RIYADMEDIA

Washington — The United States and the European Union say they are keeping their eyes on Pyongyang and Tehran for any possible military cooperation between the two as Iran confirms a North Korean delegation’s visit to the country.

The U.S. “will use all available tools, including interdiction and sanctions, to address such activities,” a State Department spokesperson said in an email to VOA’s Korean Service on Friday.

An EU spokesperson on the same day told VOA Korean that it is also “following closely Iran-DPRK relations and their potential cooperation that could indeed be concerning on certain issues if it violates existing U.N. sanctions.”

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

Pyongyang announced through its state-run KCNA that it sent a delegation led by its External Economic Relations Minister Yun Jong Ho to Iran on April 23.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Monday that a North Korean delegation visited Tehran last week to discuss bilateral trade, according to Reuters.

But Kanaani dismissed any suspected cooperation on their missile programs, saying it is a “biased speculation” based on “untrue” reports.

The U.S. has accused Pyongyang, Tehran and Beijing of supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Tehran has also been involved in conflict with Israel.

Iran attacked Israel on April 13 with more than 300 missiles and drones and said the assault was in retaliation against an Israeli strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Syria. Israel responded by launching a counterstrike into Iran on April 18.

“It certainly is possible and even probable” that Pyongyang and Tehran are cooperating militarily in the current Middle East conflict, just as they have done since the 1980s, said Robert Peters, a research fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security.

Iran is motivated to acquire missiles from North Korea “given Iran’s current approach of laying a siege [around] Israel using missiles supplied to its proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis,” Peters said.

Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis are Iran-backed militant groups that base their operations in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Yemen, respectively.

Pyongyang’s arms sales to Tehran began in the 1980s during Iran’s war with Iraq. Their cooperation on missile programs continued since then and expanded.

In January 2016, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iranians for traveling to Pyongyang and collaborating on the development of North Korea’s 80-ton rocket booster. A few months later, North Korea said it had tested a new rocket engine that had a thrust of 80 tons and would be used in a new space launch vehicle.

North Korea has been accusing Israel of committing “terrorism” against Iran since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In December, the Israel Defense Forces said North Korean weapons have been turning up in Gaza.

Bruce Bechtol, a former intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and now a professor at Angelo University in Texas, said arms transfers between Pyongyang and Tehran are “inevitable” regardless of any meeting between the two last week.

“Some of the weapons that North Korea has sent to Russia have gone to Iran first and then up to the Caspian Sea, and Russia has used those weapons in the Ukraine,” said Bechtol, the author of the book “North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa.”

He told VOA that Iran’s Emad medium-range ballistic missiles used in the attack against Israel earlier in the month were made based on the Shahab-3, which Iran first put into use in 2003. That, in turn, was developed from North Korean NoDong missiles that were sent to Tehran in the 1990s.

Bechtol said Iran’s Shahab-3 missiles were developed in a facility that North Korea built for Tehran in the early 2000s. He said Tehran is likely seeking to acquire Pyongyang’s Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Joeun Lee contributed to this report.
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The number of Russian soldiers killed in combat since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine remains a secret that the Kremlin goes to great lengths to hide. However, open-source research has recently yielded figures that show Moscow’s losses have been heavy. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report by Ricardo Marquina.
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tbilsi, georgia — Georgian security forces used water cannon and tear gas against protesters outside parliament late on Tuesday, sharply escalating a crackdown after lawmakers debated a “foreign agents” bill, which is viewed by the opposition and Western nations as authoritarian and Russian-inspired.

Reuters eyewitnesses saw some police officers physically attack protesters, who threw eggs and bottles at them, before using tear gas and water cannon to force demonstrators from the area outside the Soviet-built parliament building.

Earlier, riot police used pepper spray and batons to clear some protesters who were trying to prevent lawmakers from leaving the back entrance of parliament. Some protesters shouted “Slaves” and “Russians” at police.

