RIYADMEDIA

WASHINGTON — More than 68,000 illegally trafficked firearms in the United States over a five-year period came through unlicensed dealers who aren’t required to perform background checks, according to new data released Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 

That represents 54% of the illegally trafficked firearms in the U.S. between 2017 and 2021, Justice Department officials said. The guns were used in 368 shooting cases, which are harder to investigate because unlicensed dealers aren’t required to keep records of their sales that could allow federal agents to trace the weapon back to the original buyer, said ATF Director Steve Dettelbach. 

The report, ordered by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is the first in-depth analysis of firearm trafficking investigations in more than 20 years. It examined more than 9,700 closed ATF firearm trafficking investigations that began between 2017 and 2021. Firearms trafficking is when guns are purposely moved into the illegal market for a criminal purpose or possession. 

The second-highest share of firearm-trafficking cases investigated by ATF was from straw purchases, when someone buys a gun for a person who can’t get it legally themselves. 

The report also shows that the recipients of trafficked firearms were people who had previously been convicted of a felony in almost 60% of the cases in which investigators were able to identify the background of the recipient. Furthermore, trafficked firearms were used to commit additional crimes in almost 25% of the cases, Dettelbach said. That includes more than 260 murders and more than 220 attempted murders, according to the report. 

“The data shows, therefore, that those who illegally traffic firearms, whether it’s out of a trunk, at a gun show or online, are responsible for real violence in this nation,” Dettelbach said. “In short, you can’t illegally help to arm violent people and not be responsible for the violence that follows.” 

The report found the average number of guns trafficked per case was 16. People who got them through unlicensed dealers bought 20 weapons on average, compared with 11 guns for straw buyers, according to the report. 

The Biden administration has separately proposed a rule that would require thousands more gun sellers to be licensed and run background checks. The Justice Department says it’s aimed at sellers who are in the business of firearm sales, but the proposal quickly drew protest from gun-rights groups who contend it could ensnare regular people who sometimes sell their own guns. 

The rule, which has not yet been finalized, is estimated to affect 24,500 to 328,000 sellers. During the five years documented in the report, 3,400 unlicensed dealers were investigated by the ATF. 
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WASHINGTON — America’s employers delivered another outpouring of jobs in March, adding a sizzling 303,000 workers to their payrolls and bolstering hopes that the economy can vanquish inflation without succumbing to a recession in the face of high interest rates. 

Last month’s job growth was up from a revised 270,000 in February and was far above the 200,000 economists had forecast. By any measure, it amounted to a strong month of hiring, and it reflected the economy’s ability to withstand the pressure of high borrowing costs resulting from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. With the nation’s consumers continuing to spend, many employers have kept hiring to meet steady customer demand. 

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate dipped to 3.8% from 3.9% in February. That rate has now come in below 4% for 26 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. 

Normally, a blockbuster bounty of new jobs would fan worries that the additional spending from those new workers could accelerate inflation. But the March jobs report showed that wage growth was mild last month, which might allay any such fears. Average hourly wages were up 4.1% from a year earlier, the smallest year-over-year increase since mid-2021. But hourly pay rose 0.3% from February to March after increasing 0.2% the month before. 

The economy is sure to weigh on Americans’ minds as the November presidential vote nears and they assess President Joe Biden’s reelection bid. Many people still feel squeezed by the inflation surge that erupted in the spring of 2021. Eleven rate increases by the Fed have helped send inflation tumbling from its peak over the past year and a half. But average prices are still about 18% higher than they were in February 2021 — a fact for which Biden might pay a political price. 

The Fed’s policymakers are tracking the state of the economy, the job market and inflation to determine when to begin cutting interest rates from their multidecade highs — a move eagerly awaited by Wall Street traders, businesses, homebuyers and people in need of cars, household appliances and other major purchases that are typically financed. Rate cuts by the Fed would likely lead, over time, to lower borrowing rates across the economy. 

