RIYADMEDIA

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Taipei, Taiwan — China’s leader Xi Jinping kicks off a six-day trip to Europe this Sunday, his first visit to the continent since 2019. The trip will include stops in France, Serbia and Hungary and comes amid rising tensions over trade with the European Union and concerns over Beijing’s support of Russia. 

Some analysts say that while Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict are likely to come up during the trip, Xi will be looking first to address trade tensions during the trip and to double down on Beijing’s close relationship with Budapest and Belgrade. 

“In light of Europe’s growing appetite to investigate what they view as China’s unfair trade practices, [Xi’s European tour] is a trip to disrupt the EU’s efforts to adopt tougher trade measures against China,” said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an expert on EU-China relations at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan.

And by making stops in Serbia and Hungary, Ferenczy said Xi hopes to show that China remains influential in Central and Eastern Europe despite the growing number of countries withdrawing from the Beijing-led initiative known as “Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern Europe.” 

“For Beijing, the symbolism of the trip to Serbia and Hungary is important as the stop in Budapest serves as an opportunity to amplify divisions within the EU,” she told VOA by phone. 

Investigations piling up

Since last month, the EU has launched investigations against several Chinese products, including green energy products and security devices, and initiated a probe into China’s public procurement of medical devices. 

The EU also increased scrutiny over several Chinese companies over the last week, toughening safety rules against Chinese fashion retailer Shein and opening formal proceedings against Tiktok under its Digital Services Act.

Beijing has repeatedly characterized Western countries concerns about Chinese excess capacity in some sectors as “baseless hype” and urged the EU to “stop wantonly going after and restraining Chinese companies under various pretexts.” 

Rebalancing trade

Despite Beijing’s objection to concerns expressed by Brussels, France has reiterated the need for European countries to rebalance trade relations with China during recent bilateral meetings between Chinese and French officials. 

“The European Union is a very open market, the most open in the world. But the current deficits with a certain number of countries, including China, are not sustainable for us,” said French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne during his trip to China last month.

During a phone call with French President’s Diplomatic Counselor Emmanuel Bonne on April 27, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing hopes “the French side will push the EU to continue to pursue a positive and pragmatic policy toward China,” Wang said.

While France supports the EU’s efforts to rebalance trade relations with China, some experts say French President Emmanuel Macron will try to maintain a cooperative relationship with China. 

“France wants to demonstrate that it is one of the major countries that can maintain channels of communication at all levels with China,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in Brussels, told VOA by phone.

On April 25, Chinese and French armed forces agreed to establish a mechanism for maritime and aerial cooperation and dialogue, which Beijing characterized as “a vital step” to implement the consensus reached by Xi and Macron. 

While trade issues will likely dominate Xi’s meeting with Macron, some analysts say the French president will try to address the issue of China’s ongoing support for Russia. 

“Macron will try to convince Xi to agree [to reduce] China’s support to Russia, but in Europe, hopes that Sino-Russian collaboration will diminish are fading away,” Philippe Le Corre, a Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, told VOA in a written response. 

Friend-shoring in Serbia and Hungary 

In Hungary and Serbia, Ferenczy said Xi will focus on deepening bilateral cooperation in different sectors, especially infrastructure projects, and Beijing’s role as “a strategic investor” in both countries. 

“We need to see his trip to Hungary and Serbia in the context of the Belt and Road initiative since Beijing is trying to revitalize the infrastructure project in Europe,” she told VOA, adding that the Belgrade-Budapest Railway will be an important part of China’s attempt to expand its flagship infrastructure project in Central and Eastern Europe. 

In recent months, the Hungarian government under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has tried to attract large amounts of Chinese investment – especially in the electric vehicle sector – while deepening security cooperation with Beijing.   

During an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CGTN last week, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto expressed his opposition to the EU’s anti-subsidy investigation against Chinese EVs and said he “looks forward to the potential impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on Hungary’s electric vehicle and battery manufacturing industry.” 

Havren in Brussels said since Hungary is a member of the EU, the relationship with Budapest is particularly important to China. “Hungary could impact possible sanctions or anything that is of importance to Beijing in the EU,” she told VOA. 

While the trip is unlikely to change the current dynamics between the EU and China, Havren said Xi will try to use China’s relationship with middle powers like France and its “iron-clad friendship” with countries like Hungary to make itself “more visible and relevant” in Europe.  
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Top US diplomat is in Middle East for talks on Gaza, regional security
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BERLIN — Two Ukrainian men were stabbed to death in southern Germany, police said Sunday, and a Russian man was arrested by authorities as a possible suspect in the killings.

The two Ukrainians, who were 23 and 36 years old and lived in the southern German county of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, were killed on the premises of a shopping center in the village of Murnau in Upper Bavaria. Shortly after the slayings on Saturday evening, the police arrested a 57-year-old Russian on suspicion of murder, German news agency dpa reported.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement that the two men were members of the Ukrainian military; “According to preliminary information, the deceased citizens were military personnel undergoing medical rehabilitation in Germany.” 

