RIYADMEDIA

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday to give China’s ByteDance about six months to divest popular short video app TikTok or face a U.S. ban, seeking to tackle national security concerns about its Chinese ownership.

The bill is the first significant legislative move in nearly a year toward banning or forcing ByteDance to divest the popular app, after Senate legislation to ban it stalled in Congress last year in the face of heavy lobbying by TikTok.

Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairperson of the House of Representatives’ select China committee and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat, are among more than a dozen lawmakers introducing the measure, which is expected to see an initial vote on Thursday.

“This is my message to TikTok: break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” Gallagher said. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States.”

The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok, which is used by more than 170 million Americans, or make it unlawful for app stores run by Apple, Google, and others to offer TikTok or provide web hosting services to apps controlled by ByteDance.

The bill would not authorize any enforcement against individual users of an affected app, however.

“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” the spokesperson said.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson called the bill “an important and welcome step” adding that the Biden administration would work with Congress “to further strengthen this legislation and put it on the strongest possible legal footing.”

The administration has worked with lawmakers from both parties to counter threats of tech services operating in the United States that pose risks to Americans’ sensitive data and broader national security, the official added.

TikTok says it has not, and would not, share U.S. user data with the Chinese government.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the bill unconstitutional, saying lawmakers were “once again attempting to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year.”

The bill, which would require companion legislation in the Senate, will be considered at an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday for a vote.

The popularity of the app could make it tough to get legislation approved in an election year. Last month, Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.

The bill would give the president new powers to designate apps of concern posing national security risks and subject them to the risk of bans or curbs unless ownership was divested.

It would cover apps with more than a million annual active users and under control of a foreign adversary entity, the bill says.

Concerns about Chinese-owned TikTok sparked efforts in Congress last year to tackle the risks from the short video sharing app or potentially ban it. Late in 2022, Congress barred federal employees from using it on government devices.

Last year the administration backed legislation sponsored by Senator Mark Warner and more than two dozen senators to give it new powers to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies if they pose national security threats.

That bill has never been voted on.

The new bill aims at bolstering the legal authority to address TikTok concerns. U.S. courts blocked an effort by previous President Donald Trump to ban TikTok in 2020.

Late in November, a U.S. judge blocked Montana’s first-of-its kind state ban on TikTok, saying it violated users’ free speech rights.
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paris — The European Union’s executive arm announced a proposal Tuesday that aims to supercharge the bloc’s defense industry’s ability to respond to the war in Ukraine, Russian aggression, and fears of waning transatlantic commitment on the part of the United States. The EU’s 27 member states still need to sign off on the proposals. 

The European Commission’s plan would boost joint European defense procurement and domestic production so more than one-third of the EU’s defense spending will benefit member states. Right now, for example, a sizable chunk of EU material supplied to Ukraine for its war against Russia was produced in the United States.  

Brussels also understands that years of post-Cold War security are over. Today, said European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Europe is in danger:  

“Peace is no more a given, unhappily the war is at our borders,” he said. “And the Russian war of aggression has brought a great sense of urgency to step up our industrial defense capacities.” 

The commission wants to earmark about $1.6 billion through 2027 to support its plan. It agrees that will in no way meet its ambitious goals. By one commission estimate, it would cost more than a $100 billion to match Washington’s defense industry.  

The initial investment, said European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager, would act as an incentive.  

“The real funding for a stronger defense comes from member states, and that funding will increase over the years to come,”  said Vestager. “So what we can do here is to enable that funding to be spent in a better way, that we get more value for money, and that more, relatively speaking, is being spent in Europe as well.” 

EU countries are finally reversing decades of shrinking defense investments. Many who are also NATO members are expected to meet the alliance’s 2 percent GDP spending target this year.  

Experts said this wakeup call is late in coming. The EU, for example, is missing its March target to deliver 1 million shells it promised Ukraine. That’s now supposed to happen by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are struggling — and some European leaders fear Europe may be Russia’s next target.  

Additionally, billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine are stalled in the U.S. Congress. Concerns also are growing that Washington’s support for NATO and Kyiv could decrease if Donald Trump returns to office.

“We have to build up the defense industry, obviously,” said French security analyst Francois Heisbourg. “But things are going more quickly than the time to take to build up the defense industry.”  

EU member states still need to greenlight the commission’s proposals — and that’s expected to take time.
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The White House says it looks forward to working with the new Indonesian administration but stopped short of congratulating Prabowo Subianto on his apparent victory in Indonesia’s presidential election last month. Prabowo, for his part, has vowed to continue a policy that allows Jakarta to reap Chinese investments while maintaining security ties with Washington. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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white house — The White House said it looks forward to working with the incoming Indonesian administration but stopped short of congratulating Prabowo Subianto on his apparent victory in Indonesia’s presidential election last month.

“We congratulate the Indonesian people on a successful election. The president looks forward to early engagement with the new administration and strengthening our cooperation on what is already a strategic partnership,” said John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesperson, in response to VOA’s question during the White House briefing Tuesday.