The central bank’s policymakers started raising rates two years ago to try to tame inflation, which by mid-2022 was running at a four-decade high. Those rate hikes — 11 of them from March 2022 through July 2023 — helped drastically slow inflation. Consumer prices were up 3.2% in February from a year earlier, far below a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022. 

Yet the sharply higher borrowing costs for individuals and companies that resulted from the Fed’s rate hikes were widely expected to trigger a recession, with waves of layoffs and a painful rise in unemployment. Yet to the surprise of just about everyone, the economy has kept growing steadily and employers have kept hiring at a healthy pace. Layoffs remain low. 

Some economists believe that a rise in productivity — the amount of output that workers produce per hour — made it easier for companies to hire, raise pay and post bigger profits without having to raise prices. In addition, an influx of immigrants into the job market is believed to have addressed labor shortages and slowed upward pressure on wage growth. This helped allow inflation to cool even as the economy kept growing. 

In the meantime, the Fed has signaled that it expects to cut rates three times this year. But it is awaiting more inflation data to gain further confidence that annual price increases are heading toward its 2% target. Some economists have begun to question whether the Fed will need to cut rates anytime soon considering the consistently durable U.S. economy.
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Washington — The publisher of a small Kansas newspaper that police raided in August is suing officials involved in the act, accusing them of violating the newspaper’s First Amendment rights.

When police in Marion, Kansas, raided the newsroom of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher, Eric Meyer, the move was met with widespread condemnation from press freedom groups.

Meyer said he wanted to file the lawsuit because the raid on his weekly newspaper has major implications for press freedom across the United States.

“We’re the plaintiffs in this, but really, the plaintiff is American democracy,” Meyer told VOA. “They’re trying to silence criticism — silence anything other than the voice they want to hear. And we just can’t let that stand. We wouldn’t be doing our duty as Americans.”

During the August 11 raid, security footage showed police seizing computers, cell phones, hard drives and other devices from the newsroom. And in the Meyer household, footage reveals Eric’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, co-owner of the newspaper, confronting police during the raid on their home.

The lawsuit, which Meyer filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for Kansas, also alleges that the stress of the raid caused his mother’s death the day after.

After the raid, Joan “repeatedly told her son that her entire life was meaningless if this is what Marion had become,” the lawsuit said.

The nearly 130-page lawsuit, which Meyer said took some time to put together, is the fourth filed by current and former newspaper staffers over the incident.

Police defended the raid, saying they were responding to an identity theft complaint.

Meyer disagrees.

“This was an attempt by people to weaponize the criminal justice system for personal gains,” he said.

The newspaper was investigating the police chief who led the raid. Gideon Cody eventually resigned in October after body camera footage revealed him rifling through files about himself.

“It’s clear as anything that we didn’t do anything wrong,” said Meyer, who estimates the case won’t be resolved until 2026.  
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NATO members pledged to boost Ukraine’s air defenses against Russian attacks as the alliance marked its 75th anniversary Thursday, following a two-day summit of foreign ministers in Brussels. Members, however, did not agree on any specific military aid deal for Kyiv, as Henry Ridgwell reports.
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washington — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has suggested that the U.S.-U.K.-Australia trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS may soon be expanded to include other Indo-Pacific nations.

AUKUS was established in 2021 in the face of China’s increasingly assertive presence in the Indo-Pacific. Talks about other countries joining the group or participating in what is called Pillar 2 have been circulating for more than a year.

“It was always believed when AUKUS was launched that, at some point, we would welcome new countries to participate, particularly in Pillar 2,” Campbell said while speaking Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

The first pillar of AUKUS was to provide Australia with a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, and the second pillar is to collaborate on advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, advanced network capabilities, hypersonic capabilities, electronic warfare and underwater capabilities.

Campbell added that other countries have expressed interest in participating in AUKUS when the time was right.

“I think you’ll hear that we have something to say about that next week,” he said.

Trilateral summit next

Next week, U.S. President Joe Biden will host a trilateral summit with Japan and the Philippines. Biden will also have a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Campbell said the summit with Japan is expected to “historically” upgrade security cooperation relations, including the joint development of defense supplies.