The names of the victims and the suspect weren’t released in line with German privacy rules. The possible motive for the killings wasn’t yet known, authorities said. It also wasn’t clear if the three men knew each other.

More than 1 million Ukrainian refugees came to Germany since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Germany is also home to a significant Russian immigrant community and 2.5 million Russians of German ancestry who mostly moved to the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. House and Senate negotiators said early Monday they had reached a deal to boost air traffic controller staffing and boost funding to avert runway close-call incidents, but will not increase the airline pilot retirement age to 67 from 65.

The U.S. House of Representatives in July voted 351-69 on a sweeping bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that would also raise the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 but the Senate Commerce Committee had voted in February to reject the retirement age increase. International rules would have prevented airline pilots older than 65 from flying in most countries outside the United States.

Congress has temporarily extended authorization for the FAA through May 10 as it works on a new $105 billion, five-year deal. The Senate is set to vote this week on the more than 1,000-page bipartisan proposal.

The bill prohibits airlines from charging fees for families to sit together and requires airlines to accept vouchers and credits for at least five years, but did not adopt many stricter consumer rules sought by the Biden administration.

The bill also requires airplanes to be equipped with 25-hour cockpit recording devices and directs the FAA to deploy advanced airport surface technology to help prevent collisions.

Efforts to boost aviation safety in the United States have taken on new urgency after a series of near-miss incidents and the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9

door plug mid-air emergency.

Senate Commerce Committee chair Maria Cantwell, the panel’s top Republican, Ted Cruz, House Transportation Committee chair Sam Graves and the committee’s top Democrat, Rick Larsen, in a joint statement announced the agreement and said, “now more than ever, the FAA needs strong and decisive direction from Congress to ensure America’s aviation system maintains its gold standard.”

The proposal raises maximum civil penalties for airline consumer violations from $25,000 per violation to $75,000 and aims to address a shortage of 3,000 air traffic controllers by directing the FAA to implement improved staffing standards and to hire more inspectors, engineers and technical specialists.

Congress will not establish minimum seat size requirements, leaving that instead to the FAA. The bill requires the Transportation Department to create a dashboard that shows consumers the minimum seat size for each U.S. airline.

The bill boosts by five the number of daily direct flights from Washington Reagan National Airport.

Cantwell said the agreement – including a five-year reauthorization for the National Transportation Safety Board – demonstrates aviation safety and stronger consumer standards are a big priority.
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SYDNEY — Australia, one of Ukraine’s largest non-NATO donors, has announced a military aid package worth around $65 million to support Kyiv’s war effort following Russia’s invasion.

The package includes funding for drones, short-range air defense systems, inflatable boats and generators, as well as equipment like helmets, masks and boots.

The additional funding was announced by Australia’s deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, during a brief visit over the weekend to Ukraine.

Marles told local media that the Canberra government is committed to “supporting Ukraine to resolve the conflict on its terms,” adding that “their spirit remains strong.”

Australia is also part of a multinational program to train Ukrainian troops in the United Kingdom through Operation Kudu.

Canberra has also joined the U.K.-led so-called “drone coalition” to boost Ukraine’s aerial defenses.

Vasyl Myroshnychenko,Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that Australia’s help will make a difference in his country’s fight against Russia. 

“We are extremely grateful for the package that was announced and that Australia has joined the drone coalition, especially now that we see how the nature of war is changing,” Myroshnychenko said. “The role of drones is becoming more important, and we have to have a steady supply of those drones and that was a very important contribution from Australia to help us get that advantage on the battlefield.”

The new package brings Australia’s overall financial support to Ukraine to more than $650 million.

Previous aid included supplying armored vehicles, infantry carriers, lightweight towed howitzers, and munitions.

Australia’s announcement follows a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine signed last week by U.S. President Joe Biden.

The Canberra government also has imposed restrictions on hundreds of Russian politicians, including President Vladimir Putin, military commanders and businesspeople. They are the most sweeping sanctions Australia has ever put on another country.

Additionally, Canberra has banned imports of Russian oil, petroleum, coal and gas.

More than 11,000 Ukrainians on various types of Australian visas, including visitors’ permits, have come to Australia since Russia invaded in February 2022.
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Tbilisi, Georgia — Thousands of Georgians marched through the capital, Tbilisi, on Sunday, as protests built against a bill on “foreign agents” that the country’s opposition and Western countries have said is authoritarian and Russian-inspired.

Georgia’s parliament said it would hold the bill’s second reading on Tuesday, with opposition parties and civil society groups calling for mass protests against its expected passage.

If passed, the draft law would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents” or face fines.

Protester Nika Shurgaia said he feared many non-government organizations would be shuttered because of what he called “the Russian law.” This label has been adopted by the opposition to compare the bill to a law used to crush dissent in Russia.