The bill has deepened divisions in the deeply polarized southern Caucasus country, setting the ruling Georgian Dream Party against a protest movement backed by opposition groups, civil society, celebrities and Georgia’s figurehead president.

Parliament, which is controlled by the Georgian Dream and its allies, is likely to approve the bill, which must pass two more readings before becoming law. Lawmakers ended Tuesday’s session without a vote, and the debate will resume on Wednesday.

The bill would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents.”

Georgian critics have labeled the bill “the Russian law,” comparing it to Moscow’s “foreign agent” legislation, which has been used to crack down on dissent there.

Russia is disliked by many Georgians for its support of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia lost a brief war with Russia in 2008.

The United States, Britain and the European Union, which granted Georgia candidate status in December, have criticized the bill. EU officials have said it could halt Georgia’s progress toward integration with the bloc.

‘Prolonging the inevitable’

Tina Khidasheli, who served as Georgian defense minister in a Georgian Dream-led government in 2015-2016, attended Tuesday’s protest against her former government colleagues and said she expected the demonstrators to win eventually.

“The government is just prolonging the inevitable. We might have serious problems, but at the end of the day, the people will go home with victory,” she told Reuters.

Thousands of anti-government demonstrators have shut down Tbilisi’s central streets on a nightly basis since parliament approved the bill’s first reading on April 17.

On Monday, a government-organized rally in support of the bill was attended by tens of thousands of people, many of whom had been bussed in from provincial towns by the ruling party.

At that rally, former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who founded Georgian Dream, harshly criticized the West and hinted at a post-election crackdown on the opposition.

Ivanishvili told attendees that a “global party of war” had hijacked the EU and NATO and that it was bent on using those institutions to undermine Georgian sovereignty.

Ivanishvili, who says he wants Georgia to join the EU, said the foreign agent law would bolster national sovereignty, and he suggested that the country’s pro-Western opposition was controlled by foreign intelligence services via grants to NGOs.

He added that after elections due by October, Georgia’s opposition, which is dominated by the United National Movement Party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, would face “the harsh political and legal judgment it deserves.”
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At former U.S. President Donald Trump’s trial in New York, an ex-tabloid publisher testified about his efforts to help then-candidate Trump by buying negative stories about him and suppressing them. “Catch and kill” is part of a practice known as checkbook journalism. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi explains.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is stepping up his efforts to play a more prominent role in the Gaza conflict. The Turkish leader recently hosted Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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China’s share of the European electric vehicle market has doubled in less than two years, with Chinese automakers accounting for 20 percent of EVs sold in Europe last year. The trend is raising alarm among European carmakers, and they are considering pushing for new tariffs. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona. VOA’s Ricardo Marquina contributed.
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WASHINGTON — House Democrats will vote to save Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s job should some of his fellow GOP lawmakers seek to remove him from the position, Democratic leaders said Tuesday, avoiding a repeat of when eight Republicans joined with Democrats to oust his predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

Johnson, R-La., has come under heavy criticism from some Republicans for moving forward with aid for Ukraine as part of a $95 billion emergency spending package that passed this month. It would take only a handful of Republicans to remove Johnson from the speakership if the Democratic caucus went along with the effort.

But Democratic leaders took that possibility off the table.

“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” said a statement from the top three House Democrats, Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar. “We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”

Greene, R-Ga., earlier this month filed a resolution with the House clerk — called a motion to vacate — that would remove Johnson from office if approved by the House. And while Greene did not force the resolution to be taken up immediately, she told reporters she was laying the groundwork for future consideration. She had two co-sponsors, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.

Johnson was quick to distance himself from Democrats on the issue, saying he had no conversations with Jeffries or anyone else about saving his job.

“I was laser-focused on getting the supplemental done,” Johnson said, referring to the aid package. “I’ve had colleagues from both parties come up to me on the floor, of course, and say we won’t stand for this. … I’ve not requested assistance from anyone. I’m not focused on that at all.”

