.S. was a nation of immigrants, saying he had no intention of undermining the relationship with Japan. 

Japan is aware of Biden’s remark as well as the subsequent clarification, a Japanese government official said Saturday, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. 

The official said it was unfortunate that part of Biden’s speech was not based on an accurate understanding of Japanese policies, and that Japan understands that Biden made the remark to emphasize the presence of immigrants as America’s strength. 

Japan-U.S. relations are “stronger than ever” as Prime Minister Kishida showed during his visit to the U.S. in April, the official said. 

In New Delhi, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday also rebutted Biden’s comment, saying India was the most open society in the world. 

“I haven’t seen such an open, pluralistic, and diverse society anywhere in the world. We are actually not just not xenophobic, we are the most open, most pluralistic and in many ways the most understanding society in the world,” Jaishankar said at a roundtable organized by the Economic Times newspaper. 

Jaishankar also noted that India’s annual GDP growth is 7% and said, “You check some other countries’ growth rate, you will find an answer.” The U.S. economy grew by 2.5% in 2023, according to government figures. 

At a hotel fundraiser Wednesday, where the donor audience was largely Asian American, Biden said the upcoming U.S. election was about “freedom, America and democracy” and that the nation’s economy was thriving “because of you and many others.” 

“Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said. “Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.” 

Japan has been known for a strict stance on immigration. But in recent years, it has eased its policies to make it easier for foreign workers to come and stay in Japan to mitigate its declining births and rapidly shrinking population. The number of babies born in Japan last year fell to a record low since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. 

India, which has the world’s largest population, enacted a new citizenship law earlier this year by setting religious criteria that allows fast-tracking naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, while excluding Muslims. 
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washington — Supporters of two U.S. nationals seen as unjustly imprisoned overseas are raising concerns about what they see as a murky process by which the U.S. government decides whether to designate such individuals as wrongfully detained.

Granting a wrongful detention designation to a U.S. national means the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs is authorized to work with a coalition of government and private sector organizations to secure the detainee’s freedom.

Hostage rights advocates and relatives of the two U.S. nationals jailed in Iran and Russia tell VOA they want answers as to why the pair have been waiting months or years for a wrongful detention designation, while other Americans jailed in the same two countries have received the designation much more quickly.

Designations are granted if a review by the secretary of state concludes that the U.S. national’s case meets criteria  defined in the Levinson Act of 2020.

One U.S. national whose case has been under review for years is 62-year-old retired Iranian ship captain Shahab Dalili. After immigrating to the U.S. with his family in 2014 upon being granted permanent residency, he returned to Iran in 2016 to attend his father’s funeral and was arrested.

Iranian authorities sentenced Dalili to 10 years in prison for allegedly cooperating with a hostile government, a reference to the U.S. His family denies the charge.

While not a U.S. citizen, Dalili is considered a “U.S. national” under the Levinson Act, by virtue of his lawful permanent resident status.

The other U.S. national, whose case has been under review for months, is Alsu Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old U.S.-Russian dual citizen and Prague-based journalist with VOA sister network RFE/RL.

Kurmasheva had traveled to Russia last year to visit her elderly mother, but authorities blocked her from departing in June and confiscated her U.S. and Russian passports. They jailed her in October and charged her with failing to register as a foreign agent and with spreading falsehoods about the Russian military, offenses punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

RFE/RL and the U.S. Agency for Global Media say the charges were filed in reprisal for Kurmasheva’s work as a journalist.

Asked about Kurmasheva at a Tuesday news briefing, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the Biden administration remains “deeply concerned” about her detention and believes she should be released.

He said a “deliberative and fact-driven process” is underway regarding a wrongful detention designation in her case, but he declined to elaborate.

Speaking with reporters last August, Patel said Dalili’s case “has not yet been determined wrongfully detained” and declined to say more. There has been no update since then, Dalili’s son Darian told VOA.

In contrast to the unresolved status of Dalili’s eight-year detention, two Iranian Americans whom Iran freed from detention last September in a prisoner exchange with the U.S., and whom U.S. officials declined to name, received wrongful detention designations in what appears to be a relatively quick time.

The two individuals, whose backgrounds are revealed for the first time in this report as a result of a VOA open-source investigation, are San Diego-based international aid worker Fary Moini and Boston-based biologist Reza Behrouzi of Generate:Biomedicines.

Moini and Behrouzi were among five Americans released by Iran in the September exchange. The first indications that the two had been detained in Iran came from images of them published by news outlets and by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan as the group traveled to the U.S. via Qatar.

A day later, Iran’s NourNews site named the two previously unidentified Americans as “Reza Behrouzi” and “Fakhr al-Sadat Moini,” but gave no detail of their backgrounds. NourNews spelled Moini’s first name differently than “Fary,” the name she uses publicly in the U.S.