Kirby said the administration is “closely following the ongoing vote count” that shows Prabowo commanding a significant lead. With almost 90% of the votes counted, Prabowo holds almost 59% of the more than 150 million votes in the February 14 election.

“We’ve had an excellent cooperation with him since the time he was defense minister, and if he is in fact finally elected, then we look forward to continuing that relationship,” Kirby said.

Official results are not due until later in March, but Prabowo has claimed victory, and several countries have extended their congratulations, including China, Australia, the United Kingdom and others.

Alleged human rights violation

Currently serving as Indonesia’s defense minister, Prabowo has a long track record of alleged human rights violations, including the abduction and torture of activists during the 1998 ouster of his then father-in-law, former President Suharto, who ruled Indonesia for 32 years.

Prabowo’s victory is widely attributed to the support of the popular outgoing president, Joko Widodo, who last week awarded Prabowo with an honorary four-star general rank. The president’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, is Prabowo’s running mate, fueling accusations of nepotism.

“Prabowo’s election creates not only a bad precedent in the effort to prosecute state crimes committed by the previous government,” said Gufron Mabruri, executive director of Indonesian human rights group Imparsial. “It will also weaken enforcement of human rights in the future.”

Until 2020, Prabowo was banned from entering the U.S. due to alleged human rights violations, but he has since visited as defense minister, invited by both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Asked about potential democratic backsliding in Indonesia, Kirby said the administration will “never back away from our concerns about the need for human rights, civil rights, and all the values of democratic institutions,” and that President Joe Biden “absolutely will not shy away” about expressing such concerns.

As the United States and China compete for regional influence, Prabowo aims to continue Indonesia’s nonaligned foreign policy that has allowed Jakarta to reap massive investments from Beijing while maintaining security ties with Washington.

In Washington, concerns about Indonesia veering too close to Beijing provide a geostrategic backdrop to U.S.-Indonesia ties, said Andreyka Natalegawa, associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“At the same time, these broader geopolitical factors are also just strengthened by the fact that the U.S.-Indonesia partnership is strong and solid,” Natalegawa told VOA. He added that given the continuities with the outgoing Indonesian government, Washington should be comfortable in working with the new incoming administration.

There have been sporadic protests in Jakarta alleging election interference, but official results are expected to declare Prabowo as the country’s next leader in the coming weeks.
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LONDON — Germany said Tuesday that human error was to blame for Russia obtaining the recording of a phone call among senior German military officials discussing the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine, denying its government communication systems had been compromised.

In the audio recording, published by the state-owned broadcaster Russia Today on Friday, four senior German officers — including the head of the air force — purportedly discussed supplying Taurus missiles to Kyiv.

Berlin has not disputed the veracity of the recording.

“Our communication systems are not and have not been compromised,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Tuesday at a news conference in Berlin.

“The reason that the phone call could still be recorded in the ranks of the air force is due to an individual application error. Not all participants adhered to the secure dialing procedure as prescribed. According to current knowledge, data was leaked from the participant in Singapore. He was connected via an unauthorized connection, i.e., virtually via an open connection,” Pistorius said.

The recording was published on the same day as the funeral of the late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, who died in unexplained circumstances two weeks ago in an Arctic prison.

Russian intelligence

The recording has prompted questions about what other intelligence Russia was able to gather, said Marina Miron, a defense analyst at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies.

“What we don’t know is what else do they know. This is the one call that they decided to reveal. And probably Russia knows about all [weapons] deliveries, where they are taking place. And this is very, very serious, specifically in terms of trust when it comes to intelligence sharing between Germany and other partner nations. And I think this, of course, plays into Russia’s hands. Because the idea is not to fight with NATO kinetically — an open war — but to destabilize the alliance from within,” Miron told VOA.

Taurus missiles

Germany has repeatedly refused to supply Ukraine with its long-range Taurus missiles since Russia’s 2022 invasion, citing the risk of escalation with Moscow. However, the audio recording suggested that senior military figures are in favor of supplying the missiles to Kyiv.

“What it shows to me is that there is some sort of a disagreement between the higher command and what they foresee as viable, as opposed to what the political leadership wants. Which calls into question, ‘What is the relationship there?’” Miron said.

In the recording, the officers speculated on whether the Taurus missiles could hit the Kerch Bridge that connects Russian-controlled Crimea to the mainland.

British involvement

The recording also suggested that British military personnel are in Ukraine teaching Kyiv’s forces how to operate the long-range Storm Shadow missiles provided by London.

The British government has not commented.

Russia claimed the recording showed the involvement of the “collective West” in the conflict.

“They constantly insist that the West is not at war with Russia, the West only supplies weapons. Then it turns out that there are Western citizens there [in Ukraine]. They say yes, but they are mercenaries. They retired from military service. Doubtful in the vast majority of cases,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry added that the audio proved Germany had not been fully “de-Nazified” — language strongly criticized by Berlin.

Germany has disputed Russia’s interpretation of the conversation, describing it as part of Moscow’s disinformation campaign.

“It is quite clear that such claims that this speech would prove that Germany is preparing a war against Russia is absurdly infamous Russian propaganda,” government spokesperson Wolfgang Buchner told reporters on Monday.