“There are hundreds of such NGOs who have done so much good for Georgia and now they face being stigmatized and possibly shut down,” Shurgaia said.

The EU and Western countries have warned that the bill could halt Georgia’s integration with the EU, which granted Georgia candidate status in December

The bill must pass three readings in parliament to become law, as well as overcome a veto by Georgia’s figurehead president, who opposes it.

Groups opposed to the bill have protested nightly outside parliament for over a week, since the legislature, which is controlled by the Georgian Dream ruling party, approved its first reading.

Thousands of student demonstrators have blocked Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue, facing off against riot police.

Opponents of the bill who called the mass protests on Sunday have also called for protests against its second reading on Tuesday. The government has called a demonstration in support of the bill for Monday.
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Beijing — Tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk met in Beijing on Sunday with China’s number two official, Premier Li Qiang, who promised the country would “always” be open to foreign firms.

Musk — one of the world’s richest people — arrived in China earlier the same day on his second trip in less than a year to the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said that during their meeting, Li had promised the country would do more to help foreign firms.

“China’s very large-scale market will always be open to foreign-funded firms,” Li was quoted as saying.

“China will stick to its word and will continue working hard to expand market access and strengthen service guarantees.”

Beijing would also provide foreign companies with “a better business environment” so “that firms from all over the world can have peace of mind while investing in China,” Li added.

Musk later said on X, which he also owns, that he was honored to meet with Li, adding the pair “have known each other now for many years.”

Musk has extensive business interests in China and his most recent visit was in May and June of last year. Tesla has not shared his itinerary for the current trip.

CCTV quoted him as praising the “hardworking and intelligent Chinese team” at his Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai during his meeting with Li.

“Tesla is willing to take the next step in deepening cooperation with China to achieve more win-win results,” Musk reportedly added.

Earlier in the day, the billionaire met with the head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Ren Hongbin, “to discuss next steps in cooperation and other topics,” CCTV said.

The mercurial magnate is a controversial figure in the West, but in China, Tesla’s electric vehicles have become a staple of middle-class urban life.

The future

Having once derided Chinese EVs, Musk described their manufacturers this year as being “the most competitive car companies in the world.”

“It’s good to see electric vehicles making progress in China,” he was quoted as saying by a state-backed media outlet Sunday.

“All cars will be electric in the future.”

Musk’s own company has run into trouble in the world’s second-largest economy: in January, Tesla recalled more than 1.6 million electric vehicles in China to fix their steering software.

His arrival in China coincides with a cut-throat price war between firms desperate to get ahead in the fiercely competitive EV market.

China’s local car giant BYD — “Build Your Dreams” — beat out Tesla in last year’s fourth quarter to become the world’s top seller of EVs.

Tesla reclaimed that title in the first quarter of this year, but BYD remains firmly on top in its home market.

An analysis by Wedbush Securities called the visit “a watershed moment for Musk as well as Beijing,” given the level of domestic competition and recent “softer demand” for Tesla.

The trip also comes as Beijing hosts a massive auto show, which held press events from Thursday and opened to the public over the weekend.

Tesla’s last hope

Comments under posts about Musk’s arrival on the social media site Weibo were full of speculation that the celebrity tycoon would attend Auto China while in Beijing.

One user suggested Musk’s visit was motivated by a desire to test drive an SU7, the first car model released earlier this year by Chinese consumer tech giant Xiaomi.

Xiaomi’s entrance into the competitive EV sector appears to be off to a positive start, with CEO Lei Jun saying this month that pre-orders had outpaced expectations by three to five times.

Other commenters responded to reports that Musk’s trip was intended to give him an opportunity to talk with Chinese officials about the possibility of bringing Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology to the local market.

“FSD is Tesla’s last hope for saving its domestic sales,” one Weibo user said.

“While the long-term valuation story at Tesla hinges on FSD and autonomous, a key missing piece in that puzzle is Tesla making FSD available in China which now appears on the doorstep,” the Wedbush analysis said.

Musk’s interests in China have long raised eyebrows in Washington, with President Joe Biden saying in November 2022 that his links to foreign countries were “worthy” of scrutiny.

The tycoon has also caused controversy by suggesting the self-ruled island of Taiwan should become part of China — a stance that was welcomed by Chinese officials but deeply angered Taipei.
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s jokes were well-received by those who attended the White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington Saturday. But his political rival, Donald Trump, criticized the event as he gears up for a new round of campaign stops and court appearances this week. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has the details.
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Rome — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced Sunday she will be a candidate at June’s European elections in a bid to boost support for her Brothers of Italy party, though she will not take up a seat if elected. 

The June 6-9 European Parliament vote is a key test of strength for her 18-month-old rightist coalition. 

“We want to do in Europe what we did in Italy… create a majority that brings together the center-right forces and send the left into opposition,” Meloni told cheering party faithful at a party conference in the coastal city of Pescara to set out EU policies and launch the campaign. 