According to Nikkei Asia, Campbell revealed on March 21 that the U.S.-Japan talks are expected to discuss technical cooperation between Japan and AUKUS.

According to the report, Campbell said Japan had made it “very clear” that it had no interest in participating in the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project. But, he said, “there are clearly areas that Japan could bring substantial capacity to bear in security and technological pursuits that advance common goals in the Indo-Pacific.”

Campbell told Nikkei Asia that those areas include advanced robotics, cyber initiatives and some work in anti-submarine warfare.

At Wednesday’s event, Campbell noted that several countries in the Indo-Pacific region are undertaking critical research and development in areas Pillar 2 focuses on, including hypersonic capabilities, long-range strikes, undersea capabilities and cyber.

AUKUS to JAUKUS?

As China’s provocative actions have escalated in recent years, AUKUS has begun to set its sights on more countries.

During a “2+2” meeting between Japan and Australia in December 2022, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said that AUKUS could involve Japan.

In August 2023, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons stated that AUKUS should invite Japan and South Korea to join.

Last November, former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso suggested during a visit to Australia that Japan join the group, which could be named JAUKUS. He said that would help send a unified signal on the Taiwan issue.

Australia and New Zealand also raised the possibility of New Zealand joining the second pillar of AUKUS after a ministerial meeting between the two countries in February.

Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, said the second pillar of AUKUS could draw on the strengths of Japan, New Zealand, Canada and even South Korea, but not necessarily as full members.

“Rather than bringing in these states as full AUKUS members, it’s better to bring them in on a project-by-project basis within pillar two areas of priority — for example, robotics and A.I., autonomous systems, advanced undersea warfare, electronic warfare, quantum technologies, and hypersonics,” Davis told VOA via email.

“It also opens up opportunities to add in some new priority areas — for example, space-related areas, where these states can make a great contribution.”

Bronte Munro, an analyst in the ASPI office in Washington, told VOA that Japan is an increasingly suitable candidate for joining AUKUS, noting major changes in its defense policy in response to the perceived Chinese threat. These include amendments to laws prohibiting the export of lethal weapons.

Munro said Japan’s manufacturing of advance semiconductors is critical for technology leadership, and the inclusion of Japan can help “secure semiconductor supply chains more explicitly for AUKUS partners.”

However, there are doubts in some circles about the wisdom of expanding AUKUS in view of the risks involved in sharing and transferring advanced technologies.

Andrew Hastie, the shadow defense minister of the Australian opposition party, told the U.S. media outlet Breaking Defense on March 28 that AUKUS’ focus should remain with the three countries already involved to ensure a seamless “transfer of the very sensitive secrets and intellectual property that’s involved with the heart of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2.”

When asked at the CNAS event whether Japan has established a security architecture to integrate into the second pillar of AUKUS, Campbell pointed out that the U.S. has been involved in “a series of engagements with Japan both on the intelligence side and in security spheres to encourage Japan to take on increasingly more strenuous activities that protect their intellectual property, that hold government officials accountable for the secrets they are trusted with.”

“It’s fair to say that Japan has taken some of those steps, but not all of them,” he said. “And we believe that ultimately, it is in our interest to share as much information and other technologies … with close partners like Japan to allow for a deeper, more fundamental alliance,” said Campbell.

He announced that “One of the things that I think you’ll see next week are steps, for the first time, that will allow the United States and Japan to work more collaboratively on joint development and potentially co-production of vital military and defense equipment.

“The U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of our engagement in the Indo-Pacific.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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washington — Planning is already underway for three-nation naval patrols in the South China Sea ahead of a high-profile summit next week among the leaders of the United States, Japan and the Philippines, senior officials have said.

Philippine ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez was quoted by the Financial Times on Wednesday saying that Washington, Tokyo and Manila are finalizing details of an agreement on the patrols, including when to begin and how often they will take place.

The U.S. and the Philippines have conducted joint patrols in the past, but this will be the first time Japan has participated. Both Japan and the Philippines are treaty allies of the United States.