Missile impact

Russia fears that if Ukraine obtains long-range missiles from its Western allies, its logistics and supply lines could be severely disrupted, said Miron.

“I do not think that [German Chancellor] Olaf Scholz will allow Taurus missiles to be deployed to Ukraine.

“So, I think with the release of this recording, the Russians want to make sure this doesn’t happen, because with external pressure, Scholz was able to allow the Leopard tanks to be sent to Ukraine. And they just wanted to avoid such possibilities, because that would create some issues for the Russians,” Miron said.
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Germany said Tuesday that human error is to blame for Russia obtaining a telephone recording of senior German military officials discussing supplying long-range weapons to Ukraine. Berlin denied its systems had been hacked. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Western allies fear what other intelligence Russia may have obtained.
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phoenix, arizona — A leading South Sudanese academic and activist living in exile in the United States has been charged in Arizona along with a Utah man born in the African nation on charges of conspiring to buy and illegally export millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to overthrow the government back home. 

Peter Biar Ajak fled to the U.S. with the help of the American government four years ago, after he said South Sudan’s president ordered him abducted or killed. Emergency visas were issued at the time to Ajak, now 40, and his family after they spent weeks in hiding in Kenya. He was most recently living in Maryland. 

A federal criminal complaint unsealed Monday in Arizona charges Ajak and Abraham Chol Keech, 44, of Utah, with conspiring to purchase and illegally export through a third country to South Sudan a cache of weapons in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and the Export Control Reform Act. The weapons that were considered included automatic rifles like AK-47s, grenade launchers, Stinger missile systems, hand grenades, sniper rifles, ammunition, and other export-controlled arms. 

Although the criminal complaint was made public by Justice officials, the case was still not available in the federal government’s online system by Tuesday afternoon so it was unknown if the men had attorneys who could speak to the charges against them. 

“As alleged, the defendants sought to unlawfully smuggle heavy weapons and ammunition from the United States into South Sudan — a country that is subject to a U.N. arms embargo due to the violence between armed groups, which has killed and displaced thousands,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement. 

“Sanctions and export controls help ensure that American weapons are not used internationally to destabilize other sovereign nations,” said Gary Restaino, U.S. attorney for Arizona. 

A man who answered the telephone Tuesday at the Embassy of South Sudan in Washington said the mission does not have a press officer and the ambassador was traveling and unavailable for comment. 

From 2022-23, Ajak was a postdoctoral fellow in the Belfer Center’s International Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, focusing on state formation in South Sudan, according to the program’s website. He has also been a fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies of the National Defense University and a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy. 

Sudan gained independence from Sudan July 9, 2011, after a successful referendum. But widespread inter-ethnic violence and extreme human rights abuses by all sides continue to plague the country. 
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Washington — Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram were back up on Tuesday after a more than two-hour outage that was caused by a technical issue and impacted hundreds of thousands of users globally.

The disruptions started at around 10:00 a.m. ET (1500 GMT), with many users saying on rival social media platform X they had been booted out of Facebook and Instagram and were unable to log in.

“We are aware of the incident and at this time, we are not aware of any specific malicious cyber activity at this time,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said.

At the peak of the outage, there were more than 550,000 reports of disruptions for Facebook and about 92,000 for Instagram, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

“Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We resolved the issue … for everyone who was impacted,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a post on X.

Meta Platforms, shares of which were down 1.2% in afternoon trading, has about 3.19 billion daily active users across its family of apps, which also include WhatsApp and Threads.

Its status dashboard had earlier showed the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business was also facing issues.

Though the outage for WhatsApp and Threads was much smaller, according to Downdetector, which tracks outages by collating status reports from several sources including users.

Several employees of Meta said on anonymous messaging app Blind that they were unable to log in to their internal work systems, which left them wondering if they were laid off, according to posts seen by Reuters.

The outage was among the top trending topics on X, formerly Twitter, with the platform’s owner Elon Musk taking a shot at Meta with a post that said: “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working.”

X itself has faced several disruptions to its service after Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media platform in October 2022, with an outage in December causing issues for more than 77,000 users in countries from the U.S. to France.
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Budapest, Hungary — Hungary’s president on Tuesday signed the law on Sweden’s bid to join NATO, a final technical step before the Nordic country becomes the alliance’s 32rd member.

Hungary’s parliament ratified Sweden’s bid on February 26, ending more than a year of delays that frustrated other alliance members in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Tamas Sulyok, the president of the republic, today signed the decision taken by the National Assembly on February 26, 2024, regarding Sweden’s membership in NATO,” a statement on the presidential website read.

Sweden, which has been militarily neutral for two centuries, will then be invited to accede to the Washington Treaty and officially become NATO’s 32nd member. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago prompted Sweden and neighboring Finland to apply to join the trans-Atlantic bloc, ending their longstanding stance of non-alignment.

Every NATO member has to approve a new country’s membership.

Finland joined in April last year, but Sweden’s bid was stalled by both Hungary and Turkey, with Ankara approving Stockholm’s candidacy only in January.