Meloni, whose party traces its roots to Benito Mussolini’s Fascist group, called for Italy to leave the euro zone when in opposition and her 2022 election raised concerns in some European capitals. 

However, she has followed a broadly pro-European, orthodox line in office, particularly on foreign policy matters such as Ukraine and the Middle East. 

Her party is Italy’s most popular with 27% of support, according to recent polls, ahead of the opposition Democratic Party (PD) on around 20% and the left-leaning 5-Star Movement on 16%. 

Meloni will be the first name on the ballot for Brothers of Italy in all five of Italy’s constituencies for the EU election, but pledged she would not use “a single minute” of her time as prime minister to campaign. 

PD leader Elly Schlein announced last week she would also run, as did Antonio Tajani, head of the centrist Forza Italia party which is in the ruling coalition. 

All three leaders hope to win votes of people who take little interest in politics but are attracted by names of party chiefs on the ballot. 

Assuming they are elected, Meloni, Schlein and Tajani are expected to give up their seats, making way for runner-up candidates. 
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BEIRUT — French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné arrived in Lebanon Sunday as part of diplomatic attempts to broker a de-escalation in the conflict on the Lebanon-Israel border. 

Séjourné was set to meet with United Nations peacekeeping forces in south Lebanon and with Lebanon’s parliament speaker, army chief, foreign minister and caretaker prime minister. 

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has exchanged strikes near-daily with Israeli forces in the border region — and sometimes beyond — for almost seven months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hezbollah ally Hamas in Gaza. 

Israeli strikes have killed more than 350 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups but also including more than 50 civilians. Strikes by Hezbollah have killed 10 civilians and 12 soldiers in Israel. 

A French diplomatic official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak to journalists, said the purpose of Séjourné’s visit was to convey France’s “fears of a war on Lebanon” and to submit an amendment to a proposal Paris had previously presented to Lebanon for a diplomatic resolution to the border conflict. 

Western diplomats have brought forward a series of proposals for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. Most of those would hinge on Hezbollah moving its forces several kilometers from the border, a beefed-up Lebanese army presence and negotiations for Israeli forces to withdraw from disputed points along the border where Lebanon says Israel has been occupying small patches of Lebanese territory since it withdrew from the rest of south Lebanon in 2000. 

The previous French proposal would have involved Hezbollah withdrawing its forces 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border. 

Hezbollah has signaled a willingness to entertain the proposals but has said there will be no deal in Lebanon before there is a cease-fire in Gaza. 
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ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION — Oleksandr Taran’s mobile artillery unit isn’t officially part of Ukraine’s military, but that hasn’t stopped his men from destroying Russian targets on their own dime.

“We … get by thanks to the pension fund,” the 68-year-old commander – whose call sign is “Grandpa” – said with a chuckle.

Taran’s all-volunteer unit, the Steppe Wolves, is comprised of dozens of Ukrainian men mostly over 60 years old who are considered too old to be drafted but still want to fight.

Roving behind the front line with truck-mounted rocket launchers, they take orders from field commanders and work with other troops, contributing to the war effort despite lacking official support from the military.

The unit is funded by donations and stocked with faulty rounds they repair themselves as well as weapons captured from the enemy. Both are delivered to them by front-line troops.

When Reuters recently visited their base in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, they were preparing 122 mm Grad rocket rounds that were later fired by troops from another unit.

“The commanders that provide us with targets are happy,” said a 63-year-old fighter with the call sign “Zorro.”

“They give us more targets [and] help us with ammunition however they can.”

Taran, the commander, said his unit has been attempting to officially join Ukraine’s armed forces to directly receive ammunition – and salaries – but has been unsuccessful.

The unit also includes younger men who have been ruled unfit to fight. 

Willing and able

More than two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s mobilization effort is struggling amid flagging enthusiasm.

Russian troops have been advancing in the east, and analysts say Ukraine’s shortage of manpower needs to be addressed.

Some prominent Ukrainian and foreign supporters of the war effort have urged Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to significantly reduce the mobilization age.

Earlier this month, Zelenskyy approved new measures allowing the military to call up more troops and tighten punishment for evasion. He also reduced the mobilization age from 27 to 25.

Taran, who has been fighting since Moscow launched its war in 2014, said coercion would be unlikely to replace genuine enthusiasm from a potential recruit.

“Beat him with a stick if you want, but he won’t fight,” he said. “If a person wants to, he can go on for 100 years to fulfill his tasks and destroy the enemy.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Even amid war, Ukraine finds time for the glittery, pop-filled Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps now even more than ever.

Ukraine’s entrants in the pan-continental music competition — the female duo of rapper alyona alyona and singer Jerry Heil — set off from Kyiv for the competition Thursday. In wartime, that means a long train journey to Poland, from where they will travel on to next month’s competition in Malmö, Sweden.