Asked about the plan, Pentagon spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Martin Meiners told VOA’s Korean Service via email this week that the U.S. has been concerned about “dangerous and destabilizing” actions in the region and is “committed to maintaining deterrence, peace, and stability” with its allies and partners.

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the April 11 summit will be an occasion for “an unprecedented trilateral engagement” among the three countries that will lead to closer cooperation in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

He made the remark Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

A senior U.S. official said the three leaders will discuss what was described as China’s “increasingly risky behavior” in the South China Sea.

“We are increasingly concerned that the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] behavior in this space could lead us closer to really, unintended consequences,” the official said at a background White House press briefing this week.

“U.S. alliances and partnerships are not about China. … But oftentimes, Chinese action motivates a lot — much of what we talk about,” continued the official.

The most recent flare-up came on March 26 when the Chinese Coast Guard used water cannon to prevent a Philippine vessel from conducting a resupply mission to an outpost on a reef in waters within Manila’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

 
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told his Philippine counterpart Eduardo Año on Monday that the U.S. supports the Philippines against China’s “dangerous actions on March 26 obstructing a lawful Philippine resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal.”

Manila claims the shoal in the Spratly Islands as its own territory and has been keeping the BRP Sierra Madre, a World War II-era navy transport ship, grounded on the reef since late 1999.

Patrick Cronin, the Hudson Institute’s Asia-Pacific Security Chair, told VOA via email on Tuesday that the trilateral maritime patrols can provide “both a level of deterrence and a way of blocking Beijing’s efforts to create de facto control over disputed waters and some areas that clearly belong to the Philippines.”

He continued, “China will not desist from its ‘sovereignty enforcement’ efforts, use of white hulls and maritime militia to impose its domestic law on international waters, but it may have to shelve staking further claims in the face of concerted opposition from the three democracies.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA via email on Wednesday that “the military cooperation between the relevant countries must not interfere in South China Sea disputes,” and called for the three allies to avoid actions that would “harm China’s territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and interests and security interests.”

Liu continued, “The South China Sea issue is a matter between China and some ASEAN countries.”

Among ASEAN member states, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei are official claimants against China, whose claims to virtually all of the resource-rich waters have been rejected by an international tribunal.

 
Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the weekly ASEAN Wonk newsletter, told VOA on Tuesday, that “more patrols by more countries is one of many ways to reinforce presence and prevent the nightmare scenario of the South China Sea becoming a Chinese lake.”

He continued, “In addition to alliance networking, the United States and its partners will have to find ways to work with Southeast Asian states which are not formal allies but are nonetheless critical in addressing China’s assertiveness as well.”
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WASHINGTON — Migrant children who wait in makeshift camps along the U.S.-Mexico border for Customs and Border Protection officers to process them are in the agency’s custody and are subject to a long-standing court-supervised agreement that set standards for their treatment, a judge ruled.

The issue of when the children are officially in CPB custody is particularly important because of the 1997 court settlement on how migrant children in U.S. government custody must be treated. Those standards include a time limit on how long the children can be held and services such as toilets, sinks and temperature controls.

Wednesday’s ruling means the Department of Homeland Security must quickly process the children and place them in facilities that are “safe and sanitary.”

The border camps have become a flashpoint between immigrant advocates and the federal government. The U.S. has said smugglers send migrants to the camps and argued that the children are not yet in CPB custody because they haven’t been arrested. Advocates say the U.S. government has a responsibility for the children and that CBP often directs migrants to the camps, sometimes even driving them there.

Children traveling alone must be turned over within 72 hours to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. That agency generally releases them to family in the United States while an immigration judge considers asylum. Asylum-seeking families are typically released in the U.S. while their cases wind through courts.

“This is a tremendous victory for children at open air detention sites, but it remains a tragedy that a court had to direct the government to do what basic human decency and the law clearly require,” Neha Desai, senior director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law, said in a statement. “We expect CBP to comply with the court’s order swiftly, and we remain committed to holding CBP accountable for meeting the most rudimentary needs of children in their legal custody, including food, shelter, and basic medical care.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee’s decision could have far-reaching implications because of the changing face of who is coming to the United States. Decades ago, the typical person attempting to enter the U.S. was an adult male from Mexico seeking work. Now, families with children are increasingly making perilous journeys to the border seeking a new life. Caring for children puts different stresses on federal agencies more historically more geared toward adults.