Though repeatedly saying it supported Swedish membership in principle, Hungary kept prolonging the process, asking Stockholm to stop “vilifying” the Hungarian government.

After a meeting between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson in Budapest, the Hungarian leader announced that the two had clarified “our mutual good intentions”.

Hungary also signed a deal to acquire four Swedish-made fighter jets, expanding its fleet of 14 Jas 39 Gripen fighters.
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LONDON — British officials said Tuesday that Kate, the Princess of Wales, will attend a Trooping the Color ceremony in June. It is her first confirmed major official duty since the royal underwent abdominal surgery. 

Kate, Prince William’s wife, has been out of the public eye since January, when palace officials announced that she was admitted to a private London hospital for planned surgery. At the time, they did not provide more details but said she would not return to public duties until after Easter. 

The ceremony is celebrated on June 8 and the weekend that follows. The events, annual highlights in the royal calendar, are pomp-filled birthday parades to honor the reigning monarch and usually draw huge crowds each June to watch the display. The tradition dates back more than 260 years. 

The Ministry of Defense said Kate, 42, will inspect soldiers on parade during the June 8 ceremony. Hundreds of foot guards, horse guards and members of military bands will participate in the spectacle at central London’s Horse Guards and along The Mall, the promenade outside Buckingham Palace. 

The royal family has been under intense media scrutiny in recent weeks because both Kate and King Chares III cannot carry out their usual public duties due to their health problems. Royal officials say Charles is undergoing treatment for an unspecified form of cancer, which was discovered during treatment for an enlarged prostate. 

Kate was discharged from the hospital on January 29 after two weeks for her undisclosed condition. Palace officials have said she wished her personal medical information to remain private. 
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BERLIN — Tesla’s European Gigafactory near Berlin halted production and was left without power after suspected arson set an electricity pylon ablaze in a field close to the site early on Tuesday morning.

Police said the fire brigade was working to put out the fire in the area southeast of the German capital, adding that the blaze had not spread to the Tesla plant itself.

A spokesperson for the U.S. electric vehicle maker confirmed production had stopped and the site had been evacuated. Tesla’s Frankfurt-listed shares were down 2.8% at 1006 GMT.

Police are investigating a possible arson attack in the area, which has been the focus of environmental protests against the Tesla plant’s planned expansion.

They would not confirm media reports that bomb disposal units had been deployed after emergency services found a sign saying “ordnance buried here.”

Workers for energy company E.ON, which is in charge of the plant’s grid connection, are repairing the damage to the high-voltage pylon, which knocked out electricity in the area, the company said.

Tesla’s ambitions to expand its plant, which has a capacity of around 500,000 cars a year, hit a roadblock when local residents voted down a motion to fell trees to enlarge it.

The U.S. EV maker wants to double the site’s capacity to 100 gigawatt hours of battery production and 1 million cars per year, setting it up to dominate the European market.

Environmental activists have built and occupied treehouses in the forested area they expect to be cleared if the expansion goes ahead.

A spokesperson for the Robin Wood, one of the groups that is protesting against the expansion, said they had no knowledge of what could have caused the incident.

“We’re totally surprised by the situation,” the spokesperson said by phone, adding that a full statement would be made later.

Citizens in Gruenheide last month voted against a motion to clear enough forest for the company to build extra logistical spaces like a train station and warehouses, leaving it to local authorities to decide how to proceed.

The plant’s production ramp-up has slowed though the carmaker produced 6,000 cars in a week for the first time in January.
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NEW ORLEANS — As the Republican Party primary contests continue into their third month, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is the only remaining challenger to former U.S. President Donald Trump. 

The primaries will determine who is the GOP’s nominee for president and who will challenge President Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.

Trump has won all but one of the 11 primaries and caucuses so far, racking up 276 total delegates to Haley’s 43. (Haley earned her first victory in Washington D.C. this past weekend, a contest long predicted to go her way.) With 15 states casting their votes for a nominee on March 5, a day known as “Super Tuesday,” Republicans are divided on whether Haley should remain in the race or get out of the former president’s way.  

“If you’re a Democrat, you probably want Haley to stay in the race because she’s distracting Trump from focusing on defeating Biden,” explained Bob Carreto, a Trump supporter from Chalmette, Louisiana. “But if you’re a real Republican, you want her to drop out of the primaries as fast as possible.”

“She’s forcing Trump to spend money defeating her, and it’s not good for the Republican Party,” Carreto said. “But the reality is, she doesn’t stand a chance, so she should just quit.”

Even though Trump has won each of the contests so far, not all voters who could cast their ballot this November for a Republican think Haley should exit.

“I think she’s incredibly brave for staying in the race, especially given that Trump is a maniacal egoist who attacks anyone who challenges him,” Abby LaCombe, an independent voter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, told VOA. 

“She’s facing a lot of attacks for refusing to withdraw, and she’s giving people who vote Republican a choice — the ability to choose someone other than Trump, a politician who has shown he has no respect whatsoever for democracy,” LaCombe said.