Many House Republicans are eager to move past the divisions that have tormented their ranks ever since taking the majority last January. At a closed-door session Tuesday morning, much of the discussion focused on how to create unity in the party heading into the November elections.

Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said Republicans heard from Michael Whatley, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, who emphasized that Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, wants to unify the majority in the House. He said that’s a message that certainly helps Johnson.

“What he wants is a unified Republican majority, so my message is singing from the same song sheet as President Trump,” Barr said.

Still, Greene indicated she may still move forward with the effort to remove Johnson, tweeting on X that she believes in recorded votes to put “Congress on record.” She also called Johnson “officially the Democratic Speaker of the House” and questioned “what slimy deal” he made for Democratic support.

“Americans deserve to see the Uniparty on full display. I’m about to give them their coming out party!” Greene tweeted. “Uniparty” is a derisive term some Republicans use to describe cooperation between some fellow Republicans and Democrats.
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LONDON — A man wielding a sword attacked members of the public and police officers in a east London suburb Tuesday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four others, British authorities said.

A 36-year-old man was arrested in a residential area near Hainault subway station, police said. The incident is not being treated as terror-related or a “targeted attack.”

Police said the 14-year-old died in the hospital from his injuries. Two police officers were in hospital being treated for stab wounds. Two other people were also injured.

Chief Supt. Stuart Bell described the incident as “truly horrific.”

“I cannot even begin to imagine how those affected must be feeling,” he said outside the homes in east London where the crime happened.

The Metropolitan Police said they were called early Tuesday to reports of a vehicle being driven into a house in a residential street and people being stabbed.

Video on British media showed a man in a yellow hoodie holding a long sword or knife walking near houses in the area.

Witnesses say they heard police shouting to the suspect urging him to put down the weapon as they chased after him.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said police do not believe there is a threat to the wider community.

“We are not looking for more suspects,” he said. “This incident does not appear to be terror-related.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the incident was “shocking,” adding: “Such violence has no place on our streets.”

King Charles III said his thoughts and prayers were with the family of the young victim, and he saluted the courage of emergency workers, Buckingham Palace said.

Transport for London said Hainault station was closed due to a police investigation in the area.
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — Jordan Vassallo is lukewarm about casting her first presidential ballot for President Joe Biden in November. But when the 18-year-old senior at Jupiter High School in Florida thinks about the things she cares about, she says her vote for the Democratic incumbent is an “obvious choice.”

Vassallo will be voting for a constitutional ballot amendment that would prevent the state of Florida from prohibiting abortion before a fetus can survive on its own — essentially the standard that existed nationally before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional protections to abortion and left the matter for states to decide.

Passage of the amendment would wipe away Florida’s six-week abortion law, which Vassallo says makes no sense.

“Most people don’t know they are pregnant at six weeks,” she said.

Biden, despite her reticence, will get her vote as well.

In Florida and across the United States, voters in Vassallo’s age group could prove pivotal in the 2024 election, from the presidency to ballot amendments and down-ballot races that will determine who controls Congress. She is likely to be among more than 8 million new voters eligible to vote this November since the 2022 elections, according to Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

While some of those voters share Vassallo’s priorities of gun violence prevention and abortion rights, recent protests on college campuses about the war between Israel and Hamas, including at some Florida campuses, have thrown a new element of uncertainty into the mix. In Florida and elsewhere, observers across the political spectrum are looking on with intense interest.

Florida Democrats hope young voters will be driven to the polls by ballot amendments legalizing marijuana and enshrining abortion rights. They hope the more tolerant views of young voters on those issues will reverse an active voter registration edge of nearly 900,000 for Republicans in Florida, which has turned from the ultimate swing state in 2000 to reliably Republican in recent years.

According to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 Florida voters under age 45 in the 2022 midterm elections said the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade had an impact on their decision to vote and who to support. The youngest voters, under age 30, appeared more likely than others to say the decision was the single most important factor in their votes, with about 3 in 10 saying that, compared with about 2 in 10 older voters.