The legal challenge focuses on two areas in California: one between two border fences in San Diego and another in a remote mountainous region east of San Diego. Migrants who cross the border illegally wait under open skies or sometimes in tents or structures made of tree branches while short on food and water. When the number of migrants was particularly high last year, they waited for several days for CBP agents to arrest and process them.

Gee ruled that the Customs and Border Protection’s juvenile coordinator must maintain records on minors held in the agency’s custody for more than 72 hours and that includes any time the minors spend in the camps. The agency must make sure that the treatment of minors at open-air sites complies with the 1997 agreement, Gee wrote.

Gee set a May 10 deadline for the juvenile coordinator to file an interim report about the number of minors held in open-air sites and how the agency was complying with the judge’s order.
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The 2024 New York International Auto Show kicked off in Manhattan in late March — and visitors have until April 7 to admire some of the coolest new car technology. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Michael Eckels.
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Madrid — Spain’s announcement this week that it will recognize a Palestinian sovereign state by July could mark a major turning point with other European states poised to follow Madrid’s lead, analysts say.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told Spanish media Tuesday Spain would recognize Palestine diplomatically by July.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares confirmed the plan, saying it would help an independent Palestine’s entry into the United Nations.

Ignacio Molina, a specialist on Spanish foreign affairs at the Real Elcano Institute, a Madrid research group, said both domestic political and foreign policy reasons had led Spain to say it would recognize Palestinian sovereignty.

The catalyst was the attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy Tuesday by Israeli forces in which seven aid workers were killed, sparking outrage in Spain.

Prime Minister Sanchez Wednesday branded as “insufficient” and “unacceptable” the response from Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israeli forces had “unintentionally” killed the aid workers. The NGO that employed them is run by Spanish-American celebrity chef José Andrés.

“In terms of domestic politics, Spain’s government is composed of a left-wing coalition government which has been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause,” Molina told VOA.

“The far-left Podemos and now Sumar parties in the coalition had not been involved in foreign policy until now but the Spanish government has been more vocal on the issue of Gaza.”

In terms of foreign policy, Spain wants to demonstrate leadership on the international stage by encouraging other EU states to recognize an independent Palestinian state, Molina said.

“Palestine is one of the few issues in which Spain can make progressive foreign policy. It gives Spain a leadership role in the EU. Spain has a peculiar position internationally with links between the Arab and Latin America which gives it a certain moral authority on this issue,” he said.

Madrid did not recognize Israel diplomatically until 1986, after Spain joined the EU.

The role of history

Spain’s position on Israel has been linked to the events of the 20th century.

During the long dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco from 1939 until 1975, Spain maintained close links to Arab nations.

“Spain did not take part in the Second World War, so it did not have the same moral obligations over the Holocaust as other Western countries to recognize Israel and for domestic reasons, Madrid wanted good relations with Arab countries to supply petroleum,” Molina said.

But Spanish policy has also been influenced by centuries of history.

In 1492, under the Alhambra Decree, Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered Jews to leave Spain or convert to Christianity.

More than 500 years later, in 2015, Madrid sought to make amends with an apology and offered Sephardic Jews Spanish citizenship.

Today Spain has a small Jewish community of about 50,000 people, compared with the 500,000 who live in France. Meanwhile, about 2.3 million Muslims, many of Moroccan origin, live in Spain according to figures from the Spanish statistics institute.

In 2014, under the then-ruling conservative People’s Party, the Spanish parliament approved a symbolic motion in favor of the Palestinian state.

Since the October attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war, marches in support of the Palestinian people have been held in Spanish cities on a regular basis.

Compared to other nations in Western Europe, there have been far fewer pro-Israel demonstrations.