The Haley campaign did not respond to VOA’s request for comment when asked what Haley would say to those questioning why she is staying in the race.

Uphill battle

The Trump campaign has been insistent on undercutting Haley’s challenge by 

highlighting her many stumbles at the ballot box. In her home state of South Carolina, for example, the former president collected 60% of the vote to her 40%.

Michigan is a more moderate state where independent voters — thought to be more receptive to Haley’s message — are allowed to vote in the Republican primary. Still, in the state’s recent primary, Trump’s margin of victory was even greater (68% to 27%).

“She can’t name one state she can win, let alone be competitive in,” Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesperson, said in a statement last week.

The Haley campaign did not respond to VOA’s request for comment when asked where she believes she can win on Super Tuesday or beyond.

On Sunday’s “Meet the Press” talk show, Haley said, “I think we fight. You’re going to have 16 states and territories that are voting on Tuesday. And so, a lot of people’s voices are going to be heard. And that’s what this has all been about.”

Most political experts, like University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock, agree that it will be difficult for Haley to win against the former president.

“I think it’s probably too late for her,” he explained to VOA. “This is Trump’s party, and he controls its voters. It’s a party dominated by an electorate who will stick with him no matter what — probably until he dies or withdraws from public view.”

Bullock, however, sees one way the Republican faithful could abandon him.

“A conviction,” he said. “Polling shows that if he is convicted of one of the several crimes he is accused of, then a substantial number of voters would abandon him. I think it’s possible that Haley is waiting, hopeful she could gather his votes if a conviction takes place.”

Trump faces 91 charges in four trials, including allegations he illegally tried to upend his 2020 election loss, whether he illegally took highly classified documents with him when he left office, and whether he falsified documents related to hush-money paid to a porn actor.

He has denied all the allegations.

Motivation for remaining in the race

A Reuters/Ipsos poll from last month found that 51% of Republican voters said they would not vote for Trump if he was convicted of any of the 91 felony charges brought against him across four criminal trials. A further 25% said they weren’t sure how they would vote in that case.

Fifty-eight percent said they would not vote for Trump if he were serving time in prison in November.

While experts like Bullock believe a Trump conviction might be Haley’s reason for staying in the race, others say she could have other motivations.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, believes Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, hopes if she can win several states, it will allow her to gain concessions from Trump during the Republican National Convention.

“She’s been spending her time in more moderate states and states where independent voters are also allowed to take part in the Republican primary,” Olsen said, adding, “states like Minnesota, where Marco Rubio beat Trump in the 2016 primary, and Colorado, where moderate Republican Senator Joe O’Dea beat a Trump-supported opponent by a wide margin.”

“Utah, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine are all in the same boat, and if she can win five states, Republican Party rules will give her more time and clout at the convention to voice her opposition to Trump,” Olsen continued. “Those wins are going to be a stretch for her, but if she gets them, Trump’s team will want to avoid any bad attention at the convention and may be willing to give concessions important to her, like a promise to support NATO.”

Other experts, like David Stack, a political scientist at Cleveland State University, thinks Haley might have one eye set on the 2028 presidential election.

“I just don’t see Haley having a path to the nomination this cycle,” Stack told VOA. “Her best bet for a win on Super Tuesday might be in Vermont, but even there she is down by about 30% in polling.”

“So, the question then is why is she staying in the race?” Stack said. “I think it could be to bolster her name recognition and collect donations for future elections. If she has a good amount of money in the bank after Super Tuesday, that could be a sign she is building a war chest for the future.”

Alternative to Trump

For her part, Haley insists her focus is on the present and that she believes she is the Republican Party’s best chance at unseating President Biden.

“This has never been about me or my political future,” Haley said last week after her defeat in the South Carolina primaries. “We need to beat Joe Biden in November. I don’t believe Donald Trump can beat Joe Biden. Nearly every day, Trump drives people away.”

She added, “I’m an accountant. I know 40% is not 50%, but I also know 40% is not some tiny group. There are huge numbers in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative.”

Jason Winder, a Republican from Uintah County, Utah, says he is one of those voters and is looking forward to casting his ballot for Haley on Tuesday.

“I like the idea of having a choice, and I’m grateful to still be able to show my dissent for Trump by backing someone who wasn’t involved in the January 6 insurrection,” Winder told VOA. “I hope the GOP leadership wakes up. He lost the popular vote in 2016 and 2020, and I think the margins will be even bigger this year. At least Nikki Haley gives us a chance.”

This week, Haley told supporters at a rally in Minnesota that Trump can’t win the general election if he’s losing 40% of the vote, and polling has shown a sizable portion of the Republican Party believe Trump is too extreme to defeat Biden. Nearly nine in 10 Haley voters in South Carolina said they would not be satisfied with Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

As a result, support in the form of fundraising dollars and endorsements from moderate segments of the Republican Party continue to find their way to the former governor.

On Friday, Haley received endorsements from two of the party’s most moderate senators, Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska.

Despite that support, many in the party, including Trump’s most ardent supporters, continue to push Haley to exit the race.