“We need to be visible for the world,” Heil told The Associated Press at Kyiv train station before her departure. “We need to show that even now, during the war, our culture is developing, and that Ukrainian music is something waiting for the world” to discover.

“We have to spread it and share it and show people how strong (Ukrainian) women and men are in our country,” added alyona, who spells her name with all lowercase letters.

Ukraine has long used Eurovision as a form of cultural diplomacy, a way of showing the world the country’s unique sound and style. That mission became more urgent after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that Ukraine existed as a distinct country and people before Soviet times.

Ukrainian singer Jamala won the contest in 2016 — two years after Russia illegally seized the Crimean Peninsula — with a song about the expulsion of Crimea’s Tatars by Stalin in 1944. Folk-rap band Kalush Orchestra took the Eurovision title in 2022 with Stefania, a song about the frontman’s mother that became an anthem to the war-ravaged motherland, with a haunting refrain on a traditional Ukrainian wind instrument.

Alyona and Heil will perform Maria & Teresa, an anthemic ode to inspiring women. The title refers to Mother Theresa and the Virgin Mary, and the lyrics include the refrain, in English: “All the divas were born as the human beings” — people we regard as saints were once flawed and human like the rest of us.

Heil said the message is that “we all make mistakes, but your actions are what define you.”

And, alyona added: “with enough energy you can win the war, you can change the world.”

The song blends alyona’s punchy rap style with Heil’s soaring melody and distinctly Ukrainian vocal style.

“Alyona is a great rapper, she has this powerful energy,” Heil said. “And I’m more soft.”

“But great melodies,” alyona added. “So she creates all the melodies and I just jump in.”

Ukraine has been at the forefront of turning Eurovision from a contest dominated by English-language pop songs to a more diverse and multilingual event. Jamala sang part of her song in the Crimean Tatar language, while Kalush Orchestra sang and rapped in Ukrainian.

Ukraine’s Eurovision win in 2022 brought the country the right to host the following year, but because of the war the 2023 contest was held in the English city of Liverpool, which was bedecked in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags for the occasion — a celebration of Ukraine’s spirit and culture.

Thirty-seven countries from across Europe and beyond — including Israel and Australia — will compete in Malmö in two Eurovision semifinals May 7 and 9, followed by a May 11 final. Ukraine currently ranks among bookmakers’ top five favorites alongside the likes of singer Nemo from Switzerland and Croatian singer-songwriter Baby Lasagna.

Russia, a long-time Eurovision competitor, was kicked out of the contest over the invasion.

The Ukrainian duo caught a train after holding a news conference where they announced a fundraising drive for a school destroyed by a Russian strike.

The duo is joining with charity fundraising platform United 24 to raise 10 million hryvnia (about $250,000) to rebuild a school in the village of Velyka Kostromka in southern Ukraine that was destroyed by a Russian rocket in October 2022. The school’s 250 pupils have been unable to attend class since then, relying on online learning.

Teacher Liudmyla Taranovych, whose children and grandchildren went to the school, said its destruction brought feelings of “pain, despair, hopelessness.”

“My grandchildren hugged me and asked, ‘Grandma, will they rebuild our school? Will it be as beautiful, flourishing, and bright as it was?'” she said.

From the rubble, another teacher managed to rescue one of the school’s treasured possessions — a large wooden key traditionally presented to first grade students to symbolize that education is the key to their future. It has become a sign of hope for the school.

Alyona and Heil have also embraced the key as a symbol, wearing T-shirts covered in small metal housekeys.

“It’s a symbol of something which maybe some people in Ukraine won’t have, because so many people lost their homes,” Heil said. “But they’re holding these keys in their pockets, and they’re holding the hope.”
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AUBURN, Wash. — After a series of lower-paying jobs, Nicole Slemp finally landed one she loved. She was a secretary for Washington’s child services department, a job that came with her own cubicle, and she had a knack for working with families in difficult situations.

Slemp expected to return to work after having her son in August. But then she and her husband started looking for child care – and doing the math. The best option would cost about $2,000 a month, with a long wait list, and even the least expensive option would cost around $1,600, still eating up most of Slemp’s salary. Her husband earns about $35 an hour at a hose distribution company. Between them, they earned too much to qualify for government help.

“I really didn’t want to quit my job,” says Slemp, 33, who lives in a Seattle suburb. But, she says, she felt like she had no choice.

The dilemma is common in the United States, where high-quality child care programs are prohibitively expensive, government assistance is limited, and daycare openings are sometimes hard to find at all. In 2022, more than 1 in 10 young children had a parent who had to quit, turn down or drastically change a job in the previous year because of child care problems. And that burden falls most on mothers, who shoulder more child-rearing responsibilities and are far more likely to leave a job to care for kids.

Even so, women’s participation in the workforce has recovered from the pandemic, reaching historic highs in December 2023. But that masks a lingering crisis among women like Slemp who lack a college degree: The gap in employment rates between mothers who have a four-year degree and those who don’t has only grown.