A survey by Simple Logica published in January by eldiario.es, a left-leaning news site, found 60.7% of Spaniards condemned the Israeli offensive in Gaza and 57.9% agreed with the Spanish government’s call for a cease-fire.

Separatist sympathies

Within Spanish society, there is sympathy for the Palestinian cause because Basques and Catalans see their own struggle for nationhood against Spain as similar to the Palestinian fight against Israeli occupation.

“I think of myself as a Basque person rather than Spanish. We have always identified with the Palestinians as they have been oppressed by the Israelis as we were oppressed by the Spanish,” Igor Otxoa, of the Guernica Palestine organization, told VOA.

“If Spain recognizes Palestine, it is a start, but it does not mean that it will break off relations with Israel. Spanish companies are still selling arms to Israel and other goods.”

Spain’s Jewish community criticized the government’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood.

“We consider that the recognition of the Palestinian state should be reached from a consensus between all members of the EU. … Talking of two states, when one wants to push you into the sea, is difficult,” the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain told VOA in a statement.

Last month, Spain, along with Ireland, Malta and Slovenia, issued a joint statement saying they were “ready to recognize Palestine.”

Vanessa Frazier, the current president of the U.N. Security Council and Malta’s ambassador to the U.N., said this week that she has received a letter from the Palestinian Authority asking to be recognized as a full member of the United Nations and that the letter has been circulated to Security Council members.

Nine out of the 27 EU member states recognize a sovereign Palestine.

In 2014, Sweden became the first member of the bloc to recognize a Palestinian state. Malta and Cyprus did so before they joined the EU. Some Eastern European states did so when they were members of the Soviet Union, but Hungary and the Czech Republic have since emerged as close allies of Israel.

Apart from Spain, domestic political reasons may prevent Ireland and Belgium from formally recognizing the Palestinian state in the short term, observers said.

Ireland faces a general election next year and Belgium has a coalition government that is not united on the issue.

Malta and Slovenia are more likely to follow Madrid’s example.
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White House — President Joe Biden welcomed NATO’s 75th anniversary Thursday, as the security alliance hosted new member Sweden for the first time at a major meeting — and as Ukraine eagerly hopes for an invitation to join the group at an upcoming Washington summit. 

In a statement, Biden welcomed the recent addition of new members Finland and Sweden, saying “we must choose to protect this progress and build on it.” 

“This is the greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” Biden said. “But it didn’t happen by accident, nor was it inevitable. Generation after generation, the United States and our fellow Allies have chosen to come together to stand up for freedom and push back against aggression — knowing we are stronger, and the world is safer, when we do.” 

Biden’s Democratic allies agreed. 

“Despite [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s attempts to splinter our alliance with his war against Ukraine, the transatlantic partnership is more united than ever before, thanks to the determined leadership of Joe Biden,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “On this monumental anniversary, we reaffirm that America’s commitment to NATO remains bipartisan and ironclad — and that we will never waver in our defense of democracy.” 

NATO allies have been increasingly unnerved by the prospect of former Republican President Donald Trump returning to the White House if he defeats Biden in the November 5 U.S. presidential election. 

As president, Trump frequently complained that numerous NATO countries were not meeting NATO’s recommendation that they spend 2% of their country’s economic output on defense. 

In February, at a campaign rally, Trump recounted what he said was a conversation he had when he was the U.S. leader with the “president of a big country.” 

“Well sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia — will you protect us?” Trump quoted the unnamed leader as saying. 

“I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent.’

He said: ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’

‘No, I would not protect you.,” said Trump. “In fact, I would encourage them [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay.'”

The NATO countries’ pledge to defend each other has been invoked only once, when al-Qaida terrorists attacked the U.S. in 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people. 

The U.S. and its allies responded with a two-decade fight against the militants’ training sites and encampments in Afghanistan although Taliban rulers remained in power as Biden pulled out the last U.S. troops in 2021. 

Some analysts argue that the alliance remains relevant, citing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. 

“Nearly a billion people sleep more soundly at night under NATO’s protective umbrella,” said Robert Benson, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, in a message sent to VOA. 