“I actually like Nikki Haley and I would vote for her if she was the nominee,” explained Harvey Wasserman, a resident of Daytona Beach, Florida. “But I’ve voted for Trump twice and I’m going to do it again in the primary. I don’t think she can win, so it’s time for her to give the stage to Trump so he can focus on Biden.”
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BISMARCK, N.D. — Donald Trump won the North Dakota Republican presidential caucuses on Monday, adding to his string of victories heading into Super Tuesday.

The former president finished first in voting conducted at 12 caucus sites, ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. The result puts Trump back on the winning track, which was briefly interrupted on Sunday when Haley notched her first victory of the campaign in the District of Columbia’s primary.

The White House hopefuls now turn their attention to Super Tuesday, when results will pour in from 16 states in contests that amount to the single biggest delegate haul of any day in the presidential primary. Trump and President Joe Biden, a Democrat, are dominating their races and are on track to winning their nominations later this month.

Under North Dakota’s rules, candidates are eligible to win delegates if they finish with at least 20% of the vote. However, a candidate who wins at least 60% of the vote receives all of the state’s 29 delegates.

Four candidates were on the ballot, including Trump and Nikki Haley. The other candidates, who have received little attention, were Florida businessman David Stuckenberg and Texas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley, who recently ended his campaign.

Retired music teacher and librarian Karen Groninger, of Almont, said Monday that she voted for Trump, calling him the best choice. The 76-year-old cited Trump’s 2020 speech at the annual March for Life anti-abortion event in Washington, D.C. — the first by a sitting president — and his border policies.

Longtime Republican state Sen. Dick Dever, of Bismarck, said he voted for Haley, but added she’s unlikely to win. The retired factory representative, 72, said, “I hear an awful lot of people say that they really liked Trump’s policies, but they don’t like the way he conducts himself, and I think he’s gone overboard a bit.”

Caucus voters were encouraged to be paying party members, but those who wouldn’t pay $50 for annual membership were asked to sign a pledge to affiliate with the party, caucus Chair Robert Harms said.

North Dakota is the only state without voter registration. The caucuses followed official state voter identification protocols, such as providing a driver’s license. Voting was done only in person and on printed ballots, which will be hand-counted.

In 2016, it was a North Dakota delegate who helped Trump secure the number needed for the Republican presidential nomination.

He swept North Dakota’s three electoral college votes in 2016 and 2020, winning about 63% and 65% of those votes, respectively.

As president, Trump visited Bismarck and Mandan in 2017 to talk about tax cuts, and he campaigned twice in Fargo in 2018 for Kevin Cramer in the then-congressman’s successful Senate bid against Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.

North Dakota’s Democratic-NPL Party is holding a presidential primary almost entirely by mail, with mail-in voting from Feb. 20 to March 30, and limited in-person voting for residents of Indian reservations. President Joe Biden, Rep. Dean Phillips and six others are on the ballot.

A third party will count ballots in Fargo on March 30, with results available on the party’s website afterward.

Sen. Bernie Sanders won the Democratic caucuses in 2016 and 2020.
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Vice President Kamala Harris reiterated Monday support for an “immediate” six-week cease-fire in Gaza, meeting with a top member of Israel’s war Cabinet as the conflict teeters on the five-month mark. But analysts and protesters note that stopping the conflict hinges on negotiations the Biden administration won’t discuss, and that may not yield a deal before the White House’s stated deadline – the start of Ramadan. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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washington — Lobbying firms in Washington are reportedly rushing to drop clients from China as lawmakers look to tighten scrutiny. The push comes in the wake of a surge in Chinese lobbying in recent years and growing concerns about China’s influence.

U.S. lawmakers say they are promoting legislation that would provide more transparency into who is lobbying for Chinese companies. The legislators aim to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from using gray areas to secretly advance policy agendas that harm the interests of the American people.

Republican Senator John Cornyn told VOA’s Mandarin Service last week that lawmakers are very close to completing work on legislation that aims to address the problem. Last year, lawmakers in the Senate passed the disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act and members of the House have introduced a similar bill. Cornyn was a co-sponsor of the Senate bill.

“We’ve encountered some dissent but will continue to work because it’s important to understand who is actually lobbying these policymakers,” Cornyn said. “The primary focus has been on making sure people register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. As you know, there’s been a lot of problems associated with people not disclosing their lobby contracts with foreign countries.”

Closing loopholes

In pushing legislation, lawmakers are looking to close existing loopholes in the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) and the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA) to demand more transparency regarding foreign governments and political parties that participate in the planning, supervision, direction or control of lobbying efforts regardless of whether they have made any financial contributions or not.

China is a unique challenge, Cornyn noted.

“The Chinese are unique in that there is no true solely private sector; they are forced to share information with the PLA and with their intelligence agencies,” he said. “So, I would say anytime we’re dealing with the Chinese-owned enterprise, it’s a cause for concern.”

U.S. lobbying is regulated by the LDA, which requires disclosure of domestic lobbying, and FARA, which requires disclosure of lobbying and other forms of influence by foreign governments and political parties. However, in 1995, FARA was amended to exempt those who represent foreign companies or individuals if the work is not intended to benefit a foreign government or political party. As a result, lobbyists registered under the far less transparent LDA and the result was a dramatic drop in FARA registrations.