For mothers without college degrees, a day without work is often a day without pay. They are less likely to have paid leave. And when they face an interruption in child care arrangements, an adult in the family is far more likely to take unpaid time off or to be forced to leave a job altogether, according to an analysis of Census survey data by The Associated Press in partnership with the Education Reporting Collaborative.

In interviews, mothers across the country shared how the seemingly endless search for child care, and its expense, left them feeling defeated. It pushed them off career tracks, robbed them of a sense of purpose, and put them in financial distress.

Women like Slemp challenge the image of the stay-at-home mom as an affluent woman with a high-earning partner, said Jessica Calarco, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The stay-at-home moms in this country are disproportionately mothers who’ve been pushed out of the workforce because they don’t make enough to make it work financially to pay for child care,” Calarco said.

Her own research indicates three-quarters of stay-at-home moms live in households with incomes less than $50,000, and half have household incomes of less than $25,000.

Still, the high cost of child care has upended the careers of even those with college degrees.

When Jane Roberts gave birth in November, she and her husband, both teachers, quickly realized sending baby Dennis to day care was out of the question. It was too costly, and they worried about finding a quality provider in their hometown of Pocatello, Idaho.

The school district has no paid medical or parental leave, so Roberts exhausted her sick leave and personal days to stay home with Dennis. In March, she returned to work and husband Mike took leave. By the end of the school year, they’ll have missed out on a combined nine weeks of pay. To make ends meet, they’ve borrowed money against Jane’s life insurance policy.

In the fall, Roberts won’t return to teaching. The decision was wrenching. “I’ve devoted my entire adult life to this profession,” she said.

For low- and middle-income women who do find child care, the expense can become overwhelming. The Department of Health and Human Services has defined “affordable” child care as an arrangement that costs no more than 7% of a household budget. But a Labor Department study found fewer than 50 American counties where a family earning the median household income could obtain child care at an “affordable” price.

There’s also a connection between the cost of child care and the number of mothers working: a 10% increase in the median price of child care was associated with a 1% drop in the maternal workforce, the Labor Department found.

In Birmingham, Alabama, single mother Adriane Burnett takes home about $2,800 a month as a customer service representative for a manufacturing company. She spends more than a third of that on care for her 3-year-old.

In October, that child aged out of a program that qualified the family of three for child care subsidies. So she took on more work, delivering food for DoorDash and Uber Eats. To make the deliveries possible, her 14-year-old has to babysit.

Even so, Burnett had to file for bankruptcy and forfeit her car because she was behind on payments. She is borrowing her father’s car to continue her delivery gigs. The financial stress and guilt over missing time with her kids have affected her health, Burnett said. She has had panic attacks and has fainted at work.

“My kids need me,” Burnett said, “but I also have to work.”

Even for parents who can afford child care, searching for it — and paying for it — consumes reams of time and energy.

When Daizha Rioland was five months pregnant with her first child, she posted in a Facebook group for Dallas moms that she was looking for child care. Several warned she was already behind if she wasn’t on any wait lists. Rioland, who has a bachelor’s degree and works in communications for a nonprofit, wanted a racially diverse program with a strong curriculum.

While her daughter remained on wait lists, Rioland’s parents stepped in to care for her. Finally, her daughter reached the top of a waiting list — at 18 months old. The tuition was so high she could only attend part-time. Rioland got her second daughter on waiting lists long before she was born, and she now attends a center Rioland trusts.

“I’ve grown up in Dallas. I see what happens when you’re not afforded the luxury of high-quality education,” said Rioland, who is Black. “For my daughters, that’s not going to be the case.”

Slemp still sometimes wonders how she ended up staying at home with her son – time she cherishes but also finds disorienting. She thought she was doing well. After stints at a water park and a call center, her state job seemed like a step toward financial stability. How could it be so hard to maintain her career, when everything seemed to be going right?

“Our country is doing nothing to try to help fill that gap,” Slemp said. As a parent, “we’re supposed to keep the population going, and they’re not giving us a chance to provide for our kids to be able to do that.”
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BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA — Wild horses will stay in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park amid fears from advocates that park officials would remove the beloved animals from the rugged badlands landscape, a key lawmaker said Thursday. 

Republican U.S. Senator John Hoeven said he had secured a commitment from the National Park Service to maintain wild horses in the park, though the number remains to be determined. Roughly 200 horses now roam the park. 

Hoeven said the Park Service would abandon its proposed removal of the horses under an environmental review process begun in 2022 and would continue to operate under an existing 1978 environmental assessment that calls for a reduction in their numbers. 

“They’ve committed to me that we will have a thoughtful and inclusive discussion on how many horses they keep in the park,” Hoeven told The Associated Press. There is no timeline on that, he said. 