“Yet a small but vocal minority views the alliance as a relic of the past, an albatross, or a distraction — all this in a world where Russian imperial ambition has once again threatened international peace and security,” he said. “The United States must continue to support Ukraine and to strengthen NATO, not out of charity or moral obligation, but because it makes us safer here at home.” 

Sean Monaghan, a foreign affairs analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told VOA that he does not expect NATO to offer Ukraine a formal invitation to join the military alliance when it holds its 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July.

The allies agreed last year at NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, not to invite Ukraine until its war with Russia has ended. 

“When the time is right,” Monaghan said, “NATO allies and Ukraine will want to move quickly from invitation to membership to avoid a drawn-out period where Ukraine is at risk of coercion but not protected” by the NATO treaty provision that all countries must defend each other if they are attacked. 

“The summit is likely to focus on boosting long-term support for Ukraine, including through NATO auspices,” Monaghan said. 
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PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron believes France and its Western and African allies “could have stopped” Rwanda’s 1994 genocide but did not have the will to halt the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, the presidency said Thursday.

In a video message to be published Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide, Macron will emphasize that “when the phase of total extermination against the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act,” said a French presidential official, asking not to be named.

The president believes that at the time the international community already had historical experience of witnessing genocide with the Holocaust in World War II and the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I.

Macron will say that “France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will” to do so, the official added.

The president will not attend commemorations of the genocide this Sunday in Kigali alongside Rwandan President Paul Kagame. France will instead be represented by Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne.

Macron, during a visit to Rwanda in 2021, recognized France’s “responsibilities” in the genocide and said only the survivors could grant “the gift of forgiveness.”

But he stopped short of an apology, and Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebellion that ended the genocide, has long insisted on the need for a stronger statement.

A historical commission set up by Macron also concluded in 2021 there had been a “failure” on the part of France under former leader Francois Mitterrand, while adding there was no evidence Paris was complicit in the killings.
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Moscow — Russia’s FSB security service said Thursday it had arrested three more people suspected of helping plot last month’s deadly terror attack on a Moscow concert hall, state media reported.

The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the massacre, in which more than 140 were killed when gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall venue on the outskirts of Moscow before setting the building on fire.

The FSB said Thursday it had arrested three in Moscow, the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and Omsk in Siberia for financing and recruiting for the attack.

“Two of those detained transferred money for the purchase of firearms and vehicles used in the terror attack, and a third was directly involved in recruiting accomplices of the terror attack and financing its perpetrators,” the Interfax news agency quoted the FSB as saying in a statement.

State media published footage showing FSB agents making the arrests. 

Two were foreign citizens and one was Russian, the FSB said.

Russia has arrested more than a dozen people it said were involved in the attack, including the four gunmen, all citizens of Tajikistan.

The IS group has claimed responsibility for the attack on multiple occasions, but Moscow has repeatedly tried to say it was “ordered” by Kyiv or the West.

“We have every reason to believe that the main goal of those who ordered the bloody, horrific terror attack in Moscow was to inflict damage on our unity,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. 

He said “Islamic fundamentalists” had no reason to target Russia.

Ukraine and Western leaders have repeatedly denied any connection to the attack and said Moscow is trying to exploit the tragedy. 
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On Earth and in space, efforts are underway to curb emissions of the super-pollutant methane, a greenhouse gas. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the latest innovations and policies, as the International Energy Agency warns the clock is ticking to win the fight against climate change.
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Thirty-year-old American and ех-Marine from California Wolfgang Hagarty volunteered to join Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the summer of 2022. He participated in the liberation of the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions in 2022 and is currently fighting as a member of an air reconnaissance unit in Donbas. Anna Kosstutschenko met with him. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy
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From the start of the war in Ukraine, drones have played an important role in carrying out surveillance missions and long-range attacks. Since last year, a new type of drone has come into the picture and is changing how war is waged on the front lines. They are called First Person View drones and, as Yan Boechat reports from Donbas, Ukraine, they have become a nightmare for soldiers on both sides of the battlefield.
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London — Britain has called for an immediate investigation into an Israeli airstrike Monday on an aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including three British citizens, in Gaza.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rejected calls to suspend arms shipments to Israel amid mounting global anger over the attack.