Clients dropped

The effort to tighten scrutiny of China’s lobbying activities follows the U.S. Department of Defense’s release in late January of a list of “Chinese military companies” operating directly or indirectly in the United States known as the 1260H list.

Lawmakers subsequently said they were considering a measure prohibiting lobbyists who represent companies on the list from meeting with members of Congress, even to discuss matters on behalf of their American clients.

Following the release of the 1260H list, a chart began circulating on Capitol Hill that named various Chinese companies, including some military firms, as well as the names of their lobbying firms and whether they appear on the 1260H list.

Responding to the chart, at least five U.S. lobbying firms dropped Chinese clients as of late February. Steptoe LLP has terminated its contract with Shenzhen biotech company BGI. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld filed cease-and-desist documents to stop lobbying for Chinese LiDAR maker Hesai Group and terminated its cooperation with Xiaomi, a Chinese electronics company not on the 1260H list. The Vogel Group has also dropped lobbying services for Chinese drone company DJI and Complete Genomics, a subsidiary of genetic technology company BGI.

DJI and Hesai are both on the 1260H list. Complete Genomics is not on the list, but its previous parent company, BGI, is on it.

Boycotting meetings

Republican Senator Marco Rubio told VOA that while it is difficult to pass a law prohibiting members of Congress from meeting with anyone, some congressional offices have decided not to meet with lobbying firms representing Chinese military companies.

“There are just certain entities we won’t meet with because we understand that while they may be doing it for commercial reasons, the interests that they’re representing are linked to Chinese goals, military goals and aspirations,” he said. “And so … we’ve made that decision unilaterally.”

Robert Sutter, professor of practice of international affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University, said historically, Chinese military entities’ lobbying activities have been an ambiguous area, and the enforcement has been weak.

“These [companies] lobbying for these firms … it’s probably legal in some way. But there is a reputational cost, and I think that’s what the Congresspeople are calling attention to in saying they will boycott these firms,” he said.

According to Open Secrets, a political money website, China’s lobbying has surged in recent years. China spent more than $330 million on lobbying between 2019 and 2023. That stands in sharp contrast to the $60 million it spent between 2015 and 2018.

China’s lobbying roster

Craig Singleton, a senior researcher with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, notes up until a few years ago, Chinese corporate lobbying in Washington was almost non-existent but that changed when the U.S. government went after Huawei.

After that, “Chinese firms switched gears and quickly scaled up, deploying lobbyists to protect their bottom lines in the face of increasing scrutiny from Democrats and Republicans alike,” he said. “Today, China’s lobbying roster reads like a ‘who’s who’ of Washington insiders, from retired Pentagon brass to former high-ranking congressional aides. The goal of these lobbying operations is simple: disrupting any actions that could negatively impact their clients’ market share, deflecting regulatory scrutiny and defending against sanctions.”

Singleton said the Department of Justice – which is responsible for administering and enforcing FARA – could play a bigger role in curbing the CCP’s malign lobbying influence on Capitol Hill.

“The U.S. Department of Justice currently mandates only two Chinese companies, Huawei and Hikvision, to disclose their lobbying activities under FARA, offering a comprehensive overview of their engagements,” he said. “Despite additional Chinese firms being flagged as national security risks by the Defense Department and FCC, the Justice Department has not extended FARA filing requirements to these problematic entities. The only apparent obstacle to such action is a lack of political will within the Justice Department itself.”

VOA Mandarin reached out to the Department of Justice, but it declined to comment.

Yi-hua Lee and Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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For decades, the ethnically mixed, working-class Paris suburb of Saint-Denis has faced a raft of negative stereotypes. But it’s angling for a different image, when it welcomes part of this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. Many hope the Olympics construction projects now underway will go beyond an urban facelift and deliver lasting change. Lisa Bryant has the story.
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Geneva — U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warns the potential spillover of dozens of conflicts around the world is threatening global peace and causing human rights violations to surge in all regions.

Türk, who presented an update about the situation of human rights around the world at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva Monday, painted a frightening picture of a world where proliferating conflicts are devastating the lives of millions of civilians.

“Rarely has humanity faced so many rapidly spiraling crises,” he said, noting that 55 conflicts around the world are “battering people’s lives, destroying economies, and profoundly damaging human rights” by subjecting millions of people to widespread violations and “upending hopes for multilateral solutions.”

He said displacement and humanitarian crises have reached an unprecedented scale, legitimate governments are being toppled and those in power choose war to resolve national and international problems.

Türk warned all these conflicts are having a serious regional and global impact.

“Overlapping emergencies make the specter of spillover conflict very real,” he said. “The war in Gaza has explosive impact across the Middle East. Conflicts in other regions including in the Horn of Africa, Sudan and the Sahel could also escalate sharply,” adding that increasing militarization on the Korean Peninsula raises threat levels.