In a statement, the park said its decision to terminate the review “was made after careful consideration of the information and public comment received during the [environmental assessment] process.”

Park visitors, much to their delight, often encounter the horses while driving or hiking in the rolling, colorful badlands where a young future president, Theodore Roosevelt, hunted and engaged in cattle ranching in the 1880s in what was then Dakota Territory. 

“People love horses,” Hoeven said. “And where do you go to see wild horses? I mean, it’s not, like, an easy thing to do, and most people don’t have horses, and they love the idea of wild horses. They see it as part of our heritage in America.” 

Earlier Thursday, Hoeven’s office said in a statement the decision “will allow for a healthy herd of wild horses to be maintained at the park, managed in a way to support genetic diversity among the herd and preserve the park’s natural resources.” 

The horses roam the park’s South Unit near the Western tourist town of Medora. In 2022, park officials began the process of crafting a “livestock plan” for the horses as well as about nine longhorn cattle in the park’s North Unit near Watford City. Park officials have said that process aligned with policies to remove non-native species when they pose a potential risk to resources. 

“The horse herd in the South Unit, particularly at higher herd sizes, has the potential to damage fences used for wildlife management, trample or overgraze vegetation used by native wildlife species, contribute to erosion and soil-related impacts … and compete for food and water resources,” according to a Park Service environmental assessment from September 2023. 

Proposals included removing the horses quickly or gradually or taking no action. Park Superintendent Angie Richman has said the horses, even if they ultimately stay, will still have to be reduced to 35 to 60 animals under the 1978 environmental assessment. The park will continue to manage the longhorns as done previously, according to Hoeven’s office. 

Thousands of people made public comments during the Park Service review, the vast majority of them in support of keeping the horses. North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature made its support official in a resolution last year. Governor Doug Burgum offered state help to maintain the horses. 

The Park Service reached out to the five tribal nations in North Dakota to find out if the tribes wanted to be involved in managing the horses, Hoeven said. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe indicated interest, he said. 

The senator’s announcement came after Congress passed and President Joe Biden recently signed an appropriations bill with a provision from Hoeven strongly recommending the Park Service maintain the horses. The legislation signaled that funding to remove the horses might be denied. 

Chris Kman, president of Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates, said she was in tears when she read Hoeven’s announcement. She said she planned to pursue federal protection for the horses and explore potential state legislation. 

“If they don’t have federal protection, then they’re at the mercy of the next administration that comes in or whatever policy they want to pull out and cite next time and try to get rid of the horses again,” Kman said by phone from the park. 

The horses descend from those of Native American tribes and area ranches and from domestic stallions introduced to the park in the late 20th century, according to Castle McLaughlin, who researched the horses as a graduate student while working for the Park Service in North Dakota in the 1980s.
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LOS ANGELES — On a recent afternoon, Grant Oh zigzagged across the University of Southern California campus as if he was conquering an obstacle course, coming up against police blockade after police blockade on his way to his apartment while officers arrested demonstrators protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

In many ways, the chaotic moment was the culmination of a college life that started amid the coronavirus pandemic and has been marked by continual upheaval in what has become a constant battle for normalcy. Oh already missed his prom and his high school graduation as COVID-19 surged in 2020. He started college with online classes. Now the 20-year-old will add another missed milestone to his life: USC has canceled its main commencement ceremony that was expected to be attended by 65,000 people.

His only graduation ceremony was in middle school and there were no caps and gowns.

“It’s crazy because I remember starting freshman year with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which came after senior year of high school when the Black Lives Matter protests were happening and COVID, and xenophobia,” he said “It feels definitely surreal. It still shocks me that we live in a world that is so fired up and so willing to tear itself apart.”

Oh, who is getting a degree in health promotion and disease prevention, added that his loss of a memorable moment pales in comparison to what is happening: “At the end of the day, people are dying.”

College campuses have always been a hotbed for protests from the civil rights era to the Vietnam war to demonstrations over apartheid in South Africa. But students today also carry additional stresses from having lived through the isolation and fear from the pandemic, and the daily influence of social media that amplifies the world’s wrongs like never before, experts say.

It’s not just about missed milestones. Study after study shows Generation Z suffers from much higher rates of anxiety and depression than Millennials, said Jean Twenge, a psychologist and professor at San Diego State University, who wrote a book called “Generations.” She attributes much of that to the fact that negativity spreads faster and wider on social media than positive posts.

“Gen Z, they tend to be much more pessimistic than Millennials,” she said. “The question going forward is do they take this pessimism and turn it into concrete action and change, or do they turn it into annihilation and chaos?”

Protesters have pitched tents on campuses from Harvard and MIT to Stanford and the University of Texas, Austin, raising tensions as many schools prepare for spring commencements. Hundreds of students have been arrested across the country. Inspired by demonstrations at Columbia University, students at more than a dozen U.S. colleges have formed pro-Palestinian encampments and pledged to stay put until their demands are met.