Nathan Mitchell, president of Florida Atlantic University’s College Republicans, questions how impactful abortion will be in the election.

According to AP VoteCast, relatively few Florida voters in the 2022 midterms believed abortion should be either completely banned or fully permitted in all cases. Even among Republicans, just 12% said abortion should be illegal in all cases. About half of Republicans said it should be banned in most cases.

Voters under 45 were slightly more likely than others to say abortion should always be legal, with 30% taking that position.

Mitchell said while abortion is a strong issue, especially for women, he doesn’t think it will drive many younger voters to the polls.

“I think other amendments will probably do that, especially the recreational marijuana amendment,” Mitchell said. “I think that’s going to bring out a lot more voters than abortion will.”

The AP VoteCast survey lends some credence to his thinking. About 6 in 10 Florida voters in the 2022 elections favored legalizing the recreational use of marijuana nationwide, the survey found. Among voters under 45, that was 76%. Still, it’s unclear how important that issue is for younger voters compared with other issues.

The big question is whether other issues can override Biden’s enthusiasm problem among young Florida voters and elsewhere.

Six in 10 adults under 30 nationally said in a December AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that they would be dissatisfied with Biden as the Democratic Party nominee in 2024. About 2 in 10 said in a March poll that “excited” would describe their emotions if Biden were reelected.

Young voters were crucial to the broad and racially diverse coalition that helped elect Biden in 2020. About 6 in 10 voters under 30 backed Biden nationally, according to AP VoteCas. A Pew Research Center survey showed that those under age 30 made up 38% of new or irregular voters in that election.

In Florida, Biden won 64% of young voters — similar to his national numbers.

New issues that concern young voters have emerged this year. Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has sparked protests at college campuses across the country, and Biden’s inability to deliver broad-based student loan forgiveness affects many young voters directly. Concern about climate change also continues to grow. AP-NORC data from February shows that majorities of Americans under 30 disapprove of how Biden is handling a range of issues, including the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, immigration, the economy, climate change and abortion policy.

But in Florida, it will be abortion rights and marijuana that give voters actual control over issues beyond a presidential rematch most did not want but got anyway, said Trevian Briskey, a 21-year-old FAU student.

Tony Figueroa, president of Miami Young Republicans, said the abortion issue is important to many young voters, regardless of where they stand. He noted, however, that Florida “is a very conservative state.” That means some of the young voters motivated by the issue favor stricter abortion laws.

“Given how Florida has become so much more red over the past couple of years, really it’s more of a way to galvanize or mobilize young voters where this is an important issue for them,” Figueroa said. “It’s really a way to get them to come out in droves.”

Matheus Xavier, 21, who studies biology at Florida Atlantic University, said he considered voting for Trump at some point, but changed his mind since Biden fell more in line with the things he cares about, including the preservation of abortion rights.

“At the end of the day, you got to go with what you support,” he said. “I guess Biden kind of shows more of that. If there was another option that was actually good, I’d probably go for that.”
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LONDON — The Scottish government will face a no-confidence vote Wednesday, one it is expected to win after First Minister Humza Yousaf said he would resign.

Yousaf’s resignation Monday came just 13 months after he replaced Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland’s leader and sparks another leadership contest in the Scottish National Party.

The crisis in the SNP gives an opportunity for the U.K. opposition Labour Party to regain ground ahead of a national election expected this year.

The motion of no confidence in the government was submitted by Scottish Labour last week, after Yousaf said he was ending a coalition with the Scottish Green Party. Scottish parliament listings showed the vote was scheduled for Wednesday.

Facing a separate vote of no confidence in his own position as first minister, Yousaf said he would step down as Scotland’s leader, as opposition parties, including the Greens, lined up to vote against him. That vote now won’t take place.

However, Labour’s wider motion of no confidence in the whole government is set to be opposed by the Greens, meaning that it will likely fail and that the SNP will have chance to form a new minority government under another leader.

Former leader John Swinney has said he is considering standing, while Yousaf’s former leadership rival Kate Forbes is seen as a possible candidate.