He said, “The war in Gaza already has generated dangerous spillover in neighboring countries and I am deeply concerned that in this powder keg, any spark could lead to a much broader conflagration. This would have implications for every country in the Middle East, and many beyond it.”

In zipping through the existing situations of dozens of countries, Türk provided a grim snapshot of prevailing conditions on the African continent. He called the deteriorating security crisis in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo alarming.

While commending Ethiopia for the steps it has taken in ending military operations against the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, he said the humanitarian situation in the northern region remained very serious and “persistent human rights violations in areas still under the control of Eritrean and Amhara forces, remain obstacles to durable peace.”

He called the human rights situation in both Mali and Burkina Faso very worrying, noting that military operations have intensified in these countries, with armed groups committing grave human rights violations against their civilian populations.

Elections could entrench autocrats

The High Commissioner reports more than 60 countries, where nearly half of the world’s people live, are holding elections this year. Unfortunately, instead of being a landmark for democratic principles, he said many of these elections are cementing autocratic rule, licensing corrupt practices, and depriving “people who are poor and dispossessed of their rights to determine their future.”

“In many parts of the world, many politicians are deliberately inflaming antagonism and xenophobia to garner support, particularly in electoral period,” he said. “In this headlong rush to abandon the common good for short-term personal benefit, they are tearing up the fundamental human rights principles that can unite us all.”

Türk also expressed concern by the prospect of intense disinformation campaigns in the context of elections, fueled by generative artificial intelligence. “There is an acute need for robust regulatory frameworks to ensure responsible use of generative AI, and my Office is doing its utmost to advance them,” he said.

He highlighted several countries that were holding elections to legitimize their authoritarian rule.

“In the Russian Federation, the authorities have further intensified their repression of dissenting voices prior to this month’s presidential election. Several candidates have been prevented from running, due to alleged administrative irregularities. The death in prison of opposition leader Alexei Navalny adds to my serious concerns about his persecution,” he said.

He added that since Russia invaded Ukraine, thousands of politicians, journalists, human rights defenders, and others have been criminally charged simply for speaking out against the war.

He blasted Iran’s legislative election three days ago which “took place in a country that has been deeply divided by the government’s repression of the rights of women and girls. He said the election was Iranians’ first opportunity to vote since country-wide protests broke out following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, while in police custody. She was arrested for allegedly wearing her veil improperly.

“People who participated in the protests have been persecuted, imprisoned on long sentences and in some cases, put to death,” he said. “I have urged immediate reforms to uphold the rights of all Iranians.”

He expressed concerns about deteriorating human rights related to elections in a bevy of other countries around the world including Chad, Rwanda, Somalia, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Venezuela, and Poland.

Türk criticized some practices in the United States of America and called on the U.S. government “to ensure that suffrage is non-discriminatory, equal and universal.”

“A 2021 presidential executive order acknowledges that disproportionate and discriminatory policies and other obstacles have restricted the right to vote for people of African descent and emphasizes the need to overturn them.”

Despite this, he noted at least 14 states passed laws last year making voting more difficult. “In a context of intense political polarization, it is important to emphasize equal rights, and the equal value of every citizen’s vote,” he said.

The High Commissioner deplored escalating attacks against LGBTQ+ people and their rights, noting that discriminatory legislation and policies recently have been expanded, adopted, or are under consideration in several countries.

Among those he called out for rebuke are Belarus, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, Uganda, and several states within the United States.

“Recognizing the rights of LGBTQ+ people goes to the meaning of equality, and the right of everyone to live free from violence and discrimination,” he said.
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Boston — Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court to leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war in Ukraine and other national security secrets.

Teixeira pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act nearly a year after he was arrested in the most consequential national security leak in years.

The stunning breach raised alarm over America’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members found to have intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

Teixeira, 22, admitted illegally collecting military secrets and sharing them with other users on Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games. Prosecutors plan to seek nearly 17 years in prison for him, according to the plea agreement.

Teixeira, who was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks.

Authorities said he first typed out classified documents he accessed and then began sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. The leak exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the capabilities and geopolitical interests of other nations and other national security issues.

Teixeira remains in the Air National Guard in an unpaid status, an Air Force official said.

Teixeira has been behind bars since his April arrest. The judge denied his request for release from jail last year after prosecutors revealed he had a history of violent rhetoric and warned that U.S. adversaries who might be interested in mining Teixeira for information could facilitate his escape.

Prosecutors have said little about a motive. But members of the Discord group described Teixeira as someone looking to show off, rather than being motivated by a desire to inform the public about U.S. military operations or to influence American policy.

Prosecutors have said Teixeira continued to leak government secrets even after he was warned by superiors about mishandling and improper viewing of classified information. In one instance, Teixeira was seen taking notes on intelligence information and putting them in his pocket.

The Air Force inspector general found that members “intentionally failed to report the full details” of Teixeira’s unauthorized intelligence-seeking because they thought security officials might overreact. For example, while Teixeira was confronted about the notes, there was no follow-up to ensure the notes had been shredded and the incident was not reported to security officers.

It was not until a January 2023 incident that the appropriate security officials were notified, but even then security officials were not briefed on the full scope of the violations.
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