The campus will be closed for the semester at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, which has been negotiating with students who have been barricaded inside a campus building since Monday, rebuffing an attempt by the police to clear them out.

USC announced Thursday that it would be calling off its main graduation ceremony after protests erupted over not only the Israel-Hamas war but the school’s decision earlier this month to call off the commencement speech by its valedictorian Asna Tabassum, who expressed support for Palestinians. Officials cited security concerns.

“By trying to silence Asna, it made everything way worse,” Oh said, adding that he hopes there will be no violence on graduation day May 10 when smaller ceremonies will be held by different departments.

Maurielle McGarvey graduated from high school in 2019 so was able to have a ceremony but then she took a gap year when many universities held classes only online. McGarvey, who is getting a degree in screenwriting with a minor in gender and social justice studies at USC, called the cancellations “heartbreaking,” and said the situation has been grossly mishandled by the university. She said police with batons came at her yelling as she held a banner while she and fellow demonstrators said a Jewish prayer.

“It’s definitely been like an overall diminished experience and to take away like the last sort of like typical thing that this class was allowed after having so many weird restrictions, so many customs and traditions changed,” she said. “It’s such a bummer.”

She said the email by the university announcing the cancellation particularly stung with its link to photos of past graduates in gowns tossing up their caps and cheering. “That’s just insult to injury,” she said.

Students at other universities were equally glum.

“Our grade is cursed,” said Abbie Barkan of Atlanta, 21, who is graduating from the University of Texas in two weeks with a journalism degree and who was among a group of Jewish students waving flags and chanting at a counter-protest Thursday near a pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus.

University of Minnesota senior Sarah Dawley, who participated in pro-Palestinian protests, is grateful graduation plans have not changed at her school. But she said the past weeks have left her with a mix of emotions. She’s been dismayed to watch colleges call in police.

But she said she also feels hope after having gone through the pandemic and become part of a community that stands up for what they believe in.

“I think a lot of people are going to go on to do cool things because after all this, we care a lot,” she said.
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london — Former U.S. President Donald Trump said he is ready to renew a right-wing alliance with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban if he wins the presidential election in November.    

The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee made the comments in an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Europe, which was held in Budapest on Thursday and Friday. 

The conference has long been a powerful force in right-wing American politics. The first European edition of the conference was held in Budapest in 2022 and has been an annual fixture since.    

Orban, the host and keynote speaker, received a standing ovation as he told the audience that conservatives had a chance to seize power in a major election year.  

“These elections coincide with major shifts in world political and geopolitical trends. The order of the world is changing, and we must take our cause to triumph in the midst of these changes. … Make America great again, make Europe great again! Go Donald Trump, go European sovereigntists!” Orban told a delighted crowd. 

He claimed that liberal forces were trying to silence the political right.  

“This is what they are doing with the conservatives in the progressive liberal European capitals. The same thing is happening in the United States when they want to remove [former] President Donald Trump from the ballot with court rulings,” he said. 

‘Battling to preserve our culture’

In a recorded address to the conference, Trump said he was ready to renew a conservative alliance with Orban.  

“Together we’re engaged in an epic struggle to liberate our nations from all of the sinister forces who want to destroy them,” Trump said. “Every day we’re battling to preserve our culture, protect our sovereignty, defend our way of life and uphold the timeless values of freedom, family and faith in Almighty God.”  

“As president I was proud to work with Prime Minister Orban — by the way, a great man — to advance the values and interests of our two nations,” Trump said.     

Orban’s critics, including most of his European Union allies, accuse him of overseeing a backsliding of democracy. The Hungarian prime minister sees an opportunity to hit back, said Zsolt Enyedi, a political analyst at Central European University in Budapest.   

“Orban has an ambition to change the discourse, so he’s not simply someone who is, who cares about staying in office, but he also wants to have an impact on the ideological climate, and he thinks that by sponsoring particular friendly parties, governments and intellectual clubs and initiatives, he will emerge as the leader of this conservative movement and that can counterbalance the fact that the mainstream in Europe and in liberal democracies hates him,” Enyedi told VOA. 

Another of the keynote speakers at the CPAC conference was the Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, who is facing anti-government protests at home over a controversial proposed foreign agent law, which has been widely compared to similar Russian legislation. The EU has said the law would be incompatible with Georgia’s membership in the bloc. 

“(Kobakhidze) at the moment is turning his country more and more toward Russia, trying to in a way turn his back on the European Union, and interestingly, he is welcome at a club that is supposed to stand for the interest of the West. So, these kinds of strategic alliances are possible, because all speak the language of culture wars,” Enyedi said. 

Orban faces challenges at home

While right-wing parties are expected to do well in June’s European parliamentary elections, Orban’s Fidesz party is battling an economic crisis alongside a series of political scandals.  

The U.S. presidential election is set for November 5. Polls suggest a tight race between Trump and incumbent Joe Biden. 
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