The bodies of six of the seven victims were taken out of Gaza on Wednesday in a convoy of ambulances through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. The body of the seventh worker, a Palestinian driver, was turned over to his family for burial in Gaza.

Monday’s attack struck several vehicles being used by the World Central Kitchen charity. Video of the aftermath clearly showed the charity’s logo on the roof of a vehicle, next to a gaping hole apparently caused by a missile.

The three British victims were identified as 57-year-old John Chapman, 47-year-old James Kirby and 33-year-old James Henderson.

Sunak said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Tuesday.

“I … was very clear with him that the situation is increasingly intolerable, and what we urgently need to see is a thorough, transparent investigation into what has happened, but also a dramatic increase in the amount of aid getting into Gaza,” Sunak told The Sun newspaper.

“I think we’ve always had a very careful export licensing regime that we adhere to. There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow, and I’ve been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that whilst, of course, we defend Israel’s right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law,” Sunak said.

The opposition Labour Party’s shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the government’s legal advice on Israel’s conduct in its war on Hamas must be published.

“If it is the case that international law has been contravened, then it is absolutely right that offensive arms are suspended to Israel,” Lammy told reporters Wednesday.

The three British victims were providing security for World Central Kitchen through the firm Solace Global. The firm’s non-executive director, Matthew Harding, said it was difficult to know exactly what had happened.

“We have looked very closely already at everything that preceded and went on after the incident. We are completely satisfied that all measures were correctly taken and executed” by his company, Harding told BBC News.

The other victims of the airstrike included the group’s Palestinian driver, 25-year-old Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha; 43-year-old Australian national Lalzawmi Frankcom, who was World Central Kitchen’s relief lead in Gaza; 35-year-old Polish citizen Damian Sobol; and 33-year-old Jacob Flickinger, a U.S.-Canadian citizen.

Their governments have echoed calls for a swift investigation.

Israel said it did not intend to target the aid workers.

“It was a mistake that followed a misidentification at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened,” Herzi Halevi, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, said in a televised statement on Tuesday.

Israeli government spokesperson Ilana Stein said Wednesday that the government regretted the “awful” incident.

“This is a very complex war situation. Every war is very difficult. It’s very messy, it’s very dangerous, and it has casualties that we would all rather not have on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side,” Stein told reporters in Tel Aviv.

“Having said that, Israel has been checking itself every day. We have been reviewing our actions in different manners, also in the field, but also regarding what we can do to distribute aid.”

The organization Human Rights Watch rejected her explanation.

“Israel’s deadly attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza displays the characteristics of a precision airstrike, indicating that the Israeli military intended to hit the vehicles. World Central Kitchen coordinated its coordinates and its movements with the Israeli government. Their vehicles were clearly marked,” said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.

“This is not an isolated incident. The Israeli government has killed at least 196 aid workers in Gaza, according to the United Nations,” Shakir told VOA.

Israel maintains it makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties.

World Central Kitchen has suspended its operations in Gaza. The organization said it has provided more than 42 million meals since its operations began there 6 months ago.

In an article Wednesday in The New York Times, Jose Andres, the charity’s founder, said the attack was “the direct result of [Israel’s] policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels.”

Despite widespread accusations from aid agencies that Israel is obstructing relief supplies into Gaza, Israel denies it is blocking aid and blames Hamas for the delays, which it accuses of using hospitals and aid facilities as military bases.

Hamas denies that claim and says Israel is using hunger as a weapon of war.
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Illegal immigration is the top issue for many voters in this year’s U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Scott Stearns looks at how candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden differ over what to do.
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Britain has called for an immediate Israeli investigation into an airstrike that killed seven aid workers in the Gaza strip, amid mounting global anger over Monday’s attack. Three of the dead were British citizens, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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