U.S. officials said all five of the Americans had been designated as wrongfully detained, including three previously known detainees who had been jailed for years: Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz and Emad Sharghi.

VOA contacted the State Department to ask when, where and why Moini and Behrouzi were detained in Iran, but it declined to provide an on-the-record response. Neither of the two responded to VOA requests for comment sent by email and through their social media profiles.

But Behrouzi and Moini were active on their Facebook and X accounts until three months and 11 months respectively before their release, indicating both were detained for less than a year.

Upon hearing from VOA about the State Department’s silence on Moini’s and Behrouzi’s detentions in Iran, Darian Dalili said he believes “something is not right” about how they got their designations.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the prominent status of these two people, whereas my father [Shahab Dalili] is a regular father of two,” the younger Dalili said.

Nizar Zakka — a Lebanese American who spent almost four years in what the U.S. said was unjust detention in Iran until being freed in 2019 — has urged the Biden administration to seek Shahab Dalili’s release as a wrongfully detained U.S. national.

Zakka told VOA he was happy that Moini and Behrouzi were released. But he said their attainment of wrongful detention designations in what appears to be a matter of months, while Dalili has waited years without securing that status, shows the designation process is not transparent.

“The public has a right to know how two people freed by Iran in return for the U.S. unfreezing a huge sum of Iranian funds got their designations, whereas Dalili has not,” Zakka said. “U.S. nationals like Dalili also should not be left behind,” he added.

Russian American journalist Kurmasheva’s wait for a U.S. decision on whether she is wrongfully detained after more than six months of Russian imprisonment also contrasts with the case of American reporter Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal.

Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on March 29, 2023, on spying charges while working in the country as an accredited journalist. Twelve days later, Secretary of State Blinken announced his determination that Gershkovich was wrongfully detained.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told VOA he does not know why Gershkovich got his designation so quickly while his wife continues to wait.

“The designation of Evan’s detention as wrongful was the right thing to do,” Butorin said. “But the designation process is opaque, and I don’t know where we are in it. I do know the State Department will prioritize those individuals formally designated as wrongfully detained in a prisoner exchange, so the designation is important for Alsu.”

Hostage rights advocate Diane Foley, president of U.S. nonprofit group Foley Foundation, told VOA she believes a big factor in Kurmasheva’s wait for a designation is her dual citizenship.

Foley said Gershkovich’s case for a designation was clearer because he is solely a U.S. citizen. She said Kurmasheva’s Russian citizenship means she is subject to Russian media regulations that the U.S. must examine to determine if she is jailed in violation of the detaining country’s own law, one of the criteria of the Levinson Act.

“That is what slows everything down,” Foley said. “But we are pushing for Alsu to get the designation because she is a press freedom advocate and there is no excuse for Russia to retaliate by detaining her on a technicality.”
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berlin — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union leaders denounced Saturday a recent spate of attacks on politicians in Germany, including one that sent a member of the European Parliament to the hospital with serious injuries. 

Matthias Ecke, 41, a member of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was hit and kicked Friday by a group of four people while putting up posters in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, police said. An SPD source said his injuries would require an operation. 

Shortly before, what appeared to be the same group attacked a 28-year-old campaigner for the Greens, who was also putting up posters, police said, although his injuries were not as severe. 

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of thing,” Scholz told a convention of European socialists in Berlin. 

The attacks exemplify increased violence in Germany in recent years, often from the far-right, targeting especially leftist politicians. The BfV domestic intelligence agency says far-right extremism is the biggest threat to German democracy. 

Saxony premier Michael Kretschmer, a conservative, said such aggression and attempts at intimidation recalled the darkest era of German history, a reference to Nazi rule. 

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, a former German conservative minister, and the Italian head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, both condemned the attack on Ecke. 

“The culprits must be brought to account,” von der Leyen said on X. 

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser vowed “tough action and further protective measures” in response to the attacks. 

Far-right support 

The heads of the SPD in Saxony, Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, issued a statement in which they blamed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the rise in violence. 

“These people and their supporters bear responsibility for what is happening in this country,” they said. 

The AfD did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The party says it is the victim of a campaign by the media and political establishment. 

The AfD has seen a surge in support in the past year take it to second place in opinion polls nationwide. It is particularly strong in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where surveys suggest it could come first in regional elections in September. 

Nationwide, the number of attacks on politicians of parties represented in parliament has doubled since 2019, according to government figures published in January. 

Greens party politicians face the most aggression, according to the data, with attacks on them rising sevenfold since 2019 to 1,219 last year. AfD politicians suffered 478 attacks and the SPD was third with 420. 

Theresa Ertel, a Greens candidate in municipal elections in Thuringia this month, said she knew of party members who no longer wanted to stand because of the aggressive political atmosphere. 

The Greens in her region had agreed that information stands should always have at least three staff for extra safety. 
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