If the Labour no confidence motion passes, it will result in the resignation of the government and likely Scottish elections thereafter.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said it would be a democratic outrage for the SNP to choose another leader — and thus First Minister — without a parliamentary election.
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Campus protests of the war in Gaza continue, despite college administrations’ warnings — and new ones are being launched. VOA Natasha Mozgovaya reports from an encampment set up Monday at the University of Washington in Seattle.
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new york — Unionized hotel workers demanding significant pay raises will rally on May Day in 18 U.S. and Canadian cities, as talks are beginning with hotel operators Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide Holdings and Hyatt Hotels Corp.

Talks will cover about 40,000 workers who look to secure new contracts for the first time since the pandemic. Workers want to reverse pandemic-era staffing and service cuts, as well as duplicate the big pay hikes that organized workers across the nation have been winning in recent years.

Demonstrators rallying for raises on May 1, the international workers’ holiday, may face some pressure in markets still recovering from the pandemic, such as San Francisco and Hawaii, analysts say.

“There have been a series of staffing and service cuts that have led to both painful working conditions for the workers and reduced services for the guests,” said Gwen Mills, international union president at Unite Here, which represents nearly 300,000 workers in hotels, casinos, food service, airports and other industries across the U.S. and Canada.

After domestic travel cratered during the pandemic, hotel operators hiked up room rates in the travel boom that followed. In response, workers are demanding a larger share of profits.

Workers will march through downtown Boston, Greenwich and several cities in California. Others in Baltimore, New Haven and Toronto will picket outside hotels. In Honolulu, workers will rally on the main thoroughfare in Waikiki.

2023 was a significant year for labor negotiations in the U.S. with manufacturing, auto and hospitality workers in Las Vegas among those who landed record contracts as a tight labor market allowed employees to flex more bargaining power.

The Culinary and Bartenders Unions in Las Vegas, Unite Here affiliates, said its workers got a 10% wage increase in the first year of its new five-year contract and a total 32% in raises, a record in its history.

This will be Unite Here’s first multi-city contract campaign since 2018, when about 7,000 Marriott workers went on strike in eight cities. The union secured substantial wage increases, affordable health care and protections against sexual harassment, including panic buttons for housekeepers.

Marriott said in 2018 that the renegotiated contract following the strike led to a roughly 4% rise in labor costs.

Negotiations have already started in Washington, D.C., Hawaii and Boston.

The union said negotiations will be held with each hotel to secure an individual contract.

The result of these negotiations could be far-reaching as “non-union hotels will likely also increase wages to attract and maintain employees,” said Emmy Hise, CoStar Senior Director of Hospitality Analytics.

“We look forward to negotiating fair contracts with Unite Here locals across the country that have expiring collective bargaining agreements this year,” said Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt head of labor relations in the Americas.

Marriott and Hilton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bulk of negotiations are set to take place during the summer, the union said.

U.S. gross operating profit per room in 2023 increased 8.6% year-over-year and 0.5% compared to the same period in 2019, according to commercial real estate analytics firm CoStar.

Hotel staffing per occupied room is down 13% since 2019, the union said.

U.S. hotel revenue per available room, a key metric in the hospitality industry, in 2023 was the highest for any year on record at $97.97, which increased 4.9% from 2022, according to Costar.

Room revenue growth is expected to moderate to 4.1% in 2024. Hilton’s U.S. room revenue fell 0.4% during the first quarter.

In San Francisco, “profitability for hotel owners is still way off of 2019 levels, so hotel owners will be very reluctant to give an inch to the unions as they really can’t afford to do so,” said Patrick Scholes, Truist Equity Analyst.

The same may hold true for lodging Real Estate Investment Trusts, a growing share of hotel owners, who are concentrated in union markets and have operating margins that are under pressure due to higher costs.
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U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump is planning to campaign in the Midwest state of Michigan this week. It’s one of a handful of states that could swing the results of November’s presidential election. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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